1. Sorrow in exile 137:1-4

137:1 The writer related that he and his fellow exiles mourned over Zion's destruction as they thought about it in distant Babylon. The rivers of Babylon were the Euphrates and its canals. Even though their situation was pleasant the exiles wept as they remembered Zion.

137:2-4 The exiles could not bring themselves to sing about Zion even when their Babylonian neighbors urged them to sing songs about their native land. Normally this would have brought back pleasant memories, but the memories broke the Israelites' hearts. They could not sing at all so they hung their harps on the poplar trees. Their songs were about the Lord.