Seder 157: Psalm 64---Confidence in God's Measure-for-Measure Justice

 The psalmist in Psalm 64, presumably David, prays for God's protection from dangerous enemies (vv 1-2).  He then goes on to describe the enemies, who hatch plots against the blameless and wait to ambush them (vv 3-4).  They imagine that their plans are foolproof and there is no one to hold them accountable (vv 5-6).  

God, however, has other ideas.  He causes their plot to backfire, so that they suffer the fate that they had planned for their victims (vv 7-8).  As a result, fear of God increases and the righteous rejoice at God's great works (vv 9-10).  

In the midrash on Psalm 64, the sages suggest that God had revealed in advance to David what would happen to the prophet Daniel in the future.  Like the wicked described in Psalm 64, the officials of King Darius ambush Daniel with an ingenious plot, so that Daniel is thrown into a den of lions.  The lions, however, do not touch Daniel; instread, they devour the evil officials and their families (Daniel 6).  Daniel 6 does indeed provide a nice example of the scenario laid out in the Psalm.  

Seder 150: Psalm 120---Deliverance from Deceitful Tongues

 In Psalm 120 the psalmist, who has previously experienced divine deliverance in times of distress (v 1), brings another situation to God.  He has been the victim of slanderous verbal attacks (v 2).  He tries to make peace, but his enemies will have none of it (vv 6-7).  

He prays that God will give his attacker the kind of punishment that the attacker has been directing at him (vv 3-4).  The images used in these verses remind us of the destructive damage that our words can do.  The deceitful tongue is like a bow shooting an arrow or like a sharp sword (see Ps 57:4; 64:3; Pr 25:18; Jer 9:3,8).  It can also be compared to a fire (James 3:6; Pr 16:27).   

"Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!" he laments in verse 5.  Meshach and Kedar are located far from Israel in completely different directions, Meshech near the Black Sea and Kedar in the Arabian desert.  Here the psalmist may be saying that he feels completely alienated in his home in Israel, as if he were staying in one of these faraway places.  Alternatively, he may be saying that he might as well be living in Meshech or Kedar, because his enemies are behaving like hostile barbarians.  Or perhaps he is saying that even when he is far from home, he is too close to these slanderers.  In any case, the verse expresses his alienation.  

Psalm 120 is the first of the psalms of ascents, songs associated with the journey to Jerusalem for one of the pilgrimage festivals.  It may be that in going to be in God's presence he finally feels at home in a way that he hasn't been experiencing in his own town (see Heb 11:13-16).