Psalms 125 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Key Background

Jerusalem really is ringed by higher ground on three sides, so the comparison is straight geography rather than poetry invented from nothing. The phrase about the sceptre of wickedness resting on the land refers to a foreign ruler's authority over Jewish territory, a live grievance under Persian and later Greek administration. Land in Israel was understood as an inheritance allotted to families by God, so a foreign power controlling that land was a religious problem as much as a political one.