“We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.”
On the willows there we hung our harps. The surrender of musical instruments symbolizes the loss of capacity for worship and praise; harps hung on willows suggest abandonment of the joy and celebration associated with liturgical music. Willows represented weeping vegetation in ancient symbolism; hanging harps on weeping trees expresses the communion of human grief with nature itself. The act of hanging harps (rather than breaking them) suggests intentional, deliberate refusal to use them, a kind of protest through silence. This verse demonstrates that exile involves not merely physical displacement but spiritual incapacity; worship cannot be performed in foreign land. The suspended harps become monuments to lost joy.
Church Fathers on Psalms 137:2
1. ...But today we have sung, “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered Sion” Psalm 136:1.... 2. Observe “the waters of Babylon.” “The waters of Babylon” are all things which here are loved, and pass away. One man, for example, loves to practise husbandry, to grow rich thereby, to employ his mind therein, thence to gain pleasure: let him observe the issue, and see that what he has loved is not a foundation of Jerusalem, but a stream of Babylon.…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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