2 O Lord, be the saviour of my soul from false lips, and from the tongue of deceit.
Purposing destruction, using deceit; your tongue is like a sharp blade. You have more love for evil than for good, for deceit than for works of righteousness. (Selah.) Destruction is in all your words, O false tongue.
<To the chief music-maker. Of David. A Psalm.> God of my praise, let my prayer be answered; For the mouth of the sinner is open against me in deceit: his tongue has said false things against me.
<To the chief music-maker. A Psalm. Of David.> O Lord, take me out of the power of the evil man; keep me safe from the violent man: For their hearts are full of evil designs; and they are ever making ready causes of war. Their tongues are sharp like the tongue of a snake; the poison of snakes is under their lips. (Selah.)
Now the chief priests and all the Sanhedrin were looking for false witness against Jesus, so that they might put him to death; And they were not able to get it, though a number of false witnesses came. But later there came two who said, This man said, I am able to give the Temple of God to destruction, and to put it up again in three days. And the high priest got up and said to him, Have you no answer? what is it which these say against you?
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 120
Commentary on Psalms 120 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 120
This psalm is the first of those fifteen which are here put together under the title of "songs of degrees.' It is well that it is not material what the meaning of that title should be, for nothing is offered towards the explication of it, no, not by the Jewish writers themselves, but what is conjectural. These psalms do not seem to be composed all by the same hand, much less all at the same time. Four of them are expressly ascribed to David, and one is said to be designed for Solomon, and perhaps penned by him; yet 126 and 129 seem to be of a much later date. Some of them are calculated for the closet (as 120 and 130), some for the family (as 127 and 128), some for the public assembly (as 122 and 134), and some occasional, as 124, and 132. So that it should seem, they had not this title from the author, but from the publisher. Some conjecture that they are so called from their singular excellency (as the song of songs, so the song of degrees, is a most excellent song, in the highest degree), others from the tune they were set to, or the musical instruments they were sung to, or the raising of the voice in singing them. Some think they were sung on the fifteen steps or stairs, by which they went up from the outward court of the temple to the inner, others at so many stages of the people's journey, when they returned out of captivity. I shall only observe,
This psalm is supposed to have been penned by David upon occasion of Doeg's accusing him and the priests to Saul, because it is like 52, which was penned upon that occasion, and because the psalmist complains of his being driven out of the congregation of the Lord and his being forced among barbarous people.
In singing this psalm we may comfort ourselves in reference to the scourge of the tongue, when at any time we fall unjustly under the lash of it, that better than we have smarted from it.
A song of degrees.
Psa 120:1-4
Here is,
Psa 120:5-7
The psalmist here complains of the bad neighbourhood into which he was driven; and some apply the two foregoing verses 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, Ps. 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!