How can we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign land?
Parallel translations
- WEB How can we sing Yahweh’s song in a foreign land?
- KJV How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?
- NKJV How shall we sing the Lord’s song In a foreign land?
- NASB ¶How can we sing the Lord’s song In a foreign land?
- NLT But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The exiles ask how they could sing Yahweh's song in a foreign land.
Overview
This anguished question expresses the impossibility of joyful worship under captivity and mockery. The songs of Zion were bound up with God's presence and His city, not to be sung lightly in exile. The longing here points to the day when God's people will sing freely in His presence, a hope secured in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Isa 22:12On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Amos 8:3“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”
- Hos 9:4They will not pour out wine offerings to the LORD, and their sacrifices will not please Him, but will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat will be defiled. For their bread will be for themselves; it will not enter the house of the LORD.
- Lam 5:14–15The elders have left the city gate; the young men have stopped their music.
- Isa 49:21Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. So who has reared them? Look, I was left all alone, so where did they come from?’”
- Eccl 3:4a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 137:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.