By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Psalms 137:1-9.-Israel's sad state in Babylon; her inability to sing Zion's songs in a strange land: her indelible remembrance of Jerusalem (Psalms 137:1-6); Edom's doom for her spite against Jerusalem in her calamity; Babylon's doom in kind (Psalms 137:7-9.) As Psalms 135:1-21; Psalms 136:1-26, gave hope of Israel's deliverance, so this psalm, the third of the trilogy, is of judgment upon Israel's enemies. The two are combined by the contemporary Zechariah. The second siege of Babylon, under Darius Hystaspes, fulfilled the prophecy, laid low its walls, and broke its hundred gates. It never recovered. In the same year, the sixth of Darius, the temple's building was completed (Ezra 6:16).
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down - the rivers Euphrates, Tigris, Chaboras, Euloeus (or Ulai, Daniel 8:2), and their offshoot canals. The exile colony, we know from Ezekiel, resided near the Chaboras, or Chebar (Ezekiel 1:1). The Jews generally had their places of prayer by the riverside (Acts 16:13), probably for the sake of the water for ablution before their prayers. They who are pensive and sad love the side of streams, as being by their murmuring sound congenial to melancholy. Babylonia was one net of canal-works, and would therefore abound in "willows" (cf. Psalms 137:2). The Jews saw in Babylonia's river-streams an image of their floods of tears (Lamentations 2:18; Lamentations 3:48).
Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion - as the seat of the temple of Yahweh, the spiritual capital of the Holy Land.