NEW Jerome Biblical Commentary

Dominick Sela said:

The Bible Speaks Today:New Testament

The contributor to BST is a different Raymond Brown.  This Raymond Brown "was formerly principal of Spurgeon's College in London, England, and he has also served in several pastorates."

I wish Logos had it in their library also. It is an excellent publication.

I agree - that, the Navarre bible commenatries along with the Catechism (CCC) would make for a great learning experience.

-Ted

I consider the print New Jerome one of my "go to" resources (and I am a baptist).

[Y]

Yes, I'd love to have this volume in here as well.  Hopefully they'll get to work on it!

I know this is likely pointless and perhaps bit meaningless, but I thought I would compare the 3 modern  catholic one volume commentary's i have in logos even though the JBC is no longer available. I don't feel like running over to my desk to compare my hard copy of NJBC to see how similar the JBC/NJBC are. But this small comparison may give you some insight on other options Logos has for you.

Ps 137. A lament of the community. Structure: 1-3, a flash-back to earlier experiences in the Exile; 4-6, an imprecation on one who would forget Jerusalem; 7-9, an imprecation on the destroyers of Jerusalem. 1. streams of Babylon: Countless irrigation canals from the Tigris and Euphrates watered the Babylonian plain. It is hard to escape the impression that these are personal memories that are being recalled; if so, the prayer is to be dated in the Exile. Kraus argues that the poet recalls liturgical commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem3. The request of the “captors” here fulfills the same function as the frequent question motif in the lament: “Where is your God?” (e.g., Ps 79:10). The “songs of Zion” has been adopted as a literary classification of Pss 76, 84, etc.4. The question implies that the “foreign” land is unclean as well as hostile.5-6. While delivering this imprecation, he is at the same time singing a song of Zion! The reference to “hand” and “tongue” is in view of harp and song. be forgotten: So MT; a slight change of consonants yields “dry up,” a reading preferred by some scholars.7. Edom ravaged Judah with the fall of Jerusalem (Lam 4:21; Ob 8, 15).9. This brutal practice was an accepted part of ancient warfare (Hos 10:14; 14:1; Na 3:10), and it is merely a bold cliche; for the usual horrors of war (→ 18 above).

Brown, R. E., Fitzmyer, J. A., & Murphy, R. E. (1996). The Jerome Biblical commentary (Ps 137:1–9). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Psalm 137

This lament (A) was sung by the community in Babylon during the exile of the sixth century. In verses 1–3 Israel is engaged in a liturgical rite of lament. The lyres for joyful song hang unused nearby. The captors’ question, “Sing for us the songs of Zion,” are like other taunting questions in the Bible, such as “Where now is your God?” How can Israel sing songs of Zion, such as Psalms 46, 48, and 76, which speak of Zion as impregnable and its inhabitants as happy and safe? In verses 4–6 the singer swears never to lose hope in Zion; the Zion songs will ever be sung. Verse 7 wishes annihilation upon Edom, a country to the east of Judah that raided Jerusalem during the Exile. In verses 8–9, appalling to the modern reader, Babylon, the archetypal enemy of God, is to be eradicated; its children, therefore, are to be killed.

Bergant, D., & Karris, R. J. (1989). The Collegeville Bible commentary: Based on the New American Bible with revised New Testament (783). Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.

§ h 136 (137)—The only Ps that unmistakably speaks of the Babylonian Exile. It was composed during or soon after the Captivity. Gathered together on the banks of Babylon’s streams (probably for ceremonial ablutions) the captives, with tears in their eyes, remember Sion. Their musical instruments, that once accompanied Pss in the temple, now hang silent on the poplar trees (1–2). How impossible to sing a hymn to Yahweh on a foreign soil! (3–4). Cursed be the hand and tongue of any exile who should forget Sion! (5–6). May God bear in mind the savage cruelty of the Edomites on the day of Jerusalem’s downfall; may vengeance come upon the Babylonians who have taken Israel into captivity (7–9).

5. ‘my right hand be forgotten’: become paralysed and unable to play on the harp. 6. ‘cleave to my palate’, and so be unable to sing Pss any more. 7. For the hostility of the Edomites towards their Hebrew kinsmen see Is 34:5–15; Jer 49:7–22, etc. 9. ‘The cruelty mentioned in the text was common in wars of those times. It was not regarded as unjust. It was a right, or rather an intolerable abuse, authorized by custom and recognized by either side of the combatants. We find it in Os 14:1 and in Homer, Iliad, XII’ (Calmet).

Bird, T. E. (1953). The Psalms. In D. B. Orchard & E. F. Sutcliffe (Eds.), A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (D. B. Orchard & E. F. Sutcliffe, Ed.) (471–472). Toronto;New York;Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson.

Just a little comparison on one small psalm. Needless to say all 3 leave a lot to be desired but there is no perfect one volume commentary out there unfortunately. 

-Dan

PS: A 4th that is available but not specifically catholic, but covering all books in the Catholic canon is Haper's Bible Commentary.

Psalm 137.

 Psalm 137, a communal lament, closest of all to a funeral dirge, may be divided between vv. 1-4, lamenting the impossibility of chanting songs honoring Jerusalem in enemy lands and vv. 5-9, first lamenting the holy city destroyed before one’s eyes and then cursing the two great enemies, Babylon, which burned Jerusalem to the ground (2 Kings 25) and Edom, which looted the countryside afterward (Obad. 8-15; Isa. 63:1-6). The psalm was written with the same agony as present in Isa. 63:7-64:11, between 537 and 520 B.C., perhaps by a repatriated singer from the guild of Asaph (Ezra 2:41; Ps. 79).

Ps. 137:1-4 begins with a contrast of “rivers of Babylon” and the stream of one’s tears (Ps. 42:4), between remembering and forgetting (137:1, 5, 6, 7). The tormentors who ask, “Where is your God?” (Pss. 79:10; 115:2) hardly want a song to this God. “Songs of Zion” may dictate the placement of this psalm here, after the Zion songs in Psalms 120-134, 135-136. (For curse psalms, see the commentary above on Ps. 69; and for atrocities of war, expressed in the metaphor of dashing children against city walls, Hos. 14:1; Nah. 3:10.) The metaphor expressed the capture of an enemy city, at which time defenders, born within the city, were frequently overwhelmed and killed by the assaulting troops.

Harper’s Bible commentary. 1988 (J. L. Mays, Ed.) (490–491). San Francisco: Harper & Row.