Psalm 137:1-6 expresses the lament of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who have been carried into exile in Babylon. The psalm also speaks to the yearning of Christ’s people who live as exiles in this world waiting for Christ to return and take us to our eternal home.
By the rivers of Babylon-
There we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
We hung our harps.
For there our captors
Asked us for songs,
And our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
If I do not remember you.
If I do not set Jerusalem
Above my highest joy.
Gail Ramshaw comments:
Twenty five hundred years ago they were there, Jews exiled in Babylon, weeping into the river Euphrates. They could not drown their songs in the Euphrate3s-the river is too shallow-but their joys were flooded away. Singing the Lord’s song in a strange land, how they would have wished for a small round boat- a kuphar-to carry them safely up the river and back to the Holy Land. God had provided the willows lining the Euphrates. Perhaps God would provide also the skins (for a kuphar). Hadn’t Adam and Eve received their needed skins from the Lord? One can hear the faithful, choking on Zion’s songs, groaning, ah! For a kuphar, kuphar to take us home.
It is still the same. Along with our praises rises the p.lea that a boat will come our way, taking us from slavery back to our own free land. We beg for a ship to save us from the stormy wind by sailing us back to safety.
Then were they glad because of the calm;
The Lord brought them to the harbor
They were bound for.
Psalm 107
One boat has been granted, one kuphar for our Euphrates, one ark for our flood. We sit each week on its wooden benches, in that nave of ours, and sail home to God, in God. For the kuphar God sends is the kuphar God is. (A Lenten Sourcebook, Liturgical Training Publications)
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