Psalms 120

Subdivision 3. (Psalms 120:1-7; Psalms 121:1-8; Psalms 122:1-9; Psalms 123:1-4; Psalms 124:1-8; Psalms 125:1-5; Psalms 126:1-6; Psalms 127:1-5; Psalms 128:1-6; Psalms 129:1-8; Psalms 130:1-8; Psalms 131:1-3; Psalms 132:1-18; Psalms 133:1-3; Psalms 134:1-3; Psalms 135:1-21; Psalms 136:1-26.)The full blessing realized. We have now reached the so-called “songs and degrees,” a clearly defined series of fifteen psalms, which, with two thanksgiving psalms appended,forms the third subdivision of the Fifth Book. These songs of degrees are rather “songs of the ascents,” which we are surely right in interpreting in the first place by reference to those ascents of the tribes thrice a year to the feasts at Jerusalem; which are spoken of in the third psalm of this very series (Psalms 122:4). But this only furnishes a clue to the inner meaning, this repeated call to the city of God being in view of those “set times” of Leviticus 23:1-44 which speak of those gracious acts of God toward His people which for all eternity will call them round Himself in praise. The “ascents” are, therefore, above all else, ascents of the heart to Him because of His grace, and this is in fact what these songs are -a recounting in a fivefold series the Divine ways toward Israel, by which their blessing has been accomplished, and for which their hearts will endlessly praise Him. With this the “climbing” movement of the psalms themselves, which Delitzsch adduces, after Gesenius, is in intimate sympathy, -a feature which only shows how perfectly the form of these inspired songs is moulded by their spirit, while it by no means allows us to degrade them as their materialistic interpretation would, by making the form the whole thing. Section 1. (Psalms 120:1-7; Psalms 121:1-8; Psalms 122:1-9; Psalms 123:1-4; Psalms 124:1-8; Psalms 125:1-5; Psalms 126:1-6; Psalms 127:1-5; Psalms 128:1-6; Psalms 129:1-8; Psalms 130:1-8; Psalms 131:1-3; Psalms 132:1-18; Psalms 133:1-3; Psalms 134:1-3.)In God’s sovereign grace. These fifteen psalms are thus in fact five threes, a little pentateuch of song, answering to the larger pentateuch of the Psalms as a whole. Each three has its own distinct theme of praise, and each three is a distinct “ascent” also in its subject-matter, -in some sense, as the numerical signature might imply, a resurrection. All through they are divine acts that are celebrated, and acts of sovereign grace, though man may be used, more or less, in their accomplishment. In the first three, as in the beginning of the 107th psalm, the trial of the wilderness is exchanged for the “city of habitation.” In the second, the deliverance is from enemies that had well-nigh accomplished their destruction. The third is more generals but above all celebrates Jehovah as the One worker of all their blessing. The fourth shows the good work that all their trial has wrought in their souls. While the fifth shows finally God with them; and their Melchizedek, the King-Priest through whom it is accomplished for them, and man’s heart turned to God finds a full answer in blessing out of Zion, the place of God’s eternal rest among them. Subsection 1. (Psalms 120:1-7; Psalms 121:1-8; Psalms 122:1-9.)Faithful to promise. We come now to fuller detail. And here the first subsection introduces us, according to the usual manner of Scripture, to what is to be developed further in those to come. The heading here is therefore necessarily a general one. Israel’s promises are seen to be made good to her, after the long sojourn in Meshech and among the enemies of peace. Even there Jehovah has been their Keeper; and soon the restored city opens its gates to receive them, crowned with the glorious dwelling-place of God Himself; while the tribes, resettled in the land, renew their ascents to gather round Him. This is the full picture of their blessing, one may say; with one feature, however, of central importance, only suggested and not entered upon; that which the closing series of the five develops. The fifth, returning to the first, makes the circle of blessing complete.

Psalms 120:1-7

Solitary! A song of the ascents.
No mere historical view of the origin of these psalms can unite them together in an intelligible manner. Nothing will do it except the realization that they give us various lines of connection between the history of Israel in their distress as nationally away from God, and that prophetic future which we find so clearly announced for them in the pages of the Old Testament. The partial return from Babylon cannot fill out the picture here, -can give nothing but a faint and transient anticipation of it. Here is where commentators go astray so largely as to the Psalms; trying to satisfy themselves with theories of their origin in the past, with which Scripture itself, it is plain; so little concerns itself, and which are mere, if not wild, conjectures; while, as given by men led of the Holy Ghost, their meaning is to be sought in connection with those counsels of God as to Israel and the world, with regard to which all their voices come into harmony, and adjust and explain each other. In these “songs of the ascents” especially, the history is so generalized that it would be difficult, indeed, to fix its connections. Who can tell us about the “sojourning in Meshech,” or the “dwelling in the tents of Kedar”?

Accordingly Delitzsch, with many others, decides that “both these names of peoples are to be understood emblematically.” And elsewhere we have really nothing to furnish a clue at all. Yet, read in connection; there is no real difficulty as to the purport of these psalms. Had not the often unanswerable “how?” come so largely to displace the all-important “why?” in the minds of the professed interpreters of Scripture, they would not have been in the confusion that they are today. The “how” may be largely human: the “why” is divine. And where God is, we shall find Him more accessible than man is, as He is how much more worthy of being sought to, and the knowledge thus obtained infinitely more gainful. The 120th psalm is almost all distress. The main point of cheer in it is what comes first of all, that “in my strait to Jehovah I call, and He answereth me.” This the psalmist realizes, although the great deliverance that he seeks for has not come. God does not always cash His notes at sight; but if not, He pays large interest on them. “The lying lip” and the “deceitful tongue” are the subject of his first complaint, whether this be some special deceiver, or more general. The third verse may be understood in two very different ways; and most would read it with the common version; as an address to the “tongue,” -the deceiver. In this case the question will be as to the judgment of God, and the fourth verse will announce the judgment. The numerical structure seems to decide for another interpretation; in which the question “what does this deceitful tongue give to thee?” is answered by experience.

In this case, the transition is better seen also, to the war spirit of the close of the psalm: “Sharp arrows of the mighty” remind us of the similar “sharp razor” of the “mighty one” in the fifty-second psalm, who is addressed also as a “deceitful tongue.” And “coals of broom” do not seem so suitable an image for divine judgment as for human fury breaking out. This naturally leads on to the psalmist’s lament over his sojourn in Meshech and in the tents of Kedar, nomads, very likely to suggest the “sharp arrows” he has spoken of; and whose trade as Ishmaelites was depredation and war. The names are, as already said, “emblematic”: “My soul has long dwelt with him that hateth peace”; that is the moral of it. “I am peace,” -a man characterized by that; but to speak it only rouses the opposition: “when I speak, they are for war.” This is what the world is: and this is what it showed itself to be when the Prince of peace came into it. Thus it was that He, over whom; as born into it, the angels proclaimed peace, in His own clear knowledge of the immediate result, proclaimed “not peace, but a sword.” He could indeed say “I am peace,” -the very incarnation of it. What did His humanity mean but “peace: good pleasure in man”? Yet His rejection was written upon the cross in every typical human language. Israel were not then, and have not since been; the “sons of peace,” such as the Lord sent His disciples out to seek. And we must look on to the latter days to find them as depicted here. The remnant,then,will indeed be “like sheep in the midst of wolves”; the essential opposition between Christ’s people and the world will have sharpened into its acutest form; and it is simple enough that this first psalm here should give it expression.