What is the context?
The speakers sit by Babylon’s rivers and weep over Zion. Their captors demand songs of the place they have lost, making entertainment out of grief.
The harps are hung up, and the question asks how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land. A solemn vow refuses to forget Jerusalem.
The refusal belongs to coerced performance and remembered loss. It should not be turned into a rule that God cannot be worshiped outside one country.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Wesley connects the requested songs with Zion’s worship and the vow with Jerusalem’s priority. His reading should not be expanded into a prohibition on every song offered by faithful people living elsewhere.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
John 4:19–26 develops the wider question of worship beyond a required mountain or Jerusalem through Jesus’ teaching about worship in Spirit and truth. John does not directly quote Psalm 137. The connection identifies the Christian horizon while leaving the captives’ resistance to humiliation intact.
What is our position?
We don't have a position on this passage yet. When our study reaches a conclusion the text supports, it will appear here.
Where can I study this further?
No deeper study linked yet.