Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 120:6

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Psalms 120:6. My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. — A restless, barbarous, warlike, and marauding people.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 120-124 To Jerusalem for worship

Each of the fifteen Psalms 120:0 to 134 is entitled ‘A Song of Ascents’ (RSV; NIV). These psalms were apparently sung by worshippers from the country areas as they made the journey up to Jerusalem for the various annual festivals.

Whether or not the psalms were written for this purpose, they have been arranged in a sequence that reflects the feelings of the travellers. They provide expressions of worship for the travellers as they set out from distant regions, travel through the country, come to Jerusalem, and finally join in the temple ceremonies.
The collection opens with a cry from one who lives in a distant region and is bitterly persecuted by his neighbours (120:1-2). Their insults pierce him like sharp arrows and burn him like red-hot coals. He prays that God’s punishment of them will be just as painful (3-4). He is tired of being victimized. He feels as if he lives in a far-off land where he is surrounded by attackers from hostile tribes. He will set out for Jerusalem and seek some peace and refreshment of spirit in God’s house (5-7).
As he journeys through the hill country, the man knows that God who made the hills cares for him (121:1-2). Even when he sleeps by the roadside at night, God, who never sleeps, watches over him (3-4). God protects him from dangers by day and by night (5-6). Surely, God will take him to Jerusalem and bring him safely home again (7-8).
In the excitement of anticipation, the traveller pictures his dream as fulfilled. He recalls a psalm of David and pictures himself at last standing in Jerusalem as David once did (122:1-2). He sees it as a beautiful, well-built city, where the tribes of Israel are united in their worship of God, and where God rules his people through the throne of David (3-5). He prays that God will always preserve the city and prosper its people (6-8). He himself will do all he can for the city’s good (9).
Ungodly people mock the poor traveller, and others who have now joined him, for putting up with such hardships just to attend a religious festival in Jerusalem. The worshippers ask God to give them some relief by silencing those who mock them (123:1-4).
The persecuted travellers once more recall the experience of David and sing one of his psalms that reflects their own experience. As David was persecuted, so are they. Only through God’s grace and power have they been kept from much worse treatment (124:1-3). Their enemies are as violent and destructive as a raging flood (4-5), as cruel as wild animals (6) and as cunning as bird-trappers (7), but the travellers have the great Creator on their side (8).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE FROM BAD NEIGHBORS

“In my distress I cried unto Jehovah, And he answered me. Deliver my soul, O Jehovah, from lying lips, And from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done more unto thee? Thou deceitful tongue. Sharp arrows of the mighty, With coals of juniper. Woe is me that I sojourn in Meshech, That I dwell among the tents of Kedar! My soul hath long had her dwelling With him that hateth peace. I am for peace; But when I speak, they are for war.”

A PRAYER FOR HELP AGAINST A SLANDERING TONGUE

“Thou Deceitful tongue” (Psalms 120:2). The tongue is apostrophized here, being addressed with a question of just what should be done to such a tongue, The literature of the ages has often addressed the problem of the slandering tongue. Shakespeare spoke of one:

Whose tongue is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Out venoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds.Cymbeline, Act III, Sc. 4, Line 35.

“The tongue is a fire… a world of iniquity… is set on fire by hell… it is a restless evil… full of deadly poison” (James 3:6-9).

The psalmist’s prayer here is to be delivered from such ravages of such slanderous tongues.

Delitzsch pointed out that, “The tongue is feminine as a rule; but, in spite of that, it is a man who is here addressed who has that kind of a tongue!”F. Delitzsch, Vol. V-C, p. 269.

THE PSALMIST ANTICIPATES RETRIBUTIVE PUNISHMENT OF SUCH A TONGUE

“Sharp arrows of the mighty with coals of juniper” “The mighty here, `the mighty man’ in the margin, is a reference to God who will punish the wicked tongue. “Sharp arrows are an appropriate reference here, because, “In Jeremiah 9:7, the deceitful tongue is compared to a deadly arrow. It is therefore fitting that Jehovah should send sharp arrows against those who slander the righteous.”W. E. Addis, p. 393.

“Coals of juniper” The marginal reference here makes this the “broom tree.” “This is the white broom (Retama roetam), the most popular of the thorny brushwoods in the Near East. It is collected for burning because it insures a long, hot fire.”Grace M. Crowfoot and L. Boldensperger, pp. 49, 50. (See The Interpreter’s Bible, p. 642).

The last three verses have the quality of a mild lament. The psalmist is displeased with his neighbors. The scene is that of many Jews traveling from distant lands, where Jews were often persecuted. Most scholars agree, however, that Meshech and Kedar here are idiomatic references to “barbarous and hostile people.”The Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., p. 179.

“Meshech was a nation of Asia Minor, and Kedar was part of the Syrian desert south of Damascus.”The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., p. 643. Despite the general opinion about these names being, “Synonyms of barbarism,”Ibid. it is easy to imagine that there were actually pilgrims from such places who joined the great annual processions to Jerusalem.

In this connection, Spurgeon, hoped that, “The pious people were not so foolish as to sing about their bad neighbors when they were leaving them for awhile.”Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Vol. IX, p. 210. This struck us as amusing, and we borrowed the idea for a title for this psalm.

Kidner commented on the appropriateness of this psalm’s being the first of the fifteen. “It begins the series in a distant land, so that we join the pilgrims as they set out on their journey, which will bring us to Jerusalem in Psalms 122 and to the ark, the priests, and the temple services in the last psalm of the group.”Derek Kidner, p. 430.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace - This trouble is no new thing. It has been long continued, and has become intolerable. Who this was that thus gave him trouble is, of course, now unknown. It is only necessary to remark that there can scarcely be any source of trouble more bitter than that of sustaining such relations to others either in business, or in office, or by family-ties - whether by marriage or by blood - in school, in college, or in corporate bodies - as to expose us always to a quarrel: to be compelled to have constant contact with people of sour, perverse, crooked tempers, who are satisfied with nothing; who are suspicious or envious; who pervert our motives and our conduct; who misrepresent our words; who demand more than is due to them; who refuse to perform what may reasonably be expected of them; and who make use of every opportunity to involve us in difficulties with others. There are many trials in human life, but there are few which are more galling, or more hard to bear than this. The literal rendering of the passage would be, “Long for her has my soul dwelt,” etc. That is, long (or too long) for her good - for the welfare of my soul. It has been an injury to me; to my piety, to my comfort, to my salvation. it has vexed me, tried me, hindered me in my progress in the divine life. Nothing would have a greater tendency of this kind than to be compelled to live in the manner indicated above.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

6.My soul ⁽⁵⁸⁾ hath long dwelt with him who hateth peace. The Psalmist now shows, without figure, and, so to speak, points with the finger to those ⁽⁵⁹⁾ whom he had before indirectly marked out by the terms Mesech and kedar, namely, the perfidious Israelites, who had degenerated from the holy fathers, and who rather wore the mask of Israelites than were the true seed of Israel. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ He calls them haters of peace, ⁽⁶¹⁾ because they wilfully, and with deliberate malice, set themselves to make war upon the good and unoffending. To the same purpose he adds immediately after, that his heart was strongly inclined to seek after peace, or rather, that he was wholly devoted to it, and had tried every means in order to win their favor, but that the implacable cruelty of their disposition invariably impelled them to do him mischief. When he says, I peace, it is an abrupt, yet not an obscure expression, implying that he had not done them any injury or wrong which could give occasion for their hatred there having been always peace on his part. He even proceeds farther, asserting, that when he saw them inflamed with resentment against him, he endcavourcd to pacify them, and to bring them to a good understanding; for to speak, is here equivalent to offering conditions of peace in an amicable spirit, or to treating of reconciliation. From this it is still more apparent, how savage and brutal was the pride of David’s enemies, since they disdained even to speak with him — to speak with a man who had deserved well at their hands, and who had never in any respect injured them. We are taught by his example, that it is not enough for the faithful to abstain from hurting others: they must, moreover, study to allure them by gentleness, and to bend them to good will. Should their moderation and kindness be rejected, let them wait in patience, until God at length show himself from heaven as their protector. Let us, however, remember, that if God does not immediately stretch forth his hand in our behalf, it is our duty to bear the wearisomeness occasioned by delay, like David, whom we find in this Psalm giving, thanks to God for his deliverance, while, at the same time, as if worn out with the weariness of waiting for it, he bewails the long oppression to which he had been subjected by his enemies.

(58) My soul, for I.

(59) “ Et (par maniere de dire) monstre au doigt ceux,” etc —Fr.

(60) “Aseavoir les Israelites desloyaux qui avoyent forligne’ des saincts Peres, et qui estoyent plustost des masques d’Israclites, que non pas une vraye semence d’Israel.” —Fr.

(61) In describing those among whom he was now living as haters of peace, and, in the next verse, as bent on war, the inspired writer probably still alludes to the Arab tribes he had specified in the 5^th verse, who have, from their origin to the present hour, been eminently characterized by their hatred of peace and propensity to war. Dr. Shaw thus writes concerning these barbarous tribes as they are to be found in our own day, and their character and habits were the same at the time when this Psalm was written: “The Arabs are naturally thievish and treacherous; and it sometimes happens, that those very persons are overtaken and pillaged in the morning who were entertained the night before with all the instances of friendship and hospitality. Neither are they to be accused for plundering strangers only, and attacking almost every person whom they find unarmed and defenceless, but for those many implacable and hereditary animosities which continually subsist among them: literally fulfilling the prophecy to Hagar, that ‘Ishmael should be a wild man; his hand should be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.’”

Smith's Bible Commentary

This time let's turn in our Bibles to Psalms 120:1-7 to begin our Bible study this evening. Now you'll notice these psalms have a heading. The psalm, "A song of degrees." The word literally is ascents, A-S-C-E-N-T-S. And these are sort of the marching songs for the people of Israel as they would come thrice annually to Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

There's a lot of things about the nation Israel that excite me. There are a lot of things that I wish that somehow we could incorporate in our worship of the Lord. This business of all of them gathering together three days out of the... well, actually there was the feast days were seven days, but three times out of the year. At the Feast of Passover, at the Feast of Pentecost, and at the Feast of Succoth or Tabernacles. This business of everybody gathering together and just having a great worship service and a great feasting time and a time of worshipping the Lord. This, to me, would be exciting when the nation, the whole nation, is gathering to acknowledge that God reigns over the nation. And just the worshipping of the Lord together. How exciting that must have been.

Now Jerusalem is situated, in a sense, in what is known as the Jerusalem Mountains. So no matter where you are coming from, you are ascending towards Jerusalem. Whether you come from the Galilee region or the Jordan region, and usually coming from Galilee they would come down the Jordan River and then from Jericho make their way up the twenty miles to Jerusalem. Or whether you're coming from the Sharon valley, the coastal plains, the area of Joppa or whatever, you're always coming up when you come to Jerusalem. You're coming from Beersheba, coming from Samaria, you're always ascending up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is sort of on the mountain, and yet, it is surrounded by mountains. Mount Zion, Mount of Olives, Mount Scopus, and the mountains that surround the city itself, but yet from anywhere in the country, coming to worship you are ascending to the city, and so these were called the songs of the ascents.

These were sung by the pilgrims as they were coming to Jerusalem on these glorious feast days. Coming to worship the Lord. And so the songs that they were singing as they were coming. Now in the marching and so forth, there are certain cadences that they get into when they're marching, and sometimes they sing songs in cadence to go along with their marching. You know, the count off, one, two, three, four, you know. And it's always sort of fun, you know. "First they hire me, then they fire me, then by golly I left! I left. I left, right, left." You know, and going along in cadence. And so these were those kind of songs that they would sing in sort of a cadence as they were coming to Jerusalem to worship the Lord. Remembering many times the alien areas where they were living, those who were alien towards God and alien towards those who worship God. So remembering the enemies and the areas from which they have come, but they had anticipation. And in these next fifteen psalms, there is underneath that anticipation, I'm soon going to be standing there in the assembly, worshipping God. And that glorious anticipation of standing there in Jerusalem, within the gates of Jerusalem, worshipping the Lord with the assembled multitude.

According to Josephus there were, many times, well over a million people who would gather for these feasts to worship the Lord together. So the first of these psalms of ascents, the psalmist is looking forward to that time.

In my distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me. Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from the 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! ( Psalms 120:1-5 )

In other words, he's coming now from these antagonistic areas, Mesech, Kedar, people who hate God. People who have been against those who worship the Lord. "I've been dwelling there, O God, I've cried unto Thee in my distress."

My soul hath long dwelt with him that hates peace. I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war ( Psalms 120:6-7 ).

So the first psalm expresses that turmoil of living in a world that is antagonistic towards God. Much the kind of a world that you live in. And so many times living in the world, living amongst the ungodly, we can identify with the soul that is longing for that fellowship with God. The soul that is longing for that peace of God, and yet, all of the turmoil, all of the confusion, all of the lying and conniving and all that is going on in the world around him. And so the soul longing for God. And as he is coming towards Jerusalem, because you're always ascending upwards,

"

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 120

Psalms 120-134 are all "songs of ascent." This group, in turn, constitutes the major part of the Great Hallel psalms (Psalms 120-136). The psalms of ascent received this title because the pilgrim Israelites sang them as they traveled from their homes all over the land and ascended Mt. Zion for the annual feasts. David composed at least four of these 15 psalms (Psalms 122, 124, 131, , 133). Solomon wrote one (Psalms 127), and the remaining 10 are anonymous. They may not have been composed for use by pilgrims, originally; they were probably written for other purposes. However, the pilgrims used them as songs of ascent and, according to the Mishnah, during the second temple period they were incorporated into the temple liturgy. [Note: Middoth 2:5.]

One scholar saw these psalms as falling into three groups of five psalms each (120-24; 125-29; 130-34). He noted that the central psalm in each group reflects royal or Zion theology: 122 (Jerusalem), 127 (the temple), and 132 (David). The effect of the total collection, therefore, is to focus on the temple and the Davidic monarchy. [Note: Erich Zenger, "The Composition and Theology of the Fifth Book of Psalms: Psalms 107-145," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 80 (1998):92., proposed a different division that recognizes Psalms 127 as the central psalm surrounded by four groups of psalms (120-23; 124-26; 128-31; and 132-34) each of which contains the divine name 12 times.] E. W. Hengstenberg proposed a different division that recognizes Psalms 127 as the central psalm surrounded by four groups of psalms (120-23; 124-26; 128-31; and 132-34) each of which contains the divine name 12 times. [Note: E. W. Hengstenberg, Commentary on the Psalms , 3:409.]

In Psalms 120, an unknown composer asked God for protection from people who wanted to stir up war (cf. Psalms 42). This psalm has been called an individual lament that anticipates thanksgiving. [Note: Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, pp. 147-48.]

"Apart from the last clause in Psalms 120:1, there is not a glad note in the whole of Psalms 120." [Note: Armerding, p. 134.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

3. God’s dalliance with liars 120:5-7

The poet bewailed the fact that he had to continue living with people such as liars who continually stir up strife (Psalms 120:5-6). Meshech was a barbarous nation far to the north of Israel by the Black Sea in Asia Minor (cf. Genesis 10:2; Ezekiel 38:2; Ezekiel 39:1-2). Kedar in northern Arabia was the home of the nomadic Ishmaelites who periodically harassed the Israelites (Genesis 25:13; Isaiah 21:16-17; Jeremiah 2:10; Ezekiel 27:21). These people represented the kinds of individuals that surrounded the writer, namely, heathen liars and hostile barbarians. They seemed to be after war all the time, but he wanted to live in peace.

"If the ’I’ of the psalm is Israel personified, these two names will summarize the Gentile world, far and near, in which Israel is dispersed. Otherwise, unless the text is emended, they must be taken as the psalmist’s figurative names for the alien company he is in: as foreign as the remotest peoples, and as implacable as his Arab kinsmen (cf. Genesis 16:12; Genesis 25:13)." [Note: Kidner, Psalms 73-150, p. 431.]

The continual antagonism of people who stir up trouble by telling lies, and in other ways, leads the godly to pray for God to deal with them. God’s will is for people to live peacefully with one another (Matthew 5:9; 2 Corinthians 13:11, et al.).

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. The God of peace, against whom their carnal minds are enmity itself; Christ, the Prince of peace, the Man, the Peace, who has made peace by the blood of his cross, whom the world hates; the sons of peace, the quiet in the land, against whom the wicked devise evil things; the Gospel of peace, which the natural man abhors as foolishness; the way of peace, pardon, and salvation by Christ, which carnal men know not, and do not approve of; and the ordinances of the Gospel, which are paths of peace. In short, some are of such restless, quarrelsome, and contentious spirits, that they hate peace with any; are like the troubled sea, that cannot rest; and cannot sleep, unless they do mischief to their fellow creatures: it is very uncomfortable living, especially living long with such. The Targum is,

"my soul hath long dwelt with Edom, hating peace;''

that is, with the Romans or Christians, who are intended; for the Jews understand this psalm of their present captivity.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      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.

      The psalmist here complains of the bad neighbourhood into which he was driven; and some apply the Psalms 120:3; Psalms 120:4 to this: "What shall the deceitful tongue give, what shall it do to those that lie open to it? What shall a man get by living among such malicious deceitful men? Nothing but sharp arrows and coals of juniper," all the mischiefs of a false and spiteful tongue, Psalms 57:4. Woe is me, says David, that I am forced to dwell among such, that I sojourn in Mesech and Kedar. Not that David dwelt in the country of Mesech or Kedar; we never find him so far off from his own native country; but he dwelt among rude and barbarous people, like the inhabitants of Mesech and Kedar: as, when we would describe an ill neighbourhood, we say, We dwell among Turks and heathens. This made him cry out, Woe is me! 1. He was forced to live at a distance from the ordinances of God. While he was in banishment, he looked upon himself as a sojourner, never at home but when he was near God's altars; and he cries out, "Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged, that I cannot get home to my resting-place, but am still kept at a distance!" So some read it. Note, A good man cannot think himself at home while he is banished from God's ordinances and has not them within reach. And it is a great grief to all that love God to be without the means of grace and of communion with God: when they are under a force of that kind they cannot but cry out, as David here, Woe to me! 2. He was forced to live among wicked people, who were, upon many accounts, troublesome to him. He dwell in the tents of Kedar, where the shepherds were probably in an ill name for being litigious, like the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot. It is a very grievous burden to a good man to be cast into, and kept in, the company of those whom he hopes to be for ever separated from (like Lot in Sodom; 2 Peter 2:8); to dwell long with such is grievous indeed, for they are thorns, vexing, and scratching, and tearing, and they will show the old enmity that is in the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman. Those that David dwelt with were such as not only hated him, but hated peace, and proclaimed war with it, who might write on their weapons of war not Sic sequimur pacem--Thus we aim at peace, but Sic persequimur--Thus we persecute. Perhaps Saul's court was the Mesech and Kedar in which David dwelt, and Saul was the man he meant that hated peace, whom David studied to oblige and could not, but the more service he did him the more exasperated he was against him. See here, (1.) The character of a very good man in David, who could truly say, though he was a man of war, I am for peace; for living peaceably with all men and unpeaceably with none. I peace (so it is in the original); "I love peace and pursue peace; my disposition is to peace and my delight is in it. I pray for peace and strive for peace, will do any thing, submit to any thing, part with any thing, in reason, for peace. I am for peace, and have made it to appear that I am so." The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. (2.) The character of the worst of bad men in David's enemies, who would pick quarrels with those that were most peaceably disposed: "When I speak they are for war; and the more forward for war the more they find me inclined to peace." He spoke with all the respect and kindness that could be, proposed methods of accommodation, spoke reason, spoke love; but they would not so much as hear him patiently, but cried out, "To arms! to arms!" so fierce and implacable were they, and so bent to mischief. Such were Christ's enemies: for his love they were his adversaries, and for his good words, and good works, they stoned him. If we meet with such enemies, we must not think it strange, nor love peace the less for our seeking it in vain. Be not overcome of evil, no, not of such evil as this, but, even when thus tried, still try to overcome evil with good.