This psalm opens a group of fifteen, Psalms 120 through 134, each carrying the heading “A Song of degrees” — pilgrim songs, almost certainly sung by Israelites literally climbing the road up to Jerusalem for the great festivals, one psalm at a time as the city came into view.
A study in Psalm 120 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 9 min read
In My Distress I Cried Unto The LORD
“In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me. Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.”
Psalm 120:1-2
It is a striking choice for the very first psalm of a pilgrimage collection — not a hymn of departure or anticipation, but a complaint about slander, deceitful speech named as the actual danger the writer needed rescuing from.
Sharp Arrows Of The Mighty
“What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.”
Psalm 120:3-4
Juniper coals burn unusually hot and long, even after the visible flame has died down — a precise image for exactly the kind of damage slander does, harm that continues smoldering well past the moment the words themselves were actually spoken.
Woe Is Me, That I Sojourn In Mesech
“Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.”
Psalm 120:5-6
Mesech and Kedar were genuinely distant regions, far to the north and the south of Israel — likely not meant literally here but as a figure for living surrounded by hostility, as displaced and unwelcome as a foreigner in either of those far-off places.
I Am For Peace
“I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.”
Psalm 120:7
The psalm ends on this unresolved tension rather than a rescue — a fitting note for the very first step of a long pilgrimage. Whatever peace and rest the road to Jerusalem promises, this opening song makes clear the traveler is leaving genuine hostility behind to go find it.
