The psalm forms a regular part of liturgy in Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and other Protestant traditions.

In its whole form of nine verses, the psalm reflects the yearning for Jerusalem as well as hatred for the Holy City's enemies with sometimes violent imagery.

Rabbinical sources attributed the poem to the prophet Jeremiah,[4] and the Septuagint version of the psalm bears the superscription: "For David.

"[5] The early lines of the psalm describe the sadness of the Israelites in exile, while remembering their homeland, weeping and hanging their harps on trees.

Driven from their native country, stripped of every comfort and convenience, in a strange land among idolaters, wearied and broken-hearted, they sit in silence by those hostile waters."

[6] In verses 5–6 the speaker turns into self-exhortation to remember Jerusalem: The psalm ends with prophetic predictions of violent revenge.

[7] Verses 5 and 6 are customarily said by the groom at Jewish wedding ceremony shortly before breaking a glass as a symbolic act of mourning over the destruction of the Temple.

[11] In following the Rule of Saint Benedict (530 AD), the Catholic Church had Super flumina Babylonis set in the Roman Breviary for Vespers on Wednesdays.

[14] After the Second Vatican Council, the last three verses of the psalm were deleted from liturgical books because their graphic cruelty was seen as incompatible with the Gospel message.

[16] In Lutheranism, a well-known hymn based on the psalm has been associated with a Gospel reading in which Jesus foretells and mourns the Destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41–48).

The hymnwriter John L. Bell comments alongside his own setting of this Psalm: "The final verse is omitted in this metricization, because its seemingly outrageous curse is better dealt with in preaching or group conversation.

"[18] Latin settings ("Super flumina Babylonis") as four-part motets were composed by Costanzo Festa,[19] Nicolas Gombert,[20] Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina[21] and Orlando Lassus.

[29][30] A manuscript written in the early 17th century and a 1660s print illustrate that Dachstein's version of the psalm was adopted in Ashkenazi culture.

[30][34] Schütz also set Luther's prose translation of Psalm 137 ("An den Wassern zu Babel", SWV 37, included in the Psalmen Davids, Op.

Another German translation was set by Ferruccio Busoni ("An Babylons Wassern wir weinten" in Zwei hebräische Melodien von Lord Byron, BV 202, 1884).