By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
The verse pictures Judah's captives sitting down and weeping in Babylon when they remembered Zion and longed for Jerusalem. The rivers where they sat were the Euphrates, and the Jerusalem they remembered then lay desolate. In its setting in Psalm 137:1-4, the harps hung on the willows represent people whose songs of Zion have been silenced. That silenced music can be restored when believers lay aside pride and selfishness and work in love to bring the truth to those who are lost. The same grief parallels the later experience of John Foxe, whose poverty and persecution while exiled in Basle matched the sorrow of the ancient exiles.
The verse pictures Judah's captives sitting down and weeping in Babylon when they remembered Zion and longed for Jerusalem. The rivers where they sat were the Euphrates, and the Jerusalem they remembered then lay desolate. In its setting in Psalm 137:1-4, the harps hung on the willows represent people whose songs of Zion have been silenced. That silenced music can be restored when believers lay aside pride and selfishness and work in love to bring the truth to those who are lost. The same grief parallels the later experience of John Foxe, whose poverty and persecution while exiled in Basle matched the sorrow of the ancient exiles.