Psalm 137:4 How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land? Babylon stands for the kingdom of this world; Jerusalem for the kingdom of God, which is above. We are sitting by the waters of Babylon while on this earth, where nothing continueth in one stay, we watch all things eddying and drifting by us, slowly or quickly carried away down the stream of time. Of course we can but too easily learn to acquiesce in our exile, content with Babylon, and forgetting Jerusalem; and then this psalm has nothing to say to us but to condemn us for not being able to make its words our own. And often in some shape does the question flash into his mind, "How shall I sing the Lord's song in this strange land?" Many, indeed, of the songs of Zion are sung by us with but little effort. Those that tell God of our past sins, and present weaknesses, and that cry sadly but hopefully for pardon and help through Christ, readily, I say, do they come forth from every heart that knows its own history. But the Lord's song in its highest sense, the song which sings unto the Lord only of the Lord Himself, and forgetting man loses itself in giving glory and praise unto Christ, does a melody of this kind never seem as much out of place in our heaviness as it once seemed by the waters of Babylon? When a man is down of heart about himself, or those whom he cares for, when things have been going amiss with him in mind, body, or estate, through the week just past, and he is anxious indeed as to what another week will bring forth, then here on Sunday morning it may seem somewhat inopportune and out of place for him to have to say to others even as they say to him, "O come, let us sing unto the Lord," etc. Not a few of us here now have, I doubt not, some secret care or sorrow pressing sore upon us, and yet we ought to have been singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," etc. And does it not, I say, cost us a struggle in this our heaviness to put our hearts into such words of joy? Does not this earth sometimes seem a strange land, indeed, in which to sing the Lord's songs? And yet these songs of the Lord are really among the strongest helps and aids to our comfort. The more I am feeling some evil of this land of my captivity, the more thankfully let me, while I may, make my escape from it by fixing my heart upon my Saviour. (John Gray, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a strange land? |
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