Chapter 137
1By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.
2On the willows in her midst we hung our lyres.
3For there our captors asked us for words of song, and our tormentors asked for joy: Sing for us from the songs of Zion.
4How can we sing the song of the LORD upon foreign land?
5If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget.
6May my tongue cling to my palate if I do not remember you, if I do not raise Jerusalem upon the head of my joy.
7Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, when they said, "Raze, raze, down to the foundation in her."
8O daughter of Babylon, the ruined one, blessed is the one who repays you your recompense that you dealt to us.
9Blessed is the one who seizes and shatters your infants against the rock.
136
Psalm
Psalms 134–137 (part 2)
Psalm 136:21-137:9
Key words in this passage
Cross-references
Study notes
The hymn’s final lines name the gift of land to Israel as servant and the rescue from poverty and enemies, each tied to the refrain of enduring kindness that also covers daily food for all flesh. That recital of remembered mercies meets the exiles seated by Babylon’s rivers, where memory of Zion now draws tears and the refusal to perform songs of the LORD on foreign soil. The speaker’s oath binds personal faculties to the priority of Jerusalem, then turns to ask the LORD to remember Edom’s words at the city’s fall and to repay Babylon with the harm once dealt. The same act of remembering therefore holds past inheritance and present loss together without resolution.
What is Psalms 134–137 (part 2) about?
Psalm 136 ends by naming the one who gave land as an inheritance to Israel his servant and who remembered the people in their poverty. The refrain of enduring kindness runs through each line until the final call to give thanks to the God of heaven. The next verses open a different scene: exiles seated by the rivers of Babylon, weeping at the memory of Zion and hanging their lyres on the willows. Captors there demand songs of Zion, yet the question follows at once: how can the song of the LORD be sung upon foreign land? The speaker then swears that forgetting Jerusalem would mean the right hand itself forgets and the tongue clings to the palate. A direct appeal to the LORD follows, asking him to remember the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell and to reckon with the daughter of Babylon for what she dealt to the exiles. These lines therefore place the earlier recital of land and deliverance beside the concrete loss of both, showing the immediate pressure that the demand for joy exerts on those who still hold Jerusalem as the head of their joy.
Where does this passage sit in Psalm?
Psalm 136:21-26 extends the hymn’s closing lines by naming the gift of land as inheritance to Israel his servant and the rescue from poverty and enemies. These declarations sit directly before the shift in 137:1, where the same people now sit beside Babylonian rivers and recall Zion. The refrain of enduring kindness therefore meets an immediate reversal: the land once granted now lies out of reach, and the memory that once prompted thanks now produces weeping.
The transition sharpens through repeated vocabulary. The verb “remember” appears in 136:23 for God’s past action and then twice in 137:1 and 137:6 for the exiles’ own act of recollection. The oath in 137:5-6 binds the right hand and tongue to Jerusalem, echoing the earlier claim that the land itself was an inheritance. In the immediate sequence, the praise of the God of heaven in 136:26 gives way to the question how any song of the LORD can be sung on foreign soil.
Within the larger grouping of Psalms 134–137, this movement from sustained thanksgiving to suspended song creates a deliberate pause. The collection moves from temple-oriented calls to bless the LORD at night (134) through the land-focused conclusion of 136 and into the suspended worship of 137. The final appeal in 137:7-9 for the LORD to remember Edom’s words and Babylon’s deeds therefore stands as the direct counterpart to the earlier recital of God’s remembered mercies, leaving the two psalms bound by the single unresolved demand that the LORD act again.
How is the passage structured?
Psalm 136 closes its long chain of thanks by naming the gift of land as an inheritance to Israel his servant and the remembrance of the people in their poverty. The same refrain still governs each line as the psalm widens once more to deliverance from enemies and the daily gift of food to all flesh, then ends with the summons to give thanks to the God of heaven.
Psalm 137 begins without the refrain. The speakers now sit by the rivers of Babylon and weep when they remember Zion. They hang their lyres on the willows that stand in that place. Their captors demand songs of Zion and their tormentors call for joy, yet the next line supplies only the question how the song of the LORD can be sung upon foreign land.
A single voice then utters an oath. Forgetting Jerusalem would mean the right hand itself forgets and the tongue clings to the palate; Jerusalem must remain raised above every other joy. The address turns at once to the LORD, asking him to remember the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell, when they cried out for its complete razing to the foundation.
The final two lines speak directly to the daughter of Babylon, now called the ruined one. They pronounce blessing on the one who repays her the recompense she dealt and who seizes and shatters her infants against the rock. The movement therefore passes from corporate recital of past mercies to present grief, from the demand for song to an oath of memory, and from a plea concerning Edom to a declaration of exact repayment that reaches its final, concrete image in the infants of Babylon.
What is the historical background?
The closing lines of Psalm 136 recall the gift of land to Israel as servant and the rescue from enemies, language that assumes an audience familiar with the covenant promise of territory west of the Jordan. Psalm 137 opens by locating the speakers beside the rivers of Babylon, a region whose network of waterways and irrigation canals formed the agricultural heart of the Neo-Babylonian empire after the conquests of Nebuchadnezzar. The willows mentioned grow naturally along those channels, providing both shade and a convenient place to suspend instruments.
In the ancient Near East, victorious armies sometimes required captive musicians to perform for their new masters as a display of dominance. The request for “words of song” and “joy” from the songs of Zion fits this pattern of coerced entertainment rather than an invitation to ordinary worship. The exiles’ refusal rests on the conviction that the LORD’s song belonged to the land and sanctuary of Jerusalem, a conviction rooted in the longstanding identification of Zion as the unique place of the divine presence.
The appeal to remember the sons of Edom points to a specific political grievance. Edomite territory lay southeast of the Dead Sea; during the Babylonian campaigns against Judah, Edom appears to have taken advantage of Jerusalem’s collapse, whether by direct participation or by seizing border lands. The phrase “raze, raze, down to the foundation” echoes the language of siege warfare in which cities were dismantled stone by stone.
The address to the “daughter of Babylon” employs a conventional personification for capital cities in ancient treaties and laments. The final lines invoke the recompense customarily expected when one power had destroyed another’s population centers, a harsh standard of reciprocity attested in Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions. These cultural assumptions about land, song, and retribution shape the intensity with which the psalmist links memory of Jerusalem to both personal vow and divine action.
What does this passage teach about God?
The closing lines of Psalm 136 name God as the one who gave land as an inheritance to Israel his servant and who remembered the people in their poverty. That same refrain of enduring kindness frames every prior act, from the tearing away of enemies to the daily gift of food to all flesh. The psalm therefore presents kindness not as a mood but as the steady pattern of divine action across generations.
Psalm 137 shifts the scene to exiles seated by the rivers of Babylon. Their weeping and the hanging of lyres on the willows show that memory of Zion remains the center of their identity even when the temple lies in ruins. The captors’ demand for songs of Zion meets an immediate refusal: the song of the LORD cannot be performed on foreign soil. This refusal is not despair but a theological boundary; worship belongs to the place where the LORD has set his name.
The speaker’s oath binds personal life to that memory. Forgetting Jerusalem would mean the right hand itself forgets its skill and the tongue clings to the palate. Such language treats remembrance as covenant loyalty rather than mere recollection. The same loyalty turns outward in the appeal that the LORD remember the sons of Edom on the day Jerusalem fell and reckon with the daughter of Babylon for what she dealt. The final line extends that reckoning to the infants of the ruined city, stating that the one who shatters them against the rock is blessed.
These verses therefore locate judgment within the same divine character that earlier gave inheritance and food. The God who acts with enduring kindness is also the one addressed to repay violence done against his people. Human faithfulness appears here as stubborn attachment to Jerusalem and as the willingness to entrust vengeance to the LORD rather than to perform it. The tension between the refrain of kindness and the cry for recompense is left unresolved in the text itself, showing that both belong to the same confession of who God is.
What are the interpretive difficulties?
The closing verses of Psalm 137 present the blessing upon the one who seizes and shatters Babylon's infants without any softening clause or explanatory frame. The line follows directly from the address to the daughter of Babylon that calls for repayment of what she dealt to the exiles, yet the psalm supplies no further indication whether these words constitute a petition directed to the LORD or a raw declaration of what the speaker now counts as fitting recompense. Earlier lines have already bound the speaker's right hand and tongue to the memory of Jerusalem, so the violent wish emerges from that same vow rather than from a separate calculation of justice.
No manuscript variation alters the wording of verse 9 or removes the reference to infants. The text reaches later readers in the same form in which the tradition received it, and the absence of any internal correction within the psalm leaves the statement standing as part of the recorded speech of the exiles. Readers must therefore decide how far the blessing describes the extremity of grief and how far it claims divine endorsement, since the psalm itself offers no additional verdict.
The appeal to remember the sons of Edom likewise fixes attention on a specific outcry during Jerusalem's fall without clarifying whether every Edomite participated or whether the phrase names a representative action. The psalm records the remembered taunt but does not expand it into a broader historical ledger. In the same way, the question of how the song of the LORD can be sung on foreign soil receives no answer beyond the refusal itself, so the tension between commanded remembrance and present impossibility remains unresolved within these verses.
Movement by movement
Land Given to Israel136:21-22
The lines single out the gift of territory by naming the one who gave their land as an inheritance and then identifying the recipient as Israel his servant. The repetition of “inheritance” across the two verses keeps the focus on a settled possession rather than a temporary grant, while the title “servant” recalls the covenant bond that makes the land a sign of that relationship. Each clause still carries the refrain of enduring kindness, so the transfer of land counts as another concrete expression of the same steady action already traced through earlier events. The wording moves from the general “their land” to the specific people, narrowing attention to those who received it. This declaration stands directly before the psalm names the remembrance of the people in their poverty, so the inheritance of land supplies the fixed reference point against which later displacement will be felt. The servant designation also prepares for the personal voice that soon appears in the next psalm, where the same people now sit beside foreign rivers and bind themselves to the memory of Jerusalem.
Rescue from Humiliation136:23-24
The lines single out the one who remembered his people in their poverty. This act stands next to the earlier gift of land as an inheritance to Israel his servant, yet it draws attention to a condition of low estate rather than to victory or settlement. The refrain of enduring kindness attaches directly to that memory. The following line states that the same one tore them from their enemies, again under the same refrain, without supplying any description of the enemies or the manner of release. The two lines therefore keep the focus on divine attention and action toward those who could not free themselves. These declarations close the chain of thanks that began with creation and exodus, and they lead at once into the wider statement that the same one gives food to all flesh before the psalm ends with the call to give thanks to the God of heaven. The memory of rescue from poverty and enemies thus forms the last specific historical note before the scene shifts to exiles seated by the rivers of Babylon.
Sustainer and Object of Thanks136:25-26
The psalm names the one who gives food to all flesh right after the rescue from enemies. This move widens the scope from Israel’s specific deliverance to the daily sustenance that reaches every living creature. The same refrain of enduring kindness now covers ordinary hunger rather than only the dramatic acts of land-giving and enemy removal that precede it. The closing line then shifts the address itself: thanks must be given to the God of heaven. That title places the provider above the territory once granted as an inheritance to Israel his servant and above the foreign rivers where the people later sit. The verse therefore keeps the refrain while changing the object of praise from the one who acted in the past to the one whose rule extends over every place the people may find themselves. In this way the final two lines of the psalm hold the daily gift of food and the summons to heavenly praise together as the last expressions of the same enduring kindness before the scene turns to weeping by the waters of Babylon.
Exiles by Babylon's Rivers137:1-4
Exiles seated by Babylon's rivers weep at the memory of Zion and suspend their lyres among the willows. The same act of remembering that prompted thanks in the preceding lines now produces tears, because the land once granted as an inheritance lies out of reach. They have come to a place of waterways and shade trees where their captors demand songs of Zion and their tormentors call for joy. The request itself exposes the distance: the songs belong to a different location, and the singers refuse to perform them on foreign soil. The question that follows, how can we sing the song of the LORD upon foreign land, is not rhetorical ornament but the direct answer to the demand. By hanging the instruments rather than playing them, the exiles mark the boundary between the worship tied to Zion and any performance extracted by force. The scene therefore registers both grief and refusal without supplying any resolution or future promise within these verses.
Oath of Remembrance137:5-6
The speaker swears that the right hand will forget its skill and the tongue will cling to the palate if Jerusalem slips from memory. These two conditional curses follow directly after the question of how the song of the LORD can be sung on foreign soil. The oath therefore binds the very faculties needed for music and speech to the single duty of remembrance. The final clause sharpens the commitment: Jerusalem must be raised upon the head of joy, placed above every other source of gladness rather than treated as one memory among many. The phrasing echoes the earlier act of remembering Zion in verse 1, yet now the remembering is no longer spontaneous weeping but a deliberate, self-enforced priority. In the setting of captivity the vow keeps the city from fading into the background of daily survival or the demands of captors. It also stands as the speaker’s personal answer to the demand for songs of Zion, refusing to detach praise from the place that gives those songs their meaning.
Call for Reckoning137:7-9
The address turns at once to the LORD with the demand to remember Edom’s words on the day Jerusalem fell. Those words are quoted without addition: “Raze, raze, down to the foundation in her."” The sons of Edom are singled out for incitement rather than for the main conquest itself, so the prayer fixes on their active encouragement of total destruction. The same verb “remember” that described God’s earlier rescue of the people in their poverty now names the act of holding Edom accountable for what was said. Attention then shifts to Babylon itself, addressed as “daughter of Babylon, the ruined one.” The speaker pronounces blessing on whoever will return to her the exact measure of harm she inflicted. That recompense is spelled out in the final line as the seizing and shattering of infants against the rock. No clause softens the image or redirects it; the line stands as the concrete form the repayment is imagined to take. The movement therefore carries forward the earlier refusal to forget Jerusalem by converting personal resolve into a direct appeal for divine memory and measured return.
Notes accompany the Anselm Project Bible, an AI translation from the original languages. Tap any verse above for the committee's word-level decisions.
Tap a verse