The melody bears a strong resemblance to " How Dry I Am". It is one of a few pop songs whose lyrics come directly from the Bible (see also " Turn! Turn! Turn!" by Pete Seeger, " 40" by U2, and " The Lord's Prayer" by Sister Janet Mead).
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight. The song also has words from Psalm 19:14: The namesake rivers of Babylon (in present-day Iraq) are the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Now how shall we sing the L ORD's song in a strange land? They carried us away in captivity requiring of us a song.
Rivers of babylon sublime free#
The southern Kingdom of Judah (hence the name Jews), home of the tribe of Judah and part of the tribe of Levi, was free from foreign domination until the Babylonian conquest to which Rivers of Babylon refers.īy the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. The song is based on the Biblical Psalm 137:1-4, a hymn expressing the lamentations of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC: Previously the Kingdom of Judah, after being united under Kings David and Solomon, had been split in two, with the Kingdom of Israel in the north, conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC which caused the dispersion of 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel.
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