Psalm 120: Woe Is Me in Meshech

"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. 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."

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

Meshech and Kedar

Meshech was a people of Anatolia (Genesis 10:2; Ezekiel 38:2); Kedar an Arabian tribe of the desert east of Israel (Genesis 25:13; Isaiah 21:16). No one could live in both. Together they stand for the farthest and most hostile places: the speaker lives among people of war. The Ascents begin far from Jerusalem and move toward it.

Broom-tree coals

"Coals of juniper" are coals of the broom tree (rotem), which burn long and hot (compare 1 Kings 19:4, where Elijah sits under a broom tree). The punishment for the lying tongue is arrows and burning coals, images of what the tongue itself does.

Later use

As the first Song of Ascents it opens the group many Jewish communities read on Sabbath afternoons in the winter months. In the Rule of Benedict (6th century) Psalms 120–128 (Latin 119–127) were sung at the little hours of Terce, Sext and None from Tuesday to Saturday.

The Songs of Ascents

Psalms 120–134 each carry the heading "A Song of degrees" (shir ha-ma'alot, "song of the ascents"; Vulgate "Canticum graduum"). Proposals for the meaning: songs for pilgrims going up to Jerusalem; songs sung on the fifteen steps between the temple courts (the Mishnah, Middot 2:5 and Sukkah 5:4, mentions fifteen steps on which the Levites sang); songs of the return from Babylon (Ezra 7:9 calls it "the going up"); or a poetic style in which a word is picked up and repeated, step by step. The first is most widely held; none is certain. Psalm 120, with its distant exile and longing for peace, makes a natural starting point.