“Sing to us, Captives!”

A nation fell.  Israel fell.  And was carried off en masse to Babylon while Jerusalem was sacked.

“By the rivers of Babylon–there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.  There we hung our lyres on the poplar trees, for our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors, for rejoicing:  “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

How can we sing the LORD’s song on foreign soil?” (Ps 137).

When nations fall it is an overwhelming grief to its citizens.  Especially in ancient times when the whole nation was carted off into captivity.  Nowadays people become captives in their own nations and some don’t even realize their situation.  Unless the foreign presence surround them.  Oh what a terrible thing when a nation falls.  Grief abounds.

In this lament of grief the psalmist says something that has provoked people for generations.

“Happy is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks” (Ps 137:4).

It’s a horrific picture.  One borne out of tremendous grief and sorrow.  Critics are madly in-love with this verse.  They romance this verse as proof of the horrors within Scriptures.

But let me ask.  Have you ever heard someone or knew someone who had the thought to tell someone, “Go to heck!”  Of course that’s the edited version.   This should come from the mouth of a Christian.  But sometimes in great anguish, people say such thing.

That’s true here.  This is poetry.  This is lament.  Lament is grief with the restraints off.  It is to be raw with God.  Shocking?  Absolutely.  And not something to continue in.  But the grief?  At times, it’s raw and real.

And right now the world is bleeding and the grief is real.    Dear world, there’s a place for grief.