Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 12/42

for he calls the land of the promise 'the land of Jordan,' and 'Hermoniim' the mountain Aermon.

So also Symmachus rendered it:

'My soul melts away, when I remember Thee from the land of Jordan, and from Hermoniim the smallest mountain.'

'Deep calleth unto deep at the voice of Thy cataracts.'

'All Thy surges and Thy waves are gone over me.' 'Dwelling in that land,' he says, 'I was given over to a multitude of foes, and became as one submerged in some abyss.'

For he calls the military companies 'deeps,' and likens the excess of their multitude to immeasurable waters;

and the things done by these he compares to the ancient flood, which destroyed the whole inhabited world.

And these things Symmachus rendered more clearly:

'Deep met deep, from the sound of Thy torrents.'

'For Thou didst bring them upon me, exacting from me the penalty of my transgression.'

'Thy storms and Thy waves have passed over me.' Since he had likened the army to a deep, he continued the figure, and called the assaults which the army made 'waves' and 'storms.'

'for the memory of these pricks me;'

'but nevertheless I have Thy loving-kindness as consolation.'

'By day the Lord will command His mercy, and by night His song shall be with me.'

'A prayer to the God of my life.' 'Knowing,' he says, 'that mercy is ever supplied by God, and reckoning this to myself even by night, I sing and hymn Him who thus provides for our affairs.'

'And I offer Him also my supplications, entreating to obtain this loving-kindness.'

Then he teaches also the words of the prayer:

'Why then hast Thou now stripped me of this, so that I fret and lament unceasingly, because of the reproaches from my foes? For, maltreating me, and crushing my bones with blows and bonds, they mock me, saying, Where is thy God? supposing that I suffer these things because of Thy weakness.'

And the phrase 'Thou hast forgotten me' means: Thou dost not impart to me Thy providence.

For forgetfulness is a human passion, whereas impassibility is proper to God.

'Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will confess unto Him, the salvation of my countenance, and my God.' 'Do not renounce salvation, O soul,' he says;

'holding a firm hope in Him, quench thy despondency, and receive consolation.'

Without a title among the Hebrews.

'Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an unholy nation; from an unjust and deceitful man deliver me.' The psalm is without a title among the Hebrews, as having the same sense as the one set before it.

And those who made the aforesaid words entreat God to give judgement for them against the Babylonians, who had employed great cruelty and a brutish disposition.

'For Thou, O God, art my strength; why hast Thou cast me off? and why do I go about in gloom, while the enemy afflicts me?' Again they offer the same petition, imploring to be delivered from the cruelty of their enemies, on account of which they were ever gloomy and downcast.

And the 'why' they say not as bringing an accusation, but as those who themselves had no share in the transgression of the others, and yet, together with them, had become bereft of the providence from above;

yet nevertheless they make their supplication in common on behalf of all.

'Send forth Thy light and Thy truth; they have led me, and brought me to Thy holy mountain, and to Thy tabernacles.' Here the Seventy changed the tense, and spoke of things to come as though they had already come to pass.

But the others made the rendering clearer:

'Send forth Thy light and Thy truth, which will guide me, and will bring me to Thy holy mountain, and to Thy dwelling-places.' 'I entreat to enjoy the divine assistance;'

'for through this it is possible both to be delivered from the bitter slavery, and to return to the ancestral land, and to offer the appointed worship in the consecrated temple.'

For he named the temple 'the tabernacles of God;'

and 'light and truth' the righteous and saving manifestation.

For just as he names calamities 'darkness,' so he names the deliverance from these 'light.'

And together with the light they ask for the truth;

inasmuch as they had begged God to judge between them and the Babylonians;

and knowing clearly that God, employing truth and not long-suffering, would condemn those, but would free them from the slavery of those.

'And I will go in unto the altar of God, unto God who gladdens my youth;'

'I will confess unto Thee with the harp, O God, my God.' This Symmachus rendered thus:

'And there, with the harp, I will make my accustomed hymnody;'

'for in Babylon, upon the willows we hanged up our instruments, deeming worship outside of Thy place a transgression of the law.'

'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will confess unto Him, the salvation of my countenance, and my God.' And from this it is clear that both psalms have one sense.

And those who employed these words exhort their own selves to hold the better hopes, and to conquer the passion of despondency, and to await the salvation from God, as one that will assuredly be given.

'Unto the end, for the sons of Korah, unto understanding.' This one too, having a prediction of things to come, exhorts to await the end.

And there is added to the title 'unto understanding,' so that those, understanding the things written, concerning which the prophetic word foretells, may seize the benefit therefrom.

And the psalm foretells the Macedonian cruelty, and the impious and brutish disposition of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the manliness and piety of the Maccabees.

For the blessed and thrice-blessed Mattathias, having often employed this too with divine zeal together with his sons, and having deemed the many myriads of the Macedonians and the multitude of the elephants weak, as being bereft of the divine care, campaigning against them with a few men, conquered;

and having torn up the altars of the idols, he cleansed the divine temple, and restored the accustomed worship to his fellow-countrymen.

And not only he himself, but also his sons after his death, praying, put the enemy to flight, and, enjoying the divine inclination, set up their trophies.

From their person, then, the prophetic grace dictated the psalm, teaching beforehand with what sort of words it befits them to use amid dangers.

'Thy hand utterly destroyed the nations, and Thou didst plant them in;'

'For not by their own sword did they inherit the land, neither did their own arm save them;'

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

'For neither trusting in strength, nor employing full armour, did they show themselves mightier than so great a host, but, being generalled by Thy grace, some they struck down with darts, and others they compelled to serve, since Thou didst count them worthy of Thy close fellowship.'

and by 'the light of the countenance' he means the manifestation.

'A word alone suffices Thee for salvation.'

'Nod but assent, and the people shall enjoy this.'

So also Symmachus rendered it: 'Command concerning the salvation of Jacob.'

'In thee we shall push down our enemies, and in thy name we shall bring to nothing those who rise up against us.' Horned animals received the horn as a weapon from nature;

but we possess as a horn of salvation and a victorious weapon thy name, and using it we shall prevail over our foes. (verses 7, 8)

'For I will not hope in my bow, and my sword shall not save me.'

'For thou hast saved us from those who afflict us,'

'and thou hast put to shame those who hate us.' For I trust neither in bows nor in other weapons;

for I have received experience of thy power, having already through thee gained the mastery over my adversaries.

'In God we shall be praised all the day long, and in thy name we shall give thanks for ever.' And we ever entreat to enjoy thy favour, and continually to recount the multitude of thy benefits.

For by 'all the day long' he has set down the meaning 'always.'

For thus also Symmachus rendered it;

for instead of 'all the day long' he put 'every day.'

'But now thou hast cast off and put us to shame, and thou goest not forth, O God, with our hosts.' These things, then, were done by thee in former times.

But at the present we have been shown bereft of thy providence, and we pass our days in disgrace, no longer generalled by thy grace.

For the phrase 'thou goest not forth with our hosts' means 'thou dost not act as our general, and dost not, as was thy wont, grant us to overcome our foes.'

'Thou hast turned us back behind our enemies,'

'and those who hate us plundered for themselves.' For, no longer enjoying thy providence, we turn our backs and flee;

and the foes lay waste our possessions.

And those who escaped death, being sold hither and thither, are compelled to be slaves.

'Thou hast sold thy people without a price, and there was no multitude in the exchanges of them.' This Symmachus rendered thus:

'Thou hast sold thy people for no substance, and thou hast not made their price great.' Such things too God says through the prophet Isaiah:

'For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.' Here too, then, those admirable men say that, having received no price from the enemy, thou hast given us up, but hast delivered us over on account of our sins.

'Thou hast made us a reproach to our neighbours,'

'a scorn and a derision to those round about us.'

By 'neighbours dwelling round about' he means the foreigners, and the Idumaeans, and the Moabites, and the Ammonites, and the other neighbouring peoples, to whom they became an occasion of malicious joy when warred upon.

'among the peoples.' When we both relate and hear of great calamities, we are wont to shake our heads, being constrained to do this out of astonishment.

And we are also accustomed to compare sufferings with sufferings, and to say that such a one suffered such things as another suffered.

This too they here lament, that we have become a byword among men, and they shake their heads over us;

some rejoicing at our misfortune, others marvelling at the excess of what had befallen us.

'All the day long my dishonour is before me, and the shame of my face has covered me.'

'Because of the voice of him that reproaches and speaks against me, because of the presence of the enemy and persecutor.' But I, seeing some warring against me and others laughing and mocking, am filled with shame, and grieve all the day long.

Then those who had escaped the snares of Antiochus, and had leaped over the nets of impiety, recount their own virtue.

'All these things came upon us, and we forgot thee not, and we dealt not unjustly in thy covenant.'

'And our heart turned not back.' Though overwhelmed by so many terrors, we did not admit forgetfulness of thy commandments, nor did we dare to transgress thy law, nor did we turn aside from our former resolve.

'And thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way.'

[verse 20] 'For thou hast humbled us in a place of affliction, and the shadow of death has covered us.' The phrase 'thou hast turned aside our paths from thy way' Symmachus rendered thus: 'That which upheld us was not turned aside from thy way.'

But that we may also interpret the sense of the Seventy, let us understand it thus:

'With many and manifold griefs,' he says, 'thou hast surrounded us, such as were enough even to turn us aside from thy way;'

'and thou didst deliver us into bondage to impious men, who used cruelty against us and brought upon us death-dealing torments.'

For by 'shadow of death' he called the perils that lead to death.

'If we had forgotten the name of our God, and if we had stretched out our hands to a strange god,'

'shall not God search this out? for he knows the hidden things of the heart.'

'For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we were counted as sheep for the slaughter.' This virtue the Maccabees displayed, and those with Mattathias, and the seven youths together with their mother and Eleazar the priest.

For neither were they enticed by flatteries, nor were they bent by tortures, but they kept inviolate the worship of the true God, and abhorred the service of idols as abominable.

For to thee not only deeds are manifest, but also the movements of the mind.

And it is fitting to note that the discourse has hinted at a pair of persons.

For having said, 'Shall not God search this out? for he knows the hidden things of the heart,' he added, 'For thy sake we are put to death all the day long.' This interchange of the pronoun both the Hebrew has, and the other interpreters have set down.

'Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, and cast us not off for ever.' By 'sleep' he means longsuffering;

for just as the sleeper does not perceive what is happening, so he who exercises longsuffering endures, though outraged and insulted.

And by 'arising' he names the movement unto punishment.

Then he says the same things again in another way.

but we are poor, not having the wealth of thy succour.

'For our soul is humbled down to the dust.'

'Our belly cleaves to the ground.'

We have been bowed down even to the very earth, so that our belly draws near to the very ground;

and by these things he signifies the great humiliation and the might of the enemy.

grace, teaching those who should be in those terrors both to bear nobly the things that befall, and to ask of the God of all deliverance from them.

Which indeed those admirable men also did.

For by their words they propitiated God, and being generalled by him they routed the enemy, and procured the former freedom for their kinsmen.

'For the end, concerning those who shall be changed, for the sons of Korah, for understanding;

a song concerning the beloved.' Having foretold sorrowful things in the psalm before this one, the prophetic word next proclaims joyful things, cheering the despondent, and teaching that they shall both conquer and endure, and shall obtain the help that comes from God, until from them the beloved Son should spring forth according to the flesh, and should work the new change for the nations.

For he calls the Son of God 'beloved';

for thus also the divine Isaiah says:

'My beloved had a vineyard on a horn, in a fertile place.' This too the Father himself proclaimed concerning the Son:

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' He it is who bestowed upon the nations the change that comes through holy baptism.

Concerning these things the psalm prophesies, to whom it also charges to forget the ancestral gods, and truly to honour the true God.

But 'those who shall be changed' Symmachus called 'flowers';

while Aquila and Theodotion called them 'lilies.'

Now flowers and lilies are the shoots of spring.

And the spiritual spring is the coming of the Saviour;

in which, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, the land long desolate rejoiced, and blossomed as a lily. Concerning these things the present prophecy foretells, pointing out as the planter and husbandman of all the One who changed it and made it fruitful.

'My heart has poured forth a good word.' For being nourished on spiritual words, I send up such eructations, and put forth such words.

'I speak my works unto the King.' Him whom the superscription has called 'beloved,' the prelude of the psalm names 'King.'

And the 'works' of prophecy are the true word, which foretells things to come.

He says, then, that 'concerning this King himself I frame my words';

and teaching that he employs not human but divine words, he added:

'My tongue is the pen of a swift-writing scribe.' 'I utter nothing of my own,' he says, 'nor do I bring forth the travails of my own understanding;'

rather, my tongue is the servant of another's working, and it in turn imitates a pen;

and the grace of the Spirit is the swift scribe, writing through this tongue whatever it wills.

Thus the prophet, having shown who it is that speaks through him, begins his prediction in this manner:

'Fairer in beauty than the sons of men;'

'grace is poured forth upon thy lips; therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.' 'Thou,' he says, 'whom I have named King, whom in the superscription I have called Beloved, dost surpass in beauty the nature of men, and dost pour forth through thy tongue fountains of wisdom;'

and these thou hast not for a season, but everlastingly.

For otherwise he would not have likened God the Word to men, nor would he have said that this One received the blessing from God.

For this One is an abyss of good things, gushing forth blessing upon the faithful.

And let no one say that the prophets have spoken things directly contrary to one another, hearing Isaiah cry aloud:

'We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty; but his form was without honour, failing beyond the sons of men.' For those words proclaim beforehand the Cross and the Passion, which are full of insolence and outrage.

'A man under stroke, and knowing how to bear infirmity, he was dishonoured and not esteemed,' and the rest that follows, which discloses the Passion.

of righteousness, that which received no stain of sin, that which was free from every blemish.

'Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty One,'

'in thy comeliness and thy beauty; and bend thy bow, and prosper, and reign.' Having described his comeliness and his wisdom, he now points also to his power and his full armour, using which he overthrew his adversaries.

And he teaches us a thing most marvellous of all.

For he calls that very comeliness of his both his full armour and his power.

For he says, 'Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty One, in thy comeliness and thy beauty.' And having said, 'Bend thy bow, and prosper, and reign,' he straightway added:

'For the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness.' Plainly teaching through these words that truth and meekness and righteousness are both his beauty and his power and his full armour and his victory.

And one may hear the Lord himself saying, 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.' And again, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life.' And to the divinely-inspired John:

'Suffer it now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' And through these things he overthrew the tyranny of the destroyer, and loosed death, and granted salvation to those who had believed.

'And thy right hand shall guide thee wonderfully.' For since he had made mention of a sword, he consequently also made mention of a right hand.

'Thine arrows are sharpened, O mighty One; peoples shall fall under thee, in the heart of the King's enemies.' The words are transposed;

and he says that, employing sharp arrows against thy foes, thou shalt strike them with sure aim, and shalt wound their hearts.

But the peoples who were tyrannized by them thou shalt teach thy worship.

For 'thine arrows are sharpened, O mighty One, in the heart of the King's enemies.'

And when these have been wounded, 'peoples shall fall under thee,' offering unto thee the worship that is due.

'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever;'

'a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.' Since the things said above were lowlier than the divine dignity—'fairer in beauty than the sons of men, and therefore God hath blessed thee for ever'—

he fittingly teaches through these words that he is also God, and everlasting King, having neither received a beginning nor destined to receive an end.

For 'a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.' Then again he descends to the human things.

'Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity;'

'therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' Or, according to Symmachus, 'above thy companions.'

And his 'fellows' and 'companions' and 'brethren,' according to his humanity, are those who have believed.

Thus also the divine Apostle says, 'For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.' And again, 'That he might be the firstborn among many brethren.' Thus also he was anointed with the all-holy Spirit, not as God, but as man.

For as God, he has the Spirit as consubstantial;

but as man, he receives, as a kind of anointing, the gifts of the Spirit.

So too he loved righteousness and hated iniquity.

For these belong to deliberate choice, not to natural power;

but as God, he has for a sceptre of uprightness the sceptre of the kingdom.

'Myrrh and stacte and cassia from thy garments, from the ivory palaces, out of which they have made thee glad.'

'Kings' daughters are among thy honourable ones.' Instead of 'ivory palaces,' Aquila and Symmachus have said 'ivory temples.'

In an epistle he calls this the veil.

For 'having boldness, brethren,' he says, 'to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.' And he calls the Passion 'myrrh';

for this is applied especially to the dead;

and by 'stacte' and 'cassia' he means the fragrance that comes from the Passion.

By 'ivory palaces,' or according to Symmachus and Aquila, 'ivory temples,' he means the most beautiful and splendid churches, which rulers and kings everywhere on land and sea have built.

He foretells, then, that the Passion will take place in the body, but that it will fill the whole inhabited world with fragrance, so that the peoples who of old were led astray shall raise up for him temples fashioned in beauty, and shining with royal adornment.

And having made the prediction concerning the churches, which hold the rank of bridal chambers and nuptial halls, he fittingly foretells also the adornment of the bride, and her beauty, and her lineage, and offers the exhortation befitting her.

'Hearken, O daughter, and behold, and incline thine ear;'

'and forget thine own people, and thy father's house.' Now these things in no way befit the Jews, who pride themselves on the piety of their forefathers, on account of whom they also enjoyed the divine care to the fullest.

For to the Jews he commands to follow the piety of their fathers, and charges them not to forget their fathers;

but the Church from among the Gentiles had fathers and forefathers who had been enslaved to idols.

This one, therefore, he counsels to leave nothing of her ancestral customs in her memory;

and the Holy Spirit names her 'daughter,' as having received the spiritual regeneration.

And he promises her, if she keeps the King's counsels, his love.

'And the King shall desire thy beauty.' Then he teaches also her nature and the dignity of the King.

'For he is thy Lord, and thou shalt worship him.'

[13] 'And the daughter of Tyre shall come with gifts.' Now the other three translators bade her make the act of worship.

And Aquila and Theodotion rendered it:

'For he himself is thy Lord, and worship thou him.'

But the Seventy teach the queen that the Bridegroom is Lord not of her alone, but also of those who still dare to gainsay;

so that the daughters of Tyre also shall offer gifts, and thereby manifest their servitude.

For it is customary with Scripture to signify the whole by a part.

Thus elsewhere, by 'Lebanon' it foretells the ceasing of all superstition.

'For Lebanon,' it says, 'shall fall with the lofty ones.'

But in what follows he makes mention of yet more.

for he is the head of the body;

For 'him,' he says, 'God gave to be head over all things to the Church' [Eph 1:22]. And then the priestly order too is, as it were, the face of the Church, inasmuch as it is clothed with a greater spiritual dignity.

And one may see that this prophecy also has received its fulfillment;

for those who abound in wealth and possess the eminence of the highest dignities do honor to what is called the face of the Church.

But since he said that the queen was clothed in raiment interwoven with gold—

whereas cheapness of garments is what adorns the athletes of virtue,

and for this reason they continue to make use of such simple garments—he explains the costliness of the adornment.

'All the glory of the king's daughter is within, in golden fringes' [Ps 44:14 LXX].

'Clothed, embroidered.' Within, he says, she possesses the seemliness of virtue, and she shines with the manifold graces of the Holy Spirit.

For since the operations of the divine Spirit are diverse—

'there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit' [1 Cor 12:4];

and 'to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another prophecy, to another kinds of tongues' [1 Cor 12:8-10];

and since the Church is composed of many spiritual persons who have received diverse gifts,

he fittingly likened the distribution of the gifts to golden fringes.

'Virgins shall be brought to the king after her; her companions shall be brought to you' [Ps 44:15 LXX].

[verse 10.] 'They shall be brought with gladness and exultation;'

'they shall be led into the temple of the king' [Ps 44:16 LXX]. For since not all possess the highest perfection, some he calls the bride, as being perfect in virtue, and others he calls virgins, as having kept undefiled the faith which they received.

Yet he says that these too are followers of the queen, and enter into the royal temple together with her.

This distinction the Lord taught us in the holy Gospels, when he said:

'In my Father's house are many mansions' [John 14:2]. In harmony with this the blessed Paul also said: 'For since through a man came death, through a man came also the resurrection of the dead;'

'for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order' [1 Cor 15:21-23]. Verse 17.

'Instead of your fathers sons have been born to you; you shall make them princes over all the earth' [Ps 44:17 LXX]. Let the Jews say, what sons did they have who ruled over all the inhabited world? But they could not point to any;

for they neither ruled nor do they rule, but rather serve the most abject bondage; whereas the divine apostles, having the patriarchs as their fathers, rule over land and sea even after death, like so many prefects and generals appointed by Christ the King of all.

And those who came after them—whom one would not err in calling sons of the Church—I mean the victorious martyrs, were appointed to administer the same dominion, and they now hold all men as their subjects;

some choosing to do this out of longing, and others being constrained by fear.

'I will make mention of your name in every generation and generation' [Ps 44:18 LXX].

For thus also the Three rendered it:

'I will hymn your name throughout each generation; therefore peoples shall praise you unto the ages continually.' For all the peoples throughout the inhabited world, making use of the melody composed by me, and through it learning of the salvation granted to them, foretold from on high, shall continue to hymn you, the benefactor and the giver of good things.

'To the end, concerning the sons of Korah, concerning the hidden things.' Foretelling the things that would come to pass here after a long course of time, the prophetic word again inscribed the psalm 'to the end,' enjoining us to await the fulfillment of the prophecy.

He foretells the insurrections that were raised up against the Church, and the help afterward supplied from heaven, and the peace which now prevails.

It should be noted, however, that some supposed the present psalm was spoken concerning Gog and Magog;

some concerning Ahaz and Pekah;

and others concerning Hezekiah and the Assyrian.