*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
I cried to Jehovah in my distress. The name of the author of the Psalm is not expressed, but the style of it throughout presents David to our view. Although, therefore, I cannot positively affirm, yet 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. This, then, being granted, I would observe that although David, when in this verse he affirms that the Lord had heard him, gives thanks to him, yet his chief purpose was to set forth, in the form of complaint, how wickedly and cruelly Saul's flatterers employed all their ingenuity and power to accomplish his destruction. He, however, sets out with an expression of his gratitude to God, telling us that he had not called upon Him in vain; and he does this, that by his own example he might encourage others, especially when oppressed with adversity, to confidence in prayer. Men, it is true, have need of God's help every moment; but there is not a more suitable season for seeking him than when some great danger is immediately menacing us. It is therefore worthy of notice, that he was heard when, constrained and shut up by tribulation, he betook himself to the protection of God.
In my distress - In my suffering, as arising from slander, Psalm 120:2-3. There are few forms of suffering more keen than those caused by slander:
"Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters."
Cymbeline, iii. 4.
It is one of those things which a man cannot guard against; which he cannot repel by force; whose origin he cannot always trace; which will go where a vindication will not follow; whose effects will live long after the slander is refuted; which will adhere to a man, or leave a trait of suspicion, even after the most successful vindication, for the effect will be to make a second slander more easily credited than the first was.
I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me - I had no other resource. I could not meet the slander. I could not refute it. I could not prevent its effects on my reputation, and all that I could do was to commit the case to the Lord. See the notes at Psalm 37:5-6.
In my distress - Through the causes afterwards mentioned.
I cried unto the Lord - Made strong supplication for help.
And he heard one - Answered my prayer by comforting my soul.
It appears to be a prayer of the captives in Babylon for complete liberty; or perhaps he recites the prayer the Israelites had made previously to their restoration.
"A Song of (a) degrees." In my (b) distress I cried unto the LORD, and he heard me.
(a) That is, of lifting up the tune and rising in singing.
(b) Even though the children of God should rejoice when they suffer for righteousness sake, yet it is a great grief to the flesh to hear evil for well doing.
In my distress I cried unto the Lord,.... Being at a distance from his own country, or, however, from the house of God; persecuted by men, under the lash of their tongues; reproached, abused, and belied by them: in this his case and circumstances, he betook himself by prayer to the Lord, and importuned help and deliverance of him, knowing that none could help him as he; see Psalm 18:6;
and he heard me; answered him, and delivered him. The petition he put up follows, which shows his case, and his particular distress.
The psalmist was brought into great distress by a deceitful tongue. May every good man be delivered from lying lips. They forged false charges against him. In this distress, he sought God by fervent prayer. God can bridle their tongues. He obtained a gracious answer to this prayer. Surely sinners durst not act as they do, if they knew, and would be persuaded to think, what will be in the end thereof. The terrors of the Lord are his arrows; and his wrath is compared to burning coals of juniper, which have a fierce heat, and keep fire very long. This is the portion of the false tongue; for all that love and make a lie, shall have their portion in the lake that burns eternally.
According to the pointing ויּענני, the poet appears to base his present petition, which from Psalm 120:2 onwards is the substance of the whole Psalm, upon the fact of a previous answering of his prayers. For the petition in Psalm 120:2 manifestly arises out of his deplorable situation, which is described in Psalm 120:5. Nevertheless there are also other instances in which ויענני might have been expected, where the pointing is ויּענני (Psalm 3:5; Jonah 2:3), so that consequently ויּענני may, without any prejudice to the pointing, be taken as a believing expression of the result (cf. the future of the consequence in Job 9:16) of the present cry for help. צרתה, according to the original signification, is a form of the definition of a state or condition, as in Psalm 3:3; 44:27; Psalm 63:8, Jonah 2:10, Hosea 8:7, and בּצּרתה לּי = בּצּר־לּי, Psalm 18:7, is based upon the customary expression צר לּי. In Psalm 120:2 follows the petition which the poet sends up to Jahve in the certainty of being answered. רמיּה beside לשׁון, although there is no masc. רמי (cf. however the Aramaic רמּי, רמּאי), is taken as an adjective after the form טריּה, עניּה, which it is also perhaps in Micah 6:12. The parallelism would make לשׁון natural, like לשׁון מרמה in Psalm 52:6; the pointing, which nevertheless disregarded this, will therefore rest upon tradition. The apostrophe in Psalm 120:3 is addressed to the crafty tongue. לשׁון is certainly feminine as a rule; but whilst the tongue as such is feminine, the לשׁון רמיה of the address, as in Psalm 52:6, refers to him who has such a kind of tongue (cf. Hitzig on Proverbs 12:27), and thereby the לך is justified; whereas the rendering, "what does it bring to thee, and what does it profit thee?" or, "of what use to thee and what advancement to thee is the crafty tongue?" is indeed possible so far as concerns the syntax (Ges. 147, e), but is unlikely as being ambiguous and confusing in expression. It is also to be inferred from the correspondence between מה־יּתּן לך וּמה־יּסיף לך and the formula of an oath כּה יעשׂה־לּך אלהים לכה יוסיף, 1-Samuel 3:17; 1-Samuel 20:13; 1-Samuel 25:22; 2-Samuel 3:35; Ruth 1:17, that God is to be thought of as the subject of יתן and יסיף: "what will," or rather, in accordance with the otherwise precative use of the formula and with the petition that here precedes: "what shall He (is He to) give to thee (נתן as in Hosea 9:14), and what shall He add to thee, thou crafty tongue?" The reciprocal relation of Psalm 120:4 to מה־יתן, and of. Psalm 120:4 with the superadding עם to מה־יסיף, shows that Psalm 120:4 is not now a characterizing of the tongue that continues the apostrophe to it, as Ewald supposes. Consequently Psalm 120:4 gives the answer to Psalm 120:3 with the twofold punishment which Jahve will cause the false tongue to feel. The question which the poet, sure of the answering of his cry for help, puts to the false tongue is designed to let the person addressed hear by a flight of sarcasm what he has to expect. The evil tongue is a sharp sword (Psalm 57:5), a pointed arrow (Jeremiah 9:7), and it is like a fire kindled of hell (James 3:6). The punishment, too, corresponds to this its nature and conduct (Psalm 64:4). The "mighty one" (lxx δυνατός) is God Himself, as it is observed in B. Erachin 15b with a reference to Isaiah 42:13 : "There is none mighty by the Holy One, blessed is He." He requites the evil tongue like with like. Arrows and coals (Psalm 140:11) appear also in other instances among His means of punishment. It, which shot piercing arrows, is pierced by the sharpened arrows of an irresistibly mighty One; it, which set its neighbour in a fever of anguish, must endure the lasting, sure, and torturingly consuming heat of broom-coals. The lxx renders it in a general sense, σὺν τοῖς ἄνθραξι τοῖς ἐρημικοῖς; Aquila, following Jewish tradition, ἀρκευθίναις; but רתם, Arabic ratam, ratem, is the broom-shrub (e.g., uncommonly frequent in the Belkâ).
*More commentary available at chapter level.