Salmos 120:5

Mesech. — This name is generally identified with Moschi, mentioned by Herodotus (iii. 94), a tribe on the borders of Colchis and Armenia. It appears again in the prophet Ezequiel 27:13; Ezequiel 38:3; Ezequiel 39:1. The only reason for suspecting the accuracy of this identification is the remoteness from Kedar, who were a nomad tribe of Arabia. (See Gênesis 25:13; Cântico dos Cânticos 1:5.) But in the absence of any other indication of the motive for the mention of these tribes here, this very remoteness affords a sufficiently plausible one; or they may be types of savage life, selected the one from the north, and the other from the south, as poetry dictated. It is quite possible that the circumstances amid which the poet wrote made it necessary for him to veil in this way his allusion to powerful tribes, from whose violence the nation was suffering. At all events, the two concluding verses leave no doubt that some troubled state of affairs, in which the choice of courses was not easy, and affecting the whole nation. not an individual, is here presented.