The Bible and its Story: By the Waters of Babylon

This celebrated psalm represents the lamentation of the unhappy Hebrew captives in Babylon. Torn from the circle of their families, impoverished, desolate, enslaved, they were bidden by their captors to furnish entertainment. The temple hymns became the play-toys of the heathen. The psalm tells how in the huge brick-built city of Babylon “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

‎“For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

‎“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

‎Then the psalmist vows with loving constancy, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

‎“If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”

by Julius A. Bewer; Charles F. Horne