The soft answer turneth away wrath; and his very enemies are forced to be at peace with him. But stop till the Christian's day of darkness comes--stop till sin and unbelief have brought him into captivity--stop till he is shut out from Zion, and carried afar off, and sits and weeps; then will the cruel world help forward the affliction--then will they ask for mirth and song; and when they see the bitter tear trickling down the cheek, they will ask with savage mockery, "Where is your Psalm singing now?
The Christian cannot sing in captivity. They were peculiarly attached to the sweet songs of Zion. They reminded them of the times of David and Solomon--when the temple was built, and Israel was in its greatest glory. They reminded them, above all, of their God, of their temple, and the services of the sanctuary.
Three times a year they came up from the country in companies, singing these sweet songs of Zion--lifting their eyes to the hills whence came their help. But now, when they were in captivity, they hanged their harps upon the willows; and when their cruel spoilers demanded mirth and a song, they said: "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
He hangs his harp upon the willows, and cannot sing the song of the Lord. Every believer has got a harp. Every heart that has been made new is turned into a harp of praise. The mouth is filled with laughter--the tongue with most divine melody.
Every true Christian loves praise--the holiest Christians love it most. But when the believer falls into sin and darkness, his harp is on the willows, and lie cannot sing the Lord's song, for lie is in a strange land. It is the sense of pardon that gives its sweetest tones to the song of the Christian. But when a believer is in captivity he loses this sweet sense of forgiveness, and therefore cannot sing. It is the sweet presence of God with, the soul that makes the believer sing.
But when that presence is away, the Lord's house is but a howling wilderness; and you say, "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? The sight of the everlasting hills, draws forth the heavenly melodies of the believing soul. But when a believer sins, and is carried away captive, he loses this hope of glory. He sits and weeps, --he hangs his harp upon the willows, and cannot sing the Lord's song in a strange land.
He often finds, when he has fallen into sin and captivity, that he has fallen among worldly delights and worldly friends. A thousand pleasures tempt him to take up his rest here; but if he be a true child of Zion he will never settle down in a strange land. He will look over all the pleasures of the world and the pleasures of sin, and say, "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand" --"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
The Psalm is universally admired. Indeed, nothing can be more exquisitely beautiful. It is written in a strain of sensibility that must touch every soul that is capable of feeling. It is remarkable that Dr. Watts, in his excellent versification, has omitted it. He has indeed some verses upon it in his Lyrics; and many others have written on this ode. We have seen more than ten productions of this kind; the last, and perhaps the best, of which is Lord Byron's.
But who is satisfied with any of these attempts? Thus it begins: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. Here it is commonly supposed these captive Jews were placed by their task masters, to preserve or repair the water works. But is it improper to conjecture that the Psalmist refers to their being here; not constantly, but occasionally; not by compulsion, but choice?
Hither I imagine their retiring, to unbend their oppressed minds in solitude. Let us assemble together by ourselves under the refreshing shade of the willows by the watercourses. And let us take our harps with us, and solace ourselves with some of the songs of Zion.
And, over whelmed with grief, they sit down on the grass; and weep when they remember Zion; their dejected looks, averted from each other, seeming to say, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. The voice of mirth is heard no more, and all the daughters of music are brought low. Melody is not in season to a distressed spirit. Let him pray. Is any merry? Let him sing Psalms. They hoped that what they could not use at present they might be able to resume as some happier period.
To be cast down is not to be destroyed. Distress is not despondency. He who preach well, says Luther, must distinguish well. It is peculiarly necessary to discriminate, when we enter upon the present subject.
For all the sorrows of the Christian are not of the same kind or descent. Let us consider four sources of his moral sadness. The first will be physical. The second will be criminal. The third will be intellectual. The fourth will be pious. These would of course carry thier instruments with them, and be insulted, as here.
Their songs were sacred, and unfit to be sung before idolaters. Lovers' garlands are said to have been made of a species of this willow, the brancehs of which are very slender and pliable; and the the plant itself has always been sought after for ornamental plantations, either to mix with others of the like growth in the largest quaters, of to be planted out singly over springs, or in large opens, for the peculiar variety occasioned by its mournful look.
The disturbance of their comfort from the innumerable spectators, chiefly London apprentices, called for some protection from the local magistrates. Not that any insult was offered to their persons, but a natural curiosity, excited by so new and extraordinary a spectacle, induced many to press too closely round their camp, and perhaps intrude upon their privacy.
The basket was made ofthe supple branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. It had some tidy buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of theis species of willow was know in England. Happily the willow is very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same matter that its race had done over the waters of Babylon.
From that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are descended. In their ignorance they only require " the words of a song; "its heavenly strain they have never caught. But, true to his spiritual instincts, the child of God replies, "How shall we sing Jehovah's song in the land of a stranger?
For, after having passed through such a spiritual conflict, we come forth, not wearied, but refreshed; not weaker, but stronger. It is one of the seeming contradictions of the gospel, that the cure of weariness, and the relief of heavy-ladenness, lies in this-- to take the cross upon ourselves. After the night long conflict of Israel," as he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him, "and that though "he halted upon his thigh.
Belshazzar's draughts are not half so sweet in other vessels as in the utensils of the temple: Da , "He commanded to bring forth the golden and silver vessels that were taken out of the house of God. Vain man thinketh he can never put hunour upon his pleasures, and scorn enough upon God and holy things. The Babylonians asked them in derision for one of the songs of Zion.
They loaded with ridicule their pure and venerable religion, and aggravated the sufferings of the weary and oppressed exiles by their mirth and their indecency. We are sorry to say that the resemblence still holds betwixt the Jews in a state of captivity and the Christians in the state of their pilgrimage. Fashion and frivolity and false philosophy have made a formidable combination against us; and the same truth, the same honesty, the same integrity of principle, which in any other cause would be exteemed as manly and respectable, is despised and laughed at when attached to the cause of the gospel and its sublime interests.
Verses 3, 4. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? Now, is it not true that, in many senses, we, like the Jewish exiles, have to sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If not a land strange to us , then, all the more strange to it --a land foreign, so to say, and alien to the Lord's song. The very life which we live here in the body is a life of sight and sense. Naturally we walk by sight; and to sing the Lord's song is possible only to faith.
Faith is the soul's sight: faith is seeing the Invisible: this comes not of nature, and without this we cannot sing the Lord's song, because we are in a land strange to it.
Again, the feelings of the present life are often adverse to praise. The exiles in Babylon could not sing because they were in heaviness. God's hand was heavy upon them. He had a controversy with them for their sins.
Now the feelings of many of us are in like manner adverse to the Lord's song. Some of us who are in great sorrow. We have lost a friend; we are in anxiety about one who is all to us; we know not which way to turn for tomorrow's bread or for this day's comfort.
How can we sing the Lord's song? And there is another kind of sorrow, still more fatal, if it be possible, to the lively exercise of adoration.
And that is, a weight and burden' of unforgiven sin. Songs may be heard from the prison cell of Philippi; songs maybe heard from the calm death bed, or by the open grave; but songs cannot be drawn forth from the soul on which the load of God's displeasure, real or imagined, is lying, or which is still powerless to apprehend the grace and the life for sinners which is in Christ Jesus. That, we imagine, was the difficulty which pressed upon the exile Israelite; that certainly is an impediment now, in many, to the outburst of Christian praise.
And again, there is a land yet more strange and foreign to the Lord's song even than the land of unforgiven guilt--and treat is the land of unforsaken sin. The Lord's song--in a strange land. It was the contrast, it was the incongruity which perplexed them. The captives in Babylon --that huge, unwieldy city, with its temple of the Chaldean Bel towering aloft on its eight stupendous stories to the height of a furlong into the sky--the Israelite exiles, bidden there to an idolatrous feast, that they might make sport for the company by singing to them one of the far famed Hebrew melodies, for the gratification of curiosity or the amusement of the ear--how could it be done?
The Lord's song --one of those inspired compositions of Moses or David, in which the saintly soul of the king or the prophet poured itself forth in lowliest, loftiest adoration, before the one Divine Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier--how could it be sung, they ask, in a scene so incongruous?
The words would languish upon the tongue, the notes would refuse to sound upon the disused harp. Such Psalmody requires its accompaniment and its adaptation--if not actually in the Temple courts of Zion, yet at least in the balmy gales of Palestine and the believing atmosphere of Israel.
The Lord's song. These songs of old, to distinguish them from heathenish songs, were called God's songs, the Lord's songs; because taught by him, learned of him, and commanded by him to be sung to his praise. Many were the sad thoughts which the remembrance of Zion would call up: the privileges they had there enjoyed; the solemn feasts and happy meetings of their tribes to worship there before the Lord; the Temple--"the beautiful house where their fathers had worshipped" --now laid waste.
But the one embittering thought that made them indeed heavy at heart, silenced their voices, and unstrung their harps, was the cause of this calamity--their sin.
Paul and Silas could sing in a dungeon, but it was not their sin brought them there: and so the saints suffering for the name of Christ could say, "we are exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. Israel cannot sing beside the waters of Babylon. There is a distinction between us and God's ancient people; for at that time the worship of God was confined to one place; but now he has his temple wherever two or three are met together in Christ's name, if they separate themselves from all idolatrous profession, and maintain purity of Divine worship.
It is one of the pathetic touches about the English captivity of King John II of France, that once sitting as a guest to see a great tournament held in his honour, he looked on sorrowfully, and being urged by some of those about him to be cheerful and enjoy the splendid pageant, he answered with a mournful smile, "How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem. Calvary, Mount of Olives, Siloam, how fragrant are ye with the Name that is above every name! Can I forget that his feet shall stand on that "Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem, on the east? Let my right hand forget her cunning. There is a striking and appropriate point in this, which has been overlooked. It is, that, as it is customary for people in the East to swear by their professions, so one who has no profession--who is poor and destitute, and has nothing of recognized value in the world--swears by his right hand, which is his sole stake in society, and by the "cunning" of which he earns his daily bread.
In the present case the skill indicated is doubtless that of playing on the harp, in which particular sense it occurs so late as Prior: "When Pedro does the lute command, She guides the cunning artist's hand. Let my right hand forget. Something must be supplied from the context Then, the punishment also perfectly accords with the misdeed, as in Job If I, misapplying my right hand to the playing of joyful strains on my instrument, forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand, as a punishment, forget the noble art; and then also Ps fits admirably to what goes before: May my misemployed hand lose its capacity to play, and my tongue, misemployed in singing cheerful songs, its capacity to sing.
If I do not remember thee. Either our beds are soft, or our hearts hard, that can rest when the church is at unrest, that feel not our brethren's hard cords through our soft beds. Literally, "if I advance not Jerusalem above the head of my joy.
The Jews were their brethren: Ob Am They were their neighbours, Idumea and Judea bordered upon one another: Mr Tracks Liner Notes Lyrics Credits. Tracks Play Track Time Psalm On the poplars there we hung up our lyres. Should I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither. May my tongue cleave to my palate if I do not recall you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Happy who seizes and smashes your infants against the rock. Previous in Volume 4 Eli tziyon Hugo Weisgall. This is the setting for Psalm How can we worship God when we are so far from his place of worship? How can we worship God when we are exiles in a land that is hostile to his worship?
He is director of doctoral worship studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he teaches courses in ministry, worship, hymnology, aesthetics, culture, and philosophy. He is an elder in his church in Fort Worth, TX where he resides with his wife and four children. Views posted here are his own and not necessarily those of his employer. Recent Posts. Strange Lyre: Conclusion. David de Bruyn. A good theologian once drew me a diagram of the progress of Christian doctrine and … [more].
We began this series by making the claim that Pentecostalism has quietly or not so … [more]. Aben Ezra ascribes this psalm to David; and so the Syriac version, which calls it, "a psalm of David; the words of the saints, who were carried captive into Babylon. Psalm By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying , Sing us one of the songs of Zion. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be , that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be , that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
Exposition of the Entire Bible by John Gill []. Bible Hub. Psalm By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, If by Babylon is meant the country, then the rivers of it are Chebar, Ulai, Tigris, Euphrates, and others; see Ezekiel ; but if the city itself, then only Euphrates, which ran through it; and is expressed by rivers, because of the largeness of it, and because of the several canals cut out of it, for the service of the city; hence Babylon is said to dwell upon many waters, Jeremiah ; upon the banks whereof the captive Jews were; either through choice, where they could be alone, and mourn their fate, indulge their sorrows, and give vent to their grief; or by the order of these who carried them captive, there to be employed, either in taking goods from ships here unloaded, or to repair and maintain the banks of the rivers, or to do some servile work or another; see Ezekiel ; and where they would sometimes "sit down" pensive, as mourners used to do, and lament their case, Job
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