Psalms 120King James Version

The first of the fifteen Songs of Ascents (120-134), possibly pilgrim songs sung as worshippers ascended to Jerusalem. This first one is a lament from exile: deliver me from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What will be done to you, false tongue? Sharp arrows with coals of juniper. Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar. My soul has long dwelt with those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

The pilgrimage to Jerusalem begins from a place of conflict and falsehood; the journey toward the holy city is simultaneously a journey away from the tents of those who cannot live in peace.

verse: "I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war." The statement of personal peaceable intent against the surrounding culture of aggression.

Superscription: 'A Song of degrees.' All fifteen Songs of Ascents (120-134) carry this designation. The pilgrimage setting explains the progression: beginning in distress (120) and ending in blessing and praise (134). The specific places named (Mesech, Kedar) indicate the farthest extremes of the known world.

The pilgrim-psalmist as the one afflicted by lying tongues; God addressed for deliverance; the deceitful tongue as the enemy; the inhabitants of Mesech and Kedar as the hostile environment.

Psalm 120 opens the fifteen Songs of Ascents (120-134), one of the Psalter's most unified collections. These 'psalms of degrees' were likely sung by pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem for the three pilgrimage feasts. Mesech and Kedar (v5) represent distant, hostile peoples; the psalmist is far from home. The collection moves from this distress toward full praise at the temple.

For when you live surrounded by people who interpret everything combatively. The psalm names the exhaustion of trying to maintain peace in a perpetually warlike environment.