Though there is no title prefixed to this beautiful psalm, and no direct intimation as to the occasion on which it was composed, yet there can be no doubt as to the circumstances in which it was written. There is, indeed, no mention of the name of the author, and no possibility of recovering that name now, but there can be no doubt that it was composed by one of the exiles in Babylon - one who had witnessed and shared the sufferings of the exiles there, and who had also a lively recollection of the wrongs done to Jerusalem when it was attacked and destroyed by its foes. The writer was a Jew to the heart's core; an "Hebrew of the Hebrews;" embodying and expressing in this short psalm all that there was which was special in Hebrew feeling, patriotism, devotion. Nowhere else in a short compass is so much Judaism - so much Jewish piety - to be found concentrated as in this psalm. There is grief at their lonely and desolate condition in Babylon; profound and submissive silence in the midst of their troubles; indignation that they should be taunted and derided by their captors; a strong - earnest - supreme love for their native land; deep resentment at the remembrance of the many wrongs done to Jerusalem when it was destroyed; and an earliest invocation to God that he would remember those wrongs alike in relation to Edom and Babylon, and treat those wrong-doers as they deserved. It would seem most probable that the psalm was composed soon after the return from Babylon, and before the temple was finished - while the ruins of the city caused by the Edomites and Babylonians were visible everywhere. The combined remembrance of the insults in Babylon, and of the wrong done to the city at its capture, animates the poet, and fills his mind with this deep and burning indignation.

The desolate and afflicted state of the captives in Babylon, Psalm 137:1, Psalm 137:2. How they were insulted by their enemies, Psalm 137:3, Psalm 137:4. Their attachment to their country, Psalm 137:5, Psalm 137:6. Judgments denounced against their enemies, Psalm 137:7-9.
The Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic, say, ridiculously enough, a Psalm of David for Jeremiah. Anachronisms with those who wrote the titles to the Psalm were matters of no importance. Jeremiah never was at Babylon; and therefore could have no part in a Psalm that was sung on the banks of its rivers by the Israelitish captives. Neither the Hebrew nor Chaldee has any title; the Syriac attributes it to David. Some think it was sung when they returned from Babylon; others, while they were there. It is a matter of little importance. It was evidently composed during or at the close of the captivity.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 137
The occasion of this psalm was the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, and the treatment they met with there; either as foreseen, or as now endured. Aben Ezra ascribes this psalm to David; and so the Syriac version, which calls it,
"a psalm of David; the words of the saints, who were carried captive into Babylon.''
The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Ethiopic versions, make it to be David's, and yet add the name of Jeremiah; and the Arabic version calls it David's, concerning Jeremiah: but, as Theodoret observes, Jeremiah was not carried into Babylon, but, after some short stay in or near Jerusalem, was forced away into Egypt; and could neither be the writer nor subject of this psalm: and though it might be written by David under a spirit of prophecy; who thereby might foresee and foretell the Babylonish captivity, and what the Jews would suffer in it; as the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah did, many years before it came to pass; yet it seems rather to have been written by one of the captivity, either while in it, or immediately after it.

(Psalm 137:1-4) The Jews bewail their captivity.
(Psalm 137:5-9) Their affection for Jerusalem.

By the Rivers of Babylon
The Hallelujah Ps 135 and the Hodu Ps 136 are followed by a Psalm which glances back into the time of the Exile, when such cheerful songs as they once sang to the accompaniment of the music of the Levites at the worship of God on Mount Zion were obliged to be silent. It is anonymous. The inscription Τῷ Δαυίδ (διὰ) Ἱιερεμίου found in codices of the lxx, which is meant to say that it is a Davidic song coming from the heart of Jeremiah,
(Note: Reversely Ellies du Pin (in the preface of his Bibliotque des Auteurs Ecclsiastiques) says: Le Pseaume 136 porte le nom de David et de Jeremie, ce qu'il faut apparement entendre ainsi: Pseaume de Jeremie fait l'imitation de David.)
is all the more erroneous as Jeremiah never was one of the Babylonian exiles.
The שׁ, which is repeated three times in Psalm 136:8., corresponds to the time of the composition of the Psalm which is required by its contents. It is just the same with the paragogic i in the future in Psalm 136:6. But in other respects the language is classic; and the rhythm, at the beginning softly elegiac, then more and more excited, and abounding in guttural and sibilant sounds, is so expressive that scarcely any Psalm is so easily impressed on the memory as this, which is so pictorial even in sound.
The metre resembles the elegiac as it appears in the so-called caesura schema of the Lamentations and in the cadence of Isaiah 16:9-10, which is like the Sapphic strophe. Every second lien corresponds to the pentameter of the elegiac metre.