Psalms 137:4

CURSES UPON THEMSELVES

Their extremely distasteful assignment of entertaining their captors and amusing them precipitated the bitter thoughts of the next three verses.

"How shall we sing Jehovah's song

In a foreign land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her skill.

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I remember thee not;

If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy."

There was indeed a remnant of true Israelites, the faithful believers in God, among the multitudes of the Babylonian captives. These were the `righteous remnant' spoken of by Isaiah. They were the ones who clung tenaciously to the blessed memories of Jerusalem and the glory of Israel's past history.

That this segment of the children of the captivity was a definite minority is revealed by the relatively small "handful" of the once mighty nation of Israel who actually returned to Jerusalem when God's servant Cyrus permitted and encouraged it. Josephus gave the total number of the returnees as, "Forty-two thousand four hundred and sixty two; yet did many of them stay at Babylon, as not willing to leave their possessions."[3]

"How shall we sing Jehovah's song in a foreign land?" (Psalms 137:4). This is not a reference to their inability to sing such songs for their captors. It is an exclamation of their extreme displeasure in being compelled to do so. The following lines became their muttered pledges to themselves, perhaps out of the hearing of their tormentors.

"Let my right hand forget her skill ... my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth" (Psalms 137:5-6). These are curses upon themselves, applicable in case of their forgetting Jerusalem, or preferring not Jerusalem above their chief joy.

"If I prefer not Jerusalem" (Psalms 137:6). The implication here is that many did indeed learn to prefer Babylon. It appears that the status of the captive Israelites in Babylon was not unbearable. The prophet Ezekiel evidently was permitted to own property, as were many others; and, in time, as the `seventy years' expired, many of the Jews became prosperous and even wealthy. If this situation was common when this song was written, it would explain this line.