Psalm 137 is quite short, as psalms go. Just 9 verses. It is not exactly a pleasant psalm. It’s part lament, and partly a call to God to avenge Israel’s enemies. Basically, the psalm is in three parts. The Babylonian exiles lament their condition; they vow to remain loyal to Jerusalem; and they appeal to God for revenge on their enemies. Psalm 137 is unique amongst the psalms – there is nothing else like it. It starts as a communal lament, and ends in a curse. Not sure how you’d worship with that.
But nowhere in the psalm is there any recognition of why the Israelites are in captivity at all – and it is not as if they could not have known. They were repeatedly warned by both Isaiah and Jeremiah in their day to get right with God. There is uncertainty about exactly when psalm 137 was composed, but it seems to have been written sometime after the exile. It looks backwards, “there we sat down”, “there we remembered Zion” and so on – all past tense. Verses 1-4 lie in the past for the composer and in verses 5-6 he is addressing Jerusalem directly, as if it still exists. But the Babylonians had destroyed it in 587 B.C.E.
The early years of return from exile, before the rebuilding of either the temple (ca. 537-515 B.C.E.) or the city walls (ca. 537-445 B.C.E.), were evidently the period in which the psalm was composed. It is not strictly necessary to presuppose that the psalmist was ever in Babylon. He is nevertheless recalling a desperate time in Israel’s history. It became a song of Zion.
But, I digress.
The grief of the exiles was much more than homesickness. They sit in captivity beside a tree-lined canal in mourning. They are haunted by memories of Zion. Bittersweet memories of festivals, celebrations and fellowship with Yahweh and each other. That was the sweet. The bitter was “tortured memories of the ruins to which Yahweh’s earthly home and Judah’s capital had been reduced“, as one commentator put it. That was the big shock. To them, sitting and weeping by those Babylonian canals, it was the end of everything! It seemed that even Yahweh, Himself, had been conquered, that the gods of the Babylonians were bigger and stronger than Yaweh. And so, in those moments of grief, utter bewilderment and humiliation this people of music and song and worship for which they were renowned, have no song to sing. They are alienated from the place which gave them identity and security. Now, all that was gone and Yahweh seemed to be so silent. They wept. And their captors mock and taunt them: “Play us one of your Zion songs now!”
They could not. And they had hung up their harps on the tree branches. They had lost their joy. This was neither the time nor place to sing and worship …
But the prophet Isaiah more than a century before the Babylonian invasion had written of this eventuality. He foresaw the day. He warned that it was coming but no one listened – and come it did. It was devastating. Isaiah saw two things at the same time – the divine judgement of God, and the shepherd heart of God. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah describe why Israel now sits by those Babylonian canals weeping, their joy lost. Isaiah chapter 40 begins to shift focus from judgement to themes of hope, comfort and restoration, telling the people that their time of suffering and exile is not permanent and that they will return to their land. It also speaks of God’s sovereignty and power, emphasising that He alone, the one true God, controls history – not the Babylonians - and will deliver them.
It's as if God, through the prophet Isaiah, had gone ahead of the exiles and was waiting for them by the poplar-lined canals where they would be sitting and bitterly weeping. God was waiting there with Isaiah chapter 40 (to start with), and to remind them that despite Isaiah 1-39, Isaiah 40 is heralding a new beginning because God has not forgotten those He loves – even when He is judging them – and He will keep His covenant with them.
And so, Isaiah’s message went with the Israelites into exile and captivity, with all the reasons why, and the message of comfort and hope, and the reminder that in the hard places, the places where God corrects His people, the suffering places where they are purged, the places of regret and so on, God’s people do not throw away their harps.
Worship is a vital element in every stage and every aspect of the believer’s life. It is as indispensable as prayer! It IS prayer. Isaiah reminds the Israelites that especially in the place of grief and sorrow, especially when the reality of God’s correction is difficult to handle, especially when there seems like there is nothing to be joyful about – especially then, we do not throw away our harps and assume that God is not with us, that He has vacated His dwelling place in us. He is with us - Immanuel! His Spirit is in us still. And He calls us to wait upon Him in the hard places – continue to wait upon Him, abiding, and worshipping. And as we so wait upon the Lord the new comes …
Isaiah 40:28-31 (ESV)
“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might He increases strength. 30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 31 but they who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Now is not the time – it is NEVER the time – to throw away your harp whatever the circumstances life throws at us, whatever mistakes we have made. You hold on to your harp, and wait upon the Lord … and a new song to play comes into your spirit. A new song of praise.
If you have hung up your harp somewhere back there on some tree (there are all kinds!), go back there right now and get it. And come now, and wait upon the Lord.
“… but they who wait upon the LORD SHALL renew their strength ...”
It’s inevitable. Get ready to play your new song.
Ps Milton
[Sources: Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 21]