Psalm 120:1

A Song of degrees. In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

120:1-4 The psalmist was brought into great distress by a deceitful tongue. May every good man be delivered from lying lips. They forged false charges against him. In this distress, he sought God by fervent prayer. God can bridle their tongues. He obtained a gracious answer to this prayer. Surely sinners durst not act as they do, if they knew, and would be persuaded to think, what will be in the end thereof. The terrors of the Lord are his arrows; and his wrath is compared to burning coals of juniper, which have a fierce heat, and keep fire very long. This is the portion of the false tongue; for all that love and make a lie, shall have their portion in the lake that burns eternally.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In my distress - In my suffering, as arising from slander, Psalm 120:2-3. There are few forms of suffering more keen than those caused by slander:

"Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue

Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath

Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,

Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave

This viperous slander enters."

Cymbeline, iii.4.

It is one of those things which a man cannot guard against; which he cannot repel by force; whose origin he cannot always trace; which will go where a vindication will not follow; whose effects will live long after the slander is refuted; which will adhere to a man, or leave a trait of suspicion, even after the most successful vindication, for the effect will be to make a second slander more easily credited than the first was.

I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me - I had no other resource. I could not meet the slander. I could not refute it. I could not prevent its effects on my reputation, and all that I could do was to commit the case to the Lord. See the notes at Psalm 37:5-6.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

PSALM 120

Ps 120:1-7. This is the first of fifteen Psalms (Psalms 120-134) entitled "A Song of Degrees" (Ps 121:1—literally, "A song for the degrees"), or ascents. It seems most probable they were designed for the use of the people when going up (compare 1Ki 12:27, 28) to Jerusalem on the festival occasions (De 16:16), three times a year. David appears as the author of four, Solomon of one (Ps 127:1), and the other ten are anonymous, probably composed after the captivity. In this Psalm the writer acknowledges God's mercy, prays for relief from a malicious foe, whose punishment he anticipates, and then repeats his complaint.

The Treasury of David

1 In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.

2 Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.

3 What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?

4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.

5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!

6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.

7 I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

Psalm 120:1

"In my distress." Slander occasions distress of the most grievous kind. Those who have felt the edge of a cruel tongue know assuredly that it is sharper than the sword. Calumny rouses our indignation by a sense of injustice, and yet we find ourselves helpless to fight with the evil, or to act in our own defence. We could ward off the strokes of a cutlass, but we have no shield against a liar's tongue. We do not know who was the father of the falsehood, nor where it was born, nor where it has gone, nor how to follow it, nor how to stay its withering influence. We are perplexed, and know not which way to turn. Like the plague of flies in Egypt, it baffles opposition, and few can stand before it. Detraction touches us in the tenderest point, cuts to the quick, and leaves a venom behind which it is difficult to extract. In all ways it is a sore distress to come under the power of "slander, the foulest whelp of sin." Even in such distress we need not hesitate to cry unto the Lord. Silence to man and prayer to God are the best cures for the evil of slander.

"I cried unto the Lord" (or Jehovah). The wisest course that he could follow. It is of little use to appeal to our fellows on the matter of slander, for the more we stir in it the more it spreads; it is of no avail to appeal to the honour of the slanderers, for they have none, and the most piteous demands for justice will only increase their malignity and encourage them to fresh insult. As well plead with panthers and wolves as with black-hearted traducers. However, when cries to man would be our weakness, cries to God will be our strength. To whom should children cry but to their father? Does not some good come even out of that vile thing, falsehood, when it drives us to our knees and to our God? "And he heard me." Yes, Jehovah hears. He is the living God, and hence prayer to him is reasonable and profitable. The Psalmist remembered and recorded this instance of prayer-hearing, for it had evidently much affected him; and now he rehearses it for the glory of God and the good of his brethren. "The righteous cry and the Lord heareth them." The ear of our God is not deaf, nor even heavy. He listens attentively, he catches the first accent of supplication; he makes each of his children confess, - "he heard me." When we are slandered it is a joy that the Lord knows us, and cannot be made to doubt our uprightness he will not hear the lie against us, but he will hear our prayer against the lie.

If these Psalms were sung at the ascent of the ark to Mount Zion, and then afterwards by the pilgrims to Jerusalem at the annual festivals and at the return from Babylon, we shall find in the life of David a reason for this being made the first of them. Did not this servant of God meet with Doeg the Edomite when he enquired of the oracle by Abiathar, and did not that wretched creature belie him and betray him to Saul? This made a very painful and permanent impression upon David's memory, and therefore in commencing the ark-journey he poured out his lament before the Lord, concerning the great and monstrous wrong of "that dog of a Doeg," as Trapp wittily calls him. The poet, like the preacher, may find it to his advantage to "begin low," for then he has the more room to rise the next Psalm is a full octave above the present mournful hymn. Whenever we are abused it may console us to see that we are not alone in our misery: we are traversing a road upon which David left his footprints.

Psalm 120:2

"Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips." It will need divine power to save a man from these deadly instruments. Lips are soft; but when they are lying lips they suck away the life of character and are as murderous as razors. Lips should never be red with the blood of honest men's reputes, nor salved with malicious falsehoods. David says, "Deliver my soul": the soul, the life of the man, is endangered by lying lips; cobras are not more venomous, nor devils themselves more pitiless. Some seem to lie for lying sake, it is their sport and spirit, their lips deserve to be kissed with a hot iron; but it is not for the friends of Jesus to render to men according to their deserts. Oh for a dumb generation rather than a lying one! The faculty of speech becomes a curse when it is degraded into a mean weapon for smiting men behind their backs. We need to be delivered from slander by the Lord's restraint upon wicked tongues, or else to be delivered out of it by having our good name cleared from the liar's calumny. "And from a deceitful tongue." This is rather worse than downright falsehood. Those who fawn and flatter, and all the while have enmity in their hearts, are horrible beings; they are the seed of the devil, and Ire worketh in them after his own deceptive nature. Better to meet wild beasts and serpents than deceivers these are a kind of monster whose birth is from beneath, and whose end lies far below. It should be a warning to liars and deceivers when they see that all good men pray against them, and that even bad men are afraid of them. Here is to the believer good cause for prayer. "Deliver us from evil," may be used with emphasis concerning this business. From gossips, talebearers, writers of anonymous letters, forgers of newspaper paragraphs, and all sorts of liemongers, good Lord deliver us!

Psalm 120:3

continued...THE ARGUMENT

This Psalm seems to have been composed, either,

1. By David in the time of his persecution by Saul, when he was exposed both to the swords and to the calumnies of his enemies; of which two evils he complains in this Psalm; or,

2. By some other holy prophet in a time of the church’s persecution.

Or, of ascents, as others render it, and as the word properly signifies. This title is given to this and to the fourteen following Psalms; concerning the reason whereof there are divers conjectures, the chief of which are these: either,

1. Because of the excellent matter of them, as eminent persons are called men of high degree, 1 Chronicles 17:17. For in them are contained, as learned men have observed, many doctrines or instructions of great use and importance, and those delivered with extraordinary brevity and elegancy. Or,

2. Because they were sung upon the fifteen degrees of stairs of the temple, which the Jewish writers mention; or, at least, upon some high place. Or,

3. Because they were sung with a very loud voice. Or,

4. Because they were sung by the Jews when they returned from Babylon and went up to Jerusalem; which some judge the more probable, because it suits with the order of these Psalms; whereof the first was to be used by them when they were preparing for their departure, and suffered delays in it from the calumnies of their enemies; the second, in their journey; the third, upon their arrival at Jerusalem; the fourth, after the building of the city and temple, &c. And although one of these Psalms is ascribed to David, and another to Solomon, yet they also, as well as the rest, might be applied to this use; and so might this Psalm also, though David first composed it upon another occasion. Or,

5. From something which was peculiar in them, either in the poetry or the manner of singing them. But these things being now lost and unknown, not only to Christians, but even to the Jews themselves, we must be contentedly ignorant of this as well as of most other titles of the Psalms; and the rather, because they do not at all concern the matter, nor are they necessary to the understanding of them.

David prayeth against lying lips and deceitful tongues, Psalm 120:1-4, and complaineth that his habitation was unavoidably among wicked and unpeaceable men, Psalm 120:5-7.

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

In my distress I cried unto the Lord,.... Being at a distance from his own country, or, however, from the house of God; persecuted by men, under the lash of their tongues; reproached, abused, and belied by them: in this his case and circumstances, he betook himself by prayer to the Lord, and importuned help and deliverance of him, knowing that none could help him as he; see Psalm 18:6;

and he heard me; answered him, and delivered him. The petition he put up follows, which shows his case, and his particular distress.

Geneva Study Bible

<{a} degrees.>> In my {b} distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.

(a) That is, of lifting up the tune and rising in singing.

(b) Even though the children of God should rejoice when they suffer for righteousness sake, yet it is a great grief to the flesh to hear evil for well doing.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1. In my distress I called unto Jehovah,

And he answered me.

The Psalmist calls to mind past answers to prayer as an encouragement to fresh prayer in his present distress. Cp. Psalm 3:4. This is a simpler and more natural explanation of the verse than to take it as a confident anticipation of a favourable answer, I call … and he will surely answer me; or to suppose that the Psalmist is looking back upon trouble in the past, and that Psalm 120:2-4 are the prayer to which he refers in Psalm 120:1.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 1. - In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me. The particular "distress' intended can only be conjectured. Some suppose it to be the Captivity itself, others the opposition offered by the Samaritans, Ammonites, and others to the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 4, 5.) and restoration of the wails of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:19, 20; Nehemiah 4:1-23; Nehemiah 6:2-14). But these guesses are scarcely of much value. Psalm 120:1

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

According to the pointing ויּענני, the poet appears to base his present petition, which from Psalm 120:2 onwards is the substance of the whole Psalm, upon the fact of a previous answering of his prayers. For the petition in Psalm 120:2 manifestly arises out of his deplorable situation, which is described in Psalm 120:5. Nevertheless there are also other instances in which ויענני might have been expected, where the pointing is ויּענני (Psalm 3:5; Jonah 2:3), so that consequently ויּענני may, without any prejudice to the pointing, be taken as a believing expression of the result (cf. the future of the consequence in Job 9:16) of the present cry for help. צרתה, according to the original signification, is a form of the definition of a state or condition, as in Psalm 3:3; Psalm 44:27; Psalm 63:8, Jonah 2:10, Hosea 8:7, and בּצּרתה לּי equals בּצּר־לּי, Psalm 18:7, is based upon the customary expression צר לּי. In Psalm 120:2 follows the petition which the poet sends up to Jahve in the certainty of being answered. רמיּה beside לשׁון, although there is no masc. רמי (cf. however the Aramaic רמּי, רמּאי), is taken as an adjective after the form טריּה, עניּה, which it is also perhaps in Micah 6:12. The parallelism would make לשׁון natural, like לשׁון מרמה in Psalm 52:6; the pointing, which nevertheless disregarded this, will therefore rest upon tradition. The apostrophe in Psalm 120:3 is addressed to the crafty tongue. לשׁון is certainly feminine as a rule; but whilst the tongue as such is feminine, the לשׁון רמיה of the address, as in Psalm 52:6, refers to him who has such a kind of tongue (cf. Hitzig on Proverbs 12:27), and thereby the לך is justified; whereas the rendering, "what does it bring to thee, and what does it profit thee?" or, "of what use to thee and what advancement to thee is the crafty tongue?" is indeed possible so far as concerns the syntax (Ges. 147, e), but is unlikely as being ambiguous and confusing in expression. It is also to be inferred from the correspondence between מה־יּתּן לך וּמה־יּסיף לך and the formula of an oath כּה יעשׂה־לּך אלהים לכה יוסיף, 1 Samuel 3:17; 1 Samuel 20:13; 1 Samuel 25:22; 2 Samuel 3:35; Ruth 1:17, that God is to be thought of as the subject of יתן and יסיף: "what will," or rather, in accordance with the otherwise precative use of the formula and with the petition that here precedes: "what shall He (is He to) give to thee (נתן as in Hosea 9:14), and what shall He add to thee, thou crafty tongue?" The reciprocal relation of Psalm 120:4 to מה־יתן, and of. Psalm 120:4 with the superadding עם to מה־יסיף, shows that Psalm 120:4 is not now a characterizing of the tongue that continues the apostrophe to it, as Ewald supposes. Consequently Psalm 120:4 gives the answer to Psalm 120:3 with the twofold punishment which Jahve will cause the false tongue to feel. The question which the poet, sure of the answering of his cry for help, puts to the false tongue is designed to let the person addressed hear by a flight of sarcasm what he has to expect. The evil tongue is a sharp sword (Psalm 57:5), a pointed arrow (Jeremiah 9:7), and it is like a fire kindled of hell (James 3:6). The punishment, too, corresponds to this its nature and conduct (Psalm 64:4). The "mighty one" (lxx δυνατός) is God Himself, as it is observed in B. Erachin 15b with a reference to Isaiah 42:13 : "There is none mighty by the Holy One, blessed is He." He requites the evil tongue like with like. Arrows and coals (Psalm 140:11) appear also in other instances among His means of punishment. It, which shot piercing arrows, is pierced by the sharpened arrows of an irresistibly mighty One; it, which set its neighbour in a fever of anguish, must endure the lasting, sure, and torturingly consuming heat of broom-coals. The lxx renders it in a general sense, σὺν τοῖς ἄνθραξι τοῖς ἐρημικοῖς; Aquila, following Jewish tradition, ἀρκευθίναις; but רתם, Arabic ratam, ratem, is the broom-shrub (e.g., uncommonly frequent in the Belkâ).