Psalms 120
Big idea: The pilgrimage starts a long way from home and in bad company. Meshech is far to the north and Kedar far to the east — you cannot live in both, so the psalmist is saying he feels like a foreigner everywhere. His trouble is not violence but speech: lying lips, a deceitful tongue, and the exhaustion of living among people who will not stop fighting. The last line is one of the loneliest in Scripture: I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
Psalm 120 is sung by someone who wants out. Psalm 121 lifts its eyes and sees the road.
120:1–7 — I am for peace, but they are for war
The first of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, sung by pilgrims climbing to Jerusalem — and it opens as far from Jerusalem as possible. Meshech and Kedar are in opposite directions and neither is anywhere near Judah, so the pairing is not a route but a state: he is living among people he has nothing in common with. The last line is the collection's starting position.
1 A Song of Ascents. In my distress, I cried to Yahweh. He answered me. 2 Deliver my soul, Yahweh, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. 3 What will be given to you, and what will be done more to you, you deceitful tongue? 4 Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper. 5 Woe is me, that I live in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! 6 My soul has had her dwelling too long with him who hates peace. 7 I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).