Belting Out the Blues as Believers: The Importance of Singing Lament
3. Singing About Not Being Able to Sing 1 The Song of Psalm
But that is not the end of the matter. Indeed Savran argues that v. 4 should be read not as a blanket refusal, but “as an preface to the response of vv. 5f (and vv. 7–9), saying essentially: ‘This is how we shall sing.’”33 Even if this interpretation is questionable, vv. 5–6 clearly function as an oath of self-imprecation
in the form of a personal “pledge song”34—as is suggested by their chiastic structure:
A If I forget you, O Jerusalem, B let my right hand forget its skill!
B´ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
A´ if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
The psalmist’s determination not to forget Jerusalem clearly includes not forgetting to sing of Jerusalem.35 This is underscored by the references to “right hand” (v. 5) and “tongue” (v. 6)—the
musician/singer’s tools of trade. To put it bluntly, should he ever forget to rejoice over Jerusalem, he
29G. Savran, “How Can We Sing a Song of the Lord?: The Strategy of Lament in Psalm 137,” ZAW 112 (2000),
45.
30It is obviously impossible to know what, if any particular, songs were in the minds of the “tormentors.” In
fact, the request is indefinite (“one of the songs of Zion”). But in the minds of the author and those tormented the most likely candidates are so called “Zion songs,” i.e., Pss 48; 74; 87; 125; 126.
31Savran, “How Can We Sing a Song of the Lord?” 49.
32W. Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984),
75.
33Savran, “How Can We Sing a Song of the Lord?” 49.
34This is the one section of the psalm that is voiced in the singular, perhaps indicating that this is (or ought to
be) the prayer of every individual Israelite exile.
35His focus upon Jerusalem has little to do with either nationalistic zeal or natural homesickness, but is al-
most entirely to do with “its sacramental role in God’s revealed purposes as reflection of the divine.” Loyalty to Jerusalem is thus a measure of his loyalty to Yahweh, and praise of Jerusalem represents praise of Yahweh. See Allen, Psalms 101–150, 242–243.
calls upon God to curse his ability to sing and play the harp.36 The person who makes such a pledge can
only make it in hope; the hope that Jerusalem’s day will come again and the songs of Zion will once more be heard.
In fact, the psalmist’s hope is so vivid that it leads him to reformulate his position on the possibility of singing. As Savran puts it: “Whereas Jerusalem was earlier recalled in mourning, and singing of Zion was considered an impossibility, the second person address indicates that Jerusalem is alive in the consciousness of the psalmist; it is this memory which animates the psalmist and allows him to keep functioning.”37 In short, because of his confidence in God and the ultimate triumph of his purposes, the
psalmist is able to sing what Allen calls “a modified version of a song of Zion.”38
What, then, is this modified “song of Zion”? It is none other than Psalm 137 itself: a song about the inappropriateness of singing the songs of Zion in Babylon, and yet a song of Zion nonetheless. But it is more than that too. For it is a song that contains both a “pledge song,” to sing of Jerusalem in hope of its restoration, as well as a “vengeance song” (vv. 8–9), in anticipation of the just judgment that will come upon Israel’s enemies.39 It is thus a song that expresses both faith in the present and hope
for the future—albeit, even paradoxically, in the form of grief-stricken lament. And yet lament is vital to the nurturing of such hope, for just as “[h]ope that cannot lament denies the awful reality and the continuing power of death and sin,”40 so lament that does not hope denies God’s sovereign faithfulness.
The practice of singing lament, then, is designed to awaken faith and inspire hope as God’s people persevere through seasons of pain.
3.2. The Song of Psalms 42–43
Similar observations can be made regarding Psalms 42–43. Seven features mark it out as both a
song of lament and a song of hope. Firstly, it is addressed
ַח ֵצ ַנ ְמ ַל
; i.e., “to the choirmaster”. Secondly, it is described as aלי ִכּ ְשׂ ַמ
, which most likely means “an artistic or teaching song.”41 Thirdly, it is the firstof the psalms written by “the Sons of Korah,” one of the levitical families who functioned as temple singers and musicians during the reigns of David and Solomon.42 Fourthly, as we’ve noted, it is a song
about not being able to sing; or, at least, being prevented from singing “songs of praise” in “the house of God” (42:4). Fifthly, as we’ve also noted, it’s a song of “trust” (
לחי
);43 an expression of confidence thatthe psalmist will again be restored to worship in Zion. The basis for this hope is the Lord’s commitment
36W. Brueggemann, and W. H. Bellinger Jr, Psalms, New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: CUP,
2014), 574.
37Savran, “How Can We Sing a Song of the Lord?” 50. 38Allen, Psalms 101–150, 241.
39Indeed, it is possible that the “highest joy” of which the psalmist speaks in v. 6 refers to the just retribution
articulated in the “song” of vv. 7–9. See H. Lenowitz, “The Mock-śimchâ in Psalm 137,” in Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry, ed. E.R. Follis, JSOTSup 40. Sheffield: JSOT, 1987, 155–56.
40A. Verhey, The Christian Art of Dying: Learning from Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 269. 41deClaissé-Walford, Jacobson, LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms, 399.
42For a detailed exploration of the role and responsibilities of the Korahite clan, see M. Goulder, The Psalms
of the Sons of Korah, JSOTSup 20 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1982).
43The Hebrew word
לחי
carries the ideas of “tarrying and confident expectation, trust.… This yahal hope isnot a pacifying wish of the imagination which drowns out troubles, nor is it uncertain” (TWOT 373). In context, it could legitimately be translated as “trust” or “wait for.”
to his people: hence the final words of the threefold refrain: “my Saviour and my God” (42:5; 11; 43:5). Sixthly, it is a paradoxical song. Calvin suggests that the author “represents himself as if he formed two opposing parties.”44 Kidner (perhaps more helpfully) speaks of this as a “dialogue between the two
aspects of the believer, who is at once a man of convictions and a creature of change.”45 Finally, as a way
of addressing this anthropological (and eschatological) tension, it is a song of both preservation and perseverance. This is clear from 42:8:
By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life.
Theologically, then, the song shows us the reality and necessity of both divine grace and human faith. The former is clear in that it is Yahweh who “directs” (tzawah) his “steadfast love” (chesed), sustaining the psalmist on his difficult journey.46 The latter is clear in that by “praying to God by day and singing
his praise at night he clings to the God who he imagines has forsaken him and chastises him.”47 Here
then is real faith in God; a faith that so grasps the promise of God that it sings God’s praise through the darkest night of the soul. It even celebrates his presence in the midst of the experience of his absence.48
It is, thus, a faith that gives rise to hope: the hope that the psalmist “will yet praise him” (42:5; 11; 43:5). But what is especially instructive is that such a song of hope takes the form of lament. This reveals something of the link between lament and praise (a link to which we will return) and the way in which the singing of grief leads to the strengthening of hope. It also shows how the articulation of hope frees the believer to genuinely grieve. As Verhey writes: “It is not just that we are not to mourn as those who have no hope. It is rather that hope mourns.”49 The song of lament that genuinely grieves before God’s
gracious throne powerfully exercises the muscles of hope: hope that our sovereign and merciful God will yet deliver us from evil and restore us to unhindered praise. It is, therefore, precisely the kind of song that God’s afflicted children must sing and sing again.