Looking through Psalm 137, Stanza 3: Worship that Trusts in God
It is time to complete our discussion ofPsalm 137 by looking through stanza 3, verses 7–9:
Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
down to its foundations!”
O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
blessed shall he be who repays you
with what you have done to us!
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock!
What can we do as we attempt to worship in a pagan land? We can do nothing else than to cry
out to God and plead for him to act. We can do nothing else but trust in what God has promised
he will do.
God has promised that he will judge sin, that he will bring vengeance upon those who battle
against him and harm his people.
And God will keep his promise. In Revelation 18 we find the ultimate fulfillment of God’s
promise to utterly destroy those who resist him. Listen to the language John uses to describe this
ultimately victory:
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
“So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; 22 and
the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters, will be heard in you no
more, and a craftsman of any craft will be found in you no more, and the sound of the mill will
be heard in you no more, 23 and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more, and the voice of
bridegroom and bride will be heard in you no more, for your merchants were the great ones of
the earth, and all nations were deceived by your sorcery. 24 And in her was found the blood of
prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.”
Jeremiah said that while God’s people cannot join in worship with the pagans, they can join with
them in building houses and planting gardens and marrying and having children. But one day,
when God brings his just judgment down upon the unbelieving people of this world, not only
will their idolatrous worship come to an end, but even their craftsmanship and agriculture and
marriages and commerce will be silenced.
And who is it who takes vengeance upon the enemies of God? Who is it who will repay Babylon
with what they have done to us? Who is it who dashes Babylon’s children against the rock?
It is one sitting on a white horse “called Faithful and True; in righteousness he judges and makes
war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name
written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by
which he is called is The Word of God. . . . From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to
strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of
the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written,
King of kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:11-16).
So we cry out with the psalmist, with grief in our hearts and tears in our eyes, “Remember, O
Lord!” And we cry out with the martyrs who even now surround the throne of God in heaven,
“How long, O Lord, before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the
earth?”
But God has promised that he will, and we can trust that he will keep his promise.
And God has promised that our time of exile will have an end. One day we will enter the holy
city; we will be in God’s presence forever more, free from sin, free from hostility, free from
idolatry, free to worship God in purity and holiness.
And God will keep his promise. In Revelation 21, John prophesies,
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the
dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and
God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and
death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the
former things have passed away.”
And so we can cry out, with the psalmist, with faith in Christ who is our Redeemer,
Savior, since of Zion’s city
I through grace a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in your name.
Fading are the world’s best pleasures,
all its boasted pomp and show;
solid joys and lasting treasures
none but Zion’s children know.
Looking through Psalm 137, Stanza 2: Worship that is Pleasing to God
We have considered our experience as God’s people in exile through stanza 1 of Psalm 137; now
look at stanza 2, verses 5–6:
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill!
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy!
Regardless of the situation in which we find ourselves, or perhaps better yet, because of the
situation in which we find ourselves, we must worship. We must not forget the heavenly
Jerusalem and all that it represents—it represents God’s instructions that he has given us for how
he wants to be worshiped; it represents worship that is holy and distinct from pagan worship; it
represents sweet communion with our God in his presence through the sacrifice of atonement
that he has provided himself.
And so we must not forget—we must not cease to worship. If we forget what God has said about
worship, if we forget his holy Temple and pure worship directed toward him alone following his
guidance, then it would be better that we just not worship at all. If we dare forget Jerusalem and
instead bring in the pagan world into our worship, then it would be better that our tongues stick
to the roofs of our mouths so that we cannot sing. It would be better that our hands forget how to
play.
But we must not forget. We must remember that we are citizens of Zion, the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem. We long for that city!
Jerusalem the golden, with milk and honey blest,
Beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed.
I know not, O I know not, what joys await us there,
What radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.
Jerusalem, my happy home,
name ever dear to me,
when shall my labours have an end,
thy joys when shall I see?
Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God.
God, whose word cannot be broken,
formed thee for his own abode.
On the Rock of Ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
thou may’st smile at all thy foes.
We long to be in the presence of God, in his city, in his temple, where we will no longer fear our
foes. And, in fact, through faith when we worship, we do come to that city and join our voices
with angels in festal gathering and the saints who have gone before us.
And one day, faith will be sight. And what we do now in faith we will experience physically. But
for now, while we are here in this strange land, we mustn’t forget—we must worship God as he
pleases, resisting religious syncretism, and longing for our happy home.
Looking through Psalm 137, Stanza 1: Worship in a Pagan Culture
In our study of Psalm 137 over the past several weeks, we have looked at the historical context
of the psalm, the analogical relationships between the psalm and the present status of Christians,
and what this psalmdoes aesthetically. We have seen that as pilgrims and exiles in this present
world, Christians today have much to learn from this psalm of despair from God’s people in
exile.
And so this is why, as God’s people in exile reading a psalm about another people of God in
exile, we need to go beyond simply looking at what this psalm says; we need to look through
this psalm. We need to consider our experience today as God’s people in exile through the lens
of this God-centered, God-inspired interpretation of the experience of literally being in exile.
So what I would like to do is to walk through each of the three stanzas of this psalm. As we do,
allow the poetry to inform you as to how you should feel as one of God’s people seeking to
worship him in exile.
Let us begin with stanza 1, verses 1–4:
By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.
For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
Here we are, God’s people gathering together to worship him. We gather for worship, but we do
so, not in Zion, not in his holy Temple, but in a foreign land. We are citizens of another place—
our home is in heaven with God. But in the providence of God, we are here in exile.
The ruler of this land hates our God. The people of this land hate our God. In fact, they mock us
when they see how we live and how we act. We don’t participate in their idol worship; we don’t
participate in their immoral behavior. And for this we are mocked; we are scorned; we are
condemned as intolerant and unloving; sometimes even our lives are threatened.
And yet some of our own people are being tempted to give in under the pressure of such scorn.
The command goes out to bow down to the idolatrous values of this age, and some of our own
people, people who claim to be worshipers of the true God, for fear of being mocked or perhaps
in fear of their lives, some of our own people crumble under pressure and bow down just like all
the pagans. And here are we few who have not yet bowed, who have not yet given in.
What Psalm 137 Does
Over the past several weeks, we have been looking at Psalm 137 and its relevance for Christian
today. I have presented the historical background of the psalm and argued that it has significant
relevance for us since, like the author/audience of Psalm 137, Christians are exiles living among
a pagan people.
Now let us consider once again the immediate context of Psalm 137. Imagine that you are a
Hebrew. Your home has been destroyed, your Temple and capital city have been decimated,
hundreds of your neighbors have been brutally murdered, including many women and children.
In fact, the invading armies have smashed the skulls of your own infants. And now you have
been taken into captivity in a foreign land, and you are attempting to gather for worship even
though you are not in Jerusalem, you are not in the Temple, and you have none of the sacred
implements of worship. How would you feel? What would you be thinking?
Thankfully, we do not have to simply wonder what we would be feeling. Psalm 137 does not
simply tell us about the historical facts of worship in exile; it does not simply describe to us the
thoughts and feelings of the Babylonian captives. No, this psalm actually enables us to
experience for ourselves the thoughts and feelings of God’s people in exile.
You see, a psalm is not a dry statement of historical facts; a psalm is not even a carefully crafted
narrative. A psalm is a work of art—it is a poem. And the purpose of a poem is not simply to tell
us facts. The purpose of a psalm is to artistically embody more than simply bare information. A
poem allows the author to express aspects of experience that are deeper than abstract words. A
poem allows a reader to experience for himself the realities of the image the poet paints in a way
that would not be possible if the poet had simply described an experience in a detached fashion.
You see, when we read a poem, we enter the world that the poet created, we walk with him
through the experience, and we are able to experience for ourselves what the poet intends for us
to experience. With a poem that is fiction, we enter a fictional world and have an experience with
that fictional world. But with many of the psalms that have specific historical contexts, like
Psalm 137, the poet recreates for us artistically the historical event such that we can experience it
for ourselves.
This is true, by the way, for all art; it is true for poetry, for music, for literature, and for painting.
The artist creates a world into which we can enter and experience the message the artist has for
us. This is why when we evaluate the meaning of art—like what we sing in worship, for example
—we need to evaluate more than just what the art says; we also need to discern what the art does.
And so what does Psalm 137 do? Well, we also need to add one more consideration for what
psalms do beyond what a normal poem does, and that is because we are dealing with inspired
Scripture. These psalms are truly human compositions—they reflect the backgrounds of their
authors and they are produced by the skills of their authors. But they are also divine
compositions, and as such, the psalms give us what some describe as “God-centered
interpretations of experience.”
So Psalm 137 is an artistic composition that allows us to enter experientially what the Hebrew
exiles experienced as they attempted to worship God in a hostile land. Because it is God’s Word,
however, it does so in such a way that what we experience in the art is a God-centered
interpretation of that experience—it is exactly what God wants us to experience as his people in
exile.
In some ways, then, this may seem more disturbing. Does God want us to pray for the children of
our enemies to be dashed upon the rocks? We read the final three verses of this psalm, and we
are disgusted; we pull back in horror.
But that is exactly the point. That is exactly what God wants us to feel. We should feel horror
and disgust at the notion of rebellion against God, adulteration of his worship, and destruction of
his people. The author of Psalm 137 says what he does about infant’s skulls being smashed, not
as an example of what we should literally pray against our enemies. Nor is this the author’s
unbridled expression of rage andvengeancemade in a moment of passion. This is a carefully
crafted, complex poem. The author uses this language because it is exactly what the Babylonians
did to Hebrew infants; he uses this language to artistically capture the emotions of the experience
of injustice, violence, and exile. He uses this language as a way to say, as a people in exile, you
should not feel comfortable and at ease in your worship, you should not feel at home, you should
feel horror, grief, sadness, and disgust at the violence, immorality, and idolatry going on around
you.
But also, keep in mind that what the psalmist prays in verses 7–8 is exactly what God promised
he would do through the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 13-14). God promised that one day he would
bring the people back to the land and he would utterly destroy Babylon. And so not only is this a
prayer of horror and grief, but it is a prayer of trust in God’s promises.
