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Psalm 120 · a question people ask

"He answered me" (120:1). If the LORD answered, why does the psalm go on praying, and end among those who are for war?

In the text

The psalm says both, and doesn't explain. It begins, "In my distress, I cried to the LORD. He answered me" (120:1), and goes straight on to pray, "Deliver my soul, LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue" (120:2). It ends, "I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war" (120:7). The psalm doesn't say whether 120:1 speaks of an earlier distress, answered before, or of the trouble in the verses that follow, and it doesn't say what the answer was. Another psalm puts calling and answering together in one line, with Psalm 120:1's Hebrew words for distress, cried and answered: "In the day of my trouble I will call on you, for you will answer me" (Psalm 86:7). These notes don't choose how 120:1 and the rest of the psalm fit together, and don't add an ending the psalm doesn't have.

The verses

“A Song of Ascents. In my distress, I cried to the LORD. He answered me. Deliver my soul, LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”
Psalm 120:1-2 · World English Bible
“I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.”
Psalm 120:7 · World English Bible
“In the day of my trouble I will call on you, for you will answer me.”
Psalm 86:7 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 120

Psalm 120: I am for peace

The first song of ascents opens with a cry that is answered, "He answered me" (120:1), in the same Hebrew words for distress, calling and answering as Jonah's prayer (Jonah 2:2), and ends on war: "I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war" (120:7). Its Woe (120:5) is a form found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions