This world is Babylon—the world in rebellion against the Lord. It presses in on us constantly, trying to squeeze us into its mould. It may seem like God is absent, that he has been ousted by the more powerful gods of Babylon—not Marduk, Ishtar and Adad any longer, but Self, Equality and Freedom. We may find ourselves asking the same question that the exiles asked by the Euphrates River as we are mocked for our out-dated beliefs: ‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?’ How can I live for God in the twenty-first century USA?

Can you picture the scene? A group of Jewish exiles have gathered for their daily catch-up by the banks of the Euphrates river at the end of another working day. Everywhere they look are reminders that they don’t belong in this pagan, alien land. Man-made pyramids, called ziggurats, with temples to false gods like Marduk, Ishtar and Adad look down on them. The Sabbath day is unknown and desecrated every week. They are hundreds of miles from their promised land. Many of their loved ones are dead back in Judah. The king’s own sons had been slaughtered in front of him before being blinded taken captive, to end his days tormented by that last horror he ever saw. Other members of the royal family were made eunuchs to serve in the king’s palace. Three tidal waves of destruction swept over Judah altogether, over the course of twenty years. When they closed their eyes they could still see the massacre of their people by Babylonian soldiers, hear the screams that were suddenly cut short by Babylonian steel, and smell the smoke from the fire that engulfed the royal palace, every important building in Jerusalem and above all the holy Temple of the Lord. They could still see the gloating, arrogant soldiers carrying the sacred vessels of the Temple—how dare they pollute those holy things with their unclean hands! Why didn’t God strike them down as he struck down Uzzah all those centuries ago for daring to touch the ark?

All these memories must have been replayed over and over whenever the wretched exiles in Babylon met, as they multiplied their grief by sharing their stories of anguish day by day. The Babylonians showed no sympathy however. Perhaps they came to the Euphrates to gloat or mock or rub salt in the wounds of these devastated captives. Perhaps they were just oblivious to their pain. Either way it was a torture to the exiles. ‘There our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”’

But the people had no heart for singing the psalms of their homeland while their homeland was in ruins and they themselves were captives in a foreign land. Instead, by the rivers of Babylon, they sat and wept as they remembered Zion. Their instruments hung on the trees untouched.

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