Psalms 137:3

Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

The phases of psalmody

The noblest employment of which the nature of man is capable is the worship of his Maker. One of the elements of the worship is the rendition of praise, and in the songs of Zion we are amply provided with material for this purpose.

I. The song of the pardoned penitent. This song can be sung by him who no longer looks to his own righteousness for salvation, but whose desire is to be found in Christ as the righteousness of God.

II. The song of the adoring creature. This song is sung not for any special gift received, but in contemplation of the great acts of God--His past acts in the Church and in the world--for the laws of nature--for all those marvellous exhibitions of power and wisdom that are before our eyes.

III. The song of the recipient of mercy. This is well brought out in Psalms 103:1. The mercies that are renewed to us daily are not to be taken as a matter of course. Count up your daily mercies and sing.

IV. The song of the Heaven-round pilgrim, “Thy statutes have been my songs,” etc. God’s people should not go on their way as if to be a Christian were the most gloomy thing hi the world. They are commanded to “rejoice.” Let us attain to the apostolic stand and come “to Zion with songs.”

V. The song of the sorrower. “He giveth songs in the night.” Where sufferings abound, consolations abound. God never lays one hand on us but He lays the other hand under us. Paul and Silas sang in prison in the night.

VI. The song of the sanctuary. The service of song in public worship was very prominent under the old dispensation. Music should be edifying; not a sensuous enjoyment, but a part--a noble part--of the worship of God.

VII. The song of Zion which is to be sung by the glorified above. That song is to be the utterance--the ceaseless utterings--of their gratitude and praise for all the eternal love wherewith they were loved, for the grace by which they were redeemed, kept there, sanctified there, brought there--“Salvation to God and to the Lamb.” Are you in training for that choir which is in heaven--for exchanging the songs which we sung in a strange land for the songs of the New Jerusalem and all her beauty? (J. C. Miller, D. D.)

Babylonian captivity

1. Certainly there are many men and women to whom this psalm will be full of a touching significance if they look back on the time when they first found themselves alone in London. A young man, after being brought up with loving care in the country, is sent with a book of the Lord’s songs packed by his mother in his trunk to serve his time at some business in our modern Babylon. Will he not be ready to shed tears on his first Sundays spent in town when he thinks of friends at home singing one of the songs of Zion, in which he can no longer join, deterred perhaps by the ridicule or want of sympathy of strangers? And the very desire of others that he should “keep up his spirits” and be a “jolly fellow”--such jarring requests will only increase his heaviness. What should such a young man do? Let him, before his better feelings grow cold, resolve rather to forget the cunning of his hand if he be an artisan, or the cunning of his business faculty if he be in a merchant’s or lawyer’s office; let him resolve to forget these or never to acquire them at all rather than to forget the love of his home and the worship of his mother’s God--in one word, Jerusalem.

2. When travelling abroad did Englishmen remember Jerusalem, and prefer her above their chief joy, they would realize the presence of One who could dispel the loneliness of a strange land, and deliver them from the many temptations of friendlessness.

3. Again, there are many generous souls whose best impulses are imprisoned by circumstances over which they have no control. Bound men have got into square holes, and find no scope for the best energies of their nature. Children long to help their parents; but they are far from home, or their desire is in captivity, by reason of poverty, ill-health, or anything else. Parents cannot do all they desire for their children. Let these, and all who find themselves in adverse circumstances, think of Israel weeping on the banks of the Euphrates--let them think of how she waited patiently on the Lord in poverty, in humiliation, in a strange land, full of sin and scoffing; and of how He delivered her from Babylon in His own good time, as of old He delivered the same Israel out of bondage in Egypt. (E. J. Hardy, M. A.)