The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

Stowe divides his volume into three parts that correspond to sections of the Psalm 137 itself. In part 1 (“History”), S. examines the first four verses, recalling the fifty years of exile after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e. Part 2 (“Memory”) promotes reflection on the psalm’s middle verses, often adopted by political movements invoking collective remembrance for purposes of social action. The third part (“Forgetting”) deals with the controversial and frankly rather off-putting final lines of Psalm 137. Nevertheless, all three parts of the book deal with two time periods. The first—the fifty or so years of exile beginning in 586 b.c.e.—is a time crucial not only to the emergence of Judaism but also to the production of the corpus of Hebrew Scriptures, whose shape was heavily influenced by the events of the exile. The second period consists of the several-thousand-year aftermath of the exile, in which the author describes how subsequent generations in cultures throughout the world have come to grips with Psalm 137.

In the section entitled “History,” S. considers Psalm 137 in terms of Babylonia in general and Nebuchadnezzar’s court in particular, examining the content and context of the writings attributed to Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah as they apply to the psalm. S. employs a sociological tool—a generational approach—to provide readers with an analytic lens through which to view the exile, thus delineating three distinct movements of forced migration. The initial group included both adults brought up in Judah and their children, for whom the migration was a life-shaping event. The group born in exile—the second generation—is the one most likely to assimilate, breaking with their heritage. The pendulum swings back with the third generation, which shows an interest in regaining some of its lost heritage

Stowe continually reminds readers that there must always be two exilic populations to consider: not only the group forced to migrate to Babylonia but also the Judeans who stayed behind. The Babylon group—the gôlâ—many of whom had to endure the hardships of forced corvee labor on various public works projects also included an elite corps groomed for court life. On the other hand, those who remained in Judah—the poorest of the subju-gated population—stayed behind to till the soil and tend the vines. Assailing the “empty land” hypothesis as a self-serving vehicle for the writers of history, the author refers to the region with only a small remnant of the peoplehood as “Templeless Judah,” wisely insisting that this population be carefully considered by anyone attempting serious scholarship of the exile. He observes that an adult who had lived through the destruction of the temple and subsequent forced migration and labor would have a decidedly different view of Babylonians than someone who grew up with no experience of the exile and who perhaps had even derived benefit from it. Then again, the author admonishes readers to avoid collapsing a series of distant historical events into a catchall category called “the exile,” making it abundantly clear that three distinct forced migrations took place. In the first (597 b.c.e.), Nebuchadnezzar invades Judah, bringing an elite group to Babylon while leaving Judah’s political structure intact. In the second event, the major conquest in 587–586, Nebuchadnezzar razes the temple and brings many of the Judean elite—priests, musicians, scribes, artisans, warriors—east to Babylonia. The third migration—the one involving Jeremiah— is a smaller event that does not happen until 582. Thus, the author finds multiple perspectives embedded in the psalm, which suggests the possibility of its composition centuries later in [End Page 696] response to the Roman subjugation of Israel. S. argues that the exile was probably a less traumatic rupture than subsequent generations suppose, maintaining that Jews were surprisingly well integrated into Babylon’s social and economic structures.

Parts 2 and 3 (“Memory” and “Forgetting”) deal...