USB ~ Psalms 120

Prayer of a Returned Exile

1 A song of ascents.† The LORD answered me when I called in my distress: a

2 LORD, deliver my soul from lying lips, from a treacherous tongue. b

3 What will he inflict on you, O treacherous tongue, and what more besides?†

4 A warrior’s arrows sharpened with coals of brush wood!† c

5 † Alas, I am a foreigner in Meshech, I live among the tents of Kedar!

6 Too long do I live among those who hate peace.

7 When I speak of peace, they are for war. d Psalm 120 A thanksgiving, reporting divine rescue (Ps 120:1) yet with fervent prayer for further protection against lying attackers (Ps 120:2-4). The psalmist is acutely conscious of living away from God’s own land where divine peace prevails (Ps 120:5-7).

Footnotes

†. 120:1 A song of ascents: Ps 120-134 all begin with this superscription. Most probably these fifteen Psalms once formed a collection of Psalms sung when pilgrims went to Jerusalem, since one “ascended” to Jerusalem (1 Kgs 12:28; Ps 24:3; 122:4; Lk 2:42) or to the house of God or to an altar (1 Kgs 12:33; 2 Kgs 23:2; Ps 24:3). Less probable is the explanation that these Psalms were sung by the exiles when they “ascended” to Jerusalem from Babylonia (cf. Ezr 7:9). The idea, found in the Mishnah, that the fifteen steps on which the Levites sang corresponded to these fifteen Psalms (Middot 2:5) must underlie the Vulgate translation canticum graduum*, “song of the steps” or “gradual song.”

†. 120:3 More besides: a common curse formula in Hebrew was “May the Lord do such and such evils to you the evils being specified, and add still more to them,” cf. 1 Sm 3:17; 14:44; 25:22. Here the psalmist is at a loss for a suitable malediction.

†. 120:4 Coals of brush wood: coals made from the stalk of the broom plant burn with intense heat. The psalmist thinks of lighted coals cast at his enemies.

†. 120:5 Meshech was in the far north (Gn 10:2) and Kedar was a tribe of the north Arabian desert (Gn 25:13). The psalmist may be thinking generally of all aliens living among inhospitable peoples.

120:1 Jon 2:3.
120:2 Ps 12:3-5; Sir 51:3.
120:4 Ps 11:6; 140:11; Prv 16:27.
120:7 Ps 35:20; 140:3-4.