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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 120:5 - 120:5
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Since arrows and broom-fire, with which the evil tongue is requited, even now proceed from the tongue itself, the poet goes on with the deep heaving אֹויָה (only found here). גּוּר with the accusative of that beside which one sojourns, as in Psa 5:5; Isa 33:14; Jdg 5:17. The Moschi (מֶשֶׁךְ, the name of which the lxx takes as an appellative in the signification of long continuance; cf. the reverse instance in Isa 66:19 lxx) dwelt between the Black and the Caspian Seas, and it is impossible to dwell among them and the inhabitants of Kedar (vid., Psa 83:7) at one and the same time. Accordingly both these names of peoples are to be understood emblematically, with Saadia, Calvin, Amyraldus, and others, of homines similes ejusmodi barbaris et truculentis nationibus.
(Note: If the Psalm were a Maccabaean Psalm, one might think מֶשֶׁךְ, from מָשַׁךְ, σύρειν, alluded to the Syrians or even to the Jewish apostates with reference to מָשַׁךְ עָרְלָה, ἐπισπᾶσθαι τὴν ἀκροβυστίαν (1Co 7:18).)
Meshech is reckoned to Magog in Eze 38:2, and the Kedarites are possessed by the lust of possession (Gen 16:12) of the bellum omnium contra omnes. These rough and quarrelsome characters have surrounded the poet (and his fellow-countrymen, with whom he perhaps comprehends himself) too long already. רַבַּת, abundantly (vid., Psa 65:10), appears, more particularly in 2Ch 30:17., as a later prose word. The לָהּ, which throws the action back upon the subject, gives a pleasant, lively colouring to the declaration, as in Psa 122:3; Psa 123:4. He on his part is peace (cf. Mic 5:5, Psa 119:4; Psa 110:3), inasmuch as the love of peace, willingness to be at peace, and a desire for peace fill his σου; but if he only opens his mouth, they are for war, they are abroad intent on war, their mood and their behaviour become forthwith hostile. Ewald (§362, b) construes it (following Saadia): and I - although I speak peace; but if כִּי (like עַד, Psa 141:10) might even have this position in the clause, yet וְכִי cannot. שָׁלֹום is not on any account to be supplied in thought to אֲדַבֵּר, as Hitzig suggests (after Psa 122:8; Psa 28:3; Psa 35:20). With the shrill dissonance of שׁלום and מלחמה the Psalm closes; and the cry for help with which it opens hovers over it, earnestly desiring its removal.