Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 8/42

rather, I will do this in the time to come as well: 'Your face, O Lord, will I seek,' he says. Do not, then, thrust me away in my longing, nor deprive me of the One for whom I long.

'Do not turn Your face away from me;'

'and do not turn aside in anger from Your servant.' This he set down by a metaphor drawn from those who are angry, who turn away from those approaching them and try to bend their course into another road.

'Be my helper, do not utterly reject me, and do not forsake me, O God my Saviour.' The phrase 'do not utterly reject me' the other translators rendered as 'do not cast me away;'

but the Seventy formed this word from an outside custom of instruction.

For 'to the ravens' was among the ancients a kind of insult, arising from a certain fable.

'Give me Your law, O Lord, in Your way;'

'and guide me in a straight path.' Instead of 'give me Your law,' Aquila and Theodotion said 'enlighten me;'

while Symmachus said, 'show me Your way.'

Since, he says, I am compelled to dwell far from my own kinsmen, be Yourself both lawgiver and guide to me, showing me the path that leads to You.

[v. 12] 'Do not hand me over to the souls of those who afflict me.' These words are the offspring of a humble spirit.

For he says: I am indeed unworthy of salvation, yet, having in no way wronged those who now war against me, I am unjustly driven out.

Do not, then, hand over the one wronged to those who do the wrong.

'For unjust witnesses have risen up against me, and iniquity has lied to itself.' Aquila rendered this more clearly:

'False witnesses stood against me, and the injustice was made manifest.'

For they, he says, employed slanders against me, but from this I received no harm at all, through Your help;

rather it recoiled upon the unjust, and the arrows they shot against me turned back again against themselves.

This is taken from common usage;

for we too are accustomed, concerning those who plot but do not harm, to say:

[v. 13] 'But I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living.' For not only in this present life shall I be superior to my enemies;

but I shall also come to the enjoyment of the good things that are hoped for;

then he offers an exhortation to all people.

'Wait for the Lord.' And how might this be possible? 'Be of good courage, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord.' The mind, he says, armed with courage and by this prevailing over the passions that assault it, is made strong and conquers, and awaits the divine promises, of which, together with the body that laboured with it, it becomes heir;

and he calls the life that is hoped for the 'land of the living,' as separated from death and free from corruption and sorrow.

calling upon Christ through prayer for aid;

and at the same time it contains a denunciation of the folly of the Jews and a prayer to be separated from their hand, or rather from their portion. 'To You, O Lord, will I cry; my God, do not keep silence toward me;'

This psalm, and indeed the psalms before it, fit everyone who falls into such calamities.

The word 'I will cry' he set down not with reference to the voice, but with reference to eagerness and to intense and earnest prayer;

and the phrase 'do not keep silence toward me' he took by a metaphor from those who are entreated by certain people and are unwilling to give any answer at all.

For this he called a 'pit;'

since the grave is dug in a manner resembling a pit.

'Hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication, when I pray to You, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy temple.' The temple had not yet been built;

but he names the tabernacle a 'temple,' in which he prayed, being far off in body but sending his mind thither.

'Do not drag me away with sinners, and do not destroy me together with those who work iniquity, who speak peace with their neighbours,'

For he says those are abominable who say one thing but purpose another.

For this reason he wishes them to reap the wages befitting their deeds.

'And give them according to the works of their hands;'

'render to them their recompense.' Let no one suppose that the righteous man is cursing his enemies;

for what is said is not a curse, but a just verdict.

For he says, 'render to them their recompense'—that is, may they fall into their own snares, which they weave against one another;

this too is in the seventh psalm: 'His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his iniquity shall come down upon his own crown.' Then he teaches the cause of the punishment.

'Because they did not understand the works of the Lord, nor the works of His hands.' These things, he says, they have done, being unwilling to learn either the divine word or the divine work.

And from this, moreover, it is clear that he uttered the foregoing words in a predictive manner, not cursing them, but foretelling what was to come;

for he did not say 'tear down,' but 'You shall tear down, and You shall not build up.' Then again, having enjoyed the divine revelation and having beheld from afar the help that was to come, he moved his tongue to song.

'Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplication.'

'The Lord is my helper and my defender.' And showing the reason for the swift aid, he added:

'Because my heart hoped in Him, and I was helped, and my flesh has flourished again.' For my hope in Him became for me the procurer of this providential care.

'And of my own will I will give thanks to Him.' That is: Not by constraint, but willingly, do I offer Him the hymn;

so too he says elsewhere, 'I will willingly sacrifice to You,' and again, 'Accept, O Lord, the freewill offerings of my mouth.'

For he calls himself 'Christ' as a king.

For this name was common to kings, and to prophets, and to priests.

'Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance, and shepherd them, and lift them up for ever.' Impart, therefore, he says, to Your people this blessing and salvation, directing and shepherding them, and rendering them superior to their enemies.

And prayer on behalf of the people befits a king;

for they were fighting alongside Saul;

yet he offered supplication on their behalf to God;

for he foresaw the change that was to come upon them, and looked not upon the injustice, but upon the servitude that was to be.

'of the going forth of the tabernacle.' Neither did I find this superscription in the Hexapla, but in certain copies;

and the words of the psalm contain no such sense.

For the psalm foretells other things.

the one fitting Hezekiah the king, the other fitting the King of us all, who, having dissolved the error of the idols, illumined the whole inhabited world with the rays of the knowledge of God;

and I shall speak briefly of the prophecy concerning Hezekiah, but at greater length of that concerning ourselves, as being more pertinent to us.

The admirable Hezekiah, prevailing over the Assyrians and exulting in the marvel of the victory, exhorts the people to requite God with sacrifices, to offer Him hymns and doxology, and to perform in His holy court the appointed worship.

Since the temple was inaccessible to the many, and there it was entered by the priests alone.

Then he teaches the cause of these things, pointing to the God-sent stroke against the Assyrians, making mention at once of both voice and thunder;

and figuratively naming the multitude of the enemies a 'multitude of waters;'

then again he calls them 'cedars,' thereby indicating their loftiness and density;

and he says that these were shattered, while the beloved people was likened to the young of the unicorns;

inasmuch as they worshipped one God, and through Him destroyed the many myriads of the enemies who came against them.

But indeed, he says, like a flame He cut them asunder and scattered them, and shook the wilderness-array of God, and stripped bare the region resembling a thicket—so called because of the density of those encamped in it—of those who had lodged there.

But us who have received the fear of the stags He has thoroughly equipped, and He has made us to remain rather than to flee.

For this very reason it is right that all should run together in the temple, and offer to Him the recompense of hymns.

For having freed us from these things, He will also enable us to rebuild and inhabit anew what lies outside the enclosures, that which had been ruined by the enemies and, as it were, overwhelmed by a flood.

For we shall easily accomplish all things, since we have the eternal King, who has both given us the power to prevail and has bestowed peace upon us.

That the psalm before us was spoken concerning the blessed Hezekiah, the interpretation has already made clear.

But since the old is a type of the new, come, let us set the body beside the shadow and demonstrate their likeness.

There a pious king, and here Christ, the teacher of piety;

there a people obedient to him, and here a people saved by Him;

an uprising and a dissolution.

The grace of the Spirit therefore exhorts the holy apostles to preach salvation to the nations, and to offer those who obey unto God.

For He calls the apostles sons of God, inasmuch as they were named brothers of Christ;

for He says, 'Tell my brethren that I go before you into Galilee.'

And He calls those from among the nations who have believed 'sons of rams,' inasmuch indeed as they had sprung from irrational fathers.

'Bring unto the Lord, O ye sons of God, bring unto the Lord the sons of rams.'

[2] 'Bring unto the Lord glory and honour;'

'bring unto the Lord glory to His name;'

'worship the Lord in His holy court.' You, He says, who have been entrusted with the divine proclamation and have been called sons of God, convey the divine proclamation everywhere with all eagerness, and make rational those who were nurtured in irrationality, and offer these first unto God;

then through these offer worship and hymns, honouring the Benefactor in the divine houses.

These words resemble also those spoken by the Saviour to the holy apostles:

'Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;'

and indeed the psalm, after the aforesaid words, straightway called to mind the sacred waters.

'The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;'

'the God of glory thundered.' The word foretells the voice that was borne from heaven at the Jordan:

'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And it called this a thunder, inasmuch as it ran throughout the whole inhabited world by means of the holy Gospels;

in this way too it called the pair of the apostles 'sons of thunder,' on account of the surpassing and divine voice of their theology.

'The Lord upon many waters.' For not the Jordan alone received that grace, but in all the earth and sea the mystery of baptism is accomplished, the divine invocation sanctifying the nature of the waters.

From here it foretells the power that was bestowed upon the apostles.

'the voice of the Lord in magnificence.' The history of the Acts also teaches us things in harmony with these.

'Wait in this city until you be clothed with power from on high.' And after ten days, at the feast of Pentecost, 'There came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting;'

'and there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them.' And by 'voice' it means the grace of the Spirit, which filled the apostles with strength and power, and rendered the lowly ones magnificent.

Then it shows what things they accomplished, being strengthened by this voice.

'The voice of the Lord that breaks the cedars, and the Lord shall break the cedars of Lebanon.' And by these words it signifies the destruction of the idols.

For since of old the precincts of the idols were lofty, yet yielded no fruit to those who worshipped them, He likened these to the cedars of Lebanon, which are indeed lofty, but by nature bear no edible fruit.

'And He shall grind them small, like the calf of Lebanon.' And He often names Jerusalem also 'Lebanon;'

for 'They made,' He says, 'a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the graven image.' But Moses the lawgiver ground that one down and pulverized it.

So then He says that in like manner all the idols of the inhabited world shall likewise be ground small and shall vanish away;

'And the beloved is as the son of the unicorns.' But the people that has believed, and has been delivered from that error, and is on this account called beloved, shall be unconquerable and unassailable, inasmuch as it has been freed from polytheism and reveres the one Godhead.

it was illuminated, but not consumed.

And in the life to come the twofold energy of the fire, being divided, shall illuminate the athletes of virtue, but shall burn up the lovers of vice;

for which reason indeed the punishment of the lawless is called both fire and darkness, since the illuminating energy does not appear there.

'The voice of the Lord that shakes the wilderness, and the Lord shall shake the wilderness of Kadesh.' But Symmachus said not 'that shakes,' but 'that brings to birth;'

and indeed Aquila too said 'that travails in birth.'

And concerning this wilderness Isaiah also foretells;

'Rejoice,' he says, 'O thirsty wilderness;'

'let the wilderness be glad, and blossom as the lily.' And by 'wilderness' he names the nations, as having of old become bereft of God.

Such too is that which is set down elsewhere in Isaiah:

'Rejoice, O barren, thou that bearest not;'

'break forth and cry aloud, thou that travailest not;'

and the shaking signifies the manifestation of God;

for this is what 'Kadesh' is interpreted to mean.

'The voice of the Lord that perfects the stags, and shall uncover the thickets.' It is the nature of stags to despise the creeping beasts;

and the prophetic word foretold this;

'The voice of the Lord that perfects the stags, and shall uncover the thickets.' For this indeed is the marvel, that by means of stags He worsted the multitude of manifold beasts, and by means of the unlettered He refuted the barrenness of the philosophers, and by means of fishermen He dissolved the tyranny of the devil.

for such are those coppices, or thickets, which the best husbandmen are wont to cut down, and, laying bare the land that was overrun by them, plant fruit-bearing trees and cast in edible seeds.

This too the farmers of the inhabited world have done;

for having torn up the precincts of the idols by the roots, they planted in their stead the divine Churches.

'The Lord shall cause the flood to dwell, and the Lord shall sit as King forever.' For He shall build up the inhabited world that had been sunk beneath the torrent of lawlessness, and shall renew it, and shall work a new creation.

'The Lord shall give strength to His people,' that is, in the time of war;

'and He shall bless His people with peace,' having brought the long war to an end.

By 'dedication of a house' then He calls the renewal of human nature;

death, and having dissolved death, and having given us the hopes of the resurrection.

And this same Psalm was spoken also concerning the blessed Hezekiah.

For after the destruction of the Assyrians, and his deliverance from sickness, he celebrated, as was fitting, a most great feast, confessing thanks to God, because He had bestowed salvation upon them, and had freed His holy temple from the fire of the enemies.

Since then the things being celebrated resembled a festival of dedication, it fittingly received this inscription as well.

One must know, however, that it fits Hezekiah according to the type, but the whole nature of mankind according to the very truth.

For just as he, having admitted a lofty pride —

for this the history of Chronicles has taught —

received the sentence of death, but by divine grace obtained life;

so too Adam the forefather, expecting to become God, and thinking great things against his Maker, was delivered over to death;

but by the divine love for mankind he obtained the resurrection.

'I will exalt Thee, O Lord, for Thou hast upheld me.'

'O Lord my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me.'

'O Lord, Thou hast brought up my soul from Hades.'

'Thou hast saved me from among them that go down into the pit.' These words we hear as spoken by human nature giving its account.

The phrase, however, 'I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me,' fits Hezekiah according to the obvious sense, but no longer fits human nature.

For human nature neither besought God nor sought deliverance from corruption;

but it continued giving itself over to laments and wailings, beholding death while not awaiting the resurrection.

The tears therefore, and the laments made over the sick and the dying, He has reckoned in place of prayer, thereby displaying the unspeakable loving-kindness of God: that even though not called upon, but merely seeing the lamentations, He took pity on what was happening and loosed death.

And here again He has called death a pit.

'Sing unto the Lord, ye His holy ones, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.'

'For there is wrath in His indignation,'

'and life in His good pleasure.' Fittingly He assigns the hymn to the holy ones, and the confession of grace;

for since He gave to all men the gift of the resurrection, yet not all are worthy of the grace, He suitably consecrates the worthy for the hymns.

And He has made the further division excellently too;

for the wrath He assigned to His indignation;

for by 'wrath' He calls chastening;

but life He assigned to His will;

for this indeed He wills, not that.

For that other we bring upon ourselves.

'For God,' it says, 'made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living;'

'for He created all things that they might have being, and the generations of the world are for salvation.' And we hear Him also speaking through the prophet Ezekiel:

'Do I at all desire the death of the sinner, rather than that he should turn from his way and live?' – 'Weeping shall lodge for the evening;'

'and in the morning, rejoicing.' And this happened thus both in the case of Hezekiah and in that of the common salvation.

For the Assyrians, having employed those threats and having moved the city to weeping, received the blow by night, and at dawn those whom they had forced to weep they filled with good cheer.

And the divine Isaiah, having brought Hezekiah the sentence of death in the evening, at dawn brought him again the good tidings of life;

so it came to pass also in the case of the common salvation.

For while the holy apostles and those who had believed together with them were lamenting the Lord's Passion, the women came at dawn, bringing the joy of the resurrection.

'But I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved for ever.' This too Adam had hoped, while he dwelt as a citizen in Paradise before the deception, and Hezekiah likewise, when he had conquered the Assyrian;

and this the book of Chronicles teaches clearly, saying that the heart of Hezekiah the king was lifted up.

'O Lord, in Thy good pleasure Thou didst give power unto my beauty;'

'but I became troubled.' These words likewise fit both Hezekiah and the whole nature of men;

for that man, on account of his virtue, enjoyed the divine providence and prevailed over the Assyrians;

and again, being stripped of the divine grace, he fell into sickness and received the terror of death;

and Adam too in Paradise was adorned with the beauty of virtue and was superior to corruption;

but being stripped of the divine providence because of the transgression, he endured the tempest that comes from this life.

And this Symmachus has set forth very clearly;

'O Lord, in Thy favour Thou didst establish might for my forefather.'

'Unto Thee, O Lord, will I cry, and unto my God will I make supplication.'

'What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to corruption? Shall dust give thanks unto Thee, or declare Thy truth?' These words the blessed Hezekiah also used, as both the fourth book of Kingdoms narrates in its history and the prophecy of the most divine Isaiah teaches;

for they that are dissolved into dust and ashes, and have lost their bodily function, how could they be able to sing Thy benefactions? (verses 11–13)

'The Lord heard, and had mercy upon me; the Lord became my helper.'

'Thou hast turned my mourning into joy for me.'

'That my glory may sing unto Thee, and I be not pierced with compunction.' And Hezekiah, girding himself with sackcloth, offered to God his prayer against the Assyrians;

and human nature had clothed itself in the garb of mourning.

And now too some of the senseless, lamenting the dead and sitting wretchedly upon sackcloth, are unwilling to give heed to the prophetic words that cry out plainly;

But the phrase, 'That my glory may sing unto Thee, and I be not pierced with compunction,' Symmachus has thus rendered:

'That glory may sing Thee, and not fall silent;'

that is to say, It is fitting that on account of this benefaction they who have obtained so great a glory should continually sing and hymn Thee, keeping silent at no time.

And compunction too produces silence.

The Seventy therefore have put 'compunction' in place of 'silence';

and glory Hezekiah obtained, when so many myriads received on his account a heaven-sent blow, and indeed when the sun turned back its course;

and we too have occasion for great renown, since the God of all has shown so great a tender love toward us.

'For God so loved the world,' it says, 'that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

'O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for ever.' For not only in the present life, but also after the resurrection, will I offer Thee hymns, continually recounting Thy transcendent and ineffable gifts.

It seems to me that he hints also at the matter of Uriah.

For he says in this very psalm:

'But I said in my ecstasy, I am cast out from before Thine eyes;' that is, I thought that, having sinned, I was stripped of Thy providence.

and this the interpretation of the words teaches more clearly.

'let me never be put to shame.' Sin, he says, has clothed me about with much shame;

but I entreat that it may not remain upon me for long, on account of the confidence I have placed in Thee.

'In Thy righteousness deliver me, and rescue me.' Look not, he says, upon my sin, but upon the lawlessness of them that persecute me;

for by employing this just verdict, Thou wilt free me from the calamities that press upon me.

'Incline Thine ear unto me;'

'make haste to rescue me.' Having heard my supplication, grant Thy swift help.

'Be Thou unto me a God, a protector, and a house of refuge, to save me.'

[Section 4.] 'For Thou art my strength and my refuge.' These things he said also in the seventeenth psalm, indicating the all-embracing care of God.

And the phrase 'my strength,' Aquila and Symmachus rendered 'my rock.'

The prophetic word seems to agree with the evangelic, which points to the prudent man who built his house upon the rock, which neither the assault of winds nor of rains and rivers, by reason of its firmness, could damage.

'And for Thy name's sake Thou wilt guide me and sustain me.' The word 'sustain' Symmachus has rendered 'Thou wilt tend me.'

And he says that Thou wilt count me worthy of every kind of providence, for the sake of Thy name in which I have trusted.

For he did not ask to obtain the divine help on account of his own virtue, but for the sake of the name of God, and the righteousness of God, and because he had set his hope upon Him.

'Thou shalt bring me out of this snare, which they have hidden for me;' —

'for Thou art my defender, O Lord.' By these words he made known the counsel of Ahithophel, which he had introduced against him, as we have already said before.

'Into Thy hands I will commit my spirit; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth.' Often having fallen into many calamities, I was set free from them by Thy inclining favour;

and for this reason I commit my own soul to Thy providence.

For here again he names God's providence 'hands.'

'Thou hast hated all those who cling to vanities in vain.' These men, he says, have not put their trust in Thee, but have relied on their own vain reasonings;

and Thou art wont utterly to turn away from such as these.

'But as for me, I have hoped in the Lord.'

[8.] 'I will exult and be glad in Thy mercy.' For even when I am amid calamities I call upon Thy help, and enjoying it, I ascribe the cause of good things to Thy love for mankind.

'For Thou hast regarded my lowliness; Thou hast saved my soul out of distresses.'

[9.] 'And Thou hast not shut me up into the hands of enemies;'

'Thou hast set my feet in a broad place.' Nor did I ever err when I used these reasonings;

for often having fallen into ambushes of enemies and into snares, and having come within the nets that were spread out for me, I escaped those who hunted me;

and at another time I escaped the Gittites, having feigned madness.

'Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in tribulation;'

'my eye is troubled with wrath, my soul and my belly.' Symmachus rendered this thus:

'My eye was made turbid because of provocation.'

'For having provoked Thee by my sin, I am compelled to weep unceasingly;'

'and indeed my soul also is filled with storm and turmoil.'

And here by 'belly' he called the storehouse of the reasonings;

for it was the reasonings, and not the belly, that were troubled.

'For my life has failed in pain, and my years in groanings.' All my life, he says, I have spent in pains and tears.

'My strength has weakened in poverty, and my bones are troubled.' And want too, and the scarcity of necessities, wasted away my body.

And of this want the history too makes mention, and says:

'I became a reproach beyond all my enemies, and exceedingly so to my neighbours, and a terror to my acquaintances.' My enemies, he says, are in good cheer, but I am a laughing-stock, an object of malicious joy to those who border upon me, and an object of dread to those who know me.

And teaching this more clearly he added:

'I was forgotten as one dead, out of mind; I became like a lost vessel.' They all despaired of me, he says, treating me as a lost vessel and as a dead man dwelling in a tomb.

[He showed the excess of the forgetting by way of the dishonour of the vessel;

for just as, he says, that vessel, when it is lost, is quickly banished from the memory of those who lost it because of its worthlessness, so also I was reckoned by them as being nothing, and as never having once been worthy of any account.] 14.

'For I heard the reviling of many that dwelt round about.' And these things I say not by conjecture, but having received the reproaches with my own ears.

And by these words he signifies also the revilings of Shimei.

'When they gathered together against me, they took counsel to take my life.'

[15, 16.] 'But as for me, I have hoped in Thee, O Lord;'

'My lots are in Thy hands.' They indeed, having gathered together, are contriving my death, but I know Thee as God and Ruler.

'My lots are in Thy hands,' or, as the rest have it, 'My times are in Thy hands,' that is to say, Thou dost apportion to each as Thou wilt both despondency and gladness, and Thou dost again change these according to Thy good pleasure.

For by 'times,' or 'lots,' he calls the changes of circumstances—wealth and poverty, slavery and lordship, peace and war, and other such things likewise.

'Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.' Then he shows also the manner of the deliverance.

'Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant;'

'save me in Thy mercy.' For when Thy manifestation has come to me, my sorrows shall straightway be dissolved.

'O Lord, let me not be put to shame, for I have called upon Thee; let the ungodly be put to shame, and be brought down into Hades.' And from this we learn that sin has a great difference from ungodliness.