3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that made us wail [required] mirth, [saying,] Sing us [one] of the songs of Zion.
And I saw, and behold, the Lamb standing upon mount Zion, and with him a hundred [and] forty-four thousand, having his name and the name of his Father written upon their foreheads. And I heard a voice out of the heaven as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of great thunder. And the voice which I heard [was] as of harp-singers harping with their harps; and they sing a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one could learn that song save the hundred [and] forty-four thousand who were bought from the earth.
All that pass by clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and shake their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city which they called, The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? All thine enemies open their mouth against thee, they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed [her] up; this is forsooth the day that we looked for: we have found, we have seen [it].
And they shall come and sing aloud upon the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of Jehovah, for corn, and for new wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not languish any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old together; for I will turn their mourning into gladness, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice after their sorrow.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 137
Commentary on Psalms 137 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 137
There are divers psalms which are thought to have been penned in the latter days of the Jewish church, when prophecy was near expiring and the canon of the Old Testament ready to be closed up, but none of them appears so plainly to be of a late date as this, which was penned when the people of God were captives in Babylon, and there insulted over by these proud oppressors; probably it was towards the latter end of their captivity; for now they saw the destruction of Babylon hastening on apace (v. 8), which would be their discharge. It is a mournful psalm, a lamentation; and the Septuagint makes it one of the lamentations of Jeremiah, naming him for the author of it. Here
In singing this psalm we must be much affected with the concernments of the church, especially that part of it that is in affliction, laying the sorrows of God's people near our hearts, comforting ourselves in the prospect of the deliverance of the church and the ruin of its enemies, in due time, but carefully avoiding all personal animosities, and not mixing the leaven of malice with our sacrifices.
Psa 137:1-6
We have here the daughter of Zion covered with a cloud, and dwelling with the daughter of Babylon; the people of God in tears, but sowing in tears. Observe,
Psa 137:7-9
The pious Jews in Babylon, having afflicted themselves with the thoughts of the ruins of Jerusalem, here please themselves with the prospect of the ruin of her impenitent implacable enemies; but this not from a spirit of revenge, but from a holy zeal for the glory of God and the honour of his kingdom.