Psalm 137 – the Shock and Horror of the Deeply Traumatised

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psalm 119:105)

Psalm 137 (NIV)

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
	when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
	we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
	our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
	they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4 How can we sing the songs of the LORD
	while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
	may my right hand forget [its skill].
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
	if I do not remember you,
 if I do not consider Jerusalem
	my highest joy.

7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
	on the day Jerusalem fell.
  "Tear it down," they cried,
	"tear it down to its foundations!"

8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction,
	happy is he who repays you
	for what you have done to us –
9 he who seizes your infants
	and dashes them against the rocks.

As an introduction

to Psalm 137 here is an 18-minute videoed talk:

Notes

1. Verses 1-6 are a sad, plaintive song of a beaten and downtrodden people, reminiscent of African-American spirituals though it was, of course, the psalms that came first! It inspired Rivers of Babylon, a 1970’s song popularised by the Rastafarian group Boney M.

2. The vindictive demands for retribution and the vengeful curse on the perpetrators of their suffering in verses 7-9 spoil the beauty and pathos of the psalm.

3. Verse 9 is ‘among the most repellent words in Scripture’ according to R. E. O. White.[1] Deissler says, ‘it should be removed from the psalter of the new people of God.’[2]

4. Catholic and Anglican prayer books have done that – they omit parts of this Psalm, and others, that the editors cannot stomach.[3]

5. Our initial reaction is to pass on to more pleasant reading. The niggle at the back of our mind may be that something has gone wrong. This psalm is an embarrassment. It is ungodly. Has it been mistranslated? Or is it just ‘old covenant’ religion that has been overtaken by the new covenant of Jesus’ call to bear suffering and return aggression with love?

6. Yet this psalm is in Scripture. It is part of God’s word: ‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful…’ (2 Tim 3:16). It is important therefore to delve deeper and try to understand it.

7. To do that we need to appreciate the structure of Hebrew poetry. This is a core aspect of the psalm and helps set the psalm in its context.

8. Second we need to read the psalm as the author intended it to be read. The psalm is written by someone who was part of a community that was deeply traumatised. He was writing while still in the anguish, hopelessness and helplessness of his suffering.

9. Thirdly, we read the psalm in the 21^st century in a totally foreign country, culture and background compared to the psalmist living around 600 BC in the Middle East. We need to be aware of these filters that affect our understanding and appreciation of the psalm.

10. Here is the psalm set in the poetic structure of the original Hebrew.

Psalm 137 (Hebrew poetic structure)

The Shock and Horror of the Deeply Traumatised

11. Poetic lines are in two and occasionally three parts with the second and third parts shown by line indentations as in Bible translations such as NIV and NRSV.

12. Each strophe, which are single lines in Psalm 137, has an idea that contributes to the theme of the stanza which is shown in the heading. Those themes are part of the overall theme of the psalm that is shown in the title line.

13. The next feature of the structure of Hebrew poetry is parallelism but this is distinctly different to the rhyming and rhythm parallelism of English poetry.

14. Parallelism in Hebrew poetry concerns the idea being expressed. The words may change but the idea being expressed is repeated, contrasted or developed. This is indicated with the letter/number at the head of each line. A-A1, B-B1 etc are paired.

15. The main point in a Hebrew poem is often not at the end but in the middle and it is shown here by  X.

16. This is a simple but brilliant structure as these features are therefore translatable into other languages. I think it must have been one of the reasons God designed Hebrew as the original language of the Old Testament!

17. Verse numbers were invented in the 16^th century. They help us find our way around the Bible but are not original so do not help clarify poetic structure. The stanzas in English Bible translations (shown by a gap between the lines) need to be treated with caution too as they do not always reflect the Hebrew construction (and may vary between translations). For example, in the NIV verse 4 is in stanza 2 (1984 and 2011 editions) and the third stanza is divided with verse 7 on its own (1984 version but not 2011).

18. The theme of the psalm is: the Shock and Horror of the Deeply Traumatised. Stanza 1 is about Mourning a Loss, stanza 2 is an Oath of Allegiance and stanza 3 is a Demand for Retribution. They need to be examined separately before it is possible to see how they fit together in the one psalm.

19. Stanzas 1 and 3 have the same structure. with the line pairing arranged consecutively as A, B, A1, B1 then D, E, D1, E1. The lines are arranged with the first line paired with the last (shown as A-A1), and the second line paired with the third (B-B1).

20. Stanza 2 has only 3 lines. The outer lines (C-C1) are paired and the single central line (X) is the heart, the crux, both of the stanza and the whole psalm.

21. Each psalm has its own pattern and the pattern would have been a memory aid to those who used the psalm. There were few written scrolls readily available to read so a good memory was paramount for reflection and study. Psalm 137 is unusual in having a different structure for stanza 2. This is not a mistake or evidence of carelessness or incompetence. Instead, it enables the psalmist to highlight the contrasts between the stanzas. This would jar with experienced psalm readers and reciters. It would add to the sense of tension that the psalm engenders with the nature of and the contrasts between the featured ideas.

22. The key link-words are in bold.

23. Please note there are other ways of setting out the stanzas but I find this one best expresses the meaning of the psalm as a feature of biblical interpretation.

24. Ancient Hebrew was not written with the structural layout shown above. The text was written on precious parchment or animal skins so words were crammed together and there was virtually no punctuation. Scrolls were precious. I suspect they were available in most communities, even if not in every household. People learned by listening and memorising and had remarkably retentive memories for the spoken word. This skill has been largely lost since the invention of printing but is still evident in many ‘less advanced’ areas of the world especially in isolated oral cultures. The parallelisms and repetitions would be recognised, perhaps intuitively, by those for whom the psalm was written and would be an essential aspect of the psalm.

25. As with all poetry, psalms speak not just to our intellect but also to our emotions. Feel them as well as read them. This is helped by the poetic structure of the psalm as illustrated above. It is enhanced if we understand something of the situation in which the psalm is set.

26. As often occurs with poetry, sentences are short and sometimes are not even properly formed. They hint rather then spell out the details. That increases the way they speak into our imagination as well as our emotions and intellect.

27. Sense the people’s shock and horror, their passion, their anger. Why might they feel and behave like that? Our emotions are stirred. How would I feel if I was in that situation? Imagination can help understanding.

28. Let us turn now to consider the situation of the psalmist and his people.

29. The introduction in stanza one sets the scene – here is a subject people, ruthlessly removed from their own land of Israel about 600 BC, and taken to Babylon, the capital of Babylonia, ancient Iraq, (2 Kings 24:18-25:21). They despaired of their future while their core beliefs were trivialised and mocked by their captors.

30. They expressed how they felt in a lament, a song of complaint, so here the psalmist complains bitterly, expressing his anger, hurt and distress about the troubles his community were experiencing and the traumas they had sustained (Stanza 1).

31. Complaints in biblical laments are usually addressed directly to Yahweh but in this Psalm there is no named recipient. Yahweh is addressed later in verse 7 in a request for vengeance and Jerusalem is a euphemism for Yahweh but the demands in 7-9 are presented rudely and abruptly with no sense of worship or respect. The complaint in verses 1-4 is left hanging in the air. Who can accept it? Is there anyone out there listening and able and willing to respond? The poignancy of having no one to address adds to the sense of loneliness and despair. Yahweh had failed to help them so they were now captive in a far away foreign land. It seems they did not have the heart or energy to imagine how their desire for revenge could come about. All they could ask was that Yahweh ‘remember’ their persecutors.

32. Lament psalms are not just complaints. Most also contain a protestation of hope and trust in Yahweh. There is none here. However, there just might be a hint of hope for notice what they did with their harps. They refused to sing for their captors so they might well have destroyed their harps. But no. They hung them in the poplar trees out of harms way![4] They may not have been thinking about what they were doing but such action suggests they were preparing for a future when those harps would be needed. Impossible to voice perhaps. Impossible to imagine. But subconsciously they knew what to do. That is so true to life in the early stages of a grief reaction to horrendous loss.

33. Often too, in lament psalms, there is a promise to praise and honour Yahweh but not here. Instead, Psalm 137 is unique in expressing that aspect of grieving a loss, as an oath of allegiance (Stanza 2) that obliquely relates to Yahweh. The psalmist would rather lose his musical and singing abilities than forget Jerusalem, his national and spiritual home.

34. The complaint in lament psalms is usually tempered with praise, worship, thanksgiving, confession of sin and/or appreciation of Yahweh’s faithfulness in the past but there is nothing of that. Do you sense the psalmist’s bitterness?

35. It is a community lament though the central oath (Stanza 2) is expressed personally. Is that significant? The whole community was affected but perhaps not everyone was ready to respond in this way. Sometimes a personal response is required. And an oath is a personal affirmation. It cannot be made on behalf of others.

36. The oath is the centre, the crux of the psalm. This is the writer’s commitment. Such an explicit oath suggests he was aware there was a risk of forgetting as we tend to be only explicit about the things we are tempted to doubt but want to still believe.

37. So how does the violence of the third stanza fit in?

38. Usually toward the end of a lament there is a request for help, but here the only request is that Yahweh ‘remembers’ Edom, their ‘brother’ nation, who supported their national destruction (Obadiah 1:8-14) so clearly this is not a friendly ‘remember.’ Retribution is in mind. They were now captive, 800 miles from Jerusalem, so could not themselves take any action. Maybe Yahweh would get involved.

39. Stanza 3 gets worse as the psalm ends with a curse that has shaken many godly readers causing disgust and outrage. Bear in mind, though, that whenever we read Scripture we read through filters; filters of our culture, education, theology, experience, etc. We find the third stanza appalling as we cannot imagine ourselves in such a position and saying such horrible things.

40.But think for a moment. This is not the curse of those who have the ability to fulfil the curse nor is it the cry of terrorists.

41. Rather it is the moan of the powerless. It is the impotent cry of a people who are overwhelmed by their suffering and have ‘forgotten’ their sufferings were the direct result of their national sinfulness. They had filters too (everyone does) so they saw everything in the light of their experiences and suffering. All they can think about is retribution.

42. And why did the psalmist think to end the psalm with such a spine chilling threat to innocent babies? Well, he was only repeating what had happened to his own community. This was how conquerors treated the vanquished – as recorded in Scripture passages that cover the preceding 200 years. These suggest, I think, that there was a community wide awareness of the sort of horrors to be expected during an invasion and conquest. This is shown in the following texts:

43. Around 800 BC,

“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he [Elisha] answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women” (2 Kings 8:12).

44. Around 750 BC,

…the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated – as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children (Hosea 10:14).

45. Around 750 BC,

The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open (Hosea 13:16).

46. Around 700 BC,

Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished (Isaiah 13:15-16).

47. Around 650 BC,

Yet she was taken captive and went into exile. Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street. Lots were cast for her nobles, and all her great men were put in chains (Nahum 3:10).

48. And they had been treated cruelly by the Babylonians (587 BC),

… [Zedekiah] was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon (2 Kings 25:6-7).

 See also similar descriptions in 2 Chronicles 36:1-20 and Jeremiah 39:1-9 and 52:1-30.

49. And note this extract from Lamentations that is a communal lament, thought to reflect experiences of 590-540 BC,

Women have been ravished in Zion, and virgins in the towns of Judah. Princes have been hung up by their hands; elders are shown no respect. Young men toil at the millstones; boys stagger under loads of wood. The elders are gone from the city gate; the young men have stopped their music (Lamentations 5:11-14).

50. Psalm 137 is the cry from the heart of a traumatised people who have been beaten and crushed. They express their anguish in the terms of the horrors they had experienced. This psalm is not teaching us how to behave. Rather it demonstrates how we do behave when deeply traumatised.

51. Think for a moment about how the captors would respond if they understood what their captives were singing. Would they be frightened by these threats? Would they punish their victims for such a rebellious and violent attitude? Not at all. The people were broken and finished. Imagine the captors conversation, ‘There is not a single fighting man among them – they can only dream of taking revenge on babies!’ They would laugh at them – it was a great joke.

52. This psalm tells us something about human nature in times of crisis and loss. It is a powerful illustration of what happens in the early stages of the Journey of Grief – the process of recovery that happens after we sustain a serious loss. That refers to a bereavement, the loss of a loved one, of course, but any form of loss precipitates a similar response. It is a journey that takes many months or even years.

53. Modern knowledge of the process of grief is based on the work of Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and particularly her book, On Death and Dying, that was first published in 1969.[5] It was soon realised that her work related to other reasons for grieving that included any serious loss even if not by death. But Dr Kubler-Ross did not invent the Journey of Grief. Rather, she described human behaviour that had been observed and reported for centuries – including in Scripture.

54. Here in Psalm 137 is a description of the first stage, Denial and Anger.[6] The sufferer’s focus in this stage is backwards, mourning their loss. They cannot see any way forward; besides they do not want to go forward. They want to go back to the way it used to be. Some may even deny the reality of the tragedy that happened to them. They are angry at their loss. They want revenge. They want someone to blame. They feel lonely – even Yahweh may seem far away and uncaring of their situation. Was Yahweh punishing them? Did he hate them? They may wonder if Yahweh actually exists. This is NOT a spiritual issue about having weak faith or of losing faith; it is a feature of this stage of grief. It will pass. They may be physically lethargic, unable to move, not interested in caring for themselves, eating or going to bed; on occasion they may even be catatonic.

55. There is a strange paradox in the Journey of Grief, particularly in the early stages, that though God can be blamed for the catastrophe, regarded as missing, at a distance or even non-existent, he may still be the focus for the believer so continues to be addressed in prayer, requested to help and might be offered praise and honour. This same paradox appears in many other lament psalms too.

56. It fits therefore, with the psalm being an expression of the early stages of grief, so Yahweh is not addressed in Psalm 137 until he is called on, admittedly obliquely, to take action on their behalf to fulfil their desire for retribution against the perpetrators of their suffering.

57. Recognising where the bereaved or traumatised are in their Journey of Grief and providing appropriate help is now a feature of Christian pastoral and evangelistic ministry. It features in books such as, Suffering and the Heart of God, by Diane Langberg (2015) and websites such as https://www.traumahealingbasics.org/ and https://stress-selfcare.co.uk/uniquely-you/grief/.

58. Psalm 137 expresses the experience of grief after a major loss that is both personal and communal. The psalm was not written as a commendation, advising readers how we should behave. Rather, it tells us as it is: this is how traumatised people do behave.

59. Now we have learned about the poetic structure, understood how grief has affected their behaviour, emotions and spiritual state and imagined ourselves in their experiences we can appreciate better how the psalm fits together.

60. The psalm provides ‘human interest’ insights into historical events.

61. The nation had been overwhelmed by powerful enemies, their city had been destroyed and many had been taken 800 miles away, undoubtedly walking every step on the 3 or even 6 months’ journey. Stanza 1 relates their reaction to their experiences. Having arrived, the community congregated on the river banks, gathering together for mutual support. They looked back with longing to the life they had known. They had harps with them so obviously intended to sing together. In their grief perhaps they sang the communal laments, Psalm 58 and Psalm 123, that would have helped them express the grief they felt. It overwhelmed them. They wept. They were a source of amusement to the local people who mocked them, demanding joyful, happy songs. They refused and to make this clear they hung their harps on tree branches.

‘Now will those horrible people go away and leave us to grieve?’ we can almost hear them saying. We do not know the exact words their mockers used but to the distraught people their call for joyful songs would have reminded the exiles of celebrations and worship at the annual festivals in Jerusalem, hence the ‘songs of Zion’. Maybe Psalms 47 and 48 came to mind. In their grief they would find it impossible to sing such songs of joy, celebration and Yahweh’s triumph over their enemies. The people were looking back at what they had lost and in such a situation as that there was no space for happiness. They were swamped with grief, despair, despondency, and lethargy. Yahweh had let them down. He had turned against them. They could not address their prayer to Yahweh so their lament is left hanging, homeless.

62. If we have something of their behavioural response in stanza 1, in stanza 3 we have their emotional response. They felt powerless and lonely, so they vented their grief in the hope of retribution and in calling down curses. This is the only time Yahweh is addressed directly. He is Yahweh, the one who is and was and always will be but they had nothing to request for themselves. That is understandable, as in the nature of this stage of grief, they would not have cared for themselves. All they wanted from their great all powerful, all seeing, all knowing Yahweh was retribution against the perpetrators of their suffering. They themselves were powerless, fully absorbed in their own hurts, so they reflected onto Yahweh their only request. Well, it was actually more of a demand than a request. They insisted that Yahweh remember the Edomites – and the context clearly implies this was not for their blessing and welfare. It is true that the Edomites had stood by when Jerusalem was ripped apart and it seems some had participated in the destruction (Obadiah 1:8-14) but that was not any more abhorrent than how their own nation had treated Edom in previous generations. The two nations had a common ancestor so the Israelites were commanded to treat Edom with respect (Deuteronomy 2:2-6) and on at least one occasion they became allies against a common enemy (2 Kings 3:9) but in between times King David had conquered Edom and slaughtered many (2 Samuel 8:13-14) and later King Amaziah killed 20,000 Edomites when he reconquered their land (2 Chronicles 23:11-12). All that had been forgotten of course, for in a traumatic crisis sufferers become self-absorbed and intensely introspective. They could see and feel only their own reaction to the immediate situation.

63. The Journey of Grief is a journey so those who grieve do move on. God has created people to be resilient and progress is essential to experience healing. At this stage though, such desires for retribution and a focus on loss are normal, inevitable and acceptable features.

64. That is, of course, when the grieving moves on a normal pathway. Sadly, some trauma sufferers get stuck in this stage. This is not natural. To stay here requires a huge expenditure of energy and an intense focus that damages personality, peace of mind and relationships.

65. But there is hope for these sufferers, for the climax of the psalm is in stanza 2, in the middle, a typical feature of Hebrew poetry, with an oath of allegiance. This is the only lament psalm that has such an oath and, not surprising in the circumstances, it is not addressed to Yahweh. Instead, the psalmist makes his vow to Jerusalem, the city they had been taken from that was now in ruins (2 Kings 25:9-10).

66. It seems that, for the moment, that was as close as the psalmist could get to expressing his faith in Yahweh. There appears to be no significance in the use of Jerusalem or Zion either here or elsewhere in Scripture. Jerusalem is used five times more frequently than Zion. Perhaps in his state of despair the psalmist related best to a ruined city. Perhaps all he held most dear, at this moment, was the life he missed: home, work, culture, family and friends. But Jerusalem was nothing without its spiritual role whether expressed as Zion, the Temple or the worship and its rituals. And they were nothing without the author of life, the Creator, God Almighty, Yahweh, the one who was and is and always will be.

67. This oath of allegiance suggests that the psalmist is on the road to recovery, to new beginnings. The journey would take many months, though it can be far longer and, for the community, can extend over generations. His ordeals will not be forgotten or ignored. They become integrated into his life experiences.

68. Psalm 79 is another lament psalm that is also written by someone who was in the early stages on their Journey of Grief. He too lived at the time of the Babylonian captivity but the Psalm 79 psalmist was one of those who were left behind. The details of his community’s experiences were different and are expressed differently so the psalm shows different facets of the Journey of Grief at this same stage.

69. Later stages in the Journey of Grief feature in other psalms such as Psalm 13 and Psalm 88. Then, in Psalm 91 and Psalm 147, the writers look back over their experiences of prolonged and repeated trauma and grief from their ‘New Beginnings’ and have important lessons to share.

70. There is hope.

71. It is only after we have understood the psalm, its structure as well as the words, its setting and the author’s intentions that we can truly ask – what does this mean for me today?

72. It is time to reflect. Over to you!

Endnotes

[1] White, R. E. O., A Christian Handbook to the Psalms, (Exeter: The Paternoster Press, 1884) p.200.

[2] Alfons Deisller, Die Psalmen. III. Teil Ps.90-150), (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1965), pp.185-186, quoted by Erich Zenger, A God of Vengeance? Understanding the Psalms of Wrath, trans. By Linda M. Maloney (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996) p.48.

[3] https://catholic-resources.org/LoH/Psalter-Omissions.html [22 April 2020] and https://prayerbook.ca/the-omitted-imprecatory-psalms/ [22 December 2022].

[4] Laurie Kraus, David Holyan and Bruce Wismer, Recovering from Un-Natural Disasters: a Guide for Pastors and Congregations after Violence and Trauma, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017) p. 91.

[5] Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, ‘On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy & Their Own Families, (New York; Scribner, 2014)

[6] Ergenbright, Dana and others, Healing the Wounds of Trauma: How the Church Can Help – Stories from Africa, (Participant Book for Healing Groups) revised edn., (Philadelphia, PA: SIL International and American Bible Society, 2021) pp. 34-46.

Written: 16 October 2021

Published: 23 December 2022

Updated: 15 August 2023