Those who know the history of the Jewish people know that the terrible event of October 7, during which at least 1,163 Jews were murdered by Hamas terrorists was not unique.
Those who still grieve over the Holocaust and now over the recent losses are not the first or last to lament, nor are they the first or last to long for justice.
Israelites living in the sixth century B.C. faced a similar attack by the Babylonians, whose practices of war were as cruel as those employed by Hamas. Infants had their brains bashed out on rocks, men were taken as prisoners of war, and women were taken as hostages and raped. The first Temple was destroyed, and Jerusalem and its surrounding settlements were burned to the ground. Thousands of Jews were sent into exile, forced to live in Babylon. The intent was to ensure that never again would there be a Jewish homeland. The entire nation was to be extinguished and its people annihilated, either by death or through gradual absorption into the Babylonian culture.
An exile of those times ensured that the experiences of the exiles would not be forgotten. He wrote a lament that Jews and Christians alike know as Psalm 137.
1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget its skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
my highest joy.
7 Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
“Tear it down,” they cried,
“tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
happy is the one who repays you
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