The Trees : By the Rivers of Babylon

Psalm 137 ( KJV )

 ¹By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

 ²We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

 ³For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;

and they that wasted us required of us mirth,

saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

 ⁴How shall we sing the LORD's song in a strange land?

 ⁵If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

 ⁶If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;

if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

 ⁷Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem;

who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

 ⁸O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed;

happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

 ⁹Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

1611’s KJV and a lot of other bible translations ( ASV, CEV, Darby, ESV, GNT, NASV, Wycliffe, etc ) refer the tree as ‘willow’, apparently influenced by ancient Latin translations.

Salix babylonica ( Babylon willow, Peking willow or 垂柳 ) is a species of willow native to dry areas of northern China.  It was planted along the famous ancient trade route - the  Silk Road, which began c.200 BC.  It is subsequently introduced to Europe via middle East.

It was described and named by Carolus Linnaeus in 1736, when he encountered the species in Hartekamp, of The Netherlands. 

Linnaeus thought that this species was the tree described in the Bible’s 137^th Psalm.  Thus he named it  Salix babylonica, as well as its common name ‘Babylon willow’.   The genus name Salix is from the Latin word ‘salicibus’ which is the dative plural of ‘salix’, means ‘willow’, from the 1592’s Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.     

The actual tree that were growing along the Eupharates River of Babylon of Mesopotamia ( Modern Iraq ) during that time ( c.580 BC ) was actually gharab ( Hebrew ), the Euphrates poplar ( Populus euphratica ).  It has the same willow-like leaves on drooping shoots.  

Thus in a handful of bible translations, such as 1984’s NIV, NLT, and Holman Christian Standard Bible, the tree’s name is corrected to ‘poplars’, which is more botanically accurate.  

2002’s The Message translation, however, refers it to ‘quaking aspen’, the Populus tremuloides.  P.tremuloides is native to North America, which is very unlikely that it’s the tree on the banks of River of Babylon.