There We Wept When We Remembered Zion
It is
not often that history preserves a memorable record of the sorrow of a people
captured and exiled from their own country. Too often the trials of the
conquered are eventually forgotten just as the American Indians were. Their
survival is often unaccounted for because the exiles may become assimilated
among the conquering peoples.
I am fascinated by the enduring power of
the Reggae song, By the Rivers of Babylon which has been recorded several times since it first came out in
1970, especially intrigued because the ancient history of the Jewish people is
preserved in the lyric. The Jamaican composers, Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of
the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians used
versions of the ancient Psalms 137 and 19 to write their song. The Psalms come out of the Jewish religious
tradition, composed by “the psalmist” when the people were exiled from Israel
and taken into captivity by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. After seventy years in
Babylon, the survivors were granted clemency by the Persian Emperor, Cyrus the
Great, when he conquered Babylon. They were allowed to return to Israel, “the
promised land,” where they rebuilt their Temple.
This song of exile found in the Psalms was adopted by Jamaicans who were
enslaved by the British during the era of colonization. Like many Africans, they were deported to
foreign countries as slaves to white owners. Some Jamaicans, perhaps up to 5% of
the population, became a group known as Rastafarians, named after Ras Tafari,
Emperor Haile Selassie I, their hero and deity.
Rastafarians regard 'Ethiopia' as their homeland and therefore like the
ancient Jews of Israel, also believe themselves exiled. The Rastas regard their
island nation of Jamaica as a hell on earth. 'Ethiopia', the homeland, a place
of fond memories of freedom and life prior to oppression, has assumed the aspect
of Heaven, not a place in the sky, but a heavenly paradise on Earth. They
cherish the expectation of eventually leaving Jamaica to return to
Africa. Read here for more info.
Much
of the appeal of the song, a reason it is recorded over and over again, is the
“By the rivers of Babylon, where we sat down,
And there we wept when we remembered Zion.
And there we wept when we remembered Zion.
Oh the wicked carried us away, captivity required from us
a song.
How can we sing King Alpha’s song in a strange
land?
So let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our
hearts
Be acceptable in thy sight, over I.”
Here is the original Psalm 137:
“By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we
remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors
demanded songs of joy;
they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
while in a foreign
land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its
skill.
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.”
The last two lines of the Rastafarian song come from a different text,
Psalm 19:14. “Over I” is not
recognizable to me as being from the Bible, “Lord Jehovah,” being perhaps a
close translation. The Rastas
address God as “Jah,” a name given to God in Psalm 68:4 which reads, "Sing unto
God, sing praises to His name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his
name Jah, and rejoice in him."
In
relation to Jah and the Rastas' identification as children of Jah, see Psalm
82:6: "I said, 'Ye are gods'; ye are sons of the Most High" (KJV) which provides
the biblical basis for Rastas' claim to their own divinity as followers of Jah.
Rastas are sparks of the divine. (from Tuning Hebrew Psalms to Reggae Rhythms, an article by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell.)
This song
demonstrates the power and universal appeal that music can have. Its enduring
popularity is a result of how eloquently it speaks for the cause of the
oppressed and displaced. We in America might remember the plight of the Cherokee
Indians, famously removed from their homes and driven along the Trail of Tears
to reservation lands in Oklahoma. Songwriters have attempted to commemorate the
exile of the Cherokees in a memorable song known to all (such as the rock-pop
song “Cherokee Nation,” of the sixties sung by Paul Revere and the Raiders) but
they have not been as successful as the Melodians were with By the Rivers of Babylon. However, like
the Israelites, the Cherokee too have survived as a tribe both in Oklahoma and
even in their original East Coast homelands.
