Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 32/42

'And they cried out to the Lord when they were afflicted, and He saved them out of their distresses.' Then he teaches the manner of their salvation.

'He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their corruptions.' For God the Word, having become man and been sent as man (for as God He is uncircumscribed, present everywhere, and encompasses all things), healed the manifold wounds of souls, and restored the reasonings that had been corrupted.

Thus He healed that sinful woman, and gave her assurance to take heart;

thus He strengthened the paralytic, saying, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.' Thus He opened Paradise to the thief; thus He made the tax-collectors teachers of the whole world; thus He renews and cleanses those who come to the all-holy baptism, and frees them from the wounds of sin.

'Let them give thanks to the Lord for His mercies, and for His wonders to the sons of men.'

'And let them sacrifice to Him the sacrifice of praise, and declare His works with rejoicing.' For all these things, he says, it is right to sing praise to the God who loves mankind, who has shown so great a mercy and has granted us this marvellous salvation.

But one ought not only to know the divine wonderworkings oneself, but also to teach those who are ignorant, and to rouse all to hymnody.

It must moreover be noted that here too he enjoined the offering of a sacrifice of praise to God, and not the sacrificial victims of irrational animals.

Therefore here too he casts out the worship according to the Law.

The sacrifice of praise Aquila rendered as a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

'They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in many waters,'

'these have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep.' The prophet has set these things down by way of parable.

He says this: that just as those who sail and cross the great seas behold in a special way the mighty deeds of God, falling in with grievous storms, yet enjoying salvation beyond all human hope,

so also the Jews, having fallen into those calamities and having received back their freedom, came to understand the divine power.

And indeed all men too, seeing the strange transformation of affairs — the ceasing of the former deceit, the calm of souls, and the harbour of the resurrection — marvel at the Provider of these things.

'He spoke, and there arose a stormy wind, and the waves thereof were lifted up.'

'They mount up to the heavens, and go down to the depths.' And through these words he taught that at His nod both grievous things come to pass and pleasant things are added.

'Their soul melted away in troubles.'

'[verse 27] They were troubled and reeled to and fro like a drunken man;'

'and all their wisdom was swallowed up.' He remained with the figure;

and he seems indeed to be speaking about seafarers;

but through these things he darkly hints at the manifold calamities of nature;

calamities which no one employing human wisdom is able to dissolve.

For neither can the helmsmen, tossed hither and thither in the manner of drunken men, when the tempest prevails, though bringing all their skill to bear, get the better of the terrors.

'And they cried out to the Lord when they were afflicted, and He brought them out of their distresses.'

'And He commanded the storm, and it stood as a breeze, and the waves thereof were silenced.'

'And they were glad, because they were at rest.' To those sailors, too, when they call upon it, He extends and inclines His own aid;

and straightway the tempest is changed into a gentle breeze, and the sea is delivered from the surge, and those who wrestle with certain grievous things find, through His grace, a change from their evils.

Thus the Jews were set free from that bitter servitude.

'And He guided them to the haven of His will.' For as soon as He willed it, there came a release from their evils, and instead of the surge the haven appeared;

and this too is more fitting to us than to them.

For it is us that He has brought to anchor in the haven of His will, having granted us the divine knowledge of Himself.

'Let them give thanks to the Lord for His mercies, and for His wonders to the sons of men.'

'Let them exalt Him in the assembly of the people, and praise Him in the seat of the elders.' And this too may be seen taking place continually among the nations that have believed.

For in all the Churches throughout the world, with the sacred assembly presiding, the whole people hymns the Benefactor, recounting the wonderworkings of the divine loving-kindness.

'He turned rivers into a wilderness, and the outgoings of waters into thirsty ground.'

'A fruitful land into saltness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.' Those who have obtained salvation hymn Him, beholding the strange transformation.

For they who of old were watered by many prophetic rivers, and offered ripe fruit to God, now do not enjoy even a little moisture, but have become altogether desolate, deprived of their former watering because of their own wickedness.

'He turned the wilderness into pools of water, and dry ground into outgoings of waters.' But the nations that were of old a wilderness, and had not even a scanty spring, are flooded with the waters of the teaching, receiving the rational streams beyond their need.

'And there He made the hungry to dwell, and they established cities to inhabit.' For those who of old were wasting away with famine and destitute of spiritual food, He caused to dwell beside those rivers, and He established the godly commonwealth.

'And they sowed fields, and planted vineyards, and produced fruit of increase.' And all these things the prophet has spoken figuratively.

And the Lord too employed such parables;

and at one time He called the apostles reapers, and at another time called Himself the sower and the husbandman, and those who obediently receive the seeds of the word He called good ground.

And the Apostle also says:

'I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.' And again:

'Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.' And so the apostles sowed the saving proclamations, and planted for God the rational paradises, and brought to God the ripe fruit of righteousness;

and all those after them who have been entrusted with the teaching continue to do this same thing.

'And He blessed them, and they were multiplied greatly, and He did not diminish their cattle.' For 'he that soweth in blessings shall also reap in blessings,' according to the divine Apostle.

And by 'cattle' he calls those tended by them, whom He Himself increased, having supplied the power of wonderworking.

And the blessed Luke bears witness in the Acts, saying:

'And the Lord added daily to the Church those who were being saved.' And the Lord Himself too calls those who believe sheep;

for He says, 'My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal life.' Here again he foretells the evils that were to befall the Jews.

'And they were made few, and afflicted by the pressure of evils and sorrow.' This then he says:

Those who of old dwelt in the wilderness and the dry ground, having believed, enjoyed such great blessing and abundance.

But those who of old enjoyed the watering of the prophetic rivers, and then were deprived of it because of the wickedness of their disposition, and remained utterly desolate and barren, fell into calamities of every kind, and were scattered over the whole world, so that their once populous mother-city came to be inhabited by only a few.

'Contempt was poured out upon their rulers.' And the facts bear witness to the prediction.

For indeed those who seem to be their rulers and teachers are established as worthy of no account;

but those who of old were conspicuous and much regarded are now utterly obscure, and despised by those very people.

'And He caused them to wander in a trackless place, and not in a way.' And Symmachus thus:

'And He shall cause them to wander in the vanity of their understanding.'

God does not bring on error, but forbids error;

But those who will not be persuaded He leaves without a pilot; and lacking ballast, tossed about hither and thither, they drift astray.

And lacking ballast, carried about here and there, they wander in error.

This the Jews also suffered; for having forsaken the divine way, they follow their own reasonings.

For having forsaken the divine way, they follow their own reasonings.

'And He helped the poor man out of his poverty.' For the nations that of old were poor enjoyed the divine assistance and acquired spiritual riches.

'And He set them as sheep, in families.' But Aquila renders it thus:

'And He will lift up the poor man out of penury, and set him as a flock of kinship.'

For He cares for them as for His own sheep, and provides for and tends them as for kinsmen according to the flesh.

'The upright shall see and be glad, and all iniquity shall stop its mouth.' For beholding these things, those who employ uprightness of reasoning are filled with gladness of heart;

but those who choose to live in impiety and lawlessness are compelled to bow to the ground and keep silence, bridled by the righteous sentence.

'Who is wise and will keep these things, and understand the mercies of the Lord?' For neither to understand and discern the loving-kindnesses of the Saviour's dispensations, nor to keep the divine ordinances, belongs to everyone.

'Open my eyes, and I shall consider the wondrous things out of Your law.' INTERPRETATION.

And it has great kinship both with the fiftieth and with the fifty-ninth psalm.

'My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready; I will sing and make melody in my glory.' And we have already said before that the prophet calls the prophetic grace his own glory.

'Awake, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp; I will awake at dawn.'

'I will give thanks to You among the peoples, O Lord; I will sing to You among the nations.' The prophet calls himself a psaltery and a harp.

For as upon a musical instrument, the grace of the Spirit struck up the prophetic melody within him.

Inasmuch as at that time he was to offer up the hymn not by himself alone, but together with countless nations and peoples, making the divine song.

And by 'dawn' he means the incarnation of our God and Saviour.

For from that time the light of truth arose.

'For Your mercy is great, above the heavens, and Your truth reaches to the clouds.' The magnitude of Your mercy surpasses the vaults of the heavens;

everywhere the rays of Your truth have run their course.

And we have already said that by 'clouds' He calls the prophets, and the apostles, and those who have obtained the grace of teaching.

Through them we have learned the true doctrines.

'Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and Your glory above all the earth.' This also the blessed Habakkuk declared:

'O Lord, our Lord, how wondrous is Your name in all the earth;

for Your magnificence is lifted up above the heavens.' Therefore the phrase 'be exalted' stands for 'show Yourself lofty and above all things, and let all the earth learn Your glory.'

Receive therefore my supplication, and stretch out Your right hand.

'God has spoken in His holy one.' That is, through the grace of the all-holy Spirit.

Then He shows also the manner.

But also the valley that had become desolate and had received the tents of shepherds, I will fill from above with inhabitants, and I will make it to be apportioned to those who return.

'Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head, Judah is my king.' For I will make my own not only Manasseh, but also his territory.

For Gilead is the name of a place, while Manasseh is the appellation of a tribe.

But to Ephraim also I will restore its former strength;

and Judah indeed I will make to reign over all the tribes. For after the return the tribes remained undivided.

And Zerubbabel ruled over both these and those.

'Moab is the cauldron of my hope;'

'upon Edom I will cast my sandal; to me the foreigners have been made subject.' I will bestow upon my people such strength that they shall prevail over the foreigners, and take the Moabites and Edomites as their subjects.

And we have interpreted these things more precisely in the fifty-ninth psalm.

'Who will lead me into the fortified city? Or who will guide me as far as Edom? Will not You, O God, who have cast us off?' The prophet, filled with delight at the foretelling of good things, longs to see both the ruined city rebuilt and the Edomites in servitude to the Jews.

But these things, he says, no one else is able to grant, save You alone, who have now cast us off and commanded us to serve.

'And will You not go forth, O God, with our hosts?' But Symmachus renders it thus:

'And will You not go before, O God, with our armies?'

For we were never defeated when You were our general and led the phalanx.

For from no other source is it possible to obtain this.

For all human alliance, unless You work together with us, is vain and useless.

For by this alone shall we be able to prevail over our enemies.

And the great Peter also guides us toward this understanding when he addresses the people, and denounces the treachery of Judas, and from this makes the demonstration of the prophecy.

But let no one, hearing the Lord give the law to bless those who persecute, suppose the prophecy to be contrary to the Lawgiver.

For neither here does the prophetic word proceed by way of imprecation, but foretells the punishments that are to come both upon the Jews and upon Judas.

And this predictive utterance has been cast in the form of a prayer, as is very commonly the custom everywhere in the divine Scripture.

For as a man He prays, fulfilling the measures of human nature;

but as God He genuinely receives the prayers of those who pray.

For indeed in the divine Gospels He calls it glory.

'For the hour has come,' He says, 'that the Son of Man should be glorified.' And by 'the mouth of the sinner, and the mouth of the deceitful' He named Judas;

for this man secretly made with the Jews the covenants of the betrayal.

'They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue;

and with words of hatred they encompassed me.' From Judas he transferred the discourse to the whole council of the Jews.

[4.] 'Instead of loving me, they slandered me.' For not only did they experience no evil from me, but they also enjoyed countless good things;

for which, though they ought to have loved me, they did the deeds of enemies.

'But I gave myself to prayer.' And of this the history of the sacred Gospels is witness.

For nailed to the beam of the cross He cried out:

'for they know not what they do.' 5.

'And they rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.' I, then, overwhelmed them with benefits;

but they repaid me with the opposite.

'Set a sinner over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.' The word 'set' stands for 'You will set';

and 'let him stand' stands for 'he will stand';

and this the divine evangelist has clearly taught us.

For the wondrous John asked who the betrayer might be;

'He it is to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it.'

And having dipped it, He says, He gave it to Judas.

And after the morsel, Satan entered into him, having found the entrances ready.

For of his own accord he went off to the Jews and made the compact of betrayal; and though afterward flooded with many kindnesses, he remained ungrateful.

Willingly, then, he received the enemy as a house-mate.

When he is judged, let him go forth condemned [that is to say, 'he shall go forth'].

And let his prayer become sin [that is, 'it shall become']. For the traitor is destitute of every defence.

For he was not ignorant of his Benefactor, but even enjoyed the divine words; and of the greatest miracles he became not only an eyewitness but even a worker, having received the authority from Him.

Let his days be few, and let another take his office. And this prediction too received its fulfilment.

For he himself at once endured death by hanging, and Matthias, appointed in his place, filled up the number of the apostles.

Let his sons become orphans, and his wife a widow. These things befell not Judas alone, but also all the unbelieving Jews.

For a few years having passed after the cross, the whole nation was overthrown;

and some were slain, while their wives together with their children were led away into slavery.

This too the prophetic word had prayed for.

Let his sons be shaken about and made to wander, and let them beg, and let them be cast out of their homesteads. Or, according to the other translators, out of their ruins.

For when their houses had been burned, and their homesteads had become ruins, some of the inhabitants were slain, while others were carried off as prisoners of war.

Let the creditor search out all that he has. But Symmachus renders it thus:

May the exactor confiscate all his possessions.

And the exactors are the kings of the Romans, exacting the imposed tribute.

These plundered all that belonged to the Jews, searching diligently, so as even to find and appropriate what had been hidden.

And let strangers plunder his labours.

[12.] Let there be none to help him, nor any to have compassion on his orphans. And when these things come to pass, and the enemies distribute among themselves what belongs to them, there shall be none to succour them, nor shall their children be counted worthy of any mercy.

Let his children be given over to utter destruction; in one generation let his name be blotted out. For before forty years had passed, the people of the Jews endured total ruin, and no longer govern themselves, nor have kings and rulers of their own, nor that far-famed mother-city, nor do they perform the worship according to the Law; but all those things are gone — the ark, and the tablets, and the sculptured figures of the Cherubim, and the mercy-seat, and the lampstand, and the altar, and the high-priestly robe, and all the other things which among them were God-given and held in high esteem.

And the wickedness of the fathers increases the punishment of children who are like them;

for no occasion of clemency is found from any quarter.

This, then, the prophetic word also declared: that the Jews, in enduring their utter ruin, together with their own impieties will, by the remembrance of their fathers' evils, be shown to be yet more abominable.

By 'their fathers' he means those who practised impiety in the wilderness, those in the days of the Judges, those in the days of the Kings, those who after the return from Babylon lived in transgression;

and by 'mother' he called Jerusalem.

For this the Lord also declared in the Gospels:

That upon this generation may come all the innocent blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, whom they slew between the temple and the altar. For of all these together they shall pay the penalty.

Let them be continually before the Lord, and let their memorial be blotted out from the earth. For God, He says, ever beholding all the lawless deeds ventured by them, will count them worthy of no clemency, but will give them over to utter destruction.

And from this too it is clear that these things were spoken not concerning Judas alone, but concerning all who disbelieved.

For he transferred the discourse from the singular person to the plural.

For he no longer said 'his,' but 'theirs.'

Because he did not remember to show mercy.

And he pursued the man who was poor and needy and stricken in heart, to put him to death. These things, he says, they shall suffer, because they behaved harshly and brutishly in their murderousness, and pursued unto death Him who showed all moderation and gentleness.

Who for our sakes became poor, being rich, that we by His poverty might become rich; and again:

Who, being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. Now the Lord says:

Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; and now:

The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests;

but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. (18)

And he loved cursing, and it shall come upon him; and he desired not blessing, and it shall be far from him. Here he has plainly changed the optative form, and set down both prophetically: that they shall receive the curse which they loved, and shall be deprived of the blessing which they were unwilling to receive.

And he clothed himself with cursing as with a garment. That is to say, he is encompassed by it on every side.

And it entered like water into his bowels. For not only from without, but also from within are the evils set about them, and by these, like water, they are flooded over.

Then, since water waters and moistens the body but does not have lasting moisture, he added:

And like oil in his bones. For oil remains upon the body for a very long time.

And what he means is this:

A torrent of evils shall be brought upon him, imitating the violence of water and the permanence of oil.

Let it be to him as a garment which he puts on;

and as a girdle with which he is continually girded. On every side, he says, let him be covered as with clothing by the aforesaid evils, and let him be bound tight as with a belt.

This is the work of those who slander me before the Lord. But the others rendered it 'of my adversaries.'

And of those who speak evil things against my soul. These fruits shall those reap who displayed their hatred toward me, and the traitor who served them in it.

For since they called Him an enemy of God and a transgressor, He fittingly said:

Of those who slander me before the Lord. (21)

For He fulfilled the conditions of humanity, apart from sin.

For He was born both according to the law of nature and above the law of nature.

For the being born of a woman belongs to human nature;

but above this is the being born of a Virgin.

He received swaddling-clothes and circumcision, and nourishment from milk, and offered sacrifices; He fasted and hungered, thirsted and grew weary.

So too He is recorded in the sacred Gospels as continually praying.

And here too, therefore, He calls upon the divine help after the manner of men.

Deliver me, for I am poor and needy, and my heart is troubled within me. This too we find spoken by Him in the sacred Gospels.

For when about to draw near to the Passion, He said:

Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour;

but for this cause came I unto this hour. (23)

For, he says, like a shadow that is bowed down and taken away, I received the end of my life;

and even like locusts fanned about by winds and carried hither and thither, so did I pass my life;

having no city, no village, no house;

but at one time going into this place, at another into that, and at another time removing into the mountains, and hastening into the wilderness.

My knees have grown weak from fasting, and my flesh is changed because of oil. For I did not live a life relaxed and luxurious, but one austere, and hardened, and squalid.

And witnesses are those who were counted worthy of His sacred discipleship, and the barley loaves which they carried about, and the ears of grain which were plucked and rubbed in the hands because of hunger.

As for the words, 'My flesh is changed because of oil,' Symmachus rendered them thus:

'And my flesh was changed from want of anointing.'

'And I became a reproach to them; they saw me, they shook their heads.' This too found its fulfilment.

Seeing him upon the cross, wagging their heads, they said, 'Aha, thou that destroyest this temple and raisest it up in three days, come down from the cross.' And others said:

'He saved others, himself he cannot save.' (Psalm 21, 27)

'Help me, O Lord my God, and save me according to thy mercy.'

'And let them know that this is thy hand, and that thou, Lord, hast done it.' Let them learn, he says, that it was not against my will that they delivered me to the cross, but that this was the work of thy providential ordering.

By 'the hand' of God he means his working power.

'Let them curse, but thou wilt bless.' To this very day the Jews have persisted in employing blasphemies against the Saviour; yet while they blaspheme, the proclamation of the gospel grows daily more resplendent.

'Let them that rise up against me be put to shame, but thy servant shall rejoice.' Neither does this phrase compel us to take the psalm as referring to some other subject.

For we hear also the inspired Paul saying that 'He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.' And He himself, crying out through Isaiah, speaks thus:

'He that formed me from the womb to be his servant'; and a little after: 'I have given thee for a covenant of the race, for a light of the nations, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.' And in the sacred Gospels he spoke thus:

'For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.' Therefore 'the servant' is a name of the nature that was assumed;

not because it is in bondage to that nature — for how could the nature which is united to God the Word and has received lordship over all things be in bondage? — but that the property of the nature itself might be shown.

Here, then, 'servant' is indicative not of rank but of nature.

'Let those that slander me be clothed with reproach, and let them wrap themselves in their shame as with a double cloak.' Again the other translators rendered 'those who slander' as 'those who are adversaries.'

And the events bear witness to the prophecy.

For they abide in perpetual shame, and are wrapped in it as in a garment.

Christ, and the assembly of the Church is also called his body;

and he calls the hymn of the Church his own hymn.

'For he stood at the right hand of the poor man, to save my soul from those that persecute it.' This he also said in the sixteenth psalm:

'I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand, that I should not be moved.' For the divine nature, having made the union indissoluble, was present to the human nature, yet permitted it to suffer, working out the salvation of mankind.

For it was easy for him to render immortal the very nature which he had assumed;

but since the passion was the salvation of the world, he permitted the passion to take place, and after the passion he imparted to it immortality and incorruption.

And he himself received no harm from its sufferings, but filled it with his own glory, and reigns together with it, and holds dominion over all things.

But while it still had a corruptible nature, he permitted it, in human fashion and in all things save sin, both to suffer and to speak.

The most divine Peter also makes mention of the opening of this psalm in the Acts.

'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' And the Lord himself, seeing that the Pharisees held other opinions concerning Christ, put to them this question:

'The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand'? Then he draws the inference:

He therefore adds what was lacking, without doing away with what is confessed, teaching that the same one is both his son according to the flesh and his Lord as God and creator.

And the community of the names shows the identity of essence.

For it is 'Lord' speaking to 'Lord,' and not 'Lord' to a creature, nor 'Lord' to a thing made:

'Sit thou at my right hand.' This too, then, is a great thing;

and it is not only above the human nature, but above all creation.

Yet this too is spoken in human fashion.

For as God, the Son has an eternal throne;

'For thy throne, O God,' he says, 'is for ever and ever.' For it was not after the cross and the passion that he was deemed worthy of this honour as God;

but he received as man what he possessed as God.