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Psalm 137 (Greek numbering: Psalm 136) is one of the best known of the Biblical psalms. Its opening lines, "By the rivers of Babylon..." (Septuagint: "By the waters of Babylon...") have been set to music on several occasions.

The psalm is a hymn expressing the yearnings of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The rivers of Babylon are the Euphrates river, its tributaries, and the Chebar river (possibly the river Habor, the Chaboras, or modern Khabour, which joins the Euphrates at Circesium).^[1] In its whole form, the psalm reflects the yearning for Jerusalem as well as hatred for the Holy City's enemies with sometimes violent imagery. Rabbinical sources attributed the poem to the prophet Jeremiah,^[2] and the Septuagint version of the psalm bears the superscription: "For David. By Jeremias, in the Captivity."^[3]

The early lines of the poem are very well known, as they describe the sadness of the Israelites, asked to "sing the Lord's song in a foreign land". This they refuse to do, leaving their harps hanging on trees. The poem then turns into self-exhortation to remember Jerusalem. It ends with violent fantasies of revenge, telling a "Daughter of Babylon" of the delight of "he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (New International Version).

Liturgical use

Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 84r - Psalm CXXXVII the Musée Condé, Chantilly.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which use the Byzantine Rite, Psalm 137 (which is known by its Septuagint numbering as Psalm 136) is a part of the Nineteenth Kathisma (division of the Psalter) and is read at Matins on Friday mornings throughout the year, except during Bright Week (the week following Easter Sunday) when no psalms at all are read. During most of Great Lent it is read at Matins on Thursday and at the Third Hour on Friday, but during the fifth week of Great Lent it is read at Vespers on Tuesday evening and at the Third Hour on Friday.

This psalm is also solemnly chanted at Matins after the Polyeleos on the three Sundays which precede the beginning of Great Lent.

Musical settings

The psalm, generally under variants of its title By the waters of Babylon, has been set to music by many composers.

Many musical settings omit the last verse. John L. Bell, a hymnwriter who writes many challenging texts himself, comments alongside his own setting of this Psalm: "The final verse is omitted in this metricization, because its seemingly outrageous curse is better dealt with in preaching or group conversation. It should not be forgotten, especially by those who have never known exile, dispossession or the rape of people and land.^[4]"

• In William Walton's oratorio Belshazzar's Feast this version of the opening section is set to music, as if sung by the Israelite captives in Babylon.
• It was the inspiration for the famous slave chorus Va, pensiero from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco.
• Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of The Melodians wrote Rivers of Babylon, a version of the psalm set to the music of Jamaica and well known through its rendition by Boney M in the 1970s. In 1992, the rock/reggae group Sublime released a live cover of the song on their 40 oz. to Freedom album.
• It was set, as On the Willows, in the Broadway musical Godspell.
• Psalm 137:5-6 is the basis for the chorus of Matisyahu's single Jerusalem.
• The first verse was also used for Don McLean's song 'Babylon' on his 1971 album American Pie

Literature

• The Portuguese 16th century poet Luís de Camões's Sobre os Rios que Vão is based on Psalm 137.

The incipit has been referenced in numerous works, including:

• In the third stanza, The Fire Sermon, of T. S. Eliot's 1922 poem The Waste Land line 182 is: 'By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept...'. Leman is both the French for Lake Geneva and an archaic word for "mistress".^[5]
• By the Waters of Babylon, 1937 short story by Stephen Vincent Benét.
• By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, 1945 prose poem by Elizabeth Smart.
• By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, 1994 novel by Paulo Coelho.

References

External links

• Hebrew text of verses 5-6, translation, transliteration, and recordings on the Zemirot Database
• Psalm 137 at the Bible Gateway, NIV
• the Bible on the Internet

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