Psalm 137: When Grief Prays for Justice

Eliezer Vila Marrero

How to read the Bible’s most troubling psalm through trauma, Jeremiah 29, and the cross

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Introduction: A Song We’d Rather Skip

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.” (Psalm 137:1, NASB)

Psalm 137 is one of the most honest — and most disturbing — prayers in the Bible. It begins with weeping exiles and ends with a blessing pronounced on those who would dash Babylonian infants against rocks. For many readers, verses 8-9 feel unthinkable. How did such raw vengeance find its way into Scripture?

This article argues that Psalm 137 is best understood as an imprecatory lament born from the trauma of exile. It records real human grief and a longing for justice, but it must be read in light of Jeremiah’s counsel to seek Babylon’s peace (Jeremiah 29:7) and, ultimately, Christ’s command to love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48). It is a record of raw human emotion, not a guide for Christian ethics.

Quick Overview

  • Genre: Imprecatory lament psalm, likely written early in the exile when trauma was most acute.
  • Historical setting: Jewish deportees between 597–582 BC, sitting by the Euphrates canal system built by Nebuchadnezzar.
  • Central tension: The psalm cries for retribution (Psalm 137:7-9), while Jeremiah 29:7 calls the same exiles to seek the peace of Babylon.
  • Main principles: Divine sovereignty (God was in control before, during, and after exile) and a cry for justice for victims of war crimes.
  • Christian reading: Vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19). Jesus reframes retribution with mercy on the cross: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

The Structure of the Psalm (NASB)

  1. The Precarious Situation of the Deportees (v. 1-3)
    A. Location of Exiles. Sorrow and Lament (v. 1-2)
    B. Verbal and Psychological Oppression (v. 3)
    II. The Response from the Captives (v. 4-6)
    A. Expressing their Depressed Condition (v. 4)
    B. Remembering Jerusalem to sustain identity (v. 5-6)
    III. Arguments to the Lord for Retribution (v. 7-9)
    A. Call to Bring Judgment to Edom (v. 7)
    B. Call for Vengeance to the Daughter of Babylon (v. 8-9)

Historical Context: More Than Just Sadness

Psalm 137 is not a detached historical record; it is a song of remembrance. The writer evokes 2 Kings 24:14 — “he led into exile all the people of Jerusalem and all the commanders and all the valiant warriors, ten thousand exiles, and all the craftsmen and the smiths.” Jeremiah had warned of this judgment long before (Jeremiah 6:1-30).

Like Ezekiel, who wrote “while I was by the river Chebar among the exiles” (Ezekiel 1:1), the psalmist places us on the rivers of Babylon — likely the Euphrates canal system characteristic of the city of Babylon built up by Nebuchadnezzar. John Hill notes the deportations occurred in waves (597, 587, 582 BC). The 587 group, who witnessed the siege and destruction of Jerusalem, was probably the most traumatized. That context helps explain the violent language that follows. The author himself may not have experienced the destruction firsthand but likely inherited oral accounts of relatives, much as Daniel and Ezekiel had vastly different exile experiences.

Literary Context: Praises That Include Pain

In Hebrew, the book is called Tehillim — “Praises.” Yet not all psalms are praise. Psalm 137 moves from sorrow and oppression to desperation, retribution, and finally a wish for the death of Babylonian children. Christopher Ash captures it well: “to truly love Jerusalem, we must hate Babylon and all it stands for.”

The speaker is portrayed as one of the Temple musicians — singers who accompanied themselves on lyres — now exiled to Babylonia. Susan Gillingham observes that Christians have often spiritualized this psalm, reading “Jerusalem” as the heavenly city. Scholars estimate 14 to 28 imprecatory psalms, and Psalm 137 is consistently included among them. Krüger and Santiago remind us that “imprecatory prayers were fairly common in the Ancient Near East.”

“Take vengeance on her; as she has done to others, so do to her.” — Jeremiah 50:15. This prophetic oracle against Babylon echoes the same emotional intensity.

The literary tension is sharpest when we place Psalm 137 alongside Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile… for in its welfare you will have welfare.” The same God who inspires honest lament also urges His people to live peacefully, pray for their captors, and not take vengeance into their own hands. In this light, Psalm 137 also invites a symbolic reading: Babylon as sin and evil overcome by Christ — a call for justice that must never become a justification for hate.

A Verse-by-Verse Journey: From Weeping to Wrath

Verses 1-2: Sat Down, Wept, Remembered

Three Hebrew verbs carry the emotional weight of verse 1: yashav (sat down, to dwell/stay), bakhah (wept, to cry aloud), and zakhar (remembered, to call to mind). The plural voice is important — this is not an individual, but a community sitting by the canals, weeping as they remember Tsiyyon (Zion), Jerusalem. Sitting was not poetic idleness; as some commentators note, it was the daily reality of forced labor on Babylon’s canals.

Verse 2 adds a devastating image: Upon the willows (aravah, poplar trees) in the midst (tavekh), we hung our harps (talah, to hang). They had carried their lyres or made them in exile, but they could not play. Temple musicians who once led celebration in Jerusalem are now silenced slaves.

Verse 3: Songs as Mockery

“For there our captors (shavah, to take captive) demanded (sha’al, to ask) of us songs (shir, religious song), and our tormentors (tolal) mirth, saying, ‘Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!’” The word shir appears three times in one verse — demanded songs, sing us one of the songs of Zion. Simchah, translated “mirth” in NASB, means joy. The demand is not innocent; it is psychological oppression. The captors demand a performance of festal joy from a grieving people.

Verse 4: How Can We Sing?

“How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land (nekhar, foreign; adamah, territory/country)?” Strickman interprets this as “the land of a foreign nation.” The question is profound. In modern terms, it’s the worship leader who has lost a loved one being told to put on a happy face. Grief can overwhelm vocation.

Verses 5-6: A Vow to Remember

If verse 1 was weeping at remembering, verses 5-6 are a vow never to forget: “If I forget (shakhach, to cease to care) Jerusalem… may my tongue (lashon) cling (davaq) to the roof of my mouth (chekh).” The psalmist resists assimilation. Opening the mouth to praise Babylon would mean closing it to Jerusalem. This linguistic link between verses 1-4 and 5-6 shows the psalm is a single, coherent composition, not two fragments stitched together.

Verses 7-9: The Cry for Retribution

The tone shifts from lament to imprecatory prayer. Verse 7: against the sons (ben, descendants) of Edom — a nation descended from Esau, often in conflict with Israel — who shouted “Raze it, raze it (arah, to uncover, pour out, strip bare)” when Babylon emptied Jerusalem.

Verses 8-9 are the hardest: “How blessed (esher, how happy) is the one who repays (gamal, to deal fully, recompense) you… who seizes (achaz) and dashes (naphats, to shatter) your little ones (olel, infants) against the rock (sela).” The psalmist envisions the very atrocities Jewish families suffered — children seized and shattered — and prays that another nation would do the same to Babylon. This is post-traumatic language that needs healing, not emulation.

Imprecatory Psalms: Violent Words for a Violent World

Trevor Laurence titles his approach “Violent Words for a Violent World.” He argues that imprecatory psalms echo the reality of war, genocide, oppression, and terrorism — evils Israel knew intimately. Even the New Testament contains imprecations. Laurence writes that these prayers can be “a morally fitting enactment of the royal-priestly vocation of the sons and daughters of God,” citing 1 Peter 2:9: “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” In this view, violent language reflects opposition to a violent world, paralleling the Christian call to oppose darkness, evil, and sin — but how we oppose it is transformed by Christ.

Two Timeless Principles

1. Divine Sovereignty: God Was Still in Control

Despite the horror, a central principle is divine sovereignty. God warned of exile, allowed it, and promised return after 70 years. As Joel Beeke writes, “On every page, we see God fulfilling His promise and Satan seeking, vainly, to frustrate His promise.” God was sovereign when they sat and wept, and sovereign when they would return. Joseph suffered, Israel suffered in Egypt, and Judah suffered in Babylon — yet God’s purpose persisted. Millard Erickson, referencing Daniel Day Williams, notes that “Divine sovereignty is no longer to be regarded as absolute. Humans are now to be viewed as taking a part in determining their future.” Judah’s failure to repent played a role. Yet even then, as Jesus declares in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” The church, like Israel, has endured reformations, divisions, and suffering, yet God remains in control.

2. Justice: A Cry That Still Echoes Today

The second principle is justice for victims. The psalm “seems to go beyond equal repayment of the harm done to the Judeans.” Susan Gillingham notes that Christians and Jews interpret it differently, but “others have read the psalm in the light of slavery and oppression and as a call for social justice.” This is not divine justice pronounced by God the Judge, but a human community calling for another nation to commit the same crimes Babylon committed. Peter Craigie viewed imprecations as “not the oracles of God” but as “Israel’s response to God’s revelation” in suffering. If written early in exile, as Christopher Ash suggests, the intensity makes pastoral sense. We who did not live through Jerusalem’s destruction — or the Holocaust, where this psalm took on new meaning for survivors — cannot fully grasp its pain. Zenger, Hossfeld, and Maloney argue the psalm “is shaped neither by feelings of hatred nor by the irrationality of revenge; it is a protest against the brutality of great powers toward small nations.” In a world of live-streamed missile strikes, Psalm 137 remains relevant as protest literature for the oppressed.

Reading Psalm 137 as Christians: From Vengeance to Forgiveness

The New Testament never denies justice, but it redefines our response to injustice. The kingdom established through Christ brings justice to the poor and oppressed, yet Jesus, Himself a victim of oppression and homicide, prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Paul adds, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Matthew 5:43-48 calls us to love enemies and pray for persecutors. Psalm 137 therefore reassures us that it’s okay to voice grief and anger to God. God can handle our honest lament. But it also challenges us to move beyond expressing pain toward embracing the transformative love Christ exemplifies. We can turn suffering into a path toward redemption, praying that God would turn “blessed are those who dash” into “blessed are those who have received mercy from God for their violent sins.”

Conclusion: Scripture That Sits With Us by the River

Psalm 137 invites us to sit, weep, and remember — not to pick up stones. It validates trauma, giving sacred language to those who have been displaced, mocked, and silenced. Read alongside Jeremiah 29:7 and the cross, it teaches us to hold two truths: our pain is real and worthy of prayer, and our calling is to seek peace and practice forgiveness even while we wait for God’s final justice. Ultimately, Scripture does not sanitize human experience. It engages with our complexity, challenging us to let faith transform suffering into hope.

References

  • Ash, Christopher. The Psalms (4 Volume Set): A Christ-Centered Commentary, Crossway, 2024.
  • Baltzer, Klaus, ed. Psalms 3: A Commentary on Psalms 101-150. Translated by Linda M. Maloney, Erich Zenger, and Frank-Lothar Hossfeld. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011.
  • Beeke, Joel R. and Paul Smalley, eds. The Lord of Endurance and Encouragement: Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2024.
  • Berlin, Adele. The JPS Bible Commentary: Psalms 120-150. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2023.
  • Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology, 3rd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013.
  • Gillingham, Susan E. Psalms through the Centuries: A Reception History Commentary on Psalms 73-151. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2022.
  • Hill, John. Constructing Exile: The Emergence of a Biblical Paradigm, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2020.
  • Krüger, P. Paul, and Daniel Simango. ‘An Overview of the Study of Imprecatory Psalms.’ Old Testament Essays 29, no. 3 (2016): 581-600.
  • Laurence, Trevor. Cursing with God: The Imprecatory Psalms and the Ethics of Christian Prayer. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2022.
  • Longman III, Tremper. Psalms: An Introduction and Commentary. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2014.
  • Strickman, Norman. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on Books 3-5 of Psalms: Chapters 73-150. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2016.

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Originally written as an exegetical paper for NBST610: Hermeneutics (C04). Adapted for online publication. All Scripture quotations NASB unless noted.

Eliezer Vila Marrero

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