For Sermon Central researchers: I have posted a series of 15 sermons on the Psalms. In recent personal studies I have found the psalms to be richer and more thought-provoking than I had fully appreciated. I had too often swept swiftly through psalms without slowing down to inquire as thoroughly as I might have into the depths of meaning and feeling that are expressed by the psalmists. Upon deeper examination and reflection, I find the psalms to be highly relevant to Christians in every age. My most recent foray into the psalms led me to present a series of studies of selected psalms in a class environment.
In my classes I did not examine every psalm, or every verse of the ones I did. Rather, I presented selected psalms that I believe to be representative of the collection in the book of Psalms. The studies were held in a class environment suitable for pauses for questions and discussion, and to pose “thought questions” where the meanings are not readily apparent, as is often the case in poetry. My notes include suggested points for such pauses, and I have not removed them in Sermon Central posts.
I developed the material with the view in mind that the series may be well used as sermons. There is an introductory sermon that describes what psalms are (whether they are in the 150-chapter book or elsewhere) and explains my approach to the series. The psalms I selected were presented in no particular order in the classes; however, I suggest that anyone using this material as a series begin with the introductory sermon and follow it with Psalms 1 and 2 in that order, as the first two psalms function as a pair. Beyond that, the selected psalms may be presented in any order.
To get as much enjoyment as we could from our study, I did some of the reading from the KJV, which I believe is the most beautiful of the English bible translations. For clarity we also used other versions, mainly ESV, which I have used for several years and the one I have come to prefer.
PSALM 137
This is a psalm where there is reason to doubt the ancient title, which is in the Hebrew but not in most modern translations.
John Gill: The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions, make it to be David's, and yet add the name of Jeremiah; and the Arabic version calls it David's, “concerning” Jeremiah: but Jeremiah was not carried into Babylon. After a stay in or near Jerusalem, Jeremiah was forced into Egypt.
I don’t know who wrote this psalm.
Read 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!
I. Backstory
The writer of this psalm was in profound sorrow.
In 587 BC Jerusalem fell to the army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and many Jews were deport-ed and exiled.
Only the old, lame, and sick were left behind, and Jeremiah stayed behind.
The gold and precious articles in the temple were carried away, and Jerusalem was left in ruins.
This psalm was either written very late - during the captivity - or it was written earlier as a prophecy, looking forward as much as 500 years, much like Psalm 22 looked forward 1000 years as though the events were happening in the psalmist’s life.
So which side of the fall of Jerusalem was this written? During the exile or long before it?
Again, there’s no way to know.
In either case, we live on this side of the fall of Jerusalem, so the question doesn’t matter very much now.
This grief was the end result of unfaithfulness.
On the whole, the Jews in Judah were largely faithful in keeping the formal worship specified in the Law, but unfaithful when it came to combining it with worship of the false gods of the pagans.
Religiously, Judah followed the lead of the kings – some good and some bad. After king Josiah, with some exceptions, Judah grew progressively more decadent, until eventual Jerusalem fell, and the Baby-lonians “owned” Judah. Jeremiah saw it coming and answered before and even while it was happening:
Jeremiah 9:11, 17-19 – (Jerusalem will be a heap of ruins.)
Isaiah described the ruin of Jerusalem’s aftereffects 100 years before it happened.
Isaiah 34:11-13 - But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness. Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing. Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.
Over the years, I have probably been extravagant in my denunciations of the Jews for their persistence in sinning with idols. Whatever we may say about the unfaithfulness of the Jews – and they were, on the whole, faithless – the Jews cherished the formal, external things of their religion:
• Weekly observance of the Sabbath
• Annual festivals and pilgrimages to Jerusalem
• The Torah
• Even the system of sacrifices was revered as regular and familiar practice – not duties the typical Jew would neglect
• The temple and its courts (Psalm 84:1-2,10a)
If the Jews loved the practices of the law, what was the problem? What defect in their worship led to the fall of the kingdom of Judah and ruin of Jerusalem?
Isaiah spelled it out clearly. (Isaiah 1:1, 7-20)
Not all Jews were unfaithful – Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Ezekiel, Jeremiah…other prophets…
...and a remnant of the people.
2 Kings 19:31-32 - And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of sur-vivors. The zeal of the Lord will do this.
Romans 8:2-5 - God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scrip-ture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
The righteous remnant is a very important biblical doctrine. The principle of the remnant holds true in every age and always will. Even in the church’s darkest history, where the Christian faith in its truth and purity where hardly found, and the church of the day was almost hopelessly astray, there were a few who “got it” right. They were typically at odds with the formal manifestation of the church, and suffered ter-ribly for trying to lead Christians out of error into the light of understanding.
There is much error and some evil in the religious world today. I believe that today’s faithful are the remnant in our time.
II. Zion and Jerusalem
Re-read vs 1,3,5-6, and 7
This psalm is filled specifically with sadness for the hill of Zion, upon which sat the holy city of Jerusa-lem.
Imagine how heart-rending it was for the vanquished Jews to be required to sing the songs of Zion!
The very psalms we’re studying! And to be forced to sing these psalms for the amusement of their God-less conquerors.
Examples where God is praised for his power and victories.
Psalm 106:9-10; 145:3-5; 147:1-2
Zion, treated as synonymous with Jerusalem, was very important and precious to the writer of this psalm? Why?
Discuss
Jerusalem was the place among all the tribes where God chose for his name to dwell.
Deuteronomy 12:10-14
It was centuries before David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.
Years later, Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem.
On the occasion of the dedication of the temple, God declared that that very place was the one
2 Chronicles 7:16 For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
Psalm 137 does not show us grief for some trivial disappointment, like we might feel when your sports team loses a game, or some event you had planned and couldn’t carry through on your plan because of weather or some other impediment.
This grief was for the collapse of everything the worshiping Jew held dear and thought was invincible.
It looked like God’s celebrated power – he who had led them out of bondage in Egypt and had given his people many victories in Canaan and surrounding nations – had at last been defeated by the king of Bab-ylon.
In spite of many prophecies over many years, it was a surprise.
What could they do? REMEMBER…
…revisiting memories of what was, and could have still been, if only…if only.
So now the psalmist sings,
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget its skill!
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!
The message: never, never, never forget Jerusalem.
III. Deep Sorrow
Deep sorrow is part of living.
From John Flavil, English theologian (1627-1691) in his essay “A Token for Mourners”:
He that is without natural affections, is deservedly ranked amongst the worst of heathens; and he that is able rightly to manage them, deserves to be numbered with the best of Christians. Though when we are sanctified we put on the divine nature, yet, till we are glorified, we put not off the infirmities of our human nature.
The bible shows us many occasions of grief –
• Adam and Eve were people. They had not only the loss of the garden’s delights, but with the death of Abel, they became the first to have a child predecease them..
• Elisha raised the Shunamite woman’s son? - 2 Kings 4:18-37
• Jeremiah lamented the fall of Jerusalem, signaling the final death rattle of Judah.
• Even the pagans (Tears in a bottle) Psa 56:8 (lachrymatories)
• Mothers in Bethlehem
Their lament had been prophesied by Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
• Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3)
• Widow of Nain, a Galilean town near Nazareth (Luke 7:11-16)
• Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, although he fully knew that in a mere moment, Lazarus would be as alive as his sisters. (John 11)
• Paul - Romans 9:2-3 …I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen ac-cording to the flesh.
When Kung Jung Il, former dictator in North Korea, died, the citizens were forced to fake mourning. That’s not mourning like the writer of Psalm 137 was doing. He mourned the destruction of Jerusalem from the depths of his heart.
When we suffer great loss, we grieve, because that’s the way we’re made.
That makes this psalm relevant. What this psalmist felt, we feel.
Not about Jerusalem, but calamities and losses that befall us.
To live is to experience sorrow.
We grieve when our loved ones die because loved ones are part of our experience of life, almost being essential to our enjoyment of life - and when that part is taken away, to be seen no more in this life, it just hurts badly.
We treat their bodies with care, honor and respect.
Someone may say, “That’s not him/her. The person who lived here is gone and the body is nothing.”
Yes, the spirit has departed and the soul has gone to its rest, but the body is the part of the departed loved one that smiled, spoke, hugged, and interacted with us in a thousand precious ways. We will see that vis-ible, touchable person no more, and that hurts.
The body of Jesus was treated with respect, to the point of reverence, by two members of the Sanhedrin and some women.
John 19:38-42
Like Jeremiah and this psalmist, we grieve for things other than the death of loved ones.
Your deepest sorrow may be something else.
Our grief for loved ones who die in the Lord is not because they are worse off.
Philippians 1:21-24 –
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
To depart and be with Christ “is far better.”
But knowing that, still we grieve, because someone we loved is removed from our company.
IV. Is the cause of our sorrows from God, or from Satan?
Either way, it looks and feels the same.
Sometimes we hear a person try to console another by saying “It’s God’s will.” But who are we to de-clare what the will of God is, beyond what he has expressly revealed? We cannot distinguish the differ-ence between what God causes and what he allows. They look and feel the same, but – although hidden from us - there is a world of difference.
Job couldn’t tell. His friends – Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar - couldn’t tell if Job’s losses and suffering were God’s chastening for unspecified sins. However, we know it was Satan’s work because it has been revealed to us. Was it punishment or the natural response to Job’s sin? We know it was not.
Was it for Job’s personal growth and development? The young smart aleck Elihu thought so.
“Are you old fossils ready to learn? Sit down and pay attention and I’ll spell it out for you.”
Elihu’s hypothesis was the Job’s horrific suffering was for Job’s own spiritual development – to make Job better. But Job was already a righteous man who was “blameless and upright, who feared God and turned away from evil.” There appears to have been no need for any harsh sentence to bring Job to his senses and put his feet on a better path. Besides, we know that wasn’t the reason Job suffered sorrow and pain.
Elihu didn’t know, and his guess was wrong. God allowed Job’s suffering for reasons of his own. It was to disprove Satan’s accusation. That’s all.
Did Job ever know? I don’t know. Maybe - if Job was the author of chapters 1 and 2. But Job didn’t need to know the reason in order for his experience to serve God’s purpose. For him to know during his suffering and sorrow would have contaminated the test. That’s what God’s response in chapters 38-42 are about.
Certainly, Job’s test didn’t end Satan’s accusations against God’s people. Will we endure severe testing? Is it possible that when calamities befall us, the same thing is going on?
Discuss
Back to Psalm 137:
Wouldn’t the Jews have been right to have been confused? Assyria comes against Jerusalem (2 Kings 19) and the angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of the Assyrian army overnight. Effortlessly! Who could ever destroy Jerusalem?! Who would dare to try? Has God not shown he will protect the city against the world’s fiercest enemies?
But Babylon comes and the city falls.
Was the Babylonian exile the work of God, Satan, or the king of the Babylonian Empire? If it was God’s work, was it an ill wind?
“It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.” – ancient proverb
Can we see what God’s purpose was in the fall of Jerusalem, concluding the whole defeat of Israel and Judah) and the 70-year captivity in Babylon? Why did the Lord make or allow this to happen – the pro-faning and plundering of the temple treasures by pagans – the holy city, so rich with sweet memories of pilgrimages and feasts – destroyed, rendering it impossible to continue the practice of their faith as spelled out in the delightful Torah?
Discuss
The exile was to bring them to repentance and break them from worshiping false gods with sensual, li-centious practices. Nebuchadnezzar was doing what God wanted done, but he did it for Nebuchadnez-zar’s own purpose, not God’s. Babylon was judged by God and paid a dear price for their part in it.
The Babylonian Empire fell to the army of Persia in 539 BC. (Isaiah 13 & 14)
As to the Jews, a revival took place after the return of the Jews to their homeland and the rebuilding of the temple.
V. “Sorrow will not exceed its appointed boundaries.”
The weeping of the psalmist and his fellow exiles was not forever.
Isaiah 25:8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Isaiah 30:18-19 And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.
Our God is the God of all comfort (1 Corinthians 1:3-4)
On the other side, there is no sorrow. No one will ever die.
In that realm nothing that is precious will ever be taken from us.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)
We live in a land of parting, losing and leaving…
But far beyond the pain and sickness and dying
Lies the summerland of bliss.
VI. We help one another in sorrow
Words fail - platitudes aren’t helpful
We help one another in sorrow.
Weep with those who weep … (Romans 12:15)
That’s what Jesus did, and sometimes that all that’s either available or needed.
1 Corinthians 12:26 - If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
An old hymn expresses it well: Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love
“… and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.”
