John Calvin Commentary Psalms 120

I cried to Jehovah in my distress. The name of the author of the Psalm is not stated, but its style throughout presents David to our view. Therefore, although I cannot positively affirm it, I am rather inclined to think that it was composed by him. Nor will it be improper, in my judgment, to explain it as if his name had been mentioned in the inscription.

Assuming this, then, I would observe that although David, in this verse, affirms that the Lord had heard him and gives thanks, his chief purpose was still to set forth, in the form of a complaint, how wickedly and cruelly Saul’s flatterers employed all their ingenuity and power to accomplish his destruction.

He begins, however, with an expression of his gratitude to God, telling us that he had not called upon Him in vain. He does this so that by his own example he might encourage others to confidence in prayer, especially when oppressed with adversity.

People, it is true, need God’s help every moment; but there is no more suitable time for seeking Him than when some great danger is immediately menacing us.

It is therefore noteworthy that he was heard when, constrained and confined by tribulation, he sought God's protection.

O Jehovah! deliver my soul from the lip of falsehood. David now points out the kind of his affliction, declaring that he was burdened with false accusations. In charging his enemies with lying and falsehood, he asserts his own innocence of the crimes which they slanderously imputed to him.

His complaint therefore amounts to this: that as he was conscious of having committed no fault, he was assaulted by the wicked contrary to all law, human and divine, and that they caused him to be hated without his having given them any occasion for such injurious treatment. Deceitful tongues assault good and simple people in two ways: they either circumvent them by wiles and snares, or wound their reputation by slanders.

It is of the second way that the Prophet here complains. Now if David, who was endowed with such eminent virtue, and free from every mark of disgrace, and far removed from every wicked action, was yet assailed with insults and contempt, is it to be wondered at if the children of God in the present day suffer under false accusations, and that when they have endeavored to conduct themselves uprightly, they are nevertheless spoken ill of?

As they have the devil for their enemy, it is indeed impossible for them to escape being burdened by his lies. Indeed, we see that slanderous tongues did not spare even the Son of God—a consideration which should induce us to bear our condition more patiently when the wicked slander us undeservedly, since it is certain that we have here described the common lot of the whole Church.

What shall the tongue of deceit give thee? The Prophet aggravates the malice of his enemies by asserting that they were so wickedly inclined as to be driven to evil speaking when they saw no prospect of gaining any advantage from such behavior. However, he seems to express more than this — he seems further to imply that after they have poured out all the venom of their slanders, their attempts will nevertheless be vain and ineffectual.

Since God is the defender of the innocence of His servants, David, inspired with hope by this truth, rises up against them with heroic courage, as if about to triumph over all his slanderers, reproaching them for doing nothing more than betraying an impotent passion for evil speaking, which God, in the end, would cause to recoil upon their own heads.

This is a thought well suited to soothe the grief of all the godly when their good name is unjustly wounded by slanderers: such malicious people will gain nothing by it in the end, because God will disappoint their expectation.

The arrows of a strong man sharpened, with coals of juniper. Here the Psalmist further illustrates the malice of those who distress the simple and innocent with their slander, stating that they hurl their injurious reports just as a man might draw an arrow and pierce his neighbor's body with it. He adds that their slander was like coals of juniper, which penetrate more effectively and burn more intensely the substances they touch than coals from any other kind of wood.

The point is that the tongues of these slanderers were inflamed with fiery heat and, as it were, dipped in deadly poison. Such people were all the more inexcusable because, without gaining anything from it, they were driven by an unrestrained passion to inflict deadly harm on others.

Since the Prophet records nothing here that he did not personally experience, it can be inferred that if he, and others like him, had to be assailed by their enemies with lies—which were like arrows to pierce them or coals to burn them—we should not be surprised to see God's most eminent servants tested by similar attacks.

Alas for me! that I have been a sojourner in Mesech. David complains that he was doomed to linger for a long time among a perverse people, his condition resembling that of some wretched individual who is compelled to live until he grows old in sorrowful exile. The Mesechites and Kedarenes, as is well known, were Eastern tribes; the former of which derived their origin from Japhet, as Moses informs us in Genesis 10:2; and the latter from a son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13).

To take the latter for a people of Italy, who were anciently called Hetrurians, is altogether absurd and without the slightest probability. Some would have the word Mesech to be an appellative noun; and because מש mashak, signifies to draw, to protract, they think that the Prophet bewails his protracted banishment, seeing no prospect of its end.

But as immediately after he adds Kedar, by which term the Ishmaelites are unquestionably intended, I have no doubt that Mesech is to be understood as referring to the Arabians who were their neighbors. If anyone believes that the Mesechites obtained this name from their dexterity in shooting with the bow, I will make no objections, provided it is admitted that the Prophet—as if he had been confined within a country of robbers—expresses the irksomeness of an uncomfortable and annoying place of residence.

Although he names the Arabians, yet under the terms employed he speaks metaphorically of his own countrymen, just as he elsewhere applies the appellation of Gentiles to the corrupt and degenerate Jews. But here, in order to put even more dishonor upon his enemies, he has purposely selected a name to designate them, taken from some of the savage and barbarous nations whose horrible cruelty was well known to the Jews.

From these words we are taught that scarcely a more distressing evil can befall the people of God than for them to be placed in circumstances where, despite living a holy and inoffensive life, they still cannot escape the calumnies of venomous tongues. It should be observed that although David was living in his own country, he was still a stranger in it, nothing being more grievous to him than to be in the company of wicked men.

Hence we learn that no sin is more detestable to God, by whose Spirit David spoke, than the false accusations which shamefully deface the beauty of God’s Church and lay it waste, causing it to differ little from dens of robbers or other places made infamous by the barbarous cruelty committed there.

Now if the place where the uprightness of good men is overwhelmed by the accusations of lying lips is converted for the children of God into a region of miserable exile, how could they have pleasure, or rather, how could they fail to feel the bitterest sorrow, in abiding in a part of the world where the sacred name of God is shamefully profaned by horrible blasphemies and his truth obscured by detestable lies?

David exclaims, Alas for me! because, dwelling among false brethren and a bastard race of Abraham, he was wrongfully harassed and tormented by them, although he had behaved toward them in good conscience. Since, then, at the present day, in the Church of Rome, religion is dishonored by all manner of disgraceful imputations, faith torn in pieces, light turned into darkness, and the majesty of God exposed to the grossest mockeries, it will certainly be impossible for those who have any feeling of true piety within them to remain in the midst of such pollutions without great anguish of spirit.