Psalm 137

Until now, I have always thought that the book of Psalms was composed by David and others during his lifetime. I did not realize that Psalms were added over the course of history. This one was written during the captivity, expressing the yearning of the Jewish people for their homeland. Rabbinical sources attribute the poem to the prophet Jeremiah, and the Septuagint version of the psalm bears the superscription: "For David. By Jeremias, in the Captivity." Remembering that Jeremiah had chosen to stay in the land of Judah after the final deportation and had accompanied the remnant of Jews to Egypt (whether voluntary or not is unclear), i found the first sentence of the Psalm odd. If ascribed to Jeremiah. who was not with the exiles in Babylon, verse 1 speaks of weeping beside the rivers of Babylon. But then I realized that I didn't really know where Babylon was located in the ancient world. On our current map, it corresponds to southern Iraq. On the ancient map, it is adjacent to Egypt. The Babylonian empire was on one side of the Red Sea and Egypt was on the other! One map depicted the empire crossing the Red Sea and stopping on the east side of the Nile. Either way, the two nations shared a body of water, and Jeremiah could have easily been weeping beside the waters of Babylon while sitting in Egypt with the other refugees.

I also did some reading about the vicious tone of the psalm in it's final verses. the thought of praying for babies' heads to be dashed upon the rocks is abhorrent and strange to find in Scripture. But remember that just because someone felt that and expressed it, is not an endorsement from God. It is simply an accurate reflection of what the psalmist was feeling. The Israelites had seen their children murdered in the siege and others left to die of starvation. They wanted their oppressors to suffer as they had. As stated in the Quest Bible, "The writers of the psalms, though they had the benefit of Old Testament law, had not experienced the new dimensions that were given through Christ. It's hardly fair to ask Old Testament people to act "Christian" before Christ even came". Still...yikes.

Tomorrow's Reading: 1 Chron. 5:18-26; 6:49, 4-15; 7:1-40; 8:1-28