To those who fear him, therefore, he gave a sign: whether of the mark on their foreheads, or of faith in their hearts, or of testimony in their works, or of glory in their confessions, or of victory in the martyrs; that they might flee from the face of the bow and of wrath, as it was said: 'O generation of vipers, who has shown you to flee from the wrath to come?' This, then, is the voice of the human race giving thanks after the reign of death, after the terrors of the devil, after the burdens of toils and sins, after the sorrow of an unhappy gladness; for the joys of the vices, when they are understood, bring compunction. For in wine, according to the apostle, there is wantonness. And just as there is a wine that gladdens the heart of man, so also there is a wine that pierces the heart of man. For there is a cup of wrath, just as there is also a cup of life.
After these things, therefore, and after this wine of compunction, the whole company of the faithful, having been granted the sign of fleeing the bow and wrath, exults in eternal hopes. For this the interposed 'diapsalma' soon declares: 'that your beloved may be delivered, save with your right hand and hear me.' — The right hand of the Lord has done valiantly, and at the right hand of God the power of God, roused up together with him, has taken its seat together with the flesh of our lowliness. Therefore, the sign of fleeing from the face of the bow having been given, the beloved are delivered and saved by the right hand of God. And from what face of the bow they are delivered and saved, the apostle taught, saying: 'who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.' The beloved, therefore, are to be delivered and saved by the right hand of God.
But for the assurance of this salvation unto the firmness of faith, the prophecy must be known. For there follows: 'God has spoken in his holy one: I will rejoice, and I will divide Shechem and mete out the valley of tabernacles. Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine, and Ephraim is the strength of my head; Judah is my king, Moab is the pot of my hope. Into Idumaea I will stretch out my shoe: to me the foreigners are made subject.' God has spoken in his holy one, namely in him to whom even the demons cry out: 'We know that you are the Holy One of God,' and of whom the angel brings good tidings: 'And that which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God.' In this Holy One, therefore, he has spoken, when he says: 'The Father who is in me, he does his works.' Having spoken, then, in his holy one, God exults at the beginning of the discourse.
'For he shall exult as a giant to run his course,' he shall exult in the dividing of Shechem. Shechem is Samaria, which is also Sichem, which Jacob assigned to his son Joseph under the blessing of the Spirit. This region, though in all the earlier times of the Law it had remained in ungodliness, receiving in part the gospel of the Lord — for even today a part of it is held by most irreligious pursuits from the old practice: for there cows were worshipped, there a mountain was chosen after the sanctuary had been abandoned, there a kingdom was stirred up against Judah — yet the Lord, first coming to that very place, when the Samaritan woman believed and asked for a drink of living water, brought in faith; and soon, when the apostles also preached, they were made partakers of the Holy Spirit.
Shechem, therefore, is divided, when the faithful are separated from the unfaithful. And this is the division of the future judgment, as it is written: 'The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he does not expect and at an hour that he does not know, and shall cut him asunder and appoint his portion with the hypocrites.' Samaria, then, is divided either by judgment or by faith, according to that saying: 'I came not to send peace upon the earth, but division.' And God, speaking in his holy one, not only divided Shechem, but also measured out the valley of tabernacles, that lowly and sunken seat of human habitation; which also in another place, on account of the sicknesses of life and the lamentations of calamities, he records to be the valley of weeping, saying: 'They laid it up in the valley of weeping.'
He measured it out, therefore, because the fullness of the Gentiles is looked for. And where there shall be a measure of believers, there is a weighing of the measurement, for the part that is to be gathered within the Church, while the other part remains in that same valley. Now whoever measures anything must of necessity measure the things that are his own. For Gilead is his and Manasseh is his. This mountain of the Phoenicians is adjacent to Arabia and Mesopotamia, assigned to the possession of the portion of Manasseh: and therefore Manasseh too is his, showing under the name of Manasseh the fullness of the earth, just as under Gilead he shows the whole world to be his own. But in claiming these things nothing beyond the right of ownership is shown. Ephraim, moreover, is the assumption of his head, and Judah is his king.
These things the holy one speaks, God speaking in him — the God who through Jacob blessed Ephraim by the crossing of his hands with a sanctifying gesture, and showed Judah to be his king, who was to be the expectation of the nations. Ephraim, therefore, is the assumption, and not Manasseh also, though both are sons of Joseph. But since in the head is contained the signification also of the body, according to that saying, 'He shall drink of the torrent in the way, therefore shall he lift up his head,' and every holy one is the head of the body of Christ, on this account the assumption of his head is Ephraim; because, contrary to the order of the generations, in order to prefer the sanctification of the Church, in Ephraim being set first and Manasseh set after, the younger was preferred to the elder. The assumption of his head, therefore, is Ephraim, that is, of the people whom he prefigured in Ephraim.
Or rather, the Church is taken up into the body. 'Judah also is my king,' that is, appointed and chosen by himself. For David is certainly not king over Judah himself, since from Judah he himself is the first king; nor is he king over the God who speaks in his holy one; but it is to be understood that this holy one, in whom God speaks, speaks these things — he who filled Jacob also with the Spirit unto the prophecy of that eternal King, when he said: 'The prince shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his thighs, until he come for whom it is laid up, and he himself is the expectation of the nations.' And because not only from this generation of the saints, but also from the origin of sinners, the taking on of flesh was to be entered upon by this Holy One of God —
because in the likeness of the flesh of sin God sent his Son, therefore also 'Moab is the pot of his hope.' And this Moab indeed, in his generation, according to that sentence which is in Genesis, received the reproach of the divine curse. But after ten generations, through the degrees of succession, it becomes worthy of a holy lineage: and this Holy One, taking his origin from Judah and from Moab, being cooked as it were in the pot from the rawness of the flesh, is signified in the appearance of eternal food, since his flesh in the air is the food of life. There is also, according to Jeremiah, a pot that burns up sins and takes them away;
just as the Lord himself came to send fire upon the earth, and many, according to the apostle, shall be saved as it were through fire, when, their vices being purged and burnt away, like silver tried by fire, they may be judged approved. Hence, therefore, Moab is the pot of his hope. To it also, from Moab — raw indeed and full of vice — there is now in hope that heavenly sanctification of the flesh unto the food of life. Nay more, he says that he will stretch out his shoe even into Idumaea, that is, even unto the defection of Esau: because Idumaea, which is the seat of Esau, may direct the step of the apostolic preaching. For 'beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel': and the feet are in the shoe. And in the feet the step is shown. Nor will he extend the course of his preaching only into Idumaea.
but the foreigners also are made subject, according to that saying: 'Hear, O God, my prayer; unto you shall all flesh come'; because it is worthy of God that all the nations should be made subject to him, and that the whole of flesh should be instructed unto the confession of this eternal mercy. But having known those who shall be changed, according to the inscription of the title, and having received the teaching of him who is David the eternal, the prophet hastens to enter that eternal Jerusalem of the firstborn in the heavens, and the city of the saints who stand about God, awaiting the leader who may lead him thither. For there follows: 'Who will lead me into the city of the encompassing? Who will lead me even into Idumaea? Will not you, O God, who have cast us off, and will you not go forth, O God, in our powers?'
Esau is the 'defection,' and Edom, according to Genesis, is 'the one who fails'; and according to the apostle, that which is the remnant of Israel is to be saved. Therefore the prophet, desiring to be led into the city of the encompassing, knows that before that he must come even into Idumaea, that is, into that defection of the earlier people, whereby the greater shall serve the lesser. And the final preaching will turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons, when he who comes out of Zion shall take away sins and impieties from Jacob. But this same one will lead them in, who also on account of impiety before destroyed and cast them off, who, when Jerusalem was taken and the kingdom overthrown, deserted the unworthy and the despised — he who before was wont to cherish them with spiritual aids and to guard them by the heavenly host against the wars of their enemies.
But now, since the guardianship of the Holy Spirit has deserted them, there is no help in their powers, that is, in the armies of the divine defense. And therefore, because he destroyed them, he will not go forth in their powers. But of the hope laid up — because he will save that which is the remnant of Israel — the prophet was not silent concerning mercy, saying: 'Give us help from tribulation, for vain is the salvation of man. In God we shall do valiantly, and he himself shall bring to nothing those who trouble us.' He knows that vain is the salvation which is hoped for from men, because even the use of this present life without the mercy of God is nothing, according to that saying: 'Better is your mercy than life'; because, unless life be undertaken for the advancement of eternity, it will rather be for us the origin of miseries, not of life.
Therefore he hopes for help from God in tribulations, because the salvation of men is vain. He asks, then, for help in tribulation, being about to do valiant deeds by the help granted in God: when, all being set free from the law of sin, we shall rather abide in the justification of God; when we wage the fight not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual wickednesses and the powers of the world, God slaying Satan by the very Spirit of his mouth; when sin which before troubled us shall no longer reign in our immortal body; when death is swallowed up by life in the contest of victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 60. Unto the end, in hymns, of David. Hear, O Lord,
'my supplication; attend unto my prayer,' and the rest. This is a simple psalm, containing the prophecy of eternal thanksgiving. For the superscription comprises neither historical events nor the surnames of any signification: it is only a hymn 'unto the end,' so that what was sung by the prophet is to be known as being explained at the end, whether of the psalm or of the times. And it is the prayer of a just man hoping for eternal things, and giving thanks that he has been raised up together in Christ in the heavenly places. For it began thus: 'Hear, O God, my prayer, attend unto my supplication. From the ends of the earth I cried unto you, while my heart was in anguish.'
This holy one asks that his prayer be heard, whose confidence is such that he wills his prayer to be attended to, whether it be innocent, chaste, and faithful, and proceeding from the inmost fear of conscience and of heart; because, according to the apostle, one must both believe with the heart and confess with the mouth unto salvation. And the ground for the prayer that is to be attended to is this: that, while he is anxious of heart, he cried from the ends of the earth. It was not one dwelling on the outermost edges of the wilderness, or by the shores of the ocean, who cried with anxious heart from the ends of the earth; but one knowing himself to be indeed in the flesh, which is earth,
knowing that he now dwells at the end of the flesh, while, according to Paul, dwelling in the body he is a pilgrim from the body; while, though living, he no longer lives to himself nor does he himself live, but Christ lives in him; yet groaning in this his dwelling, and hastening to be clothed upon, and therefore with anxious heart he cries from the ends of the earth, because he has both the necessity of living in the flesh and holds the hope of ceasing from the vices of the flesh, saying: 'On a rock you have exalted me, you have led me; because you have become my hope, a tower of strength from the face of the enemy. I will dwell in your tabernacle forever.' Hence, therefore, the holy one now cries from the ends of the earth, because he has been exalted upon a rock.
And the rock, according to the apostle, is Christ, whom God exalted and gave to him a name which is above every name; in whom also he chose us before the foundation of the world in the heavenly places. For through him we have been led into the hope of eternity, and in this hope we are not confounded, because from the face of the enemy this same hope has become for us a tower of strength. For although in walls there is a strong and firm fortification, yet all the strength of the walls themselves is in the towers. And on this account God, exalting us upon the rock, has become a tower of strength, because through this hope we withstand the might of the devil and his snares, being fenced round most safely against him and his spiritual wickednesses by the fortification of faith:
since we are to dwell in the tabernacle of God unto the ages, that is, without any measure of age, to abide unto eternity in the ever-flowing ages and times. But because these things, although they are now laid up in hope for the saints, are nevertheless still deferred under the dispensation of the times, he shows by an interposed 'diapsalma' with what fortification he is meanwhile safe, saying: 'I shall be protected under the covering of your wings, for you, O God, have heard my prayer.' The divine word signifies the protection of God's mercy under the covering of the wings; concerning which, since it has been treated in the earlier passages, discourse now would be superfluous and idle. But the merit of protection is granted from the faith of prayer, according to that saying: 'Ask, and it shall be given you.'
Nay more, he shows unto what hope he was to be overshadowed by the protection of the wings of God, saying: 'You have given an inheritance to those who fear your name. You will add days upon the days of the king, his years even unto the day of generation and generation. He abides forever in the sight of God.' For this is the inheritance of the saint: life and incorruption and kingdom and a dwelling coeternal with God. Not to Israel only is this inheritance written, but to those who fear the name of God. For the days of the king are eternal, either because the saints, who shall not be the servants of sin, are kings, according to that saying of the apostle:
'You have already reigned without us, and I would that you did reign, that we also might reign together with you'; or because this same one, the prophet, is also king; or because the eternal kingdom requires that the one seated at the right hand should reign until he put his enemies under his feet — not that the king himself should then no longer be, but that, when he has delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, he shall reign together with those very ones who are kings. Whence it seems to me that this reasoning is here preserved: that even unto the days of generation and generation there should be added upon the days of the days of his year, but that in the sight of God he abides forever: so that the time in which it behooves him to reign, until he put his enemies under his feet,
ought to be comprehended from generation unto generation, because the generation of resurrection from the dead shall follow upon this generation of spiritual birth; but the exception of his own eternity, while he is forever in the sight of God, is to be proclaimed. And he himself is the firstborn from the dead. But of this regeneration the Lord thus makes mention to the apostles: 'Amen I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Of this generation, therefore, he shows the time, and even unto this the years of the king are increased upon the days of the days.
But he himself will abide in the sight of God, eternal now to all whom he has redeemed, they being taken up as kings of the heavens and coheirs of eternity, while he delivers up to them the kingdom of God the Father. And because they have been made joint-partakers and members of the same body and conformed to him, and neither corruption nor death now reigning in them, when they are filled unto all the fullness of God, the spirit of prophecy added: 'His mercy and truth — which of them shall require it?'
These generations, namely, shall no longer be destitute of his mercy and truth — those whom out of the dead he regenerated in himself unto life, and which shall have abided in the hope of the glory of God, then when, being handed over into the kingdom, they shall be received by God the Father as kings, his mercy and truth being consummated toward all, through whom they may give thanks that they have been redeemed unto life, and there may be for all an access to the Father. After which nothing of mercy and truth is required from the Lord, since they are filled up unto the fullness of God. And like to this word of the prophet is that which the Lord spoke to the apostles: 'Now indeed you have sorrow; but again I will see you, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you.'
'In that day you shall ask me nothing,' because now no one shall take away the joy from them. Unto this hope of eternity, therefore, the prophet confirms himself, saying: 'So will I sing psalms to your name, O God, unto the age of the age, that I may render my vows from day to day.' He will sing psalms unto the age of the age, and will render his vows from day to day, confined by no end of times, about to render the joys of eternal vows in eternal hymns, when, freed from all the infirmity of earthly bodies, he shall lead a heavenly and angelic life, rendering vows from day to day, according to that saying:
'My vows will I render to the Lord in the courts of the house of the Lord, in the sight of all his people, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem' — the heavenly mother, that is, and the free one, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen. PSALM 61. Unto the end, for Jeduthun, a psalm of David. Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation, and the rest.
The word of prophecy is written for no other purpose than for some profit of the hearers, that it may either teach unto knowledge or confirm unto innocence of will; as now this psalm is sung by David 'for Jeduthun,' in which one is instructed unto the fear of God, unto a constant endurance of human or spiritual wickednesses, and is strengthened unto contempt of wealth, because avarice is the root of all evils. For in these things the state of the blessed and eternal life is made sure, if there be both piety toward God and patience in adversities and contempt of riches. From the confession of God, therefore, the psalm has begun: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation. For he himself is my God, my Savior, my upholder; I shall not be moved anymore.'
The confession of God has been begun by the prophet with the common disposition of men, so that, after much night of ignorance, after the ambiguous and uncertain teaching of human opinions, after the vain notion of diverse religions — when there had long been erring and inquiring about God, whether one or many, and of sex either single or twofold, and of power either equal or unequal, and of age either uniform or various, and of nature either all unbegotten or some at some time begotten; and then, when by some, with great age and long labor, it had been contended that there are none at all, or that they are absent from care for human life;
further, when it had been argued by very many either that the sun and the other stars are gods, or that the world itself, abiding in the appearance of this eternity and its changes together with all the things which it brings forth from itself, is God; and again, when very many bestowed the divine name and honor upon fire, or waters, or wind, while others also adored wood, stones, metals under the appearance of men, birds, beasts; finally, when at last, the pursuits of all being wearied and forsaken, very many of them, and especially the most prudent, had taught that they knew this one thing, namely, that man knows none of these things:
then, after this ignorance as of a necessary confession, every prudent man, turning to the prophets and apostles, perceived the whole law of God under the sacrament of the eternal dispensation; in which he handled the account of the soul brought down into this body and joined to it; in which he received the division of the nations according to the number of the angels; in which he heard both that there is a prince of the world and the election of one nation; in which he was not ignorant of the author of human death, and felt the law of sin dwelling in his flesh, striving against the law of his mind, and groaned; after which he knew that the Spirit of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, the Son of God and only-begotten God, was born a man unto the remission of sin and the condemnation of the law of sin — he who, having undergone the lot of human sufferings, died in order to condemn in himself the impious temptations of the heavenly wickednesses, that he might bring in eternity to all of us who were dying through the law of sin dwelling in our flesh:
and then, having received this sacrament of piety, being set after the night of ignorance in the light of knowledge, he thus says: 'Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from him is my salvation. For he himself is my God, my Savior, my upholder: I shall not be moved anymore.' Having thus found the seat of faith, after wandering errors and the sentence of impiety, because he has known his upholder and Savior, he is no longer moved.
For what is left over to the ignorance and anxiety of men, when the eternity of the soul and body, that is, of the whole man, is proclaimed; when the assumption and taking on of our earthly flesh by God has been shown under the sacrament of this great piety; when the remission of sins has been furnished, the law of sin being condemned; when to our humanity there is a seat at the right hand of God in the heavens? But this hope of human blessedness the zeal of the impieties of the Gentiles diminishes, denying to man, by the emptiness of secular wisdom, the advancement toward God, and detracting from God the fellowship of the assumed body — they who are arbiters and moderators of the divine power:
as if it were more difficult for God to have assumed man than to have formed him in so great an ordering of nature and of his own life. This impious detraction of theirs, therefore, the prophet soon reproves: 'How long do you rush upon a man? You all slay him, as though upon a wall inclined and a fence pushed over.' For these ignorant and impious disputations push a man, prone to vices and now shattered and falling, and sink him down, destroying him by the counsels of deceitful and harmful exhortations: as though the will, that self-procurer of vices, were of little account by itself, which the despair of eternal judgment and retribution urges on only to the use of things present and corporeal.
But this wall of his own body, which formerly lust, drunkenness, avarice, and anger had bored through, he is not ignorant that it is now built up in himself into a house of God with living stones, and he recalls that he was created in the image of God: and, sure that he is being prepared conformed to the glory of God, he added: 'Nevertheless they thought to cast off my honor; I ran in thirst.' While they thought to detract from his honor, he ran in thirst. For there is a thirst for eternal goods and a spiritual hunger in the saints, of which it was said: 'Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness.' Thirsting, therefore, he held the course of his righteousness, preserving his whole life upright even from the very detraction of those who spoke against him. For he learned also from his Lord,
that all his works should be praised even by the judgment of Gentile testimony, when it is said: 'Let your works so shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.' So also Paul, pleasing all in all things, is a stumbling-block neither to Jews nor Greeks nor to the Church, lest the adversary should have anything evil to say of him — that adversary indeed retaining the zeal and will of detracting, although he showed himself free from every occasion of detraction; which we recognize also in this holy one running in thirst. For there follows: 'With their mouth they blessed, and with their heart they cursed,' since both, preserving their honor, they blessed him by the confession of a praiseworthy life, and by the malignity of inward hatred they cursed him. But this...
This holy man redoubles that which is most conducive to his salvation, even with a 'diapsalma' intervening, showing that there must be in us an unwearied perseverance of confession. For there follows: 'Yet is my soul subject unto God, for from him is my patience. For he himself is my God and my Saviour, my helper; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory. God is my helper, and my hope is in my God.' Let these men indeed thrust against a leaning wall and a shattered fence, and though they bless with the mouth, let them curse in the heart; yet he knows that his soul must be subject to God, since from him is his patience.
For he learned from him not to turn his face from spittings, nor to withdraw his cheeks from blows, nor to refuse the vinegar mingled with gall which he had to drink, nor after buffetings and scourgings to curse. For he himself is his God and Saviour, himself also his helper, lest, moved from the perseverance of patience and from the confidence of his hope, he should depart. For in him is his salvation and his glory and his hope, who will render him, raised up together with himself and conformed to himself, unto his own heavenly glory. And because he, like a prophet, is also to all others the herald of this hope, he added: 'Hope in him, all ye assembly of the people, and pour out your hearts before him, for God is our helper.' Nothing hidden, nothing shut up, nothing bound must be kept back in the heart under the confession of God.
Every affection must be poured out before him, so that we place no confidence in ourselves, but that we be helped through him before whom we pour ourselves out, as it were, on account of sin. Moreover our hearts must be poured out before him with tears and weepings, according to that saying: 'My tears have been my bread day and night, while it is said unto me daily, Where is thy God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul within me' — showing that the pouring out of the soul consists in the profusion of tears, since by them he must be entreated who alone is a faithful helper. But the prophet, having discharged his office, knows that his admonition is of little weight among the impious; for immediately, with a 'diapsalma' intervening, he added: 'But vain are the sons of men, deceitful are the sons of men in the balances;'