Homilist Psalm 137:1-9 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. I. THE TEARS OF MEMORY (vers. 1-6). 1. Their sorrow had reference to the loss of the highest blessing — Zion, where their nation met their God to worship Him, etc. 2. Their sorrow was deliberate and all-absorbing. Now these tears of memory — (1) Reveal one of the most wonderful faculties of our nature, the faculty of memory. (2) Reveal a view of retribution opposed to modern scepticism. Modern sceptics say we pay our moral debts as we go on, that retribution for sin is prompt and adequate here. Not so, memory brings up the sufferings of the past. (3) Reveal a view of our mortal life terribly solemn. We do not, as the brute does, finish with life as we go on; we are bound by memory to re-visit the past, and to re-live our yesterdays. (4) Reveal a futurity which must reverse our present calculations. How different do things appear to the eye of memory to what they do to the eye of sense. II. A CRY FOR VENGEANCE (vers. 7-9). (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.WEB: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion. |
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