1. A Song of the Ascents. To Jehovah, in my distress, I called, and he answered me. This is the first of fifteen psalms (cxx.-cxxxiv,), all bearing the inscription, song of ascents or upgoings, i.e. sung during the periodical journeys or pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the times of the great yearly festivals. On these occasions the people are said, even in historical prose, to go up to Jerusalem, in reference both to its physical and moral elevation. See Exod. xxxiv. 24,1 Kings xii. 27, 28. The Hebrew verb (nby) employed in such connections is the root of the noun (DibyD) ascents in these inscriptions. This explanation of the title is much more satisfactory than any other which has been proposed. A rabbinical tradition represents these psalms as having been sung by the people, as they ascended the fifteen steps (in Hebrew Jli’D^p), seven on one side and eight on the other, repeatedly mentioned by Ezekiel (xl. 6, 22, 26, 31, 34, 37), But apart fi-om the intrinsic improbability of this tradition, some psalms in the series were evidently not meant to be sung at the temple. No less improbable than this very ancient explanation is the modern one, that the inscription has reference to a peculiarity of structure, the repetition of a phrase or clause of one sentence in the next with an addition, forming a kind of climax or progression in the terms as well as the ideas. But even admitting that this peculiarity of form might be described by (ni/VD) the Hebrew word in question, this word could not have been prefixed to each of the fifteen psalms, when the examples of the fact alleged are confined almost exclusively to one or two of them. Much nearer to the truth is the opinion, that these psalms were intended to be sung during the return from Babylon, which is called an ascent (nVyO) by Ezra (vii. 9). But this can only be maintained by arbitrarily denying the genuineness of the titles, which ascribe four of the psalms (cxxii., cxxiv., cxxxi., cxxxiii.) to David, and one (cxxvii.) to Solomon. The position assigned to these, and the difference of tone between them and the rest, are ingeniously accounted for by Hengstenberg’s hypothesis, that these five ancient psalms, sung by the people, as they went up to Jerusalem before the captivity, were made the basis of a whole series or system, designed for the same use by an inspired writer after the Restoration, who not only added ten psalms of his own, as appears from the identity of tone and diction, but joined them to the old ones in a studied and artificial manner, entirely inconsistent with the supposition of fortuitous or random combination. The one psalm by Solomon stands in the centre of the series or system and divides it into two equal parts, in each of which we find two psalms of David and five anonymous or new ones, the former being separated and surrounded by the latter, an additional and strong proof of intended adaptation to the times when the later psalms were written, to which Hengstenberg still further adds the number and distribution of the divine names in the whole series and its subdivisions. The psalm immediately before is anonymous, but its tone and diction mark it as belonging to the period of the Restoration. It begins with an acknowledgment of that gi-eat mercy, ver. 1, followed by a prayer for deliverance from treacherous and spiteful enemies, ver. 2, and a confident anticipation of their punishment, ver. 3, 4, but closes with a further lamentation and complaint of present sufferings, ver. 5-7. In this, as in all the other psalms of the series, the ideal speaker is Israel or Judah, considered as the church or chosen people. This first verse, although general in its terms, is perfectly appropriate to the Captivity, as the distress out of which the sufferer cried to God, and to the Restoration, as the answer to his prayer. In my distress, literally in distress to me, an expression like that in Ps. xviii. 7 (6). The augmented form of the Hebrew noun is like that in Ps. iii. 3 (2).
2. 0 Jehovah, free my soul from lip of falsehood, from tongue of fraud. The soul is particularly mentioned as usual when the life or the existence is in danger. The last two nouns in Hebrew are not in construction but in apposition, a tongue (which is) fraud, equivalent in meaning to the same English words in an inverted order, fraud-tongues. See a somewhat similar combination, Ps. xlv. 5 (4), lx. 5 (4). The” terms of the description are too strong to be applied to mere delusive promises, and necessarily suggest the idea of calumnious falsehood, as in Ps. xxxi. 19 (18), cxix. 69, 78. The reality answering to this description in the case of the restored Jews is the spiteful misrepresentation, by which the Samaritans retarded the rebuilding of the temple, as recorded in the fourth chapter of Ezra.
8. What will he give to titee, and what will he add to thee, thou tongue of fraud? Having complained to God of the false tongue, the ideal speaker turns to it as ac.ually present, and addresses it directly, speaking of God in the third person. The meaning of the question is, what recompence can you expect from an infinitely righteous God for these malignant calumnies? The peculiar form of the interrogation is derived from that of an ancient oath, The Lord do so to me and more also, literally and so add, i. e. further do, or in addition to the thing in question. See 1 Sam. iii. 17, xiv. 44. As explained by this allusion, the words have a new force. “What good or evil may be imprecated on thee, as the consequence of these malicious falsehoods.
4. Arrows of a warrior sharpened, (together) with coals of juniper. The general idea of severe and painful punishment is here expressed by the obvious and intelligible figures of keen arrows and hot coals. The arrows of a mighty man, warrior, or hero, are those used in battle, perhaps with an allusion to the fact, that one of the races mentioned in the next verse excelled in archery. See Isa. xxi. 17. The word which the rabbinical tradition explains to mean the juniper, is by modern lexicographers identified with the Arabic name of a species of broom-plant, which is thought, on account of its inflammatory quality, to make the best charcoal. See Robinson’s Palestine, vol. i. p. 299. With the figures of the verse before us compare Ps. vii. 14 (13), xviii. 13, 14 (12, 13), cxl. 11 (10).
5. Alas for me, that I sojourn (with) Meshech, (and) dwell near the tents of Kedar! The first verb seems elsewhere, in the same construction, to denote the act of dwelling with one, Ps. v. 5 (4). The Hebrew preposition in the last clause properly means with, and denotes association and proximity. The English Bible, by twice employing our preposition in, obscures the meaning of both clauses, which is not that the people were in the power or even in the midst of the enemies here mentioned, but compelled to reside near them and to suffer from their neighbourhood. Meshech is the name given in Gen. x. 2 to the Moschi, a barbarous people inhabiting the mountains between Colchis, Armenia, and Iberia. Kedar was one of the sons of Ishmael (Gen. xxv, 13), whose name is sometimes used to designate an Arabian tribe (Isa. xxi. 16, xlii. 11), and in later Hebrew the Arabians generally. As these races, dwelling far off, in the north and south, were never in immediate or continued contact with the Israelites, they are probably named as types and representatives of warlike barbarism, just as the names Goths, Vandals, Huns, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, have at different times been used proverbially in English, to describe those supposed to exhibit the same character, however unconnected or remote in genealogy and local habitation. A slight approach to the same usage was produced among ourselves by the revolutionary war, in reference to the national names, British and Hessian. In the case before us, it is evident from ver. 6, that Meshech and Kedar are mere types and representatives of those who hate peace and delight in war. Compare Ezek. xxxviii. 2, where Meshech appears as a chief leader under Gog, the great prophetic representative of heathendom.
6. My soul has dwelt too long for her with (one) hating peace. The substitution of my soul for I implies the intimate conviction and the painful sense of what is here asserted. Too long, litcraUy much or too much. As to this peculiar idiom, see above, on Ps. lxv. 10 (9). For her, may be an idiomatic pleonasm, adding nothing to the meaning of the verb, with which it must be read in close connection; or it may have the meaning which the corresponding phrase would naturally seem to have in English, for her good or for her interest. See above, on Ps. lviii. 8 (7). Hating peace is clearly a collective or aggregate expression, comprehending all denoted by the Meshech and Kedar of the preceding verse, as an ideal individual.
7. / am peace, and when I speak, they (go) to war. The first phrase resembles / am prayer in Ps. cix. 4, and seems to mean, I am all peace, nothing but peace, peace itself, i. e. entirely peaceful or pacific. Speak m&j be an ellipsis for speak peace, a phrase repeatedly occurring in the Psalms. See above, Ps. xxxv. 20, lxxxv. 9 (8), and below, Ps. cxxii. 8. The sense will then be, whenever I desire or propose peace. If the verb be absolutely understood, the sense is that every word he utters is made an occasion of attack or conflict. The double /or, in the common version of this sentence, is as incorrect as the double in of ver. 5, and more enfeebling to the sense. I am not only for peace, but am peace itself. They are not only/or war, but arise, proceed, or address themselves to it.
