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Psalm 137[a]

Sorrow and Hope in Exile

I

By the rivers of Babylon
    there we sat weeping
    when we remembered Zion.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. Psalm 137 A singer refuses to sing the people’s sacred songs in an alien land despite demands from Babylonian captors (Ps 137:1–4). The singer swears an oath by what is most dear to a musician—hands and tongue—to exalt Jerusalem always (Ps 137:5–6). The Psalm ends with a prayer that the old enemies of Jerusalem, Edom and Babylon, be destroyed (Ps 137:7–9).