Gustave Doré’s engraving of David standing crowned and bowed as he mourns Absalom

Psalm 120

One of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, which St Athanasius said to pray when you can feel yourself climbing higher.

  • 7Verses
  • 1Situation

St Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus

When to pray it

In the 300s, St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote a letter to his friend Marcellinus about praying the Psalms. In it he matched psalms to what people go through. This is what he gave this one for.

You can feel yourself climbing: forgetting what's behind you and straining toward what's ahead.

When you sense yourself climbing higher in how you live, so that you can say with Paul, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead", you have the fifteen Songs of Ascents to say at every step forward.

Letter to Marcellinus

He gave all fifteen Songs of Ascents for this, Psalms 120 to 134.

7 verses, Berean Standard Bible

The whole psalm

Psalm 120

Its own heading A song of ascents.

  1. 1In my distress I cried to the LORD, and He answered me.
  2. 2Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips and a deceitful tongue.
  3. 3What will He do to you, and what will be added to you, O deceitful tongue?
  4. 4Sharp arrows will come from the warrior, with burning coals of the broom tree!
  5. 5Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech, that I live among the tents of Kedar!
  6. 6Too long have I dwelt among those who hate peace.
  7. 7I am in favor of peace; but when I speak, they want war.

Psalm 120 is 119 in the Greek numbering Athanasius used, which Orthodox Bibles and some older Catholic ones still follow.

When life is good, and you want to thank Him and grow

Close to this

All 53 situations, in one guide.

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Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Athanasius’s advice is paraphrased from his Greek.