Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 120:5

"Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, That I dwell among the tents of Kedar!" — Psalms 120:5 (ASV)

Mesech. —This name is generally identified with Moschi, mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 94), a tribe on the borders of Colchis and Armenia. It appears again in the prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 27:13; Ezekiel 38:3; Ezekiel 39:1). The only reason for suspecting the accuracy of this identification is its remoteness from Kedar, who were a nomad tribe of Arabia (Song of Solomon 1:5). But in the absence of any other indication of the motive for mentioning these tribes here, this very remoteness affords a sufficiently plausible one; or they may be types of savage life, selected the one from the north, and the other from the south, as poetry dictated.

It is quite possible that the circumstances in which the poet wrote made it necessary for him to veil his allusion in this way to powerful tribes, from whose violence the nation was suffering. In any case, the two concluding verses leave no doubt that some troubled state of affairs is presented here, in which choosing a course of action was not easy, and which affected the whole nation, not an individual.