DUNCAN/We wept, when we remembered Zion

If you have your Bible, please turn with me to Psalm 137. This psalm is not for the faint of heart. It’s a sobering lament and it’s a song of resolve and curse. It’s set in the context of what I think was the most traumatic event that the Old Testament church ever experienced. The exile to Babylon simply sucked the air out of the life of the Old Testament people of God. They were utterly unprepared for it. They’d been warned by God’s prophets for a century that judgment for their sin was coming, but when it came it came simply took their breath away. This is a Hebrew lamenting the exile that the people of God were experiencing apart from Jerusalem, the capital of the worship of God, the place wherein He manifested His special presence and nearness to the people that He had chosen, called out of darkness and into His marvelous light. This psalm rehearses the torments of the captors of Israel. It expresses a resolve to stay faithful to God and to His people no matter what. And then in chilling lines, a curse is called down upon the oppressors of God’s people. 

The People of God’s Pain 

First off, beginning in verses 1 to 3, the psalmist is recording the pain of the people of God. What has happened? Israel has been sent into exile because of her own sin. This is a just judgment of God against the wicked indifference and the idolatrous adultery of His people — Going after other gods, making forbidden alliances, not worshiping the one, true God according to their word. Numerous prophets have been sent to the people of God, and they have not listened. And now the psalmist speaks of Israel in exile mourning, remembering, and enduring the mockery of captors. Babylon was a picture of the worldliest, most pagan, most ungodly empire on this earth. And now held in captivity, the people of God are suffering at their hands.

What do we learn from the pain that’s recorded in verses 1 to 3? Well, first we learn something about the dreadfulness of sin. The judgment which is recorded in the first verses of this psalm is not ultimately against the nations, but against God’s own people. They have abandoned God and He has given them what they deserve. He has driven them from their land, put them in captivity, and now they are suffering. Even when we stand before the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit see our own sin as clearly as we have ever seen it, we will not have scratched the surface of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. When we look at this psalm and we see the pain of Israel, what should it do? It should press us to confess our own sin. 

The People of God’s Defiance

Second, if you look at verses 4 to 6, we see a resolve, even a defiance. Having been told by their captors and tormentors to sing one of the songs of Zion, not only have they hung their lyres up on the tree, but we see these words of question and resolve. The question is in verse 4; the resolve is in verses 5 and 6. The question is, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Jeremiah, the prophet that wrote to the exiles, told them how to do this. Look at Jeremiah 29 verses 7 and 13. Jeremiah is speaking to the captives in Babylon, and he is explaining to them what they ought to do. There are prophets that are saying to the children of Israel, “Don’t worry. You’re going to go down to Babylon; you’re going to be back like this. Weeks — Months at the most.” And Jeremiah is saying, “They’re lying. You’re going to be there for two generations or more. You’d better make it your home.” 

But Jeremiah gives them advice you wouldn’t expect. He tells them to seek Babylon’s welfare, for in their welfare they will find welfare. And then secondly, verse 13, “Seek Me. You weren’t seeking Me in Jerusalem, you weren’t seeking Me when you were in your own comfortable homes. So, when you’re there and you think everything’s been taken away from you, seek Me and you’ll find Me, and I’ll hear you and I’ll answer, and I’ll be there with you, and I will not abandon you.”

And then there’s this resolve responding to that answer that they’ve been given to the question — “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 don’t remember you, if I don’t set Jerusalem above my highest joy!” This is a resolution to treasure God and His promises above everything. They hadn’t been doing that in Jerusalem. And now in exile they’ve finally seen clearly what really matters. And there’s a defiant resolve. “I’m not going to treasure anything in this life more than God.” Don’t you see how in our own affluence we are tempted to the very sin that sent them into exile? For we find our treasure in all manner of things higher than our treasure in God. Israel had to learn that lesson in exile. By God’s grace let’s not have to go there, friends.

A Curse for Babylon 

And lastly, there is this imprecatory prayer when a curse is called down on Babylon. Here, Israel appeals to the just judgment and vengeance of God to settle accounts with the nations that have oppressed them. It comes to us white hot and not toned down in any way. It speaks out of enormous suffering. And ultimately it is a prayer that God will render to every man his works. If you look at Isaiah 14, you will find the description of what Babylon had done to God’s people. Babylon killed pregnant women and crushed infant children in carrying off Israel into exile. What is being asked for here is judgment for what Babylon has done.

I want to leave you with this picture. On a hillside in Judea, two thousand years ago, God’s own Son, the Firstborn of creation, cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” and in His mercy, God cuts Him down. The wickedness of man trying to cut down the people of God reaps what? A whirlwind of God’s judgment. And in God’s mercy He says, “I’m going to give My Son what you deserve so that by My grace you may receive what only My Son deserves.” You may complain that God is too merciful, but you cannot complain that He is unjust. You cannot complain that His judgment is too severe unless you simply don’t understand how wicked sin is. What did it cost the Father to redeem us from the just judgment that is recorded in verse 9? His own Son. He bears the cost so that you, a wretch, receive His treasure.