then the Lord's bow shall be bent until they be made weak; and being weakened, they shall be taken away, melted after the manner of wax. And that in the bow is signified the severity of God's judgment, we have often shown — that bow ever bent with penalties for sinners, for those who shall be punished. And indeed, the bow being bent, the following words declare that they are to be taken away by the fire of judgment like melted wax: 'fire fell upon them, and they saw not the sun.' The fire cast over them, then, shall take them away, that they may not behold the Sun of righteousness: for they are unworthy to be co-heirs of eternal light. And lest the fact that they shall be taken away like melted wax, with fire falling upon them so that they see not the sun, should signify rather their annihilation than their punishment, he added:
'Before your thorns grow into a bramble, as it were living, as it were in wrath he swallows you up.' The bramble is a kind of thorn-bush which puts forth from itself many dense thorns after the manner of the briar; and it blossoms with the rest, warmed in the spring. Therefore, before the bramble puts forth the thorns of sinners, the fire in wrath swallows them up as living. For it was not fitting that sinners should rest without punishment while the time of judgment is still suspended: and so the fire swallows them up living, that is, with the very perception of punishment, even before they rise again. For the resurrection of bodies is signified in the bramble, which shall exhibit in itself the very thorns by which they are to be pricked:
while others are to have the fruit of the eternal flower, these, however, are only to be roused up to bear within themselves the prickles of thorns after the manner of brambles. And we remember that the force and pain of sinners is signified in the thorn, when it is said: 'He fell into hardship while the thorn is fixed in'; for he who was humbled unto death condemned sin from sin in the flesh, as it were, being fixed while the thorn is fixed. And each one, according to the Apostle, shall receive in the flesh whether good or evil, since he shall possess the very matter and perception in which the sinner is to be pricked. Before the resurrection of the flesh — that is, before the bramble sends forth its thorns — his soul, while living, is swallowed up unto punishment, to be punished according to the rich man of the gospel; and it is a soul that lives.
But amid these things the gladness of every righteous one is shown, resting as it were like Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham. For it follows: 'The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he shall wash his hands in the blood of the sinner. And man shall say: If indeed there be thus a fruit for the righteous? Surely thus is there a God judging them on the earth.' The gladness of the righteous is when he shall see the vengeance, because he rejoices at being led by the angels into eternal rest while sinners are being punished: not washing his hands in the blood of sinners, but, since sinners are in blood — because they are guilty of blood — he shall keep his hands washed clean of all guilt of blood. And this same thing he attested in another psalm, when he says: 'I have hated the assembly of the malignant, and I will not sit with the impious:'
I will wash my hands among the innocent.' And having recalled the duties of innocence, he added: 'Destroy not my soul with the impious, nor my life with men of blood.' In the blood of sinners, that is, that man shall wash his hands among the innocent. Moreover, these are so much men of blood that the blood of all slain from Abel unto Zacharias is to be required of them, and when Pilate washed his hands, they professed that the blood of the righteous one was upon themselves and their own. But when the righteous washes his hands and rejoices, man shall say: Shall there be a fruit for the righteous? And indeed he says there shall be, because God is on the earth judging them. Man, then, saying:
Whether there be a fruit for the righteous — it is not doubted that he awaits the judgment, the righteous one nevertheless being already judged on earth, because he has been led by the angels into Abraham's bosom, according to that saying: 'He who believes in me is not judged, but passes from death to life; but he who does not believe is already judged.' Since, then, the saint is not to be judged, who is to pass from death into life, and the unbeliever is already judged unto punishment, it is understood that judgment remains for those who, according to the quality of their deeds, are to be judged between sins and faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 58. Unto the end, destroy not, of David, for the inscription of a title, when Saul sent and watched his house,
to kill him. 'Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, and from those who rise up against me deliver me,' and the rest. The superscription of the psalm does not differ from the preceding, but the psalm differs in this, that certain of the things done against David himself are brought forward — when Saul sent and watched his house to kill him. Yet, if for this reason a prayer were to be directed to God, those preceding words, that is, 'unto the end' and 'destroy not' or 'corrupt not' and 'for the inscription of a title,' need not have been placed before it.
But these things, though they are distributed chiefly by a spiritual reasoning — since Christ is the end of the law, and his eternity was not subjected to corruption, and the title of his glorious death is unto the salvation of the nations — nevertheless even those things which are prescribed concerning his deeds declare themselves to be prophetic, since, as a prophet not ignorant of the Lord's passion, under the occasion and time of those hatreds which he was enduring, he showed himself a prophet both by suffering and by speaking. We shall, however, treat the psalm in such a way as not to burden the understanding of those who are wise according to the letter:
but also so that, in that he was watched by Saul to be killed, this may be no less a prophecy of that time when the Lord was shut in and watched unto death by the people and in Jerusalem, as it were in his own house. 'Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord, and from those who rise up against me deliver me. Deliver me from those who work iniquity, and from men of blood save me.' He has embraced the causes and progressions of human vices, that we might know whence impiety arose and to what it went out.
And therefore the gospel restrained angers and quarrels and enmities — since to be angry with one's brother without cause is guilt of hell, and the offering of a gift is not granted except after reconciliation of a quarrel, and it decrees that enemies are not only to be loved but even to be prayed for — because from these one comes to the man of blood. For first they are enemies; then they rise up against him whose enemies they are; and rising up, they are workers of iniquity; finally the workers of iniquity have advanced even unto being men of blood. Now not only murder committed, but also murder devised, completes men of blood. For it follows: 'because they have caught at my soul, the strong have rushed in upon me. Neither is it my iniquity, nor my sin, O Lord;'
'Without iniquity I ran and directed my course.' David's soul was caught at when he was shut in his house to be killed. And although he was rescued from the hands of Saul, nevertheless there are men of blood desiring his blood. But according to the prescription of the psalm, the prayer had fittingly been against one — the king assuredly willing this. Yet the language had to be moderated for the prophetic prayer, so that the complaint might be referred to the people, since the strong catch at his soul, rushing in: those, indeed, whom he armed as strong, who also entered the heart of Judas unto the ministry of perdition. These strong ones, then, catch at the soul, even the soul of him in whom is neither iniquity nor sin, who running without iniquity directed his course. And I do not know whether the earlier psalm suffers these things to be referred to David, in which it is said:
'Behold, I acknowledge my iniquity, and my sin is always against me.' So great a diversity does not suit the order of the psalms, that both should be understood to have been spoken by the same person. But if, because the psalm confessing sin is earlier while this is later in time, David should seem to have spoken these things before the sin, as one ignorant of sin, let us remember that under the same sin he said, from the confession of human necessity: 'For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in offences did my mother bear me,' according to that saying: 'For who shall glory that he has a chaste heart before God, not even if it be an infant of one day?' — while there remains in us, according to the Apostle also, both the origin and the law of sin.
This voice, then, will not suit the human conscience. But let us see whether perhaps this word of iniquity denied concerning himself may fit the complaints of him who did no sin, and in whom no guile was found, who also said: 'Behold, the prince of the world shall come, and he shall find nothing in me' — namely, the calumny of sin was not to be found in him, through which he was to condemn sin from sin in the flesh. Therefore he is here to be understood as complaining that his soul was caught at, and that the strong rushed in upon him — he who had also this security of complaint, that he might profess neither iniquity nor sin to be in himself, and who said that he ran without iniquity, according to that saying: 'He exulted as a giant to run the way.'
'His going forth is from the highest heaven, and his meeting reaches unto his highest point.' This one, then, alone running directed his course — he who, having taken up the lowliness of our weakness, went forth from the heavens, returned to the heavens, who, bearing us back with himself and about to offer to God as a gift, prayed: 'Arise to meet me, and see, O Lord, God of hosts, God of Israel. Attend to visit all the nations; have no mercy on all who work iniquity.' For he prays that the God of hosts may arise to meet him, to visit all the nations: for in him the nations have been raised up together and placed at his right hand in the heavenly places. And it was fitting that his return should be adorned by the eager ceremony of a heavenly meeting, lest the Father's honour should be lacking to him about to enter the heavens.
Nor is this to be wondered at, since to Stephen, the first martyr of his name, there was as it were among the chief ones of heaven a descent to meet him from God the Father. And so he prays that all the nations be visited at his meeting, according to that saying: 'For God did not send his Son into this world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.' For his descent into the flesh and his birth from Mary the rejoicing angels and the opened heavens honoured. This prayer of his meeting, then, is not shameless, to whom, for the salvation of the nations — as is contained both in another psalm and in the apostolic testimony — the voice of him who met the first-begotten from the dead was this: 'You are my Son, this day have I begotten you.'
He therefore entreats this signification of his meeting for the nations to be visited in himself, yet not with the severity of judgment passed over, since mercy is turned away from all who work iniquity: all the nations indeed being visited in him because he was made flesh, but equally all who work iniquity being judged. For with a 'diapsalma' inserted, he declares those things which were to abide as the impiety of the people. For soon both the desolation of the temple and the overthrow of the city and captivity itself followed them. Indeed, even now they are forbidden entry into that same city by the edict of the Roman ruler.
And when they remember the holy of holies of the saints deserted, and the prophecies silenced, and the victims of propitiation lacking, and every dignity of the Levitical ministry disfigured, being now converted and afflicted both with hunger for the word of God and for the food of salvation, they have been wont to go about the city for solace of present miseries. For this follows: 'They shall be converted at evening, and shall suffer hunger like dogs, and shall go about the city.' The time of this hunger God also announces through another prophet, when he says: 'Behold, I bring in a hunger upon the earth: not a hunger of bread, nor a thirst of water, but a hunger of the word, that the word of God may be heard' — reproving their shamelessness and rabid fury under the name of dogs, according to that saying: 'Deliver me from the mouth of the lion, and my only one from the hand of the dog.'
And indeed they have this grief of their inner conscience, when they groan together at being scattered, at being captives, at being tributaries, without temple, without priest, without kingdom — and this, after they laid impious hands upon the Lord of majesty and Saviour of the world. But when they are convicted concerning the sin of the crucified only-begotten of God, they do not cease to be impious; and inflamed with grief at the divine knowledge transferred to the nations, they still rage with mouth and words. For it follows: 'Behold, they shall speak with their mouth, and a sword is in their lips.' But this impiety of disparaging and assailing not only in these, but also in the nations which refuse to hear, the divine word thus condemns: 'For who has heard?'
'And you, O Lord, shall deride them; you shall bring to nought all the nations.' With no one hearing, they are laughed at by God; because where it is said 'who?', there either something rare is signified or nothing at all: nothing, according to that saying: 'Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?'; but rare, in that it is said: 'Who shall give out of Zion the salvation of Israel?' They are laughed at, then, who do not hear and in whose mouth and lips is a sword; because God dwelling in the heavens shall mock the kings and princes gathered together against God and his Christ. He shall also spurn all the nations visited and not obedient; because, although there be from these some small portion of believers, nevertheless the whole is reckoned by the majority, according to that saying of the Lord:
'When the Son of man comes, shall he find faith upon the earth?' Not that it shall not be found in some, to whom it shall also be said: 'Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world'; but, since few out of all the nations are faithful, it is not brought about through the few that not all the nations are unfaithful. Now the chief cause of the nations being laughed at is this: that, while worldly prudence in its folly reproaches him as crucified, as dead, as buried, not understanding the sacrament of great piety, they do not believe the Son of God rising from the dead to be the Lord of majesty.
But he, having the power of laying down his soul and of taking his soul again — because he received this commandment from the Father — after the nations were laughed at and spurned, subjoined: 'My strength I will keep unto you, because God is my upholder: my God, his mercy shall go before me. My God has shown me among my enemies.' He shall keep his strength unto God — his soul, that is, which, having laid it down, he takes again; for no one shall take it away from him, because he is his own power and his own refuge, into whose hands he commended his spirit.
Whose mercy shall go before him, so that even before the resurrection he may be understood as the Son of God: since, when he was dying, the sun being darkened, the light was lost; when he hung on the cross, the earth trembled; when he descended to the lower regions, the lower regions do not hold his saints; when he gave up his spirit, the veil of the temple, as though the spiritual guardianship were bursting forth from there, was rent; when at last the centurion cried out: 'Truly this was the Son of God.' His strength, therefore, being kept unto God — because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not — and his mercy going before him, he showed him among his enemies, that he was his upholder, since this too was made plain by the confession even of his enemies: the centurion cried out that he was truly the Son of God.
And these things were then indeed thus made known. But because, according to that saying: 'And they shall look on him whom they have pierced,' also in the future God shall show among his enemies that he is his upholder — since, according to the Apostle, the fulness of the nations having entered in, that which is the remnant of Israel shall be saved, that what is written may be fulfilled: 'There shall come out of Zion he who shall deliver and turn away the impieties from Jacob; and this is my covenant to them, when I shall take away their impieties' — for the signification, therefore, of this stored-up mercy and hope, he subjoined: 'Slay them not, lest at any time they forget your law; scatter them in your power and destroy them, O Lord my protector, the offences of their mouth, the discourse of their lips;'
'and let them be caught in their pride, and for their cursing and lying they shall be uprooted in the consummation; in the wrath of the consummation, and they shall be no more; and they shall know that God rules Jacob unto the ends of the earth.' Enemies indeed for our sakes, but beloved for the fathers' sakes; that which is their remnant is reserved for mercy. Scattered indeed for the time around almost all the nations, but by their scattering they shall be freed as by a holy root. They shall be destroyed, therefore, according to the prophecy, not slain, but scattered; and they shall be destroyed in the offences of their mouth and the discourse of their lips, when there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, concerning whom they cried out: 'Crucify, crucify,' and to whom they said: 'We have Abraham for our father,' and again: 'Who gave you this power?' and:
'By what authority do you do these things?' In this pride, then, they shall be caught, when they do not recognize that these things were brought by themselves against their Saviour; and, impiety being turned away, they shall be uprooted from their cursing and lying, and this in the consummation, because, when the fulness of the nations shall have entered in, then that which is the remnant of Israel shall be saved. But in the wrath of the consummation they shall be no more, because he who comes out of Zion shall turn away their impieties: yet they shall not be 'no more' who both are, and are to know and shall know, that the God of Jacob rules the ends of the earth — no longer to be known in the cord of inheritance and in the portion of Jacob, but the God of Jacob, that is, because he who in the man Jacob was understood and seen as God is the ruler of the ends of the earth, of whom too he is to be confessed as the creator.
But meanwhile the penalty of their desolation and dispersion awaits them. For although this dispensation of mercy is reserved for the consummation of the times for the sake of the fathers and the elect, nevertheless, with a 'diapsalma' inserted, it is shown what was meanwhile appointed against them, by a repeated signification. For it follows: 'And they shall be converted at evening, and shall suffer hunger like dogs, and shall go about the city. They shall be scattered abroad to eat: but if they be not filled, they shall also murmur.'
The city being lost and the temple deserted, and, according to the edicts of the Roman ruler, only going about, not also entering, the city, a hunger — not of this bread and food, but of the offerings, the sacrifices, and the visions, with all of which they used to be filled — shall afflict them, as they bark with the shamelessness of dogs against their guardian. And they shall be scattered abroad to eat: because in diverse places they imitate the appearance of that lawful priesthood and holocaust and circumcision, though these were appointed as lawful only within Jerusalem. But scattered abroad to eat, they are not filled. For they shall be filled only with the holy solemnities pleasing to God and religious by the ordinance of that very place and temple. But still they shall murmur against him:
not even tamed by this hunger of their festivals, so that, according to the murmuring by which they provoked God in the desert, they might come to their senses in the quiet of repentance. But amid these things he concludes all his hopes and thanksgivings at the end of the psalm, saying: 'But I will sing to your strength; I will exalt in the morning your mercy: because you have become my upholder and my refuge in the day of my tribulation. My helper, to you will I sing: because God is my upholder, my God is my mercy.' And all these things indeed can be referred to the thanksgiving of the prophet: but neither are they different from the Lord's confession. For this dispersion of theirs followed the impiety of the passion.
But because he is to exult in the mercy of God in the morning — since he has become his upholder and his refuge — this seems to be referred to the time of the resurrection; because, although the praise of God is to be sung at every time by the prophet, nevertheless to him rising from the dead at dawn and about to return into the heavens, the exultation of a morning thanksgiving is proper — with our Lord Christ as witness, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 59. Unto the end, for those who shall be changed, for the inscription of a title, of David, for instruction, when he set on fire Mesopotamia and Syria Sobal, and Joab returned and smote the valley of the Salt-pits, twelve thousand. 'O God, you have cast us off and destroyed us,' and the rest.
Many things in this psalm are prescribed before the deeds done, which must necessarily be placed before those things that were accomplished in fact, for the signification of some meaning: since the superscription comprises 'unto the end,' 'for those who shall be changed,' 'the inscription of a title,' and 'for the instruction of David.' After which the time of the deeds is inscribed: 'he set on fire Mesopotamia and Syria Sobal, and Joab returned and smote the valley of the Salt-pits, twelve thousand' — wherein the whole psalm disagrees with the history. For when Sobal smote it together with Mesopotamia and Syria, which by that same man was stirred to war and inflamed and captured, an immense gladness of thanksgiving followed this victory of a very great war.
But the whole psalm is sad and mournful, since there is grief over the people rebuffed and rejected, since there is a complaint of the earth moved and troubled, since there is a prayer for the healing of its contrition. Furthermore, that which is mentioned in the valley of the Salt-pits is found neither in the history nor in the understanding of any of the translators. For according to Aquila, who was a translator of the law for the Jews after the Lord's passion, it is thus written: 'when he smote the valleys.' But he, writing according to the letter and remaining outside the spiritual understanding, set forth the place of the war.
But that translation of the seventy elders, both lawful and spiritual, undertaken before the Lord's passion and deeds, makes manifest the cause and meaning through the species of names and natures, now too, as in all the psalms — in the commemoration of the deeds showing not the argument of the psalm, but the time: not that it should be known to have been written on account of that which is contained in the deeds, but so that it may be recognized to have been written at the time when those things were done. But before we speak of the time of the prophecy — since it profits much toward the understanding of the psalm to know when it was written — let us treat of the superscription, which, being understood, is referred to 'the end' and to 'those who shall be changed':
those, namely, who, ceasing from impiety and vices, are transferred to religion and innocence, and who shall be changed from the sins of the synagogue to the grace of the Church; just as in that psalm which was first written 'for those who shall be changed,' we have shown, when it is said: 'Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and your father's house; for the king has desired your beauty'; and again in the same: 'Instead of your fathers, sons are born to you; you shall make them princes over all the earth.' The change of sons, then, being made, instead of the fathers she forgets the paternal house, the queen being about to please more the God and king, by whose death she is renewed unto life.
And therefore the inscription of the title is set down on behalf of those who shall be changed, the inscription of the title bearing witness to the glory of the death of him who died for all, and bearing witness for the teaching of David, so that we may all know him to be that David who is both the Dayspring and the Righteous One and the eternal King; who, together with their leader, destroyed the powers hostile and dangerous to us, when all those had been extinguished who were wont to kindle against us the wars of the vices: not in the valley of weeping, nor in the valley of tabernacles, but in the valley of salt-marshes; for the Greek word declares this rather than 'salt-pits,' since this valley of the present world now presents from itself dwellings that are no longer to be wept over, nor tabernacles to be lamented, but rather salt, that is to say those men and their like to whom it was said:
'You are the salt of the earth,' in whom above all that ancient enemy, who inflames us also, has been extinguished. Therefore this psalm is written on behalf of those to be changed at the end, and to be instructed under the testimony and inscription of the title with reference to David, at no other time than when the prophet Nathan announced from the seed of David the King of the eternal throne. For in that time were accomplished those things which are set forth in the historical events, in which the prophecy of the eternal King was made manifest. The psalm therefore is to be understood on behalf of those who shall be changed, that they may be taught concerning David the eternal King, and who, in place of the fathers who are lost, shall now by the change become sons. For thus it began: 'O God, you have cast us off and destroyed us: you have been angry, and have had mercy on us.'
'You have moved the earth and troubled it: heal its breaches, for it is shaken. You have shown your people hard things, you have given us to drink the wine of compunction. You have given a sign to those who fear you, that they may flee from the face of the bow.' According to the common sense of the world, wrath and mercy do not agree, nor will both these same dispositions be fitting in the same person toward the same people, so that to the will of vengeance the will of mercy should be mingled. Yet this belongs to fathers alone who are angry in a holy way, that their merciful anger should be directed against the sins of their sons, according to that saying also of blessed Paul, when he delivers such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, showing that the severity of present punishment avails for the salvation of the spirit.
That eternal and heavenly Father of all, therefore, who also said, 'I will kill and I will heal,' thus casts off and destroys his own, that being angry he may show mercy. For he destroyed the temple of Jerusalem, but rendered to the saints the heavenly city; he cast them off from the works of the Law, but granted the justification of faith, justifying the ungodly by faith; he dissolved the earthly kingdom, but appointed kings of the heavens. Thus mercy followed upon wrath, while by the loss of present earthly things an immense recompense of eternal goods is repaid. And these things indeed are fitted no more to Israel than to the whole of the human race; because from one man the sentence of death and life went forth upon all, when it was said:
'Cursed is the earth in your works'; but now through one man the gift of life and the grace of justification abounded unto all, so that those whose earth was cursed should now have bodies conformed to God, and that earth which was moved by fear and troubled by ignorance and worn down by toil and pierced by the very draught of that gladdening wine, may now, by the secure power of the sign it has received, flee the power of the wrath to come. For in the bow, as we have frequently treated, is shown the terror of the wrath prepared for punishment against the ungodly, according to that saying: 'Will he be angry every day? He has bent his bow and made it ready, and in it he has prepared the vessels of death; he has fashioned his arrows for those that are to be burned.'