A Beatitude For Social Justice Activists
Questions On Previous Sermons?
Review of Context
The strong emphasis on Temple music and the songs of Zion suggests the (Asaphite) group of Temple singers must be considered authors. This is, as our exposition will show, more plausible on the whole.
some authors locate it in time very soon after the destruction of Jerusalem and explain it as a first reaction “in the shadow of trauma.”
some authors locate it in time very soon after the destruction of Jerusalem and explain it as a first reaction “in the shadow of trauma.”1
some authors locate it in time very soon after the destruction of Jerusalem and explain it as a first reaction “in the shadow of trauma.”
In opposition to this “contemporary” dating of Psalm 137, quite recently there have been an increasing number of voices who interpret Psalm 137 as having been created in Jerusalem as a look back to the exile and a postexilic “reflection” on it.
Psalm 137 is very directly and immediately associated by a great many commentators and authors with the experience of deportation and the daily lives of the deported in Babylon
some authors locate it in time very soon after the destruction of Jerusalem and explain it as a first reaction “in the shadow of trauma.”1
Psalm 137 is very directly and immediately associated by a great many commentators and authors with the experience of deportation and the daily lives of the deported in Babylon
Other authors interpret the psalm as a typical reflection of the exilic situation, whether as an expression of resistance or as a document of religious depression.
Other authors interpret the psalm as a typical reflection of the exilic situation, whether as an expression of resistance or as a document of religious depression.
Overview of
The analysis of Psalm 137 may be summarized in the following structural plan:
I. Look Back at the Deportees’ Situation of Suffering
1–2* Sorrow and resistance of the Temple musicians
3* Ridicule by the tormentors
4* Reflection of the deportees
II. Emphatic Adherence to Jerusalem
5* First oath: no longer being able to act!
6* Second oath: no longer being able to speak!
III. Imprecations against the Edomites and Babylon
7* Judgment on Edom
8–9* Retaliation on daughter Babylon in accordance with talion—destruction of the children of daughter Babylon.