Psalms 120
120
God Helped Me
A song of the stairway # 120 Psalms 120–134 all begin with the words “A song to take you higher” or “A song of ascent” or “A song of the stairway.” It is likely these fifteen songs were sung on the fifteen steps that would take the worshiper into the temple. On each step they would stop to worship and sing the corresponding psalm as they went up ever higher into the temple to worship God. Others believe they were the songs sung as David brought up the ark of glory to Jerusalem. They are also known as “Songs of Degrees” or “Songs of Ascent.” One Hebrew manuscript titles them “Songs of the Homeward Marches.”
1I was desperate for you to help me in my struggles, and you did!
2So come and deliver me now
from this treachery and false accusation.
3O lying deceivers, don’t you know what is your fate?
4You will be pierced through with condemnation
and consumed with burning coals of fire!
5Why am I doomed to live as an alien,
scattered among these cruel savages? # 120:5 The Hebrew text includes the word Meshech, which is a foreign land. The meaning of the word Meshech is “to scatter” and may refer to ancient Persia.
Am I destined to dwell in the darkened tents of desert nomads? # 120:5 The Hebrew text includes the word Kedar, who was one of Ishmael’s sons, whose descendants became a wandering group of nomads. Kedar means “a dark place.” See Song. 1:5.
6For too long I’ve had to live among those who hate peace.
7I speak words of peace while they speak words of war,
but they refuse to listen.
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Psalms 120: TPT
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Learn More About The Passion TranslationPsalms 120
120
Prayer of a Returned Exile
1A song of ascents.#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.”
The Lord answered me
when I called in my distress:#Jon 2:3.
2Lord, deliver my soul from lying lips,
from a treacherous tongue.#Ps 12:3–5; Sir 51:3.
3What will he inflict on you,
O treacherous tongue,
and what more besides?#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.
4A warrior’s arrows
sharpened with coals of brush wood!#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.#Ps 11:6; 140:11; Prv 16:27.
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.Alas, I am a foreigner in Meshech,
I live among the tents of Kedar!
6Too long do I live
among those who hate peace.
7When I speak of peace,
they are for war.#Ps 35:20; 140:3–4.
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