Psalms Chapter 136

Super flumina.

The lamentation of the people of God in their captivity in Babylon.

A psalm of David, for Jeremias.

For Jeremias. . .For the time of Jeremias, and the captivity of Babylon.

136:1. Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion:

136:2. On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.

136:3. For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion.

136:4. How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?

136:5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.

136:6. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee: If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.

136:7. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom, in the day of Jerusalem: Who say: Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

136:8. O daughter of Babylon, miserable: blessed shall he be who shall repay thee thy payment which thou hast paid us.

136:9. Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock.

Dash thy little ones, etc. . .In the spiritual sense, we dash the little ones of Babylon against the rock, when we mortify our passions, and stifle the first motions of them, by a speedy recourse to the rock which is Christ.