Ps. 137:0 THE ARGUMENT The penman of this Psalm is uncertain; the occasion of it was unquestionably the consideration of the Babylonish captivity; and it seems to have been composed either during the time of that captivity, or presently after their deliverance out of it.

Rivers of Babylon; either, 1. Of the city of Babylon, and then the river is Euphrates, here called rivers for its greatness, and by a common enallage of the plural for the singular, as Tigris also is, Nah. 2:6, yea, and Jordan, Ps. 74:15. Or, 2.

These are, not without great probability, supposed to be the words of some holy Levites, who had been accustomed to music, both vocal and instrumental, in the service of the temple. Harps are here put by a synecdoche for all instruments of music.

Such songs as you used to sing in the temple at Zion; which they required either out of curiosity, or to delight their ears, or rather by way of scoffing and insultation over them, and their temple and religion.

The Lord’s song; those songs which were appointed by God, and to be sung only to his honour and in his service. In a strange land; when we are banished from our own temple and land, and amongst those who are strangers and enemies to God and to his worship.

If I forget thee; if I do not retain a deep and sorrowful sense of thy ruin and misery, or if I indulge myself in mirth and jollity, as if I had forgotten thee. Right hand; the chief instrument of playing upon musical instruments and of other actions. Forget her cunning, i.e.

Remember thee with affection and sympathy, so as to damp my joys. Cleave to the roof of my mouth; be made uncapable of singing, or speaking, or moving, as it is in some diseases. Compare Job 29:10, Ps. 22:15.

Remember, O Lord, so as to punish them, the children of Edom, our constant and inveterate enemies, who had no regard either to consanguinity or humanity. In the day; in the time of its calamity or destruction, which is oft called a day, as Job 18:20, Ps. 37:13, Ezek. 30:9, Hos. 1:11, Obad. 12.

Daughter of Babylon; by which he understands the city and empire of Babylon, and the people thereof. Who art to be destroyed; who art by God’s righteous and irrevocable sentence devoted to certain destruction.

As thou didst use our little ones. So this was but a just retaliation foretold here, as also Isa. 13:6.