Mesech and Kedar are two sorts of people, oft mentioned in Scripture, and reckoned amongst the heathen and barbarous nations. But their nurses are not here to be understood properly, (for we do not read that either David or the Israelites in the Babylonish captivity dwelt in their lands,) but only metaphorically, as the ungodly Israelites are called Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaiah 1:10, and Amorites and Hittithes, Ezekiel 16:3,45, and as in common speech among us, men of an evil character are called Turks or Jews. And so he explains himself in the next verse by this description of them, him or them that hated peace, although David sought peace with them, Psalms 120:7. And so he speaks either,
1. Of the Philistines, among whom he sojourned for a time. But he did not seek peace with them, but sought their ruin, as the event showed; nor did they wage war against him, whilst he lived peaceably among them. Or rather,
2. The courtiers and soldiers of Saul, and the generality of the Israelites, who, to curry favour with Saul, sought David's ruin, and that many times by treachery and pretences of friendship; of which he oft complains in this book; whom as he elsewhere calls heathen, as Psalms 9:5, Psalms 59:5, it is not strange if he compares them here to the savage Arabians. And amongst such persons David was oft forced to sojourn in Saul's time, and with them he sought peace by all ways possible; but they hated peace, and the more he pursued peace, the more eagerly did they prosecute the war, as it here follows.