for there our captors requested a song; our tormentors demanded songs of joy: "Sing us a song of Zion." Sermons
We fix attention on the fact that the people of Babylon expected the religion of Jehovah to be a joyous religion. They may have asked for a song partly as a taunt, but below the taunt must have been the association of the Jehovah-religion with harp and song. And men were right in this. The religion of Jehovah, and of Jehovah-Jesus, ought to make hearts glad: we should "sing on our heavenward way." Dr. Barry thinks the call for a song may have meant "anexhortation to forget a lost home, and make the best of a new country;" but the psalmist was in no mood to respond to such an exhortation. I. THE CAPTIVES MIGHT HAVE SUNG EVEN IN CAPTIVITY. They would if their faith in God had mastered their circumstances. It is not much to say for them that they were so overwhelmed by their sorrows, and so crushed by their humiliations, that they could not even sing a song. True, their Zion was a desolation; but God, their God, still lived. True, they were under his chastening hand; but then he only chastens for our profit. True, a long waiting-time was before them; but then God's promises never fail. It was not praiseworthy that they should hang up their harps on the willows for the wind to make melancholy music through them. They had better have kept them in their hands, and cheered each other with enlivening strains of trust and hope. And as to the people of Babylon, they would have honored God much more if they had responded to the request brightly and cheerfully, put their own feelings aside, and sung them songs of high confidence and joy and hope. These captives who refused a reasonable request did nothing praiseworthy. A Christian's harp has no business on the willows. II. THE CAPTIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO SING IF THEY HAD THOUGHT LESS OF THEIR OWN AFFAIRS. Their patriotism was self-centeredness; and that always makes people feel weak and miserable. It led these captives to neglect their duty. They were put in Babylon to witness for God to the Babylonians; and instead, they made themselves miserable and helpless by brooding over their miseries, so that when a song was asked for in honor of Jehovah, they could not sing. If they had thought about God, and less about themselves and about their country, they would have found the joy of serving even by "singing the Lord's song in a strange land." - R.T. Sing us one of the songs of Zion. The noblest employment of which the nature of man is capable is the worship of his Maker. One of the elements of the worship is the rendition of praise, and in the songs of Zion we are amply provided with material for this purpose. I. THE SONG OF THE PARDONED PENITENT. This song can be sung by him who no longer looks to his own righteousness for salvation, but whose desire is to be found in Christ as the righteousness of God. II. THE SONG OF THE ADORING CREATURE. This song is sung not for any special gift received, but in contemplation of the great acts of God — His past acts in the Church and in the world — for the laws of nature — for all those marvellous exhibitions of power and wisdom that are before our eyes. III. THE SONG OF THE RECIPIENT OF MERCY. This is well brought out in Psalm 103. The mercies that are renewed to us daily are not to be taken as a matter of course. Count up your daily mercies and sing. IV. THE SONG OF THE HEAVEN-ROUND PILGRIM, "Thy statutes have been my songs," etc. God's people should not go on their way as if to be a Christian were the most gloomy thing hi the world. They are commanded to "rejoice." Let us attain to the apostolic stand and come "to Zion with songs." V. THE SONG OF THE SORROWER. "He giveth songs in the night." Where sufferings abound, consolations abound. God never lays one hand on us but He lays the other hand under us. Paul and Silas sang in prison in the night. VI. THE SONG OF THE SANCTUARY. The service of song in public worship was very prominent under the old dispensation. Music should be edifying; not a sensuous enjoyment, but a part — a noble part — of the worship of God. VII. THE SONG OF ZION WHICH IS TO BE SUNG BY THE GLORIFIED ABOVE. That song is to be the utterance — the ceaseless utterings — of their gratitude and praise for all the eternal love wherewith they were loved, for the grace by which they were redeemed, kept there, sanctified there, brought there — "Salvation to God and to the Lamb." Are you in training for that choir which is in heaven — for exchanging the songs which we sung in a strange land for the songs of the New Jerusalem and all her beauty? () 1. Certainly there are many men and women to whom this psalm will be full of a touching significance if they look back on the time when they first found themselves alone in London. A young man, after being brought up with loving care in the country, is sent with a book of the Lord's songs packed by his mother in his trunk to serve his time at some business in our modern Babylon. Will he not be ready to shed tears on his first Sundays spent in town when he thinks of friends at home singing one of the songs of Zion, in which he can no longer join, deterred perhaps by the ridicule or want of sympathy of strangers? And the very desire of others that he should "keep up his spirits" and be a "jolly fellow" — such jarring requests will only increase his heaviness. What should such a young man do? Let him, before his better feelings grow cold, resolve rather to forget the cunning of his hand if he be an artisan, or the cunning of his business faculty if he be in a merchant's or lawyer's office; let him resolve to forget these or never to acquire them at all rather than to forget the love of his home and the worship of his mother's God — in one word, Jerusalem. 2. When travelling abroad did Englishmen remember Jerusalem, and prefer her above their chief joy, they would realize the presence of One who could dispel the loneliness of a strange land, and deliver them from the many temptations of friendlessness. 3. Again, there are many generous souls whose best impulses are imprisoned by circumstances over which they have no control. Bound men have got into square holes, and find no scope for the best energies of their nature. Children long to help their parents; but they are far from home, or their desire is in captivity, by reason of poverty, ill-health, or anything else. Parents cannot do all they desire for their children. Let these, and all who find themselves in adverse circumstances, think of Israel weeping on the banks of the Euphrates — let them think of how she waited patiently on the Lord in poverty, in humiliation, in a strange land, full of sin and scoffing; and of how He delivered her from Babylon in His own good time, as of old He delivered the same Israel out of bondage in Egypt. () People David, Edomites, PsalmistPlaces BabylonTopics Captive, Captors, Carried, Demanded, Glad, Joy, Led, Mirth, Orders, Prisoners, Request, Required, Saying, Sing, Song, Songs, Spoilers, Tormented, Tormentors, Wail, Wasted, ZionOutline 1. The constancy of the Jews in captivity
7. The prophet curses Edom and Babel
Dictionary of Bible Themes Psalm 137:3 5420 music
5584 torture Psalm 137:1-3 4260 rivers and streams
5422 musicians Psalm 137:1-4 5332 harp
6659 freedom, acts in OT Psalm 137:1-6 5339 home Psalm 137:1-9 4215 Babylon
5945 self-pity Library Letter xxii (Circa A. D. 1129) to Simon, Abbot of S. Nicholas
To Simon, Abbot of S. Nicholas Bernard consoles him under the persecution of which he is the object. The most pious endeavours do not always have the desired success. What line of conduct ought to be followed towards his inferiors by a prelate who is desirous of stricter discipline. 1. I have learned with much pain by your letter the persecution that you are enduring for the sake of righteousness, and although the consolation given you by Christ in the promise of His kingdom may suffice amply for …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of ClairvauxThe Captivity.
"Is this the city that men call the perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?"--Larn. ii. 15. Manasseh's son, Amon, undid all the reformation of his latter years, and brought back idolatry; and indeed, the whole Jewish people had become so corrupt, that even when Amon was murdered in 642, after only reigning two years, and better days came back with the good Josiah, it was with almost all of them only a change of the outside, and not of the heart. Josiah was but eight years old when he …
Charlotte Mary Yonge—The Chosen People Third Sunday after Easter
Text: First Peter 2, 11-20. 11 Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; 12 having your behavior seemly among the Gentiles; that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13 Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether to the king, as supreme; 14 or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II Thou Shalt not Commit Adultery.
In this Commandment too a good work is commanded, which includes much and drives away much vice; it is called purity, or chastity, of which much is written and preached, and it is well known to every one, only that it is not as carefully observed and practised as other works which are not commanded. So ready are we to do what is not commanded and to leave undone what is commanded. We see that the world is full of shameful works of unchastity, indecent words, tales and ditties, temptation to which …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life Concerning the Sacrament of Penance
In this third part I shall speak of the sacrament of penance. By the tracts and disputations which I have published on this subject I have given offence to very many, and have amply expressed my own opinions. I must now briefly repeat these statements, in order to unveil the tyranny which attacks us on this point as unsparingly as in the sacrament of the bread. In these two sacraments gain and lucre find a place, and therefore the avarice of the shepherds has raged to an incredible extent against …
Martin Luther—First Principles of the Reformation The Iranian Conquest
Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving in Coste and Flandin. The vignette, drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a statuette in terra-cotta, found in Southern Russia, represents a young Scythian. The Iranian religions--Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt --Darius and the organisation of the empire. The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: …
G. Maspero—History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, V 9 The History of the Psalter
[Sidenote: Nature of the Psalter] Corresponding to the book of Proverbs, itself a select library containing Israel's best gnomic literature, is the Psalter, the compendium of the nation's lyrical songs and hymns and prayers. It is the record of the soul experiences of the race. Its language is that of the heart, and its thoughts of common interest to worshipful humanity. It reflects almost every phase of religious feeling: penitence, doubt, remorse, confession, fear, faith, hope, adoration, and …
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament Letters of St. Bernard
I To Malachy. 1141.[924] (Epistle 341.) To the venerable lord and most blessed father, Malachy, by the grace of God archbishop of the Irish, legate of the Apostolic See, Brother Bernard called to be abbot of Clairvaux, [desiring] to find grace with the Lord. 1. Amid the manifold anxieties and cares of my heart,[925] by the multitude of which my soul is sore vexed,[926] the brothers coming from a far country[927] that they may serve the Lord,[928] thy letter, and thy staff, they comfort …
H. J. Lawlor—St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh Questions.
LESSON I. 1. In what state was the Earth when first created? 2. To what trial was man subjected? 3. What punishment did the Fall bring on man? 4. How alone could his guilt be atoned for? A. By his punishment being borne by one who was innocent. 5. What was the first promise that there should be such an atonement?--Gen. iii. 15. 6. What were the sacrifices to foreshow? 7. Why was Abel's offering the more acceptable? 8. From which son of Adam was the Seed of the woman to spring? 9. How did Seth's …
Charlotte Mary Yonge—The Chosen People Introduction. Chapter i. --The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
St. Hilary of Poitiers is one of the greatest, yet least studied, of the Fathers of the Western Church. He has suffered thus, partly from a certain obscurity in his style of writing, partly from the difficulty of the thoughts which he attempted to convey. But there are other reasons for the comparative neglect into which he has fallen. He learnt his theology, as we shall see, from Eastern authorities, and was not content to carry on and develop the traditional teaching of the West; and the disciple …
St. Hilary of Poitiers—The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament Links Psalm 137:3 NIV
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