591_Remembering our true home (Psalm 137) Psalm 137 By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 3 For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? 5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! 6 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! 7 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” 8 O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! 9 Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! A traveler once described a strange experience he had while waiting in an international airport during a long layover. Everything around him was efficient, bright, and comfortable—restaurants, announcements, familiar brands, even familiar languages. Yet as the hours passed, an unshakable restlessness settled in. He realized that no matter how pleasant the surroundings were, the airport was never meant to be a destination. It was only a place of waiting. The danger was not discomfort, but forgetting that he was meant to move on. If he unpacked his bags there, if he adjusted too well, he would miss his flight home. Psalm 137 emerges from one of the darkest chapters in Israel’s history. Babylon, under the ruthless leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, had conquered Jerusalem. The city they loved lay in ruins. The temple—the visible sign of God’s dwelling among them—was razed to the ground. The land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was plundered, and its people were carried away by force into a foreign land. This tragedy did not come without warning. God had spoken repeatedly through His prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah had lifted their voices, pleading with kings and people alike to turn from idolatry, immorality, injustice, and rebellion. Yet they refused to listen. They trusted in rituals rather than repentance, in the temple rather than obedience. They assumed that God’s presence was guaranteed simply because the building stood among them. But when the enemy came, none of these assumptions could save them. God, in His righteousness, handed them over to captivity. Now, hundreds of miles away from home, the people of Israel found themselves living among their captors. Psalm 137 opens with an image heavy with sorrow: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.” Their tears were not merely nostalgic; they were theological. Zion represented far more than geography. It was the place where God had chosen to make His name dwell, the center of worship, the symbol of covenant relationship. As they remembered Zion, their hearts broke afresh. They hung their harps on the willow trees—not because they
