Psalm 120

PSALM 120 [1]

Man of Peace

The Warrior (vv.1-4)

1 In my trouble I cried to the Yahweh,		And He answered me.
2 Deliver my soul, O Yahweh, from lying lips,		From a deceitful tongue.
3 What shall be given to you,	and what more shall be done to you,		You deceitful tongue? [2] [3]
4 Sharp arrows of the warrior,		With the burning coals of the broom tree.[4]

I am for peace (vv.5-7)

5 Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech,		For I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long has my soul had its dwelling		With those who hate peace.
7 I am for peace,	but when I speak,		They are for war. [5]

[1] Psalms 120-134 all have the heading “A Song of Ascents (ma˓ălâ)”. There are many connections between the fifteen Psalms in this collection and the Aaronic benediction in Numbers 6:24-25 which consists of fifteen words. It is probable that this was a collection of Psalms sung by pilgrims making their way up to Jerusalem,

“Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up (`alah) three times a year to appear before the Yahweh your God.” (Exodus 34:23-24; see also Ezra 7:9)

Other groupings of Psalms include the:

¨ Kingship Psalms: Psalms 93-100

¨ Egyptian Hallel: Psalms 113-118

¨ Hallelujah Psalms: Psalms 146-150

[2] The tongue is addressed as if it had ears.

[3] There are parallels between Psalm 120 and Nehemiah 6:1-14 (see Goulder, The Psalms of the Return: Book V, Psalms 107-150, 36ff.).

[4] Is verse 4 an answer to verse 3? In other words, is it a description of what will be given to the tongue? Or is verse 4 a description of the deceitful tongue?

[5] One of the chief characteristics of Hebrew poetry is repetition of words/phrases and one of the prominent forms of repetition in the Psalms is parallelism. The Songs of Ascent contain multiple examples of staircase parallelism (a.k.a. step parallelism, climactic parallelism, repetitive parallelism or anadiplosis; see also Psalm 121; 122; 126:1-3; 127; 134; cf. Genesis 7:17-20; Judges 5:11-12; Psalm 29:1-2; 92:10; 93:3-4; Isaiah 8:9-10; 17:12-14; Matthew 5:22; John 1:1-5; 1 Cor.15:51-58). The pattern of this parallelism is like ascending (or descending) stairs.

Psalm 120 contains three descending staircases linked together by the repeated words/synonyms in bold (although they could easily be combined into a single staircase),

Deliver my soul, O Yahweh, from lying lips (v.2)
From a deceitful tongue. (v.2)
What shall be given to you, and what more shall be You deceitful tongue? (v.3)

The second staircase pertains to the dwelling of the Psalmist:

Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech (v.5)
For I dwell among the tents of Kedar! (v.5b)
Too long has my soul had its dwelling (v.6a)

The third staircase ends in the “basement” of war:

Too long has my soul had its dwelling With those who hate peace (v.6)
I am for peace, but when I speak, (vv.7ab)
They are for war (v.7c)

The further away a person is from God, His house and His people the further they have descended. Instead of calling Psalm 120 a “song of ascent” it could be called a song of descent!