Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 9/42

And with good reason he called that counsel 'pride' and 'contempt';

since it stirred up a son to the slaughter of his father.

'How great is the multitude of Thy goodness, O Lord, which Thou hast hidden for those who fear Thee!' Again the word 'how' is here placed not comparatively but intensively.

'How great is Thy good, which Thou hast hidden away in store for those who fear Thee!'

And the saying has this meaning:

and these things, being many, and great, and wonderful;

yet Thou dost suffer men to wrestle with sweats and hardships.

But nevertheless there are times when Thou dost also award the prizes to the naked, encouraging the athletes.

'Thou hast wrought for those who hope in Thee, in the presence of the sons of men.' Then he sets forth in detail the providence that is exercised over them.

'Thou shalt hide them in the secret place of Thy presence, from the trouble of men.'

'Thou shalt shelter them in a tabernacle from the strife of tongues.' Thy manifestation, he says, is sufficient

—for this is what he calls 'presence'—

to set them free from all human trouble and storm, and, when they are caught in the midst of it, to cover them as with some tabernacle, and to render them invisible.

he enjoyed this when he was being pursued by Saul.

For being caught in the midst of dangers, he obtained salvation.

Thus the great Elisha escaped the Syrians who had surrounded him, sprinkling a mist upon their eyes.

And many other such things one may find in the divine Scripture.

'Blessed be the Lord, for He hath made His mercy marvellous in a fortified city.' And Symmachus said this thus:

'Blessed be the Lord, who hath wondrously shown His mercy to me, as in a fenced city.'

'For so,' he says, 'did He surround me and fence me about with His own love for mankind, as the inhabitants fence a city about with a strong rampart.'

'But I said in my ecstasy, I am cast away from before Thine eyes;'

'therefore Thou didst hearken to the voice of my supplication, when I cried unto Thee.' I supposed, he says, that having fallen into sin, I had become far from Thy care;

but having beheld my lowly words, Thou didst not overlook me in my supplication.

And with good reason he called sin an 'ecstasy' [a going out of oneself].

For while travelling the road of righteousness, he went out of it and turned aside;

and he stumbled, and fell among the flesh-devouring robbers.

For he was not habituated to sin, but having gone a little outside his own resolve, he suffered that slip.

From here he turns his discourse to exhortation, from his own case pointing out the divine love for mankind and providence.

'Love the Lord, all ye His holy ones, for the Lord seeketh out truth, and requiteth those who work pride abundantly.' It is fitting, he says, that you all, who choose to travel the divine road, should ardently love the Ruler of all things, who uses truth as it were for a rule, and who chastises those who have acquired immeasurable arrogance.

For he did not say simply, 'to those who work pride,' but 'to those who work it excessively.'

For this too is sufficient to display the divine goodness.

For He bears with those who in this way indulge in a somewhat greater arrogance of mind;

but those who are puffed up and insatiably swollen with conceit He delivers over to the punishments that befit them.

'Be courageous, and let your heart be strengthened, all you who hope in the Lord.' Knowing these things, therefore, you who cross over this present life in divine hope, fortify your souls with courage, and obey the nods of the Helmsman, being carried along as He steers.

And this exhortation is fitting for us too, who possess the consolation that comes through hope.

For this too was spoken by him after his sin, amid those calamities.

But foreseeing with prophetic eyes the grace of the New Covenant, and the remission granted through the all-holy Baptism to those who believe, he calls these blessed, inasmuch as they receive deliverance from their sins without toil;

and beginning the psalm he says:

'Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.'

For He treats them with such magnanimity that He not only forgives, but even covers their sins, and leaves not so much as a trace of them.

'Because I kept silent, my bones grew old, from my crying out all the day long.' When he had committed that sin, he did not at once employ the remedies of repentance, but only after the rebuke of Nathan.

This, then, is what he here cries out:

'For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me.' 'I lament and implore, being stricken with all manner of chastisements and punishments.'

For the phrase, 'Your hand was heavy upon me,' he has set down as a metaphor drawn from those who strike with the hand and persist in doing so for a long time.

'I was turned to misery while a thorn was fixed in me.' 'Your chastisement, he says, is not unjust, but altogether righteous.'

'For the cause of my evils is the sin which I brought forth instead of a cluster of grapes;'

'and I am continually pricked by it.'

For he called sin a 'thorn,' both as a useless growth and as one that is by nature apt to prick.

'I made my sin known, and I did not cover my iniquity.'

'I said, I will confess against myself my iniquity to the Lord;'

'and You forgave the ungodliness of my sin.' 'Immediately upon sinning I kept silent;'

'but afterward I made accusation against myself night and day;'

'and from that accusation I reaped great fruits;'

'for You granted me the remission of my sins.'

It is fitting to note that he did not say, 'You forgave me the sin,' but 'the ungodliness of the sin;'

that is: 'You did not punish me according to the deserts of my transgression, but You pardoned the excess of the sin, while imposing the cure by a measured chastisement.'

This the sacred history also teaches.

So too here: 'And You took away the ungodliness of my sin.' 'It was fitting,' he says, 'that I, who had dared such deeds, should at once, according to the law, be handed over to death;'

'but, showing loving-kindness, You did not hand me over to death, but healed me with moderate chastisements.'

'Yet in a flood of many waters they shall not come near to him.' Symmachus rendered this as follows:

'Concerning this every holy one shall pray, having found a fitting time, that the flooding of many waters may not draw near to him.'

'He who offers you an earnest supplication shall enjoy every kind of providential care.'

'So that even if he falls into various calamities that surge about him like waters, he may overcome them and be shown superior to his griefs.'

'You are my refuge from the affliction that surrounds me;'

'my exultation, deliver me from those who have encircled me.' Having said those things concerning sin, he entreats to be delivered from the evils brought upon him because of it;

and indeed he also obtains the answer.

For the Lord says to him:

'I will instruct you and guide you in this way in which you shall walk; I will fix My eyes upon you.' 'When you had gone astray, he says, and had recognized your error, I will lead you back again into the straight way, and will implant in you the knowledge and understanding of it;'

'and I will impart to you also My former favor.'

For this is what He meant by, 'I will fix My eyes upon you,' a metaphor drawn from those who are affectionately disposed toward someone and wish continually to gaze upon him.

For just as one who is angry seems to turn his face away, so He indicates His good favor through paying attention.

'With bit and bridle you shall constrain the jaws of those who do not draw near to You.' 'I, he says, exhort you not to emulate their irrationality;'

'but if you are not persuaded, you shall receive the bridle and bit like unto them.'

'Many are the scourges of the sinner.' Having thus offered them this counsel, he passes over to the other choir.

'But mercy shall encompass the one who hopes in the Lord.' For all men, even if they are adorned with the achievements of virtue, still stand in need of divine grace;

wherefore indeed the divine Apostle cries out:

'By grace you have been saved through faith;'

'Be glad in the Lord, and exult, you righteous, and boast, all you who are upright in heart.' Let no one, therefore, exult over his own achievements, but let him be highly minded in God, and reap the gladness that comes therefrom.

'Considering yourself, he says, lest you also be tempted.' COMMENTARY

Without a title among the Hebrews.

This the Seventy set down when they translated the psalm:

'Do not seek, he says, an interpretation of the title;'

'for we found no title.'

But it is composed as though from Hezekiah himself, urging the people to song after the marvelous victory and the destruction of the Assyrians.

'Exult, you righteous, in the Lord.' In many places Aquila rendered 'exult' as 'praise;' and Symmachus similarly, 'Praise befits the upright.' To those who have come to know God and are freed from error, it is fitting continually to hymn God.

Then he teaches also how it is fitting for them to perform the hymn-singing.

'Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; sing praises to Him with the ten-stringed psaltery.'

'Sing to Him a new song, sing praises well to Him with a shout of joy.' All these things were performed according to the worship of the Law;

for they made use of lyres, and cymbals, and timbrels, and other musical instruments.

And a 'shout of joy' is a triumphant cry, made by the victors against those who flee.

And what has been said befits us too, when understood spiritually;

and it is possible for us to render our very selves a melodious and all-harmonious instrument, and through all our senses to hymn God, both by things perceptible and things intelligible.

And he set before us the contemplation of His works, exhorting us to believe, and not to busy ourselves inquiring how they came to be.

'The Lord loves mercy and judgment.' For He commands all to receive without curiosity, and without any doubt, the things done by Him;

yet to give heed to one's manner of life, and to adorn it with mercy and judgment.

'The earth is full of the mercy of the Lord.' 'It is fitting, he says, to imitate the Maker;'

'for just as He, using mercy, governs all things,'

'and has compassion on those who have been wronged;'

'so also must we render judgment to the unjust, and mercy to those who have been wronged.'

but us He has counted worthy of forbearance and loving-kindness.

Having thus expounded the matters concerning divine providence, he turns his discourse to the creation, and teaches that He who fashioned the universe also governs the universe, and provides for it as for works that are His own, not another's.

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the breath of His mouth.' He needed neither labour nor time in creating, he says, but a word sufficed Him for the making;

for He said, 'Let there be a firmament,' and it was so;

...of heaven, and it was so. Now the surface sense, the plain face of the letter, indicates this;

for this suited the Jews of old.

But the true theology reveals to us God the Word, together with the all-holy Spirit, as having made both the heavens and the heavenly powers.

And the prophecy anticipates the teaching of the Gospel.

And just as the divinely-inspired John, the son of thunder, taught all the world that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,'

so he says here also that both these things and those were made by God the Word and the Holy Spirit.

To me, however, the second interpretation seems the truer.

'Gathering the waters of the sea together as in a wineskin;'

'laying up the deeps in storehouses.' For He keeps the whole nature of the waters confined, as it were in certain treasuries, within the places appointed for them;

and He draws it up aloft into the air whenever He wills, and gathers it into the clouds as into a kind of wineskin.

'Bringing up clouds from the ends of the earth.' And elsewhere again the divine Scripture says:

'He who summons the water of the sea, and pours it out upon the face of all the earth.' (verses 8, 9)

'Let all the earth fear the Lord;'

'and let all who dwell in the world be moved with awe before Him.'

'For He spoke, and they came to be;'

'He commanded, and they were created.' Having made mention of the heavens and the invisible powers, then of the substance of the waters, he brings the earth also into the midst, and those who dwell upon it, teaching that they are His works, and enjoining them to fear and tremble before their Maker and to obey His nods.

For 'let them be moved,' Symmachus rendered 'let them stand in reverent awe,' and Aquila 'they shall shrink back,' thus referring the reverence of the world to the age to come.

'The Lord scatters the counsels of the nations, He brings to nought the reasonings of the peoples;'

'and He annuls the counsels of rulers.'

For not only did He scatter the counsels of the Assyrians and of Sennacherib and of Rabshakeh,

and display the power and truth of His own counsel;

but He also broke up the risings of the nations throughout the world against the apostles, and made the might of His own power manifest to all;

for this the prophetic word intimated, when it said:

'The thoughts of His heart from generation to generation.' The mention of the two generations teaches both the things that happened at that time and the things that were to be afterward.

'Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord;'

And the chosen people, called the inheritance of God, was of old the Jewish people, but afterward that which was chosen from among the nations and receives the rays of faith.

'For ask of Me,' He says, 'and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.'

'The Lord looked down from heaven; He beheld all the sons of men.'

'From His prepared dwelling-place He looked upon all who inhabit the earth.' These things he said also in the thirteenth psalm, making the same prediction.

Lest anyone should suppose that He is ignorant of the deeds men dare to do, he added at the fitting moment:

'He who alone fashioned their hearts, who understands all their works.' I said, he means, that the God of all looks down—not as one ignorant and eager to learn, but as one judging and passing sentence.

For how could He who made the soul be ignorant of its movements? For he has used 'hearts' for the rational faculty.

'A king is not saved by his great power, and a giant shall not be saved by the abundance of his strength.'

For Sennacherib, though rich in all these, gained nothing thereby, but met with utter destruction.

What then must be done? Show us, O prophet.

'Behold, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His mercy,'

'to deliver their souls from death, and to keep them alive in famine.' Piety, he says, is the procurer of all good things;

for it draws down the divine care, and this both wards off the death that assails and want as well;

and it bestows an abundant supply of good things.

It is likely that during that siege those shut up within came to be in want of necessities, and then, by the destruction of the enemy, were delivered from this calamity as well.

'But our soul waits patiently for the Lord;'

'for He is our helper and our defender.'

'For in Him our heart shall rejoice;'

'and in His holy name we have hoped.' Having therefore enjoyed such great blessings, we have a firm hope in God;

and we shall ever await the help that comes from Him;

for He it is who has granted us also our present gladness.

Then, having said that 'in His holy name we have hoped,' he entreats to receive mercy in equal measure to his hope.

'Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us,' he says, 'even as we have hoped in You.' The saying is one of the greatest boldness, and daring for such as we are.

'With what measure you measure, it shall be measured back to you.' Let us therefore acquire a hope that is perfect and genuine, and a manner of life for the rest in keeping with that hope, so that we may reap abundant mercy.

There, then, David, meeting with Abimelech the priest, concealed his flight, and said that he had been sent by the king on some urgent errand; and seeking loaves, he found no others but only those set apart for the priests, and these he took, the priest having given them contrary to the ordinance of the law.

For such food had been assigned to the priests alone;

but nevertheless the mysteries of grace were prefigured, and the door of the divine bounty was opened beforehand to those who believe;

for no longer is the divine food set apart for the priests alone, but the partaking of the divine things lies open to all who desire it.

And he called Abiathar 'Abimelech,' as one bearing two names.

Since, then, in his flight he did not disclose his flight to the priest, but said that he was carrying out some royal errand, he is said to have altered his countenance, inasmuch as he did not employ his customary truthfulness [having assumed another face in place of his accustomed one].

But some of the commentators have given another occasion to the psalm:

then, fearing the plots of the foreigners, he feigned madness, and in this way obtained his deliverance.

But the words have no agreement with this occasion of the psalm;

rather they fit what has been said, as, God helping, will presently be shown.

'I will bless the Lord at all times;'

'in the Lord shall my soul be praised.' He it is who has made me conspicuous, and will make me renowned.

'Let the meek hear and be glad.'

'Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.' He does not endure to weave the hymn alone, but makes those who share in his meekness sharers also in the hymnody;

then he points out the cause of the thanksgiving (verse 5):

'I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me out of all my afflictions.' I entreated Him, he says, and became superior to my calamities.

'Draw near to Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall never be put to shame.' For he who approaches Him with faith receives the rays of a spiritual light.

In this way also the great Moses was glorified in the face that was seen.

'And the Lord heard him,'

'and delivered him out of all his afflictions.' Learn, he says, from what befell me, to take courage in the God of all.

For though I was of no account and a keeper of sheep, He deemed me worthy of His own providence, and rendered me stronger than those who warred against me.

'The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear Him, and shall deliver them.' With these words the sayings of the Apostle also agree;

for concerning the angels he speaks thus:

'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation?' In this way too the blessed Jacob said in prayer:

'The angel who delivers me out of all evils.' In this way too the patriarch Abraham said to his admirable servant:

'The Lord God will send His angel before your face, and you shall take a wife for my son Isaac from there.' In this way the blessed Zechariah speaks:

'The angel who spoke within me.' (verse 9)

'Taste and see that the Lord is good;'

for from this you shall reap a harvest of blessedness.

One should note, however, that the aforesaid meaning fits the Jews of old.

But the sense hidden in the depth of the letter hints at the grace of the divine mysteries.

For what so clearly displays His love for mankind as the cross, and the passion, and the death that was undergone for our sake, and His becoming both the food and the fountain of His own sheep?

'Fear the Lord, all you His saints, for there is no want to those who fear Him.'

'The rich have become poor and gone hungry;'

'but those who seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good thing.' These things too are in harmony with what was said above;

for he exhorts those who have already received sanctification through baptism to temper love with fear, and to await the abundance of good things from God alone.

For riches undergo many changes;

and he who is rich today, after a little while has fallen into poverty.

And the Jews of old, who once were rich in God's protective care, became poor [and hungered, having become unbelieving].

But the nations that believed received from God the abundance of good things.

He urges them on toward the contests, promising the life free from grief and thrice-desired.

'Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.'

'Turn away from evil, and do good;'

'seek peace, and pursue it.' First he turns them away from vices, and then in this way commands them to pursue the forms of virtue;

and first he enjoins that the tongue, as a member prone to slipping, be kept pure from all deceit and wickedness;

and to the tongue he joins the lips, as themselves cooperating with its movements.

'Turn away,' he says, 'from evil.' Then he lays down as law the good activity:

'Do good,' he says. And what is the sum of good things? 'Seek peace, and pursue it.' For the peaceable man, embracing peace toward all, neither secretly steals his neighbour's goods;

he does not dare to commit murder, he does not plot against marriages, he does not speak evil, he does not act wickedly;

he does good, he provides, he shares, he pleads on another's behalf, he shares in danger, he strives alongside;

for such is sincere love and genuine friendship.

Then again he shows the fruit of these things.

Then he confirms what has been said from the opposite side.

'But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.' He sees, he says, also those who dare the contrary, and pronounces against them the sentence of utter destruction.

'The righteous cried, and the Lord heard them,'

'and delivered them out of all their afflictions.'

And He cares in a special way for those who possess a humble mind;

for these He called 'the contrite in heart.'

This He also says in another psalm:

'A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.' (verses 20, 21)

'Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and out of them all the Lord shall deliver them. The Lord keeps all their bones; not one of them shall be broken.' For He permits them to descend into the training-ground of afflictions;

but He supplies help, and renders them stronger than the misfortunes that befall, strengthening their reasonings and making them impregnable;

for by 'bones' He named the reasonings;

for just as the rest of the body is borne up by the bones as by firm supports, so through the reasonings the soul reaps salvation.

'The death of sinners is evil;'

'and those who hate the righteous shall go astray.'

'The Lord shall redeem the souls of His servants, and none of those who hope in Him shall go astray.' Now those who love virtue shall enjoy so many good things.

But those who live in wickedness shall receive an end befitting their life, and of a wicked manner of living the end shall be wicked.

But those who have chosen the service of God, and have acquired hope in Him, shall obtain salvation from Him;

inasmuch as they have not endured to transgress at all against the laws laid down by Him.

For he himself informed Saul concerning the affair of Abimelech the priest, and became the cause of that great bloodshed;

'War against those who war against me.' Fair is the ordering of these words, and fitting for the prayer of a righteous man.

For first he asked the God of all to judge, and then in this way to bring in the sentence of punishment.

'and rise up to my help.'

'Draw out the sword, and bar the way against those who pursue me.' Having made mention of war, of necessity he added also the kinds of weapons, terrifying by the appearance of the full panoply those who live in wickedness.

For God did not have need of so many weapons when chastising the unrighteous;

but a word suffices Him for the utmost punishment.

'I am your salvation.' Your word suffices me for salvation.

For since the prophet made mention of weapons, fittingly he taught that God has no need of such helpers, but by a word alone both chastises those and benefits these.

'Let them become as dust before the face of the wind, and the angel of the Lord pressing them hard.' This too he set down in the first psalm:

'The ungodly are not so, not so;'

'but they are like the dust which the wind drives away from the face of the earth.'

'Let their way become darkness and slipperiness, and the angel of the Lord pursuing them.' Turn them to flight, entrusting the pursuit to the invisible angels.

In this way we find also the Assyrians destroyed by an angel, and the firstborn of the Egyptians the destroyer laid waste.

And by 'darkness and slipperiness' he means the downfall.

For both those who stumble and those who undergo the slip fall down.

And showing the justice of the prayer, he adds:

For without cause they have hidden for me the destruction of their snare; without cause they have reproached my soul. For, he says, they have employed unjust plots against me.

'without cause they reproached my soul.' For, he says, they have employed unjust plots against me.

For 'they reproached,' Symmachus rendered it 'they undermined.'

He hints at the ruin secretly being contrived.

Let a snare which he does not know come upon him, and let the net which he hid catch him;

and in that snare let him fall into it. May they fall, he says, into what they contrive, and may they be caught in their own nets;

may they undergo an unexpected capture; for this is what he meant by 'a snare which he does not know.' (verses 9, 10)

But my soul shall rejoice in the Lord;

it shall delight in his salvation.

All my bones shall say:

For the phrase 'Who is like unto thee?' shows this: that thou alone art God, having dominion over all.

Delivering the poor from the hand of those stronger than he, both the poor and the needy from those who plunder him. For thou dost not permit the poorer to be besieged by the more powerful;

but thou dost both restrain the former and defend the latter.

Unjust witnesses rose up against me, and asked me of things I did not know. I endured slander, he says, being accused of things I never even conceived.

For since Saul, smitten by envy, suspected that David would usurp the throne, and for this reason continued to make war upon him;

the malicious, taking their opportunity, did not cease weaving their slanders against him.

These he names 'false witnesses.'

They repaid me evil for good, and childlessness to my soul. For I slew Goliath as he blustered and vaunted himself against the whole people, and I contended many times against the foreigners, and by spiritual strains I set him free from the demonic madness;

yet he does not cease from warring against me, wishing to deliver me over to death and to oblivion.

For he named oblivion 'childlessness,' since memory is preserved through one's children.

Let not the eunuch say, 'I am a dry tree';

for thus saith the Lord to the eunuchs, to those who are chosen:

The things which I will, I will give to them in my house, within my walls a wondrous place, and a good name, better than sons and daughters. (verse 13)

...my soul with fasting, and my prayer shall return into my own bosom. Hence we are taught how we ought to resolve our misfortunes;

for clothed in sackcloth, he says, and wasted by fasting, I offered my supplication to God;

and I received the fruits of my request.

For the phrase 'and my prayer shall return into my own bosom' means this, instead of: 'Praying, I received my requests from God, and I filled my own bosom.'

As a neighbour, as our own brother, so did I show goodwill;

as one mourning and downcast, so I humbled myself. I offered him, he says, every service, as to a true brother, and I imitated the lowliness of one grieving and mourning, not permitting myself to be high-minded over my achievements.

This the history also teaches.

Why does my lord the king pursue after a dead dog, and after a single flea? (verse 15)