Coleman said the Babylonian Exile or Captivity clearly had a punitive aim. “God was punishing the people for their sin, rebellion and idolatry,” he said.

The only one out of 150 psalms to be set in a particular time and place, it relates to the Babylonian Exile—the period between 587 and 586 B.C. in Israel’s history, when Jews were taken ...

On the anniversary of America’s independence, the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass made a biblical Psalm – Psalm 137 – best known for its opening line, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” a centerpiece ...