But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan 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?
- BSB How can we sing a song of the LORD in a foreign 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?
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 22:12In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth:
- Amos 8:3The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
- Hos 9:4They won’t pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into Yahweh’s house.
- Lam 5:14–15The elders have ceased from the gate, The young men from their music.
- Isa 49:21Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has conceived these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children, and am solitary, an exile, and wandering back and forth? Who has brought these up? Behold, I was left alone. Where were these?’”
- 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.