Psalms · Psalm 137

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat" — when we went down into exile, and Nebuchadnezzar asked them to sing for him as they used to sing on the stage.

"By the rivers of Babylon" — at the beginning of the book I mentioned the view of the commentators regarding this psalm; and this psalm is spoken in the voice of the Levites, who were the singers, [lamenting] their exile in Babylon. And the sense of "by the rivers" is that they withdrew there to be alone, away from the Babylonians, so that they would not hear their weeping; and further, because they had said, "we hung up our harps." And the sense of "we sat" is like one who is desolate — sitting, forlorn — hence the word "indeed" [gam].

"By" — This psalm is spoken in the voice of the Levites, the singers, who were exiled in the Babylonian exile — that is, "By the rivers of Babylon." There we sat in solitude, desolate, and we also wept when we remembered Zion.

"By the rivers of Babylon" — David foresaw by the Holy Spirit that Nebuchadnezzar would exile Israel to Babylon, and he spoke in the voice of the Levites who would lament and recount what befell them along the way, saying: Behold, while we were by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat in a manner fitting for exiles, bowed down to the ground, and we also wept, because we remembered Zion, ruined and desolate.

'By' — this [psalm] was composed in the first year that Cyrus conquered Babylon. 'By the rivers of Babylon' — what we wept over in Babylon, and mourned over concerning Zion, was not because we had lost the material goods of wealth and possessions, fields and vineyards; for indeed, 'by the rivers of Babylon, there we sat' — meaning, there we sat in a fixed settlement, and we had there too an inheritance of field and vineyard, as it is written (Jeremiah 29:5), 'Build houses and dwell in them, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.' Yet nonetheless, 'we also wept when we remembered Zion,' because we remembered the holiness of Zion, where the Holy Temple, the [Temple] service, and the Divine Presence had been — it was over this that we wept, over the spiritual happiness that had been lost to us.

"On willows" — Willows of the brook.

"Upon" — Rabbi Moshe said that "in its midst" [means] in the midst of Zion, before their exile. But in my opinion, "in its midst" [means] in Babylon, and the proof is "by the rivers of Babylon," for the willows were around the river; and since it says "rivers" [in the plural], this is proof that there were many, whereas there was no river in Jerusalem, for Hezekiah stopped up the Gichon, as is written in Chronicles (2 Chronicles 32:30). And there is another proof: that it was there, in Babylon, that they used to say, "sing us [a song]." And the word "v'tolaleinu" is difficult. Rabbi Yehudah the grammarian said that it is from the same root as [in the phrase] "upon a high, steep mountain, along a distant road" [i.e., a root meaning steep or hanging]. And Rabbi Moshe HaKohen said that "v'tolaleinu" is from the root of "yelalah" [wailing], on the pattern of "v'toshveinu" [our dwellers], as if it said "yelalateinu" [our wailing], and so he explained [the verse] to mean, "and in place of our wailing they had joy." But this is not correct, for there is no such thing mentioned in the verse — that in place of our wailing they had joy — for if so, why would they have been asking us to sing? And the great error is that "toshveinu" is a term describing a person, while [on his reading] "tolaleinu" would be [taken as] a noun [of a different kind — the two do not match]. In my own opinion, we find [the roots] "sarah" [as in] "you strove with God" (Genesis 32:29), and "tistarer aleinu gam hishtarer" ["you must also make yourself a prince over us"] (Numbers 16:13) — [examples of two-root variation]. And likewise, "they plundered him, all who pass by the road," from the doubled [geminate] roots; and "they were plundering the threshing floors" (1 Samuel 23:1), whose root is "shasah." So too, "talal" and "talah" are two roots with the same meaning. Thus "v'tolaleinu" is like [saying] "we hung [talinu] our harps" — so "v'tolaleinu" [means] "v'talinu," [namely] our instruments of joy — and so the sense is doubled [for emphasis]. And this was our reply: how could we sing?!

"Upon the willows" — willows of the brook, for willows grow on the banks of rivers. When we would sit on the riverbank with our harps in our hands, to strike up song as was our custom in Zion, then, when we brought Zion to mind, we would abandon our harps out of excessive grief, and we would hang them on the willows, and we would sit and weep. And the meaning of "in its midst" is: in the midst of Babylon.

"Upon the willows" — Upon the willow trees by the stream we hung the harps on which we used to play in the Temple; their intent was to hide them from view among the branches of the trees, so that the enemy would not see them.

"Willows" — the name of a non-fruit-bearing tree that grows by the streams, as in "and willows of the brook" (Leviticus 23). "We hanged up" — from the language of hanging.

'Upon the willows in the midst of it' — even though we had in Babylon all the pleasures sweet and pleasant to the body, nevertheless, over this very thing, 'we hung up our harps,' and we did not wish to rejoice in [that] good fortune; and this itself was, for us, a cause of mourning — that the land of the enemy was full of pleasantness and delight, while the city of Hashem lay in ruins.

"and our tormentors mirth" — Heb. ותוללינו, kinds of musical instruments that they hang up. This is how Menachem interpreted it (p. 184): וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ שמחה, and our musical instruments of joy. וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ can also be interpreted as: our enemies who would scorn and mock and joke with us, an expression of (102: 9): “those who scorn me (מהוללי) swear by me.”

"Asked of us" — from the regular verb pattern (pa'al), like "yish'alkha lemor" ["he will ask you, saying"]. When the Babylonians who had taken us captive found us, they would say to us that we should sing them the song of Zion; then we would weep and say to them, "How can we sing?" And the meaning of "and our tormentors [asked of us] mirth" — they would ask us for words of song, and concerning our harps which we had hung upon the willows, they would ask us to rejoice with them. And some explain "toleilenu" as related to "yelalatenu" ["our wailing"], so that "toleilenu" would follow the pattern of "toshvenu" ["our dwelling"] — that is, in place of our wailing they would tell us to rejoice.

"For there" — That is to say, the reason for hiding them was that there our captors asked us to play words of song on the harps. "And our tormentors" — Those who mocked and jeered at us asked for words of joy, and said to us, 'Sing us [some] of the song that you used to sing in Zion.'

"Those who led us captive" — from the language of captivity. "Our tormentors" — from the language of mockery and derision, as in "those who mock me have sworn" (above, Psalm 102).

'For there our captors asked of us words of song' — for it was the custom in ancient times to sing songs recounting the praise of the land and country in which one lived, just as we were accustomed to sing songs in praise of Jerusalem; and they asked us about this matter of song. 'And our tormentors [asked us words of] mirth' (the words 'asked us words of' being understood as carried over from the previous clause) — and their request was, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion' — meaning, a song that you used to sing in praise of Zion and of your prosperity there. 'Sing us [one],' for now Babylon is for you a land of your possession just like Jerusalem [was], and the land of the Chaldeans is your land just as the land of Israel was formerly; and the successes that you had there — do you not have the same with us? So why will you not sing, concerning Babylon, the song that you used to sing concerning Jerusalem?

"Foreign" [nekhar] — an adjective; for "admat" [land of] is a word in the construct state, feminine, [as in] "the land of a foreign nation," or "the land of a foreign god" — the opposite of "the song of Hashem."

"Upon a foreign soil" — the soil of a foreign god, the opposite of a song to Hashem.

"How shall we sing" — That is to say, we said then in our hearts: How shall we sing the song of Hashem on foreign soil, which is not the place of the Temple? Because we feared that they would force us to sing, for this reason we hid them from view and said that they had been lost along the way.

'How' — they answer, saying: 'How shall we sing Hashem's song upon foreign soil?' Even though we could sing to you the songs of material prosperity that we used to sing in Zion — for here too we prosper in [worldly] successes — but the song of Hashem, the holy song that we used to sing in Zion, concerning the Divine Presence that was there, and concerning the manifestation of the holy spirit (ruach ha-kodesh) and prophecy, and the glory of Hashem, and the Torah, and the [Temple] service, and the miracles — this divine song, how shall we sing it upon foreign soil, which is unfit for these spiritual endowments?

"If I forget you, O Jerusalem" — The congregation of Israel says this.

"If" — the words of each one of the singers, in their heart[s]. And the sense of "if I forget you" corresponds to "when we remembered" [in verse 1]. And the sense of "my right hand" is because of our harps, for it is the right hand that plucks the strings and does the [musical] work. "[Let] my right hand forget" — [the object] is missing, as if [it said] "its skill," and he attributes the forgetting to the right hand, by way of a figure of speech. And some say that its meaning is "let it wither" — without support elsewhere.

"Let my right hand forget" — meaning, let it forget the melody, for it is the right hand that moves [the strings of] the harp.

"If I forget you" — He speaks in the voice of the exiles, who would say: If I forget you, Jerusalem, then may my right hand forget its strength and its movement.

'If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [its skill]' — he expresses poetically that just as the right hand is ready at hand for a person in all his movements and dealings, so is Jerusalem the object of affection in all our movements and dealings, to the point that it is impossible to forget her, just as it is impossible to forget one's right hand. And more than this — 'let my tongue cling to my palate if I do not remember you' — for all my speech concerns you, and if I do not speak in remembrance of you, I will be like a mute person whose tongue clings to his palate; and not only in the time when I am exiled and turned away, but also, 'if I do not raise Jerusalem above the height of my joy' — even if I rejoice in worldly success, Jerusalem shall rise above it, to the point that all joy will turn to sorrow through the remembrance of her destruction.

"If I do not bring up Jerusalem" — The remembrance of the mourning of its destruction I shall bring up to mention at the head of every joyous occasion of mine.

"Let it cleave" — the sense explains "my tongue," for the tongue is what utters songs. "If I remember you not" — [meaning remember] in speech, as in "and you shall no longer mention the burden of Hashem" (Jeremiah 23:36). "If I set not [Jerusalem above]" — the sense is that he places the memory of Jerusalem first, above the height of his joy.

"Let my tongue cleave" — so that it will not be able to speak or sing a song. "If I do not remember you" — [meaning:] I will remember your destruction and mourn over it, and I will not sing above the height of my joy; when I rejoice in any joy, I will remember the mourning of Jerusalem, and I will raise it above the height of the joy. Up to this point are the words of the Levites, and the last three verses are the words of the psalmist; and while he was prophesying about the Babylonian exile, he saw by the holy spirit the exile of the Second Temple, and he said:

"Let it cleave" — Let my tongue cleave to my palate so that I cannot speak, if I do not mention you always, and if I do not raise the remembrance of Jerusalem at the height of my joy — that is to say, at the beginning of the joy I will set for it a remembrance, so that I do not forget it at the peak intensity of the joy.

"Above" (lit. "al rosh") — like "berosh" (at the head, i.e., foremost), as in "you stand upon [al] your sword" (Ezekiel 33:26), whose true sense is "with your sword" [i.e., "al" used in place of "be-"].

"Raze it" — Heb. עָרוּ is an expression of destruction, and so (Jer. 51:58): “The broad walls of Babylon shall be overthrown (תתערער),” and so (Hab. 3:13): “baring (ערות) the foundation.” It is used only for something whose roots are uprooted from the ground.

"Remember" — this is not speaking of the exile of Titus, as many have thought, for afterward it mentions "the daughter of Babylon." Moreover, the wicked Titus was not of the seed of Edom, for the people of Rome are, by [various] proofs, Greeks. Rather, [this refers to the time] when Edom was under the hand of Israel, [and] they rejoiced at Israel's downfall; and so it is written in the book of Obadiah: "Be glad and rejoice, O daughter of Edom," and the disgrace with which the Edomites disgraced Israel on the day Jerusalem was captured and the Temple burned by the Chaldeans, was harder for Israel than its own distress. And so it says, "and do not enlarge your mouth" (Obadiah 1:12) — and this is [the meaning of] "remember" — [namely] those who said to the Babylonians, "Lay it bare, and raze the foundations of Jerusalem." Now, "aru" [raze] is from the same root as "pit'han ye'areh" [her opening shall be laid bare — an example of the root meaning "to pour out / lay bare"], and it ought to have been on the pattern of "kullo ma'aseikhem" [all of it is your doing], with the resh lacking its dagesh, as is customary; and because it stands at the end of the verse, the word's stress shifted to the penultimate syllable, like "kalu, ve'ashan kalu" ["they are consumed, consumed like smoke"] (Psalms 37:20). And because in the second occurrence of "aru" the stress fell on the first letter, therefore the first "aru" also reverted to having its stress on the penultimate syllable.

"The day of Jerusalem" — the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, when they [the enemies] would say to one another, "Raze it, raze it, even to its foundation" — that is, destroy and topple the buildings of Jerusalem until you expose the foundation that is in it.

"Remember, etc." — To repay them recompense for this. "The day of Jerusalem" — What they did at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, when they said to the Babylonians: 'Destroy and demolish until you expose its very foundation,' and incited them to uproot everything.

"Rase it" — an expression of destruction and ruin, as in "laying bare the foundation" (Habakkuk 3).

'Remember, Hashem' — meaning, if I always remember Jerusalem and mourn over her, how much more so should You, Hashem, remember, against the children of Edom, the day of the destruction of Jerusalem, in which they helped to destroy it.

"Daughter" [of Babylon] — the words of the psalmist, praying that the daughter of Babylon will be plundered.

"O daughter of Babylon" — now he returns to [addressing] the kingdom of Babylon, and says that it will be despoiled. And it says, "Happy shall he be who repays you" — this is Darius the Mede, who destroyed Babylon.

"That is to be plundered" — You whose end it is to be plundered by Darius the Mede. "Happy is he who repays" — Praised and lauded will be the one who repays you with the recompense you deserve, according to what you did to us.

"Daughter of Babylon" — the community of Babylon. "That are to be destroyed" — from the language of plunder and robbery. "As you have served us" — sometimes the language of "gemul" (recompense) is used for the initial doing of harm [not only its repayment], as in "and if you deal [evil] against me" (Joel 4:4).

'O daughter of Babylon' — now, Babylon had already been despoiled at that time by Cyrus; so he says, 'O daughter of Babylon, the despoiled one' — Hashem has already begun to repay you. Happy is he who repays [you], not only for the act of destruction, but also '[for] your recompense with which you dealt with us' (for the concept of 'recompense' [gemul] refers to one who does a thing out of an emotional response — love or hatred) — meaning, that what you did to us was out of recompense and an emotional response of hatred and enmity, and so shall He repay you with hatred and vengeance. And with this —

"Happy" — he tells of the cruelty of their heart, in that they dashed Israel's infants [against the rock]; this is why, above [in the previous verse], it mentions "your recompense."

"Happy shall he be who seizes" — in a manner of cruelty, just as they had been cruel toward Israel.

"Who seizes" — Praised and lauded will be the one who takes hold of your little ones with his hand and dashes them against the rock.

"And dashes" — an expression of breaking, together with crushing and scattering, as in "and the pitchers were shattered" (Judges 7:19). "Your little ones" — your young children, as in "babes and sucklings" (above, Psalm 8).

'Happy is he who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock' — as it is written, 'And I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant' (Isaiah 14:22); and this was fulfilled then, in the second year, when Cyrus went up against it a second time and destroyed it completely, and killed all the people found in it.