Psalms 120
Psalms 120 — Commentary and Meaning
The short answer
Psalm 120 is the first of fifteen psalms labeled "A Song of Ascents," a collection long associated with pilgrims traveling up to Jerusalem for the great annual festivals. You might expect such a journey to begin with celebration. Instead, it begins with a cry: "In my distress, I cried to Yahweh, and he answered me." The singer's first prayer is for rescue from "lying lips" and a "deceitful tongue" — not from armies or illness, but from words that wound.
The psalmist then names where he lives: Meshech and Kedar, places far from Israel, shorthand for dwelling among strangers who do not share his faith or his hopes. Whether these place names are literal or symbolic, the feeling is unmistakable. He is a resident alien in a hostile neighborhood, and he has been there too long — "with him who hates peace," as the psalm puts it.
The final verse lands the tension in a single line: "I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war." The Hebrew word behind that peace is shalom — a whole, settled well-being. The singer wants it; his neighbors answer with hostility. That gap between the peace he longs for and the conflict he lives in is what sets the pilgrimage in motion.
Read this way, Psalm 120 is a doorway. The ascent toward Zion does not start on the temple steps; it starts far away, in distress, with someone who has decided he cannot stay where he is spiritually. Lament is the first step of the journey. The psalms that follow — lifting eyes to the hills, rejoicing at the invitation to God's house — only make full sense because this one came first.
What scholars say
Nancy deClaissé-Walford explains why this collection of pilgrim songs opens with a lament: Psalm 120 gives voice to a worshipper sojourning in a hostile land, longing for shalom amid deceit and threats of war — and that, she argues, makes it a fitting beginning to the Songs of Ascents.
“Psalm 120 is the first of the group of fifteen psalms that are identified in their superscriptions as "Songs of the Ascents" (see the Introduction to the Songs of the Ascents). These psalms were most likely sung by pilgrims as they made their way to Jerusalem to celebrate a number of annual religious festivals, including Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles. Psalm 120 is classified as an individual lament, sung by a worshipper who is sojourning in a hostile land outside the security of the land of Israel (v. 5). The psalm-singer longs for well-being (šālôm), but is surrounded by lips of falsehood, deceitful tongues, and threats of war (vv. 2, 7). Psalm 120 is a fitting beginning of the pilgrimage Songs of the Ascents.”
What it means for you
Most journeys toward God do not begin in a moment of joy. They begin the way Psalm 120 begins — in distress, surrounded by voices that deceive or attack, aware that where you are is not where you belong. This psalm gives that starting point dignity. Crying out honestly about hostile circumstances is not a failure of faith; here, it is the first act of pilgrimage.
If you find yourself longing for peace in a workplace, family, or culture that seems bent on conflict, Psalm 120 says: start there. Name the distress, pray it, and let the longing itself point you toward God. The ascent begins where you actually are.
Psalms 120 in context
Psalm 120 stands at the head of the Songs of Ascents, Psalms 120–134, a distinct collection within Book V of the Psalter. Each carries the same superscription, and together they trace a movement toward Jerusalem and its temple. Psalm 120 supplies the starting point — distress in a distant, hostile place — while Psalm 121 lifts its eyes to the hills for help, and Psalm 122 rejoices at arriving in the house of Yahweh. The opening lament gives the whole sequence its direction: from alienation toward Zion, from talk of war toward shalom.