Songs of Ascent- Psalm 120

Cards on the table. The Psalms are not really my thing. Even in poetry, I prefer narrative to lyric. So I’m not going to rely entirely on my own conclusions, but I’ll separate out my own observations (in this first post) from what I find in Weiser’s commentary.

“In my distress, I cry to the Lord, that he may answer me” (v1).
Many of the Psalms have an “I” speaking, which makes it easier to apply them to personal use.
But it’s worth remembering that they were collected as congregational psalms. When the psalmist says that he is in trouble, surrounded by his enemies, the speaker may have been David, in the first instance, perhaps from the time of his flight from Saul.

Frequently, on the other hand, the whole congregation is the speaker. That is, the nation. When the nation is in trouble, surrounded by their enemies, they may appeal to the Lord, speaking as “I” when they mean “we”. “Israel” is represented by one person, their father Jacob, and may pray as one person.

“Deliver me, O lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue” (v2).
That is, from the lying lips and deceitful tongues of their enemies, as we see from the rest of the psalm.
This is not an appeal to be delivered from their own sinfulness.

“What shall be given to you? And what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue?” (v3)
Why are their enemies attacking them with tongues instead of weapons? My guess is that all this relates to the friction between different nations held under a single political control, probably the Persian empire. Then hostile neighbours would express their hostility by complaining to the central authority, as in the book of Nehemiah, and of course they would be overstating their case.

“A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree!” (v4)
Hopefully the hostile neighbours will find themselves in trouble instead. The king will send his army against them. “Glowing coals” implies fire-arrows, of the kind used by an army besieging a city.

“Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!” (v5)
Meshech is in the highlands of the north (they are part of the coalition that follows Gog of the land of Magog). Kedar is northern Arabia. In what sense are the Israelites “sojourning amongst” both of them?
The time of the Babylonian exile? But surely not distributed so widely.
Is it that these peoples have been brought under the one political umbrella of the empire, a reluctant “family”, so that they squabble with each other in the way described earlier?
Or is it the simple fact that all these people dwell in the Middle East, so that they spend centuries bumping into each other in warfare?

“Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!” (vv6-7)
This could be the whole story of Israel’s history.

To me, all this is in the wrong order.
Vv5-7 are about the bad situation, so that’s the logical starting-point.
Vv1-2 are complaining to the Lord about the bad situation.
Vv3-4 are about the resolution of the problem.
But if the bad situation is ongoing, it may be reasonable to come back to it at the end.

The above are my own independent thoughts on the psalm. Having got that far, I will now open up the commentary bought a couple of years ago, discover (probably) a number of insights which haven’t occurred to me, and add them here.

Psalm 120 is the first of the psalms called “Songs of Ascent”, perhaps because the Levites would sing them as they went up the temple steps, or because they were sung by pilgrims to Jerusalem climbing up the hill road.

He calls the psalm “a testimony written after the prayer has been granted”.

He suggests that v2 is about people who have broken a peace-keeping oath, so that they earn God’s vengeance.

The two metaphors in v4 add up to “murder and fire”- that is, the same thing as “death and destruction”. In other psalms, the tongue is frequently compared with an arrow. “These metaphors indicate that the false word uttered in the oath redounds upon the perjurer, just as the treacherous arrow hits the archer himself, and the lie destroys the liar by its consuming fire.”

The speaker regrets that for such a long time he has had house-fellowship with his treacherous adversaries. Meshech and Kedar are too widely separated for “dwelling amongst” to be a literal statement.

V7; The literal translation is “I am peace”.
This (former) lament is presented at the end as a sign of the experience of answered prayer.
“This makes the psalm a testimony to the greatness of the divine help and righteousness, which is able to accomplish what is impossible with men, and grants to a man’s soul that peace of which he has been robbed by men and which the world cannot give.”

On second thoughts, I’ve also got a (condensed) edition of Matthew Henry, so let’s throw him into the mix as well.

This interpretation identifies the speaker as David. “There were those who had sought his ruin and had almost effected it. They flattered him that they might without suspicion carry on their designs against him. They smiled in his face and kissed him, even while they were aiming to smite him under the fifth rib. David was herein a type of Christ.”

The liars “set God at a distance from them, but from afar his arrows can reach them…. His wrath is compared to burning coals of juniper, which… have a vehement heat, and keep fire very long even after they appear to be gone out.”

David in his banishment dwells among a rude and barbarous people, not literally those of Meshech and Kedar but like them. Or else it refers to his life at Saul’s court, among people who hate him and hate peace. He looks upon himself as a sojourner, never at home. “A good man cannot think of himself as at home while he is banished from God’s ordinances.”

[P.S. If anyone is curious about the choice between “broom” and “juniper”;
Juniper is a coniferous tree (I’ve got one).
Broom is a desert shrub.
The Biblehub Interlinear site agrees with the translation “broom”.]

a reply to: DISRAELI

Very long thread, and all cards on the table, I just read your first paragraph, but it was enough to illicit a quick comment. I believe that the psalms were written in the first person narrative, such as whole or in part by David. So when David is singing to The Lord about being surrounded by his enemies, that is a literal speaking of his actual situation. However, it's passed on to the faithful to assume that same first person plea in each of us. In our own way we have been surrounded by our enemies, the enemy, and sharing in that plight with such a great man of God (literally the lineage of Christ) allows for us to call upon The Lord with the same passion and plight as he who penned the words...

a reply to: DISRAELI

Oh, incidentally since this is your first post, I'm both your first respondent and first flag. Nice!

a reply to: TheMirrorSelf
I'm afraid you misunderstood" first post", deceived partly by the ambiguity of the word. In ATS usage, each individual contribution within a thread is known as a "post". I started this thread with three such posts, and "first post" simply meant the first of the three.

Once you learn to explore the member stats on the left-hand side of their posts, and to explore their profiles, you will realise that I have many posts and flags to my credit. But I understand that you were trying to be nice, and I forgive you the misunderstanding.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Oh! Ha! Roger, I see now by looking left what you mean. Oh well. By the way, I wasn't trying to be nice, I was trying to be funny...I suspect neither worked.