Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 13/24

so, when sin was thrust out of the world, death too was thrust out along with it.

Death, then, has its undoing in the resurrection of Christ, through whom and in whom the nature of man has flourished again unto incorruption and life.

'Whenever, therefore, You raise me up, O Father,' He says, 'then also I will repay them'—clearly, those who have wantonly insulted Him.

But observe nonetheless how from our lowliness He mounts up again.

For He did not say to the Father in heaven, 'When You raise me up, then You also will repay them,' but as one who Himself will be, is, and is understood to be the Judge of all and God, He says, 'I will repay them.' For as He Himself says again somewhere, 'The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father.' And that, though the Father is said to raise our Lord Jesus from the dead, this too was accomplished through Him—how could anyone doubt it? For He Himself is, as I said, the resurrection and the life.

Therefore He also said to the Jews concerning His own body:

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. And that the Jews have paid the penalty for the impiety committed against Him, there would be no need of lengthy words, since the very things that have befallen them proclaim it aloud.

For He repaid them, delivering them over to the Romans.

Then again He speaks in human fashion:

'By this I knew that You have willed me.'

'He speaks again as man, and as one who for this cause became man—that He might present us in Himself to God the Father, we who were in estrangement because of the transgression and the sin that tyrannized over us.

For in Christ we have obtained kinship with Him, and thenceforth to be loved.

For He Himself is our peace, and the door and the way to spiritual kinship.

'Whenever, therefore,' He says, 'O Father, having had mercy on me You raise me up, then I shall know that You have willed me'—that is to say, have loved me.

For truly, in love is everything that is an object of will.

'And then my enemy shall not rejoice over me.'

And you will understand the enemy of all humanity to be the devil, who through sin brought in death.

This one, then, will cease from rejoicing when he sees the nature of man transformed into incorruption and reshaped into the form it had in the beginning, sin having been done away with, and along with it corruption.

But in a particular and individual sense we must understand the enemies of Christ to be the chief priests, and Scribes, and Pharisees, who hired Judas and led Jesus away to Pilate. 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,' and so forth.

'He now also closes the psalm with thanksgiving, as one offered on behalf of all and by all to God the Father,

everlastingly—the blessing beginning from us in the present, but being brought to perfection in the age to come, when that which is in part shall be done away.

'For the end, for understanding, to the sons of Korah.'

And this second section now contains thirty-one psalms, of which eight are inscribed to the sons of Korah;

and the first of these are those of the sons of Korah.

These men became sacred singers, and they sing the song, not indeed as having themselves composed it altogether, but as receiving it from Spirit-bearing men, to whom the knowledge of things to come in their seasons had been given by God who knows all things.

And they introduce the very person of Israel confessing to Christ through the repentance which they will make at the consummation of the ages.

And the superscription exhorts those who will read it to understanding, since divine understanding was needful for those who were to comprehend the things that would come about after so many years.

But who is Korah? This man lived in the days of Moses, but perished together with those who joined with him in rising up in sedition against him;

yet his children shared neither in the impiety nor in the destruction of their father;

and they became so devout that they were even reckoned as psalm-singers.

'My soul thirsted after God, the living God,' and so forth.

'Since in the psalm before this it had been said by the Saviour:

Lord, have mercy on me and raise me up, and I will repay them—now the person of those who crucified Him is set before us, who have suffered irreparable things, it being evident that afterward they will be received back.

And they say that they thirst for God and long for the fountain that is with Him, of which it is said, 'With You is the fountain of life.' Concerning them, at any rate, Paul said:

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive, how much more shall these, who are by nature branches, be grafted into their own olive tree? These things, then, Israel, repenting, says that he yearns to draw near to God according to disposition and the sanctification that is through faith in Christ;

and the one whom they slew as a man, this one they name as the living God, confessing the error whereby they delivered over to death the Author of life.

And the phrase, 'When shall I come?' belongs to those who yearn for the later calling, and who seek to learn the time at which they too shall be made manifest to the presence of God the Father, even if now they are in estrangement from God.

'When you stretch out your hands to me, I will turn away my eyes from you; and though you multiply your supplication, I will not hear you;

for your hands are full of blood.' But when they are called, they shall be seen at the presence of God;

for it is written, 'The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous.' 'My tears became bread to me day and night.'

'Upon Israel, fallen from the form from above, dire calamities have come;

for the cities of Judea have been sacked by the army of the Romans.

And that these things would befall them, Christ foretold beforehand;

For 'when you see Jerusalem,' He says, 'encircled by armies, then you shall say to the mountains:

Cover us,' and to the hills:

'Fall upon us.' While Israel, then, was enduring these things, some of the neighbouring peoples, as was to be expected, mocked and reviled;

for the surrounding nations always rejoiced over them when they were being warred upon and were in distress,

bitterly to lament the unexpected turn of affairs for the worse.

But of what things does he say he will make mention? First, that he had offended God by his outrage against Christ;

Then, that having been deprived of the salvation that comes through Him, he was in a manner rendered worthless, and fell away from every good hope, and was seized by such dreadful calamities;

And thirdly, that while he was suffering these things, certain ones mocked, continually crying out the words: 'Where is your God?' 'For I shall pass through into the place of the wondrous tabernacle, even unto the house of God, with a voice of exultation and thanksgiving, the sound of one keeping festival.'

Those who are distressed at the mockeries of their enemies are not moderately enriched by the hope of good things, and they leap over into rejoicing and into having a disposition better than all despondency, and they proclaim to themselves the good news that in due season they will attain the salvation and life that are through Christ, and will dwell in the divine courts together with the other saints, and will share in the festival — I mean, that of the unceasing doxologies offered up to God.

For such a solemn assembly is befitting the saints;

'Blessed are all who dwell in Your house;

they shall praise You unto the ages of ages.' And he names it a wondrous tabernacle and house of God, meaning, that is, the Church upon earth, which is the copy of the Church in the heavens.

But the saints expect something still higher, namely, that after their sufferings here, the thrice-blessed end will receive them — the wondrous tabernacle of God on high, and its innermost house, into which, being lifted up by the angelic powers, they shall be led in, according to Symmachus who said:

whence also comes the saying, 'We shall be caught up in a cloud.' And in contrast to the perceptible tabernacle made through Moses, he called the spiritual one wondrous — the true one, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

But if there is joy in the heavens among the angels of God over one sinner who repents, how is it not likely that, when a soul after sufficient training is led up into the heavenly holy places, there arises an auspicious voice of the multitude keeping festival over the salvation of those who are being saved? Whence he says:

'I shall arrive with a voice of exultation and thanksgiving, the sound of those keeping festival' — that is, singing hymns, and, mingling with those who keep festival, kindling songs of praise to Christ who saved us.

'Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I shall give thanks to Him;

the salvation of my countenance is my God.'

The one who crucified Him rebukes his griefs, employing the hope in Christ.

If, O soul, there has been reserved a season in which the calling that is through our faith may bring us with those who keep festival into the tabernacle, why are you cast down, and why are you worn out with griefs? Hope in God;

for I shall give thanks to Him, and He Himself will be the salvation of my countenance.

And 'countenance' here seems to be used in place of 'beauty';

for upon those who believe in Christ the divine beauty is resplendent;

for He is formed within them through sanctification and righteousness.

But upon the unbelieving there follows in every case what is unsightly;

for they do not have shining resplendent within themselves the divine and undefiled beauty.

'My little children, for whom I again travail in birth until Christ be formed in you.' Therefore, when Christ is formed in you, then He works the salvation of the soul's countenance, that is, of its beauty.

And very well indeed does the people that crucified Him confess Emmanuel to be God, even though it once persecuted Him and said:

'My soul is troubled within myself;

therefore I will remember You from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from the little mountain.'

'I shall comfort myself with the memory of Your wondrous works, both those which You showed us at the Jordan, and those at the mountain neighbouring it, Hermon.'

'Having come to be in the Jordan, that is, having been deemed worthy of holy baptism, at that very time I shall remember You through the word of confession;

and I shall remember also Hermon, which is interpreted \"way of the lamp,\" inasmuch as holy baptism opens up a way of illumination.'

After the death of Moses, when Joshua was leading the people into the land of promise, as the priests stepped into the Jordan, carrying the ark upon their shoulders, the Jordan, as the Scripture says, was overflowing all its banks;

and the waters that came down from above stood as one mass;

but that which was going down went down into the sea of salt.

And all the sons of Israel passed over on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan — the stream flowing downward proceeding into the salt sea, while that coming down from above was, wondrously by the power of God, held back and made to withdraw backward;

and indeed the streams of the Jordan pouring forth from the springs above, having no outlet, were bent upward and became one heap, the waters rising up correspondingly, because their outlet had been shut off from them.

'Recalling, then,' he says, 'to memory the grace of the visitation that came to the people at that time, I with reason melt away my soul in the present circumstance, since no such providence of God has come to pass even among us.'

For they wondrously passed through the Jordan and the neighbouring mountain Hermon;

but in my case, who am saying these things, no such thing has been wrought.

These are the words of the captives.

'Deep calls unto deep at the voice of Your cataracts.'

'Deep' signifies the boundlessness of the great multitude;

they summon one another's alliance for the onslaught against us,

in a joint rush, by reason of the permission [given] for that rush of theirs;

for with reason he called the permission of God 'cataracts' in relation to the deeps.

They make mention not only of the wonder that took place at the Jordan for the salvation of those of Israel, but they also make a catalogue of yet other wonders, setting forth in order the things which came to pass from time to time.

For once the foreigners marched in campaign against those of Israel at Mizpah;

for it is written thus in the books of Kingdoms.

And when they advanced to battle, equipped with the law of war, those of Israel, fearing the assault, drew near to the divinely-inspired Samuel, and earnestly besought him to make supplications on their behalf.

And he sacrificed a suckling lamb, and poured out water upon the ground, as a type of the mystery concerning Christ.

And such a sacrifice having been made on their behalf, so great a hail was brought down upon the enemies that nearly all of them fell, without any man fighting against them.

It seems, then, that he names the irresistible rush of the hail 'deep running upon deep';

for the word 'calls upon' stands in place of 'calls forth';

for the rush of it was one following hard upon another, and, as it were, the first called forth the second.

And the down-rushings of the hail may be understood as 'voices of cataracts.'

'All Your surgings and Your waves passed over me.'

Then immediately they call to memory yet another wonder;

for they passed through the Red Sea, fleeing the wickedness of Pharaoh;

and the surgings of the waves, that is, their risings, seemed as it were to bear down upon them, but did them no harm at all;

this, I think, is [the meaning of] 'All Your surgings and Your waves passed over me'; for the waters were made firm as a wall, and the passage was kept dry.

'By day the Lord will command His mercy, and by night a song to Him.'

(Of Cyril and Theodoret.) And indeed by day God, that is, manifestly and as it were in the light, promises His mercy through the voice of the saints;

He renders it manifest, and brings it to completion by night, that is, in a hidden manner.

And perhaps he means also to speak of the swiftness of God's help.

'For as, when You so willed, You brought the waves of enemies upon me, so, when You will to deliver me, You will apportion Your succour most swiftly, so that at the same instant You command it, nothing hinders me from giving thanks to You, and there is nothing intervening between Your command and my release.'

As a third sign he joins on to what has been said the time when Rabshakeh, having besieged Jerusalem, blasphemed the God of all as being unable to save them, when in a single night one hundred and eighty-five thousand of those with him were slain by an angel;

God, on the day before the night, having foretold this to Hezekiah;

This is shown by the words, 'By day the Lord will command His mercy, and by night He will declare it.' Since, then, God's providence is so great, how is it not fitting to lay aside grief, placing one's hope in Him? 'With me is prayer to the God of my life.'

But the divine Cyril, punctuating at the words 'and by night is a song to Him,' and then adding 'With me is prayer to the God of my life,' interprets the verse thus:

that Israel, once cast off but now become faithful, says that he holds within himself a prayer that is for his own life alone, and for none of the other transient things.

Or else: because of old, under the Law, they offered to God sacrifices through blood, but now that the shadow has been transformed into truth, we consecrate to Him our own life;

according to the words, 'Present your bodies to God as a living, holy sacrifice.' The prayer here, therefore, signifies the promise;

so that the meaning is this: 'With me, Israel, the vow of my life and the promise are consecrated to God.'

Then he teaches the words of the prayer:

'Why have You forgotten me?' and so forth.

The repentant people again take up their supplication, all the more calling upon God to mercy.

'For I,' he says, 'do not forget, knowing Your compassions and the hopes laid up in store;

but You—I do not know for what cause of mine You have forgotten me.'

But do not suppose that forgetting, in the case of God, is a passion; rather it is abandonment.

For forgetting is a human passion, being a loss of memory, and it does not touch the divine nature;

for the Divine is impassible and unchangeable.

'While my bones were being crushed, those who afflict me reproached me.'

Having called his enemies to mind, he denounces their savagery and mercilessness;

'For they crushed my bones,' he says—that is, they leaped upon me unbearably, and springing upon me without fear, they brought every kind of ruin.

But this was more grievous to me: to be reviled by them, who were forever crying out:

'Where is your God?'—which means, 'Who then will snatch you from the persecutions? And where is He who once promised to help, on whom you set all your hope?' For to the saints the blasphemous railing against God is intolerable.

'Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I shall confess to Him,' and so forth.

(Of Cyril and Theodoret.) It is characteristic of those who suffer to turn over continual reasonings within themselves, now of despair, now of hope.

This too both the repentant Israel and the captive do here;

for each of them, having wept enough over his calamity, again exhorts his own soul not to waste away in grief nor to be troubled, but to set God as his hope, and to give thanks to Him;

He who, having taken the form of a servant, became the salvation of our countenance—that is, of the beauty of peace which we had defiled.

Then again, lifting his own soul up to good cheer, and not allowing it to be utterly withered away by despondency, he looks wisely to the hope that is in God, and indeed says:

'Hope in God, for I shall confess to Him;

the salvation of my countenance is my God.' The interpretation of these words we have already given above.

The divine Cyril says that in the psalm before this one the person of Israel was introduced, as one who knows his own calling in the last times, and who thirsts to be henceforth made God's own through faith;

but in the present psalm the person of the multitude of the nations is introduced, beseeching to be saved through faith in Christ.

And they wish also that the cause by which they had perished should be examined;

and this was the wickedness of the devil, and the covetous greed of the unclean spirits;

for these they name an 'unholy nation';

or perhaps also the servants of their unholiness—I mean the chosen writers and poets of the Greeks;

and these they name 'unjust and deceitful,' as being cheats and liars.

'Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an unholy nation,' and so forth.

'You Yourself,' he says, 'become my judge, O Lord, You who judge not from hearsay, but who render what is just from full knowledge, and deliver me from the greed of Satan and from the alien demons.'

For Isaiah too calls the devil a 'man,' saying:

'An Egyptian man, and not God, I said should help them.'

'For You are, O God, my strength,' and so forth.

Both those from the circumcision who repent inscribe God as their own strength;

and those from the nations who have believed set Him as their own might;

and the captives do not hope to be ransomed by any other.

But when those who have not believed in God say, 'You are, O God, my strength,' we affirm that God is the Creator of all things, and that He holds all things together unto their well-being;

He Himself is the strength of all things, according to the grace given in the beginning to the common nature.

But if some have offended, having undergone a fall of their own choosing, and have become far from God, both through sin and moreover through worshipping the creation apart from Him,

nothing hinders us from saying that God is even their strength.

But they were thrust out because of the sin that had come in between, while Satan pressed and lay heavy upon them, contriving to make them downcast through anticipation.

For how could those who are all but about to be punished for their sin be able to rejoice? 'Why have You rejected me?' and so forth.

Those who long for the calling in Christ hasten it, and beseech that God's turning-away may be undone, so that Satan may not afflict them further.

And the war-captives, knowing that their dominion had come from God, fittingly name their being subdued a 'rejection by God.'

And the 'Why?' they say not as accusing or as impatiently despairing, but as of a suffering that ought to have an end through mercy.

'For why, O Lord,' they say, 'is Your part not accomplished—which is mercy—but rather the part that comes from us prevails?' 'Send forth Your light and Your truth.'

For clearly in these words they signify the illumination that comes through Christ the Saviour of us all.

For this God promised of old through the voice of Isaiah, saying:

'I will make their darkness into light, and all their crooked ways into straight.' And it is said to the Son Himself:

'Behold, I have given You for a covenant; be for a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind.' So they entreat God and Father in the heavens to send forth to them His own light—that is, the Word who shines forth from His essence in a manner befitting God—whom indeed they also call Truth, distinguishing Him from the falsely-named gods.

the true One, so as to use such expressions.

And Christ Himself also says concerning Himself:

'I am the light, and the truth, and the life.' Now the light is not other than the truth in essence (for both are the Son of God), but only in conception;

for insofar as He sets free from shadow and falsehood, He is Truth;

but insofar as He frees from error and ignorance, He is Light.

They ask, however, that the light and the truth be sent, as clearly not yet possessing these.

But the captives, passing their life as if in darkness amid calamities and afflictions, name the deliverance from these a 'light,' and the true and steadfast help of God.

'They led me, and brought me to Your holy mountain and to Your dwelling-places.'

The word 'they led' they take to mean 'they shall lead,' using one tense for another.

For not as having already come to be partakers of the divine light, and having laid hold of the truth, do they claim to be led by them; but rather this: that if they should become partakers of light and truth, they will be led to His holy mountain and to His dwelling-places.

That one tense has been used for another, the rendering of the following verses would easily teach.

For the same persons say, 'And I will go in to the altar of God, and I will confess to You.'

'Send forth Your light and Your truth, which shall guide me and lead me to the heavenly mountain and the dwelling-places therein.'

Or by 'holy mountain' we understand the Church.

For it is customary for the holy prophets to name it thus, inasmuch as it is set on high in a spiritual sense and has nothing low or grovelling about it.

For the multitude of those who have believed in Christ do not deem it fitting to be minded on the things of earth, but conduct their citizenship in the heavens.

And I will go in unto the altar of God.

But if these words be spoken also from the person of those from among the nations, they add these things too to the rest: as men who have not yet entered into the altar of God, yet who shall enter, at the appointed time of their calling, into the divine and all-pure altar of the Saviour—that is, the Church—wherein we perform the holy and most pure and bloodless worship;

and in place of the fine and compounded incense, we offer up to God our doxologies, as though making use of a harp.

And the fruit that comes of the matter, as men well knowing where it shall be, they speak unto God who gladdens my youth.

But by 'youth' in these words we understand not the bodily kind, but rather the spiritual—that which, as I would say, is wrought by God through the renewing of the mind.

'For put off,' he says, 'the old man which is being corrupted according to the lusts of deceit, and put on the new man which after God is created in holiness and righteousness.'

Concerning which the Psalmist also says:

'Thy youth shall be renewed like the eagle's'—according to which one rejoices while fulfilling the works of godliness.

I will confess unto Thee upon the harp, and so forth.

(Of Cyril and Athanasius.) By 'harp' he means the body, through which the mind is by nature made to sound forth, as through strings—the senses sending up melody to God.

For the sinews hint at mortification, and the harmonies at concord.

'For God,' he says, 'my God'—that thou mayest learn that this same God over all, this God supreme, both they of the circumcision who change their mind through zeal and faith, and they of the nations who believe, do inscribe as their own;

in whom also the spiritual youth rejoices, being set in opposition to the old man.

For only he who is young in spirit and in mind, being akin to the new man and to the newness of the Spirit, shall enter in unto God who gladdens such youth.

(In place of 'hope,' Symmachus said 'wait patiently.'

For thus shall it be permitted thee to speak.

Must one indeed be grieved, when such good things are hoped for? For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry—He who is the light and the truth.

Unto the end; for the sons of Korah; for understanding.

(Since the superscription is the same as that of the forty-first Psalm, and contains the same import as the first, it is necessary to say what then is the aim of those who chant it.

Let us therefore clothe them with the person of those who have blamelessly conducted their citizenship under the Law, and who have exceedingly well achieved the boasts of that praiseworthy manner of life then in force;

such as was the divinely-inspired Paul when he wrote that he had become blameless as touching the righteousness which is in the Law.

But there are those to whom the things said according to the first edition—I mean by Eusebius of Caesarea—appear to be better.

The Psalm, then, might fittingly be uttered either from the person of the holy prophets, or by those who have blamelessly accomplished the worship under the Law.

(But the words 'they were planted' are spoken as of a vine;

for Israel is a fruitful vine.

'And Thou didst remove a vine out of Egypt; Thou didst afflict peoples, and cast them out.'

'Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance.'

(Adding, he says, this: 'and the light of Thy countenance'—that is, they make mention, as is fitting, of the working of the Holy Spirit.

For the countenance of God and the Father is the Son, being His unvarying image, and the express character of His substance.

And the illumination that is sent forth from Him into the mind and heart of those called unto redemption is the understanding through the Holy Spirit which leads those illumined unto God. Therefore they say that the redemption of Israel was wrought, and moreover that they prevailed over the nations, as by God the Father through His all-powerful hand—or arm, that is, the Son—and as by the illumination which is through the Holy Spirit.

And the same Saviour, the Word who was in the beginning with God, the divine Scriptures name by various conceptions the hand of God, and the right hand, and the arm, as also the wisdom of God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and power;

so that they are various names applied to one subject.

But according to the deeper sense: Israel having been cast out after betraying the Saviour, we who are of the nations were, by divine catechesis, planted into the divine Scriptures.

'And our arm and our own working did not save us,' but by grace have we obtained salvation.

For not of works, but of faith which is in Christ, were we justified.

'Thou Thyself art my King and my God, who commandest the salvations of Jacob.'

'Thou art my King, O God;'

'Command salvation for Jacob.' And these things will suit those who achieve well among the people, and the prophets, who confess that they are not saved by their own power.

They seem to confess, by the words 'Thou Thyself art my King and my God,' that Thou art ever the same, and in like manner, and unchanging.