telling the story ~ exile
Composition version: no.
lyrics
by the waters of Babylon
how can we smile
how can we sing
[how can we live]
in this land of exile?
rebuild the house
the house of the Lord
but most of us
still scattered abroad
in this land of exile
in this land of exile
in this land exile
we are not home
narrative
By the waters of Babylon, wrote the Psalmist, we hung up our harps. Our captors tormented us to sing songs of our homeland - but how could we, when it lay in ruins, and we were banished from it?
The Bible has a recurring theme of dislocation - a form of alienation. Just as Adam and Eve were alienated both from one another and from God when they rebelled, so too they were dis-located from the garden that had been their home.
And so, similarly, with the expulsion from the promised land, Canaan, Israel was dislocated. They were alienated from the promises God had given; alienated from the place of blessing they had known. They were not home.