Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 16/42

'I will cry unto God the Most High, unto the God who hath dealt bountifully with me.' Having the experience of the divine help as my teacher, I entreat to enjoy it after my accustomed manner.

And by 'cry' he means the eagerness of the soul.

'He hath sent forth from heaven and saved me;

He hath given to reproach them that trample upon me.' For having deemed me worthy of His own providence from on high, He rendered my foes objects of ridicule.

And this was the greatest reproach for one who had been saved, that he should wage war against the one who had saved him.

'For like lions they pressed upon me, desiring to tear me asunder;' but truth He yoked together with mercy, showing the justice of His loving-kindness.

and truth He yoked together with mercy, showing the justice of His loving-kindness.

'I lay down troubled.' This Theodotion rendered thus:

'I lay down amid those that devour;'

and Aquila: 'amid the ravenous;'

and Symmachus: 'amid those that burn.'

That is, in the sense of: 'I lay down well-nigh amid consuming thoughts;

for they gnawed at me ravenously, so as almost even to set my mind ablaze.' With reason, then, was I troubled, being compelled to sleep amid such foes and encircled by such as these.

For Saul and his companions he named as devourers, and burners, and ravenous ones, and lion's whelps, setting forth the beast-like quality of their disposition and the murderousness of their manner.

And this he teaches more clearly through what follows.

'The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows;

and their tongue a sharp sword.' Having called them lion's whelps, with reason he also made mention of teeth, likening them to spear-points and arrows, and the tongue to a whetted sword;

and through all these things he signifies their murderous counsels.

'Be Thou exalted above the heavens, O God;

and above all the earth Thy glory.' It is meet in all things to hymn Thee, who art conceived as dwelling in heaven, yet fillest all the earth with Thy glory.

This the blessed Habakkuk also said:

'His virtue covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise.' And the word 'Be Thou exalted' stands in the sense of:

'They prepared a snare for my feet, and bowed down my soul.'

And they were not content with these things, but also 'they dug a pit before my face, and fell into it themselves.' Setting ambushes for me, he says, and laying snares, they were themselves ensnared by us and were caught in their own traps.

'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready;

I will sing and make melody in my glory.' This Symmachus rendered thus:

For seeing Thy providence made manifest, I no longer dread the manifold contrivances of the enemies;

but I am ready and well-prepared to follow Thy words, and to hymn Thy benefits.

'Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp.' To himself, thereafter, he gives the charge to weave the divine hymn;

and 'my glory' he calls the prophetic grace as being his own;

and 'harp,' as being an instrument that has become the Spirit's.

'I will confess unto Thee among the peoples, O Lord; I will make melody unto Thee among the nations.' Not now only, he says, will I offer Thee this song of praise, but also when the true light has risen and has scattered the long night of ignorance and has shown forth the dawn of the awaited day—not only through His coming to us in the flesh, but also through the regeneration and re-fashioning of the laver—I will be the choir-master of all the nations and the peoples;

and using their mouths as it were for strings, I will sing the thanksgiving hymn.

[Tell us, O prophet, for what reason, and in what manner.] (11)

For Your mercy has been magnified as high as the heavens, and Your truth as high as the clouds. For it is not only the heaven, and the angels who have their dwelling therein, that have come to know Your mercy; but also through the clouds You have made known Your truth.

Now divine Scripture calls those who have been deemed worthy of divine grace 'clouds'.

And this too the God of all things teaches us through the prophet Isaiah.

For having spoken concerning Israel,

I will forsake My vineyard, and it shall not be pruned, nor dug; He added:

And I will command the clouds not to rain upon it. For just as the cloud receives from elsewhere the source of its rains, so too the prophets and apostles, being empowered by divine grace,

brought spiritual irrigation to the souls of men.

For though he had often sworn to put an end to the enmity, he transgressed his oaths and resorted to ambushes.

Again the heading 'Destroy not' is prefixed;

If you truly speak righteousness, then judge uprightly, O sons of men. These things he sets forth against Saul, who had sworn no longer to pursue him, yet made war contrary to his oaths.

You, he says, become a judge of the things done by you; and having been entrusted with judging, bring forth a right and just verdict.

[But if you cannot diagnose your own disease, or become its physician, how could you prepare the medicine of truth for others? You cannot, he says.] (3)

For indeed in your heart you work iniquity upon the earth;

your hands weave together injustice. Yours, he says, are both the words of peace and the wicked counsels and the manifold contrivances of plotters;

consider therefore whether your deeds accord with your words.

But in vain, it seems, have I committed my case to you, since you cannot bear to judge righteously.

The sinners are estranged from the womb; they have gone astray from the belly; they have spoken lies. Long ago, he says, having separated themselves from the truth, they embraced falsehood.

[This, as we have said above, he especially emphasizes in the present passage;

meaning the falsehood and the hatred toward one's neighbor.] And he added the phrases 'from the womb' and 'from the belly', since God knew the things concerning them even before their formation.

For thus also He spoke to Jeremiah:

Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you;

and before you came forth from the womb, I sanctified you. And to Pharaoh:

For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show in you My power. Yet God's foreknowledge did not make Pharaoh wicked, nor Jeremiah holy;

rather, as God He foreknew what was to come to pass.

for them according to the likeness of the serpent. They have imitated the serpent's malice and treachery.

Like the deaf asp that stops up its ears;

[.] which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, nor to the medicine skillfully prepared by a wise one. They stop up their ears like the asp, which delights to do this out of an excess of malice, so as not to be charmed by the incantations, nor to yield to the medicine prepared by the so-called wise one.

For here he called the snake-charmer 'wise' in a catachrestic sense;

They are wise to do evil [but to do good they have not known]; and, Where is the wise? where is the scribe? He does not name these as truly wise, but as those who seem to some to be such.

fittingly he compared him to an asp, not one naturally deaf, but one that even stops up its ears and repels the assault of the incantation.

As for the phrase 'is drugged when charmed by a wise one', Symmachus rendered it thus: 'It is chanted over with the incantations of a cunning one';

so that it is clear that he called the incantation 'medicine'.

[As from this, to make plain the bloodthirstiness of Saul and of those about him, in whatever rank or degree or station they might be, we have spoken above.

One might rightly understand these things as spoken also against the heretics — I mean the Arians and the Eunomians and the Macedonians and those who seem to be sick with doctrines similar to theirs.

For indeed one might justly call them enchanters and sorcerers.

And that the mother who in a mere moment of time gives birth to those who are regenerated — to whom is this plain, if not to the initiated? For they are wont to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and after the emergence from the three immersions.

You know what I mean, you who have been deemed worthy of adoption as sons.

They pass on a grievous disease to those supposedly baptized by them, or rather submerged;

and thus they turn the undivided Godhead — ever alike, worshipped in Father and Son and Holy Spirit — into a tritheism; or rather they hand down a great and a small and a smaller one;

with a tongue that betrays the yoke of inequality, cutting apart — as they suppose — the most unyoked Godhead of the undefiled Trinity, which is one in essence, in kingdom, in lordship, in divinity, in power, in creative work, and in whatever befits its blessedness.

For these wretches presume boldly to call the one God and King, but the other Lord and His minister and a creature made by Him before the rest, and yet another a slave and minister of the Son;

and it is especially against these that the prophecy is directed.

For not against Saul alone and those about him did the all-holy Spirit of prophecy speak through the venerable tongue of the prophet.] (7)

God shall break their teeth in their mouth. For the Overseer of all things shall render idle their machinations against us.

The Lord has shattered the jaws of the lions. In the psalm placed before this one he called them 'young lions', and here 'lions'.

For this reason he made mention of both teeth and molars.

And by 'molars' he means the inner teeth, with which we are accustomed to grind our food.

They shall be brought to nothing like water that passes away. They shall be despised, he says, like water that has been scattered and is utterly useless.

He shall bend His bow until they grow weak. For He does not cease to smite them with punishments, until He dissolves their strength, bringing upon them their wasting and dissolution.] (9)

as it melts away, they shall be dissolved, and shall be deprived of life.

And they have not seen the sun; inasmuch as the dying are unable to behold the sun's ray.

Before your thorns come to know the bramble, He shall swallow them up as living, as in wrath. But Symmachus interpreted this more clearly:

Before your thorns grow up so as to become a bramble, while yet living, a whirlwind shall sweep them away like something wholly withered.

Now divine Scripture calls every sin a 'thorn';

and the bramble is indeed a thorn, but a very great one, resembling a tree [and casting forth a most grievous venom].

The prediction therefore threatens both Saul and his accomplices with swift punishment.

For before, he says, your wickedness grows up so as to be likened to a bramble — that is, to the greatest thorn [which is the vilest evil] — a God-sent stroke shall overtake you and make you vanish.

For this is what he meant by 'He shall swallow up'.

For just as that which is [ground fine by the molar teeth and] swallowed becomes thenceforth invisible, so too you, he says, shall be delivered over to oblivion;

The righteous shall rejoice when he sees vengeance;

he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. Now he who is devoted to virtue rejoices to see the worker of evil chastised;

not exulting over him, but beholding the divine providence, which will not endure to overlook those who are wronged by such men.

And he washes his hands, not staining and defiling them with the blood;

but showing himself innocent, and separated from that man's wickedness.

For he does not, as some have supposed, wash in the blood, but washes upon the occasion of the blood, as having had no fellowship with that man.

And a man shall say, Is there then indeed a fruit for the righteous? Surely there is a God who judges them in the earth. Here 'then' is used in an affirmative sense;

and he means that everyone who sees the one who lived in impiety paying the penalty in this present life will confess both that there is a God, and that He watches over what comes to pass, and wisely governs all things;

and to the righteous He apportions the corresponding fruits, but from those who chose the contrary He exacts penalties, and brings upon them the punishments they deserve.

and once, while he was dining with him, he wished to strike him through with his spear.

But when he had turned aside and escaped death, Saul undertook once again to lay hands upon him; and dispatching certain men, he ordered them to guard the house, thereby making his hostility manifest.

But she took the household images (for so the narrative teaches), arranged the bed, and by means of the garments fashioned the likeness of a sick man lying there.

These things took place by night.

But when day came, the ruse became evident to Saul and to his spearmen.

Yet of the things that then befell he says little, while he foretells the greater part, having received the splendour of the divine Spirit, and having foreseen the frenzy of the Jews against our Saviour [God].

For indeed the Jews, having guarded the Lord's tomb by means of soldiers, when day came found the garments, but no longer saw the dead body they had been guarding.

For He rose again, having dissolved the dominion of death.

For he besought to be delivered from those who were warring against him unjustly.

Then he recounts the purpose of these men.

'Deliver me from those who work iniquity, and save me from men of blood.' Bloodthirsty, he says, are the enemies and lawless ones, to whom I have brought no harm whatsoever.

'For behold, they have hunted my soul.'

'The mighty ones have set upon me.' Employing all manner of contrivances they attempt to destroy me, trusting in their own power.

But it might seem likely that they, having been wronged beforehand, are seeking retribution.

'Neither my iniquity, nor my sin, O Lord.' Nothing, he says, grievous has been done by us against them.

Nor having anything to charge me with, they contrive my death.

For He alone committed no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.

[For no one is without sin, except One, who is God;

He does not thereby testify to His own utter sinlessness, but teaches that, having done Saul no wrong at all, but rather having benefited him greatly and often, he endures manifold plots.

And though there is no sin, they rush against Him, so that they may seize as plunder the innocent one who is among them.

Symmachus also interpreted it thus:

'Though there is no sin, thus they run, that they may strike.'

'Arise to meet me, and behold.' I beseech You, he says, to become the judge of this matter, You who clearly know all things.

'And You, O Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, attend to visit all the nations.' Having beheld sinlessness in Him alone who came forth from Him according to the flesh, and having foreseen in the spirit the madness of his kinsmen the Jews against Him, he beseeches the Lord of hosts and God of Israel to leave the Jews neglected, and to transfer all providence to the nations, and to illumine them with the light of the knowledge of God.

And having proclaimed these things to the nations, he also foretells the punishments of the Jews.

'Do not have pity on all those who work iniquity.' For since with prophetic eyes he beheld the Cross, and seemed to hear the Lord [of glory] saying:

'Father, forgive them the sin;

for they know not what they do';

abhorring the excess of their impiety, he entreats that they may enjoy no pardon;

then he prophesies the coming dearth of spiritual food that will be theirs.

'They shall return at evening, and shall be famished like a dog, and shall go around the city.' For just as dogs, he says, are wont by night to roam about the market-places of the cities, being driven by the need of their belly to do so;

so these men shall become destitute of all spiritual foresight;

and having enjoyed neither prophetic grace, they shall become utterly bereft also of high-priestly care;

and going about like dogs they continue on, not even deemed worthy to partake of the crumbs that fall from their masters' table, according to the Gospel saying.

[Then he teaches more plainly the cause of the punishment.] 8.

'Behold, they shall utter forth with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips; for who has heard?' With the tongue, he says, they work murder, bringing forth their words as if they were some spear and sword;

'His blood be upon us, and upon our children.' And by the spearmen of Pilate they added the deed to the words, and nailed the Saviour to the beam.

This also the prophetic word declared:

'with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips;

for who has heard?' Because with the words they bring forth, they have used them in place of a sword.

But these things, he says, they do as though no one were watching.

For this is what is signified by, 'For who has heard?' As though no one either sees or hears what is being done, nor exacts an accounting, so do they dare these deeds.

For Symmachus interpreted this meaning.

For in place of 'For who has heard,' he set 'as though no one hears.'

'And You, O Lord, shall laugh them to scorn.' They then dare those things;

but You both hear, and see, and laugh at their vanity.

'You shall bring all the nations to nought.' For it is easy for You to prevail not only over them, but also over all the nations.

Thus also the divinely-inspired Isaiah spoke, striving to show the surpassing greatness of the divine power: 'If all the nations were reckoned as a drop from a bucket, and as the turning of a balance, and as spittle, and shall be so reckoned, to whom did you liken the Lord? and to what likeness did you liken Him?' 10.

'My strength I will keep toward You, for You are God my helper.' You, he says, I have as the helper and guardian of my strength;

for I continue enjoying Your providence.

'My God shall show me among my enemies.' The prophet regards the enemies of the Saviour as common enemies.

Then he foretells to these the things that shall come to pass.

'lest at any time they forget Your law.' I beseech You, he says, that they may not undergo utter destruction.

For there are among them many who are healed by the remedies of repentance.

For in death there is no one who remembers You;

'and bring them down, O Lord my defender.' Scatter them, he says, throughout the whole inhabited world, and make them wanderers and exiles;

since they have employed an evil concord against You.

'The sin of their mouth, the word of their lips.' These things too are in harmony with what was interpreted before.

'Behold, they shall utter forth with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips.' And here again he accuses the sin of the mouth and the word of the lips;

teaching through all these things that they pay the penalties for that utterance which they let forth in concord, having corrupted the just verdict of Pilate;

for while he wished to release Him as innocent, these men cried out:

'Away, away, crucify Him;

His blood be upon us, and upon our children.' These things Symmachus interpreted more plainly.

Make them, he says, uprooted, and render them slaves instead of free men;

on account of the sin of their mouth, and the word of their lips.

Thus also at the building of the tower He dissolved the evil concord by discord, and to the disease of harmful unanimity He applied, as a healing remedy, the division of their tongues.

And refusing to serve Christ who had saved them, but having embraced the kingdom of Caesar, they shall be delivered over to the slavery of Caesar.

And out of cursing and falsehood they shall be denounced.

[14] 'In consummation, in the wrath of consummation, and they shall be no more.' This Symmachus interpreted more plainly:

'Let them be seized together with their pride.'

'Let them be seized together with their arrogance.'

'Consume those who speak curses and lies';

'In wrath make an end of them, that they may be no more.'

For since they made use of false accusations, saying that He had commanded that tribute should not be given to Caesar,

and assailed Him with many curses and revilings—

By 'consummation' he does not mean utter destruction, but that they should no longer be called the people of God.

For being scattered throughout the inhabited world, and compelled to serve the Romans, they have been deprived of the worship prescribed by the Law;

they dwell far from the much-celebrated mother-city, and have been left bereft of royal care;

they enjoy no priestly ministry, and have been stripped of the prophetic grace.

Therefore the words 'they shall not exist' mean: no longer, he says, shall they be a people governing themselves as their own, dwelling in Palestine alone and being called the people of God.

By 'consummations' he calls the manifold punishments.

For indeed under Gaius, the fourth Caesar, they endured the greatest dangers;

and moreover under Nero they fell into many calamities.

And Vespasian besieged most of the cities of Judaea;

and Titus, having laid siege to Jerusalem, sacked the city, and having enslaved those who had escaped death, led them away as prisoners of war.

And thereafter they fell into all manner of other sufferings;

and even now, likewise, in the cities where they sojourn, whenever some occasion arises, they often suffer irremediable things, being called to account for the curse, the lie, and the sin of the mouth.

For this the prophet also said:

'And they shall know that God rules over Jacob and over the ends of the earth.' For this indeed is the marvel: that before the cross He was disbelieved even by the Jews themselves;

but after that reproachful Passion, the Crucified One rules over the whole inhabited world,

some worshipping Him willingly, while the unbelievers are compelled by fear to serve Him.

'They shall return at evening;

and they shall be hungry like a dog, and shall go round about the city.' For since he had said:

For a reversal of circumstances came about.

And the Jews indeed, who were formerly sons, on account of their own wickedness received the rank of dogs;

while the Gentiles, formerly resembling dogs, were deemed worthy of the honour of sons.

'They shall be scattered abroad to eat;

and if they be not satisfied, they will even murmur.' This Symmachus rendered in agreement with the former.

'Let them return at evening, let them clamour like dogs going about the city, roaming about, that they may not lodge unsatisfied.'

[For this reason, he says, the dogs wander about by night seeking some food, that they may not lodge unsatisfied;

for every day for them is not only evening, but also night, since the cloud of unbelief lies heavy upon them.] But according to the Seventy it must be understood thus:

that these too, scattered like dogs throughout the inhabited world, seek the spiritual food;

but not finding it, because they do not believe in Him who was foretold beforehand by all the prophets, they clamour and murmur, displaying their ungrateful disposition in this matter also.

'But I will sing of Your power, and I will rejoice in Your mercy in the morning.' Those men, then, daring such things, shall suffer so many woes;

but I will hymn Your mercy;

and when Your spiritual light has arisen and given the dawn to the inhabited world, I will glorify Your immeasurable compassion in all the churches.

'For You have become my helper and my refuge in the day of my affliction.'

[18] 'You are my helper, to You will I sing;

for You, O God, are my helper.'

'My God, my mercy.' For I have ever enjoyed Your aid;

and through Your providence I have escaped the calamities that befell me.

And he indeed fulfils his promises, offering up the hymn of praise through the godly.

[For just as after the night, when the sun rises at dawn, all that is under heaven is illumined;

so the coming of the Sun of Righteousness dispelled the darkness of sin, and bestowed the light of the knowledge of God upon those who believe in Him, and He does not cease to provide it day by day.] INTERPRETATION.

'When he had set on fire Mesopotamia of Syria and Syria Sobal, and Joab returned and smote Edom in the Valley of Salt, twelve thousand.' These things have already indeed come to pass, and are recorded in the Second Book of Kingdoms.

The inscription 'unto the end' teaches us to understand that history has been intermingled with prophecy;

and there is added to the inscription also 'For those who shall be changed.' Now the change hints at a certain alteration—and an alteration not of things that have already come to pass, but of things that are to be.

Not 'for those who have been changed,' but 'for those who shall be changed.'

And the 'inscription upon a pillar' is significant of the victory;

and in summary it is necessary to state the theme of the prophecy.

He foresaw also the return thence that would come to pass by divine grace, and thought it necessary to write beforehand both the grievous and the joyful things, for the benefit of the people who would live at the time of those events.

'O God, You have rejected us and cast us down.' Here he foretells the captivity;

then the justice and lovingkindness of God.

'You have shaken the earth and troubled it.' By these words he indicated the incursions of the Assyrians and Babylonians;

for like an earthquake they utterly obliterated everything.

Then he asks for lovingkindness.

'Heal its breaches, for it is shaken.' Again he recounts the things that have come to pass.

'You have shown Your people hard things.' What things? 'You have made us drink the wine of compunction.' By the multitude of calamities, he says, as with a kind of wine, You have wrought stupor upon us, and have filled our souls with grief.

For thus also Aquila interpreted it:

'You have made us drink the wine of stupefaction.'

'You have given to those who fear You a sign, that they may flee from before the bow.' This the blessed prophet Ezekiel teaches more plainly.

For he said that he had seen an angel, commanded by the God of all to go about the whole city and to place upon the foreheads a sign of those who groan over the transgressions of the people.

But those things were a type of ours;

for the true sign we received from the divine grace;

and having it, we become stronger than the darts of the adversary.

'That Your beloved ones may be delivered.' By this sign, he says, You preserve those who are devoted to You, who through their own virtue have been deemed worthy of Your tender love, [being made immortal through the regeneration of the laver.

Well, then, did the prophet add:] 'Save with Your right hand, and hear me.' Turn away, he says, the calamities that lie upon Your people;

and as with a right hand, by Your care, raise up those who lie prostrate. [And that the only-begotten Son of Him is named the right hand of God and the Father, none of those who believe in Him would doubt.]

Having thus offered up the supplication, [the prophetic mind] receives the answer, and does not endure to hide it, but teaches it to all.

'I will rejoice, and will divide Shechem, and will measure out the valley of tents.' Shechem is the city left to Joseph by Jacob.

And in this place Ephraim, after the division of the tribes, set up his kingdom;

By 'the valley of tents' he means the land of the Israelites, since it had become a wilderness and at that time had received the tents of shepherds.

The God of all things therefore promises to bring back those who had been taken captive, and to distribute to them their ancestral land;

and thus to fill it so full with inhabitants that the dwellers would even contend with one another over the measured plots;

and, employing this measure, to carry out the apportioning of the land.

'Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head.' Gilead is not the name of a tribe, but of a place;

whereas Manasseh is named after a tribe.

The tribe of Manasseh received the land of Gilead as its allotted inheritance from of old.

He therefore calls both the tribe and its land his own, foretelling the return and the settlement of those regions.

And to Ephraim also he promises to restore its former strength.

Instead of 'of my head,' Symmachus has rendered it 'of my rule';

that is to say, 'I will establish him as a champion, as of old.'

'Judah is my king.' For after the return the tribes remained undivided;

and they had as their sole leader and king Zerubbabel, who was of Judah;

with good reason, then, he called Ephraim the strength of the head, or of the rule, and Judah the king.