Psalms 120:5-7

5. Alas for me! that I have been a sojourner in Mesech. David complains that he was doomed to linger for a long time among a perverse people; his condition resembling that of some wretched individual who is compelled to live till he grows old in sorrowful exile. The Mesechites and Kedarenes, as is well known, were Eastern tribes; the former of which derived their original from Japhet, as Moses informs us in Genesis 10:2; and the latter from a son of Ishmael. (Genesis 25:13.) To take the latter for a people of Italy, who were anciently called Hetrurians, is altogether absurd, and without the least color of probability, Some ‘would have the word Mesech to be an appellative noun; and because מש mashak, signifies to draw, to protract, they think that the Prophet bewails his protracted banishment, of the termination of which he saw no prospect. This is the sense in which the word is rendered in most of the ancient versions. Thus the Septuagint has ἡ παροικία μρυ ἐμακρύνθη, “my sojourning is protracted;” and it is followed by the Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic versions. Aquila has προσηλύτευσα ἐν μακρυσμῷ I was a stranger for a long time;” and Symmachus, παροικῶν παρίλκυσα “I have protracted sojourning.” Bishop Patrick and Dr. Hammond, following these authorities, render משך, mesech, adverbially. But though this is a meaning which the word will bear, yet as Calvin observes, there is little room for doubting that it is here a proper name. The parallelism which enables us in many instances to determine the accurate interpretation of a word in Hebrew poetry when other helps entirely fail, decidedly favors this interpretation. The term corresponding to משך mesech, in the next hemistich, is קרר kedar; and as it is universally admitted that this is the name of a place, it cannot be justly questioned that such is also the case with respect to משך mesech. To render it otherwise is destructive of the poetical structure of the passage. “If,” says Phillips, “the adverbial sense be intended, then the expression should not have been גרתי משך, but something analogous to רבת שכנה in the next verse. Many localities have been mentioned for the geography of Mesech, as Tuscany, Cappadocia, Armenia, etc., which proves that the particular district called by this name is uncertain.” It is however obvious that some barbarous and brutal tribes of Arabs are intended.

A similar mode of speaking is not uncommon in our own day. Thus we are accustomed to call gross and ignorant people Turks and Hottentots.