Don't Hang Up Your Harp

Don’t Hang Up Your Harp

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Psalms 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we remembered Zion.

Psalms 137:2 Upon the willows in the midst of it We hung our harps.

Psalms 137:3 For there our captors demanded of us songs, And our tormentors mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion."

Psalms 137:4 How can we sing the LORD’S song In a foreign land?

I am in a series about river scenes, in the first message we looked at a river that brings life, and fruit and blessings from the book of Ezekiel. This river scene is quite a bit different. I think it could be at the river Chebar – means far off, where many of the exiles settled in Babylon.

In this one the Jews are captives, in a foreign land, they have stopped singing, and are being tormented with mockery. “How about you sing one of those victory songs now?” In response they ask this question found in verse 4: How can we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land? Today we will address why you better be able to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, and some tips to help you do that if it is your life situation.

Psalm 137 is one that is pain filled and brutally honest. It was written by an unknown pilgrim who was taken prisoner to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar’s crushing defeat of Jerusalem. Each line of this psalm drips with blood and tears for a dream gone bad, a way of life that has turned sour, and a beautiful homeland life lost that is nothing but a distant memory now.

There is a very sad irony in this psalm, they said they couldn’t sing, and yet they were singing. The Psalms are songs. They were singing a song of defeat. They were so down they were singing we will never sing joyful songs again; we have hung up our harps and have put that idea to bed.

We have before us a picture of some people that when conditions changed and surroundings changed, when they had turned in a way they didn’t like, they hung their harps on the willows. – they were for all intents and purposes fair weather singers. Some did it in anger and protest, some did it in depression and despair. No matter the reason, by their actions they were saying they would only sing for God when things were going the way they wanted.

The result of their hanging up their harps is simply this, the devil who couldn’t defeat them with a life controlling sin, has still defeated them by stealing their songs of faith from them. They have become demoralized, and are captives not just by location, but their souls have become captives of defeat, despair, and depression.

Before I get to singing in a foreign land, I need to address one of the most vilified verses in the bible, it is found at the end of this psalm, and it is a favorite of those who like to find fault with the bible and Christianity. Here are the last two verses of this Psalm

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Psalms 137:8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—

Psalms 137:9 he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.

How can we explain the horrific sentiments of this passage. Atheists would like to attribute the feelings expressed as how the God of the bible is IOW, He is a terrible person.

Psalm 137 8,9 are not the words of God, but of the Jewish people who have suffered unspeakable war crimes at the hands of the Babylonians. Here, in contrast, are the true feelings of God:

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Ezekiel 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked…

Psalm 137:8,9 is not the wish of an evil vengeful God, but the lament of a broken, revenge filled saint who has lost his way. This passage needs to be understood in the same way the book of Ecclesiastes is, especially in those passages where Solomon describes life as vanity, vanity, all is vanity. That is the view of life of a person who is not serving God. Without God, life has no purpose, no meaning, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. What Solomon eventually figured out, is that eating and drinking didn’t bring him any true merriment.

Psalm 137:8,9 are not the words of God but of a people who stopped trusting God in the hard times, hung up their harps, and now their mouths are filled, anger, hatred, and cursing.