Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!
Read Chapter 120
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
5. "Alas, that my sojourning is become far off!" (ver. 5). It hath departed far from Thee: my pilgrimage hath become a far one. I have not yet reached that country, where I shall live with no wicked person; I have not yet reached that company of Angels, where I shall not fear offences. But why am I not as yet there? Because sojourning is pilgrimage. He is called a sojourner who dwells in a foreign land, not in his own country. And when is it far off? Sometimes, my brethren, when a man goeth abroad, he liveth among better persons, than he would perhaps live with in his own country: but it is not thus, when we go afar from that heavenly Jerusalem. For a man changeth his country, and this foreign sojourn is sometimes good for him; in travelling he findeth faithful friends, whom he could not find in his own country. He had enemies, so that he was driven from his country; and when he travelled, he found what he had not in his country. Such is not that country Jerusalem, where all are good: ...
Is prolonged. Hebrew, "is Meshec. "(Haydock)
But Houbigant rejects this as a place unknown; and the word may have the former signification, given by the Septuagint and St. Jerome. (Calmet) (Berthier)
Moses speaks of Meshec, (Genesis x. 2.) or of the mountains separating Cholcis from Armenia, where the Jews might be dispersed, (4 Kings xvii. 23., and 1 Esdras ii. 59., and viii. 15.) as well as in Cedar, or Arabia Petrea, (Isaias xlii. 11.) where the Saracens afterwards inhabited, according to St. Jerome. (Loc. Heb.) (Calmet)
Inhabitants. Hebrew, "tents "in which the people chiefly dwelt. (Berthier)
From Cedar, the son of Ismael, sprung Mahomet, whose tyranny has been long felt. Cedar denotes the "darkness "of sin and error. The Jews bewailed their absence from the temple, and Christians their being unable to meet for the divine worship, and their banishment (Worthington) from heaven. (St. Chrysostom)
