Lesson 10 – By the Rivers of Babylon

• Read the Bible Background
• Material skipped –

o There is a lot of material that we’re not reading but the story is complete.

• Preparing to read the story

Read or review paragraphs 1-3 of the Bible Background. Then locate the time period of the Babylonian exile on the time line.
How many generations would have been in exile?

• Reading & Interpreting the story

There are different types of psalms: psalms of trust, royal psalms that focus on the king, liturgies, and others. Another type includes both personal and national laments.

Read Psalm 137.
What makes this psalm a lament?
Read about the fall of the Southern Kingdom retold in
2 Chronicles 36:15-21.
What is the context of this lament?

• How do you respond to the imagery in Psalm 137 verse 9? What do you make of the psalmist's suggestion to dash the heads of enemies' little ones against the rocks ?
Is this a real hope of the psalmist, or just an expression of anger and loss?

• When have you been so angry that you thought of doing violence against someone?
How do you feel about expressing your anger to God as the psalmist did?

Read or review paragraph 5 of the Bible Background.

Read Isaiah 43:1-13.

• What is the significance of Isaiah beginning with "But now" in 43:1 ?
How does it change the tone from the previous words in chapter 42?

• Isaiah ministered to people in turmoil, to those in lament. How does Isaiah respond to the people?
What message did he bring? comfort? anger? hopelessness? hope?

• Making the story your own

Entering the lament

List the images in Psalm 137. Beside each image identify contemporary settings or events that correspond to the image (for example, "rivers of Babylon" could today mean the streets of the inner city or Baghdad.)

Barbel von Wartenberg-Potter, a Lutheran pastor from West Germany who teaches at United Theological College in Jamaica, says there is a time for asserting that "we will not hang our harps on the willows" and remain silent. She cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer's example, the young German theologian whose political activities in the Resistance during the early years of World War II led to his arrest by the Nazis in 1943 and his hanging in April 1945. Read aloud the following passage where she calls for a recovery of the tension between resistance and submission:

Bonhoeffer was an exponent of the fact that resistance is born out of spirituality and community life. His resistance arose from the very depth of his spiritual roots. It was he who as early as 1935 identified as the church's principal task the struggle against racism, social injustice and war (and I would add sexism), as a sign of obedience to God, rather than as a self-selected priority. He was also the one who, as a result of spiritual and intellectual experience of resistance, was capable of surrendering his life into the hands of God. The doctor who witnessed his death said afterwards that he had never seen anyone die in such surrender to God.
(Barbel von Wartenberg-Potter, We Will Not Hang Our Harps on the Willows. WCC Publications, 1987, p. 119.)

As individuals, reflect on the "waters" and "rivers" (Isaiah 43:2; Psalm 137:1) that threaten to overwhelm you.

In your contemporary "rivers of Babylon", which ones call for "hanging up our harps" and which ones for "not hanging up our harps"? Why do you think that?

Memory verse: Isaiah 43:1b

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

---

Bible Background (taken from Journey through the Bible Book 2, Christian Board of Publications, 1995, p. 36)

^{Jeremiah's promise to the people on their way to exile was powerful (Jeremiah 31:15-17): Though the people were lamenting the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of their homeland, and the prospect of their own terrifying march into exile, the prophet told them not to weep. "There is hope for your future," Jeremiah insisted. The people would return from exile by the very path that they followed to Babylon (verse 21). Many of the exiles took that promise to heart and settled down together in a section of the city of Babylon by one of the canals that brought water through the city from the Euphrates River. (See Ezekiel 1:1.)}

^{2During this time of exile in Babylonia, many important and positive things happened to the Israelite exiles. Their priests and poets and storytellers collected their traditions, sifted and rearranged them, and recorded them in written form. The first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) became the heart and center of their religious literature, their Torah or divine instruction in the narrow sense. The collection of the historical books, called by the Jewish community the Former (or Earlier) Prophets, had been brought together by the Levite teachers shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed; that collection too was slightly enlarged and written down in a definitive form. And their Latter Prophets, which were the three big collections of sayings and deeds of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, plus the book of the Twelve Prophets, were also taking shape during the exile. Beyond that, the collection of Psalms and the book of Proverbs, plus many of the other smaller writings, were appearing or being collected during the time of exile. It was a period of intellectual and spiritual activity of the most critical sort for the life of Israel.}

^{3These activities during the exile must have done much to keep alive hope and faith within the community. They would gather for worship beside the "rivers of Babylon" (Psalm 137:1), and one of their leaders would read from the sacred writings. Sometimes, a prophet like Ezekiel would speak a special word from the Lord.}

^{4Psalm 137 gives us a powerful portrayal of what it was like for some exiles to worship God in a foreign land while their hearts ached for their homeland, for their holy city, and for its place of worship. The psalmist tells how some among their}

^{captors would taunt them, demanding that they entertain the Babylonian audience with "songs of Zion." But Zion lay in ruins. One thing they could do: They could remember! And so the poet sings of remembrance for Zion and its glories, and for the God who was worshiped in Zion: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!" The people remembered the story of God's salvation in times past, told the story to their children, wrote down the story on goatskins and preserved it, and they held fast to their faith in Israel's God.}

^{5Other poets among the exiles went even farther. They took it upon themselves to nurture and strengthen the faith of these exiles. Prophet-poets like the author of Isaiah 40—55, who lived shortly before the end of the Babylonian empire (before 539 B.C.E.), wrote confidently about God's power to save (was God not the Creator of the ends of the earth?) and of God's desire to save (had God not been the guide of their history through all the years since the call of Abraham?). They also came to believe that the day of deliverance was very close at hand. In this way, the people were prepared when the day of deliverance in fact dawned.}

^{6During the time of exile, the community of Israel was apparently able to observe its day of rest, the weekly Sabbath. This became their day of remembrance, their time for telling the story of God's salvation, and the time for their worship in gatherings in the houses, out of doors beside the rivers and streams of Babylon, and in the open squares in the evenings, when their prophets could speak with groups of them. But some among the exiles surely must have given up hope, settled down, found a new life for themselves among the Babylonians, and later among the Persians. For them, the talk of a return to the homeland was only idle dreaming. Some of these kept their identity as Jews, even though they had no interest in leaving Babylonia for Palestine. Some became very prosperous and later supported others who wished to return to the homeland. Others, no doubt, simply assimilated into the population of Babylonia and disappeared from view.}

^{7It is a remarkable thing that these exiles from Jerusalem did not all disappear. The words of hope and consolation kept them together, and kept their eyes fixed on the future. God was not finished with them. There was still a witness to be borne before the world, before the nations of earth. It was necessary, therefore, to keep studying God's teaching, to remember Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah, and David and Bathsheba. The story of God's just demands and God's loving care had to live. The people had to survive. And survive they did!}

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Scripture

PSALM 137

1 By the rivers of Babylon-- there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

2 On the willows there we hung up our harps.

3 For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

4 How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?

5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!

6 Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

7 Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem's fall, how they said, "Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!"

8 O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us!

9 Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!

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2 Chronicles 36:15-21

The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against his people became so great that there was no remedy.

Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their youths with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or young woman, the aged or the feeble; he gave them all into his hand.

All the vessels of the house of God, large and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his officials, all these he brought to Babylon.

They burned the house of God, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels.

He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

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Isaiah 43:1-13

1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

4 Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life.

5 Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you;

6 I will say to the north, "Give them up," and to the south, "Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth--

everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."

8 Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears!

9 Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble. Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, "It is true."

10 You are my witnesses, says the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.

12 I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses, says the LORD.

13 I am God, and also henceforth I am He; there is no one who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?

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	BIBLICAL TIME SCALE
BCE
1300
	Exodus from Egypt, Moses
	Conquest of Canaan, Joshua
1200
	Invasion of the Philistines
1100	Deborah
	Samuel
1000	Saul founds monarchy 1020-1000
	David rules united kingdom 1000-961 (965)
	Solomon rules united kingdom 961-922 (965-931)- first Temple
	Division of kingdom
900	Asa king of Judah 913
	Ahab king of Israel, 869 Elijah
	Elisha
	Jehu's revolution 842
800	Jehoash king of Judah 801
	Jeroboam II king of Israel 786 , Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah 783
	Amos, Hosea
700	Isaiah (1), Micah
	Hezekiah king of Judah 715 Assyrians take Samaria 721
	Manasseh king of Judah 687
	Zephaniah
	Josiah's reform, 641 Nahum
600	Jeremiah
	Ezekiel, Babylonians sack Jerusalem 587
	Exile in Babylon
	Isaiah (2), Cyrus begins Persian Empire
	Haggai & Zechariah
500	2^nd Temple built
	Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem
400	The Pentateuch accepted as Scripture (or 550?)
	Alexander conquers East
300	Egypt rules Palestine
	The Prophets accepted as Scripture
200
	Syria rules Palestine
	Maccabees
	Hasmonean rulers
100
	Romans conquer Palestine
	Herod the Great
	3^rd Temple built
C.E.	Birth of Jesus
	Jesus' ministry
	Paul's ministry
	Roman's destroy Jerusalem
	Gospels written
100	The Writings close the OT Canon
	Last NT books written, Clement
200
300
	Nicene Creed 325

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