used to be on top. They used to have the power. They used to rule.
But then, nothing.
They blew it.
They had wealth and influence and peace and blessing, but they lost it. They forgot their God, they neglected the widow and the orphan and the refugee, and everything fell apart.
In exile, however, they turned their pain into poetry.
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered [Jerusalem]. There on the poplars we hung our harps, . . . our tormentors demanded songs of joy. . . . How can we sing . . . while in a foreign land?”1
They hung up their harps.
Harps were played in the temple area when worshipers came to Jerusalem to honor God and give offerings. The harp was an instrument of joy and celebration. People played the harp because they had reason to praise God.
The harp was a sound you heard when life was good.
But the Israelites are not in Jerusalem anymore; they’re in Babylon.
Where they hang up their harps. And they weep. They cry out. In Babylon.
And what happens when people cry out? In Egypt, the cry kick-started redemption. In Egypt they cried out in their slavery, and God heard their cry and did something about it.
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