Psalm 120

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The 120th psalm is a biblical psalm from the fifth book of the psalter . He opens the group of pilgrimage psalms (Psalms 120-134). According to the Greek count of the Septuagint , which is also used by the Latin Vulgate , the psalm bears the number 119. The Latin initial words are traditionally used as the name of the psalm in the Western Church : " Ad dominum cum tribularer clamavi ", e.g. B. in musical arrangements of the Psalm.

content

  1. Verse 1: The subject is named. The psalmist is certain that his God YHWH can save him from distress.
  2. Verse 2: The psalmist requests YHWH to save him from his enemies. They endanger him by what they say.
  3. Verses 3–4: The psalmist curses these enemies according to the principle of doing-doing-context : whatever they threaten him with should hit them themselves.
  4. Verses 5-7: The ego complains of its impotence in a strange and hostile world.

At the factual level, the aggressive speech of the enemy and the peaceful speech of the ego are contrasted. A military attack is the subject of the picture. Factual and image levels are interwoven.

genus

The definition of the genre of the Psalm depends on the translation of verse 1. If one translates presently, the text can be understood as an individual lament; the specific elements of the genre (complaint, request, assurance of being heard) are recognizable, albeit in an unusual sequence. Exegetes who relate verse 1 to the past interpret the text more as a song of thanksgiving. One imagines that the Psalmist, upon arriving in Jerusalem, looks back at the beginning of the pilgrimage in the diaspora . The arrival in Jerusalem is as such a turn of God, although the danger of his enemies still persists.

Individual aspects

Arrows and gorse coals

On the pictorial level, verse 4 Lu names two different war techniques combined with which the psalmist's enemies threaten him. The arrows were primarily ranged weapons used from chariots or ambushes. In some ancient oriental peoples, archers also intervened in the fighting from horses or camels. The root wood of gorse bushes glows particularly long; Gorse coals were therefore used to burn down enemy settlements. The combination of both statements on incendiary arrows that were set on fire with gorse coals cannot be ruled out, but as far as is known, incendiary arrows were not prepared in this way, but with oil-soaked tow threads that were wrapped around the arrowhead.

Meshech and the tents of Kedar

In verse 5 two places are found:

  • Meschech,
  • (Tents of) Kedar.

While Kedar clearly describes nomads in the Arabian desert , it has caused irritation among exegetes that Meschech was a warlike ethnic group living far away from the Black Sea . So the extreme north and the extreme south of the world known to the poet are designated. Then it is clear that it is a "theological topography": it is not about where the I lives or lived before its pilgrimage, but how it feels - namely literally "at the end", on the edge of life and the World. Other exegetes, however, hold Meschech (משך) for a prescription of Masch (מש) and interpret this as the name of another desert people.

reception

Latin settings created, for example:

literature

Web links

Commons : Psalm 120  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, p. 410.
  2. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, p. 410 f.
  3. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, p. 412 f.
  4. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, p. 417 f.
  5. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, pp. 419-421.
  6. ↑ Frank-Lothar Hossfeld, Erich Zenger: Psalms 101-150 , Freiburg et al. 2008, p. 419 f. See Ernst Axel Knauf:  Kedar. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (eds.): The scientific biblical dictionary on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.