By The Rivers of Babylon

I think the church today is reading Psalms 137 wrongly, mostly. In this post, I want to explain why I believe we have mostly got it wrong this whole time and provide an alternative and what I believe is a better interpretation or understanding of this Psalm, the way I believe God wants us to read and understand it.

Here’s the Psalm (137:1-4):

“Beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept
    as we thought of Jerusalem.^[a]
2 We put away our harps,
    hanging them on the branches of poplar trees.
³ For our captors demanded a song from us.
    Our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn:
    “Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem!”
⁴ But how can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a pagan land?”

Psalm 137 is often read, taught, and presented as something of a model prayer or a model response by someone who is experiencing a difficult oppressive or unjust situation. Basically, the sentiment goes “just hang your harps on a tree”. Yeah, when you find yourself “by the rivers of Babylon”, it is an unlikely place to sing God’s praises, so just hang up the instrument of praise, and wait for God’s deliverance and then you can resume the music and singing about God. We don’t quite put it like that, but that is essentially what we are saying when we hold up Psalm 137 as a good model, or when we are echoing its core sentiment in prayer.

When Rastafarians made “rivers of Babylon” a pop culture phrase in the seventies, they helped normalize this troubling and frankly, false understanding of the Psalm. From the original song by the Melodians in 1970, to Perry Henzell’s ‘The harder they come’ movie which featured it as a soundtrack two years later and Boney M’s cover in 1978, the phrase ‘rivers of Babylon’ which is lifted directly from the first verse of Psalm 137, has come to symbolize something we feel is unjust and unfair to us. “How can we sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land?” we ask in arrogant if not ignorant rhetoric. A “strange land”, we conclude by implication, is not a place to sing God’s songs. This is terrible theology, obviously.

God’s praise shouldn’t only be sung in times and places of comfort and familiarity, but even in times and places that are hostile, strange, undesirable, and so on. For this reason, Psalm 137 should be taught as a bad prayer, it should be presented and understood as an immature and theologically faulty prayer or response to anything, anytime, and anywhere. A responsible child of God should never “hang up” his instruments of praise and refuse to “sing the Lord’s songs” in a “strange land”.

But more importantly, Psalm 137 should be understood in it’s true missiological context. There is a significant consensus that this Psalm was written post-exile, so it is basically a retrospective poem that sums up the author’s perspective on the Babylonian exile and how he or they reacted or responded to it while they were there. They hung up their harps and refused to sing the Lord’s songs when asked to do so. Basically, the heathen nation of Babylon often gave the people of Israel, or at least this author, the opportunity to tell them about God in their music and songs and they rejected those opportunities because they or at least this author, was busy living in victimhood and a self-centered mentality that hindered them from seeing God’s perspective.

Throughout the scriptures, God had made it clear that He wanted the people of Israel to be a “light to the gentiles” and to be a “blessing to all nations”, an opportunity that sometimes came during times of exile like this one. Had this author been thinking of God’s mission, he wouldn’t have hung up his harps, let alone write a psalm celebrating the fact that he or they, did so. So, when we read Psalm 137, we must understand that it is not a Psalm that takes God’s side, that it is a Psalm that isn’t a model for us but an example of how not to behave when we find ourselves “by the rivers of Babylon”.

Have you found yourself by the rivers of Babylon? Has God given you any opportunities to bring gospel light and impact to other nations? Are you simply in a terrible place in your life right now where you feel like you’re suffering unjustly? Whether your “rivers of Babylon” is figurative, metaphorical or literal, how are you responding? What kind of prayer are you praying? Is your prayer one of complaints about your inconveniences or an angry outburst against God or any other form of hanging up the harps and refusing to sing the Lord’s songs?

Some people say, “how can I sing the Lord’s songs” when I cannot make ends meet in my life?”, others say “how can I go and be a missionary where I cannot be sure if I will ever find a spouse to marry?”, and others say “how can I give to missions when I have not yet built a house for myself or taken care of my own needs?”, others even react like Jonah “how can I sing the Lord’s praises to these people who are terrorizing us?”. Whatever is the version of Psalm 137:1 that you have written for yourself, I hope you will find a kingdom perspective in your circumstances and understand that God’s need to be known, praised and worshipped by all nations supersedes whatever your own desires or unmet needs are, even if it involves your suffering and loss.

When we properly understand God, we might not even have to always wait for Babylonians to ask us to sing them a song of Zion, we might often even be proactive about offering to sing the songs of Zion when we find ourselves by the rivers of Babylon, in a strange land. We might find ourselves asking the Lord to give me opportunities to sing the songs of Zion in strange lands so that strange peoples can hear of you. This attitude isn’t only for those who are currently by the rivers of Babylon, but even those who are in the comfort of their own familiar land, in Zion, they also, should be seeking to sing the songs of Zion to those in a strange land. For some, it might mean they go there physically as short-term or long-term missionaries to sing them those songs, for others, they’ll feel burdened to sacrificially give in ways that aid the singing of those songs of Zion to strange lands, and maybe for others, they’ll feel restless until they pour themselves out in fervent prayer so that strange and distant lands can also hear the songs of Zion.

The songs of Zion are meant to not only be our own ritual, but also as something to be sung to distant lands. I am so thankful that not all the children of Israel interpreted the Babylonian captivity like the author of Psalm 137. Daniel and his friends did not. Through their active testimony and singing, Nebuchadnezzar and many others in Babylon came to know about the one true God and worship him. The same Babylonian captivity that was to Daniel an opportunity to bring God to a strange land, was for this author of Psalm 137, a thing to be mourned and a moment to switch off and wait passively for things to become convenient again before he can sing the songs of Zion.

May God give us a kingdom perspective through which to understand our lives and interpret the things that God allows us to experience. Psalm 137 is an example of how not to be a global and kingdom minded disciple of Jesus, it is an anti-kingdom attitude, it is not a prayer for us to emulate.