Declares the LORD.

In my Bible study of the Psalms, we looked at Psalm 137.

¹By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
³ For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy! 
⁷ Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
    down to its foundations!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!

We discussed the questions and observations we had.  Clearly, the Psalmist is in great distress.  He has been captured and taken to a foreign land.  He wants justice for those who have done this.

This psalm was written after Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were taken into captivity by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.  The people of Jerusalem were warned, repeatedly, by the prophets, especially Jeremiah, to repent of their Godlessness.  All throughout the book of Jeremiah, the prophet speaks God's words, mostly telling Israel to repent and what will happen if they do not.  And they do not repent.  And Babylon destroys and takes into exile the people of Jerusalem.

But starting in Jeremiah 29 God reveals His plan.   

Jeremiah 29:1 (NIV)  These are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

God told the Israelites to live in this new land.  In a way, God answered the Psalmist.  He said to start families, to seek the welfare of the city.  To prosper.  I suggest reading all of Jeremiah 29.  And even more.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NIV)  This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.  For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Back to the psalm.  God wants us to come to Him with all our feelings, not just the good ones.  He wants to hear us cry out in our pain, anger, shame, distress.  The psalm is the anguished cry of a heart torn out of his home.  It might even have been an unrepentant heart at the time or one turning back to God.  

There are myriad psalms of anguished crying out to God.  They are the prayers we ourselves can pray.

This psalm also brought up these questions for me.  How am I to be with my children?  Do I let them pour out their feelings to me?  Or do I stifle it?   I want them to feel free to be real with me.  Gary and I are their safe place.  We love them no matter what.  We want them to prosper, to have a hope and a future.