For the office of work ought always to be intent, and never at times to cease with the dissimulation of negligent idleness. In this too the prophet testifies that he remains, saying: 'and I was exercised in thy justifications.' And exercise shows the assiduity of operation. He teaches, therefore, that the observance of the precepts is for him frequent and always intent, pressing on toward those heavenly justifications of which we made mention above, now exercising himself in the justifications of the present law and of the law foreshadowed from things to come. ZAIN. 'Remember thy word to thy servant, in which thou hast given me hope,' and the rest. Every word of God which is contained in the divine Scriptures he calls the hope of heavenly goods.
And on this account the prophet, trusting that he has remained in all the precepts of God, constantly says: 'Remember thy word to thy servant.' Is God unmindful of his promise? Far be it that any kinds of human infirmities be believed to creep into the eternal and unwearied power. But the prophet, who believed the promises of God, who was held by desire of the heavenly, who through contempt of present things hoped for things to come, does not admonish God to the remembrance of his word; but he prays that God be mindful of his word toward him, his servant: that is, that he be held so worthy that God may already deign to be mindful of his word in him, in which word he gave hope.
And hope ought not to be empty, nor to be proclaimed only in words, but to be taught by the very deeds, so that, if at any time infirmities, persecutions, losses, bereavements, or insults befall, we may console these threats and powers of the present with the hope of eternal promises. And indeed we are taught unto all things; but the prophet has already discharged them, saying: 'this comfort is in my humiliation, because thy word hath quickened me.' This is referred to the hope which God made him hope. But it consoled him in his humiliation, that is, when he is despised, when afflicted, when vexed with injuries, when dishonoured with insults, knowing that this is for him the warfare of present temptations. But amid these wars of his, his hope is consoled by the Lord:
and he is quickened by the words of God. He knows that in these there is a surpassing glory in humility; he knows that the soul, refreshed by the words of God, contains within itself, as some food, the pasture of eternal life. Living in the words of God, he is not moved by the vain glory of the proud. For he knows his own want to be richer than their opulence. He knows that his fasts are filled with heavenly and evangelical blessing. He knows that his humility is to be rewarded with the glorious prize of honour. And so he added: 'the proud acted wickedly utterly: but from thy law I did not decline.' Amid the excessive and consummate iniquities of the proud — for they acted very wickedly — the prophet by no deviation declines from the law of God.
But he who does not decline from the law of God ought to be mindful of the judgments of God. For in every kind of our life the memory of the divine judgment must be inserted and retained in us, so that, when we do anything, with the memory of judgment residing in us, or rather never departing, our works may serve the precepts of God. Blessed will he be, whoever does all things not without the memory of the divine judgment. This the prophet professes concerning himself, saying: 'I was mindful of thy judgments from of old, and was comforted.' These are now only 'from the age,' not also 'from the age of the age,' because all the judgments of God upon us are established from the times of this age and world.
But among these he encouraged himself, namely amid these whirlwinds of the world and amid these battles of bodily sufferings, encouraging his humility to the endurance of assailing evils by the memory of the judgments of God. Then follows: 'faintness took hold of me because of sinners forsaking thy law.' The prophet's own virtues do not suffice him for the hope of life: neither that he had hope in the word of God, nor that he consoled himself in the same hope, nor that he is quickened by the word of God, nor that he does not decline from the law, nor that he encourages himself through the memory of judgments:
nay rather he is wearied by grief at human impiety, and is afflicted because of the irreligious impieties of men. For every holy man, when others sin, has mercy not on his own humility, who is himself unharmed, but on him who sins: just as a father suffering insult from a mad son, or a physician from a delirious sick man, feels grief not from what he has suffered, but because he whom he wished to be well, being mad, has inflicted injury upon himself. But when one member suffers something, according to the apostle the other members suffer with it. Faintness, therefore, according to these things, takes hold of the prophet over the sinners forsaking the law of God: the faintness, namely, of one having mercy and grieving and being wearied, as it were for his own members, on behalf of the wicked and irreligious.
But he himself, as for his own part, remains always intent on the justifications of God; and in every seat whatsoever in which he dwells, by no means does the hymn of confession depart from his mouth. For he says: 'thy justifications were songs to me in the place of my sojourning.' By his own example he teaches that the songs of the psalms, once received into the ears, are to be retained in the heart and always repeated by the office of the mouth. He read and heard not negligently, as he himself proclaims, nor did he read the divine oracles, in the manner of our irreligiosity, with eyes occupied on other things or careless, nor did he receive them soon after with forgetful ears: but they are songs to him, that is, sung without intermission.
But in every place of whatever kind he teaches that the custom of psalm-singing is by no means absent from him, when he says: 'in the place of my sojourning.' For he does not say 'in my sojourning,' but says thus: 'in the place of my sojourning,' namely in whatever seat he had remained: understanding himself to be a pilgrim of this world, yet the justifications of God to be always songs to him. But how great songs the justifications of God are, he shows, since he omits no time in which he is not engaged in that work of the heavenly things. For he says: 'I was mindful of thy name in the night, O Lord, and I kept thy law.' He knows that especially in the night season the divine name must be recalled by us. He knows that then especially the keeping of God's law must be retained by us, when desires creep upon the soul.
When the goads of vices agitate the body through recently taken food, then the name of God must be recalled, then his law must be kept, establishing chastity, continence, and the fear of God. He knows that at this time especially God must be prayed to and entreated, saying in another place: 'I will wash my bed every night, I will water my couch with tears.' The soul must not be relaxed in the dangerous idleness of nocturnal wakefulness. But it must be occupied in prayers, in entreaties, in confessions of sins, so that, when opportunity is especially given to the vices of the body, then especially those same vices may be broken by the remembrance of the law. Then follows: 'this became mine, because I sought out thy justifications.'
This is referred to the memory through which he was mindful of the name of God in the nights. But that which he says, 'became mine,' means not something suddenly recurring nor temporarily assumed, but something ever remaining and established within itself by a certain work of faith, and on that account made his, because he sought out the justifications; it is therefore useful to search out the justifications of God without any intermission of time, because through the searching of them we perpetually retain in ourselves the memory of God, in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory unto ages of ages. Amen. HETH. 'The Lord is my portion. I said that I would keep thy law,' and the rest. We too, reading the codices of the psalms, thus supposed that the verse which is the first of the eighth letter, that is, this one:
'The Lord is my portion,' was contained in the preceding eight verses of the seventh letter, because so it was written and contained in the Latin codices and also in some Greek ones; and indeed the sense seemed thus more complete. But reading according to the corrected book of psalms among the Greeks, we found this verse to be not the last but the first. And so, according to this knowledge, we too have undertaken to treat of it. For it runs thus: 'The Lord is my portion. I said: I will keep thy law.' Rare is anyone who has this confidence, that he dares to say God to be his portion. All things and all one's possessions must be renounced, that God may be our portion.
If ambition detain us, if care of money occupy us, if the lusts of desires capture us, if the affairs of family matters delay us, God will not be a portion to us who are held by the possession of cares and vices. When Moses was commanded to distribute the portions of habitation to the nations of the sons of Israel, thus was it said to him concerning the tribe of Levi: 'To the sons of Levi there shall be no portion nor lot in the midst of their brethren, because the Lord God is their part.' And again we remember it written: 'I am the Lord their part.' The law, therefore, willed no earthly portion to be for those serving God, because their part was God. That preacher of the gospel, Peter, too, remembers that there is no portion of human possession for him, when to one praying for sustenance he answered:
'silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this I give thee.' What is this, Peter, that thou possessest? Thou hadst renounced all things to thy Lord, saying: 'behold, we have left all things and followed thee, what shall be for us?' and he had answered thee: 'Amen, I say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' And by your example he had promised to the rest who leave all things, that they should both receive a hundredfold and thereafter possess life. What then is this, Peter, that thou hast? Thou hast plainly, and I dare not say that thou obtainest more than a hundredfold; yet I say that thou possessest without the multiplication of the reckoning. For thou sayest: 'what I have, this I give thee:'
in the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk.' O happy possession, O perfect portion of God! Thou bestowest not earthly things, but restorest the work of nature and repairest the losses of a defective birth. Thou biddest one born lame to walk, and urgest on a man of many years with a gait yet untried. He bestowed these riches, whose portion is God. Paul too knew the glories of his own riches, saying: 'but far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.' Such is the glory of the apostle, such is his portion. Let us, therefore, after the manner of human inheritances, choose the portion which is better and which is more useful.
If concerning earthly patrimonies someone strives, in the division among coheirs, to seek the lot of a more advantageous portion, with how much more attentive care should we choose the part of the heavenly inheritance? The Lord promises a hundredfold: and not for ever, but for the present. But of eternal goods the retribution is immense and infinite; whereas under the definition of a hundredfold the measure of present things is enclosed. Yet I am in doubt whether Peter's portion has exceeded this hundredfold. Certainly, according to the Lord's precept, hope must now be had in this age, all the things of the age being left, that the hundredfold is our gift. For God is our portion, who says: 'and I will dwell in them.' Is it not, then, the reward of the hundredfold, that God should dwell in this our earthly little body?
But why do I say 'dwell'? He himself also says: 'and I will walk in them.' Open to God is the ample possession of a faithful breast, that he may dwell, that he may walk. But he who dwells, who walks within, what third thing did he add? 'and I will be their God.' Behold the portion promised to us by him, that we may be a habitation to God, and, while he walks in us, that he himself may be a possession to us — if we forsake the world, if we renounce the decay of earthly possession, if we spurn the inheritance of perishable things, if living we depart from the world. For what reward is it to have left the world with dead bodies and a soul departing when dissolved? It must be forgone through contempt of it; it must be unknown through ignorance of its pleasures; we must die in it, while we do not live to it.
Paul knows that he no longer lives to himself, saying: 'for in that I live, now not I live, but Christ lives in me.' The prophet, therefore, according to the apostle, not living to the world, constantly and freely says: 'the Lord is my portion.' He held here that measure which he held in the preceding verses, when he promised that he would keep the law of God. For he is not understood to speak of that law which he was practising bodily, since he confesses rather that he 'will keep' than that he 'keeps.' Then follows: 'I entreated thy face with my whole heart: have mercy on me according to thy word.' We remember that Moses entreated to see God, and perhaps the prayer of this prophet will be thought akin to his entreaty. But he remembers it said by God: 'no man shall see my face and live.'
Does he then ask that to be granted to himself which he remembers was denied to Moses? But again, although he is prior to the evangelical saying, yet he remembers that this beatitude of faith is reserved, because it is said: 'blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.' And so, since he knows it said in the law that no one sees the face of God and lives, and from the evangelical beatitude does not doubt that all the clean of heart shall see God, with the tempering of perfect modesty he uttered the desire of his longing, saying: 'I entreated thy face with my whole heart.' He knows now that it is impossible for him — that which neither eye has seen nor ear heard nor has ascended into the heart of man — that he should see it. He knows the glory of God to be invisible to carnal eyes.
He remembers — I do not say that this light of human vision is dulled at the brightnesses of the angels — but that the very glory of the face of Moses the eyes of the human body could not bear. But let us measure the prophet's desires from human desires. With how great solicitude of expectation is there a running to the goings-forth of kings, and what joy it is to those who see, when they present themselves to be beheld! What shall we think that man, capable of the heavenly Spirit, wished to see?
With how great ardour of desire does he long to behold God — he who measures that very invisible majesty through these brightnesses of the angels and through this glory of Moses, and knows that even those who are worthy of the sight of God shall receive glory from the sight of glory, since the vision alone and the dignation of contemplating the majesty enlightens them? Which the holy apostle, so understanding, says: 'we all,' he says, 'with unveiled face, expecting the glory of God, shall be transformed into that same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' And now, because he knows this to be impossible to these eyes of the body, he desires it with his whole heart. And God is his portion, and so he confidently entreats his face:
because, although no man may see the face of God and live, yet all the clean of heart shall see God. Therefore he asks this mercy of God, that the beatitude of seeing his face may befall him, and he asks not without reason and manner of its being granted. For he says: 'have mercy on me according to thy word.' It is the voice of modest faith, to entreat the mercy of God not according to the consciousness of one's own sins, but according to the oracles of the same God. He knows God to be even to sinners a consuming fire. For Moses says: 'your God is a consuming fire.' He knows the same to be to the faithful a light, of whom the prophet himself says elsewhere: 'thou enlightenest wonderfully from the holy mountains.'
The apostle too distinguishes this dealing of the goodness and severity of God, when he says: 'behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: toward those indeed who fell, severity, but toward thee, goodness'; and again: 'and unless thou remain in his goodness, thou too shalt be cut off; but they, if they remain not in unbelief, shall be grafted in.' The prophet expects the goodness of God, saying: 'have mercy on me.' For he knows that no one who lives is without sin, and that all who are set in the flesh need the mercy of God. But he is not unmindful of his own duty and devotion, when he says: 'according to thy word'; namely that word by which he both denounces punishment to sinners and promises the beatitude of eternal life to those who believe in him. Then follows:
'because I have thought upon my ways and turned my feet unto thy testimonies.' From those things which the prophet mentions that he does or has done, he teaches what we too ought to do. For he thinks upon his ways and, having thought upon them, turns his foot unto the testimonies of God. He did nothing which he had not first revolved in thought. He moved not his tongue to its office, he brought not forth his foot to any work he was about to do, he put not forth his hand to do anything, unless he had first thought upon all these; and then he brought operation and effect to the things thought upon. He saw therefore, before all things, his own ways, and when he found one pleasing to him and approvable, then he set his foot upon it:
namely, all the ways of human operation having been examined, after he had considered what was useful for him, he turned the foot of faith unto the divine testimonies. For thought can dread nothing sudden, nothing new, nothing unexpected, when from the decision of counsel all things which are wont to happen are foreseen, predetermined, and approached. And this is taught in the following verse. For after the prophet had thought upon his ways and had turned his foot to the testimonies of God, he speaks freely: 'I am prepared and am not troubled, that I may keep thy commandments.' He who is prepared for something is prepared by long practice for that on which his meditation rests, lest any force of sudden disturbance shake him out, negligent and incautious, from the decision of his purpose.
The prophet, therefore, knows that there are very many scandals of the world. He knows that there are powers lying in wait for and opposing human nature. He knows that the sweet ambition of glory is dangerous. He knows that the encounters of wanton women are ensnaring to the eyes of the continent. He knows that base bodily desires creep in with the allurement of flattering pleasure. He knows that the other kinds of vices assail with enticing approaches. He knows also that he lies subject to very many hatreds of the irreligious, and, on account of the teaching of piety toward God, is to be vexed with the various insults of persecutors. Lest therefore he could be troubled by so many and so great snares assailing, he prepared himself against all the ruin of faith, saying: 'I am prepared and am not troubled, that I may keep thy commandments.'
The blessed apostle has an equal to this his preparation, saying: 'who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? as it is written: for thy sake we are put to death all the day long, we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. but in all these things we overcome and conquer through him who loved us.' And because he had prepared himself against the endurance of these things, lest through them he could be separated from love, he added: 'for I am confident that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'
No kinds of the things that can befall us disturb the apostle who has been made ready and made firm by such a hope. Let this voice therefore be in us as well, so that, when desires creep upon us, when passions assail us, when dangers weary us, when torments rack us, we may dare to say: 'I am ready and I am not troubled, that I may keep Thy commandments.' Our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, among His other precepts charges His disciples, saying: 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.' Against the trouble, whatever it may be that arises from things that befall us, there is need of the work of long preparation in firmness, so that with a strong and steadfast faith one may keep the commandments of God.
But to what end the prophet had advanced, or for what cause he was not troubled, so long as he kept the commandments of God, he at once added, saying: 'The cords of sinners have encompassed me; but I have not forgotten Thy law.' That there are cords of sinners we are taught by Isaiah, who says: 'Woe to them that bind sins as it were with a long cord' — inasmuch as the cord grows out of very many least strands into a great length, and sins are always as though stretched out by a long cord. There are also bonds of transgressions, by which human minds are bound fast, of which it is written in the Proverbs: 'Each one is bound tight by the cords of his own sins.' For the devil binds us and ties us up and entangles us in these cords, with snares set throughout the whole of life. But what he binds we have learned in the Gospels:
'This daughter Satan bound eighteen years.' He binds, then, with every kind of vice: with the habit of drunkenness, with the desires of pleasures, with the guilt of unbelief. But amid these snares of cords the forgetting of the law is not to be admitted. For we are to be prepared, so that if at any time they encircle us, we may be stripped of these snares, that we may at all times remember the law of God. And the prophet remembers it plainly, saying: 'At midnight I rose to give praise to Thee for the judgments of Thy justification.' He is not at leisure through whole nights, nor is he held idle upon his bed: to give praise to God he rises not only at night, but even at midnight. He recalls that this is the hour at which the firstborn of the Egyptians were smitten by the most deserved calamity of their impious obstinacy;
at these hours, therefore, he does not relax into sleep, lest he be mingled with Egypt. At this hour of night, when the bridegroom enters, the wise virgins go in with him with their lamps; he keeps watch, therefore, lest with the foolish he deserve to be shut out. At this hour, while the apostles Paul and Silas sang psalms, their chains too were loosed: he does not sleep, therefore, lest he be bound. Nor does the sleep of the whole nocturnal season hold him, lest forgetfulness of his duty steal upon him in the repose of midnight; for he rises to give praise to God. But confession is not always to be referred to sins; it is also to be understood as praise of God. Now, then, he confesses to God concerning His judgments, praising God, therefore, because He has decreed nothing except in the justification of His judgments. There follows next:
'I am a partaker with all them that fear Thee and that keep Thy commandments.' We remember that the apostle said: 'We are made partakers of Christ.' But also in the forty-fourth psalm we remember that certain men are signified to be partakers of God, when it is said: 'God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.' There are, therefore, according to the apostle and according to the prophet, many partakers of our Lord Jesus Christ. And whoever abides in righteousness is a partaker of Him, because He Himself is righteousness; whoever persists in truth will be a partaker of Him, for He Himself is truth; and whoever walks in newness will be a partaker of Him, because He Himself is the resurrection.
Therefore, although the prophet knows that there are many partakers of God, now by a humble profession concerning himself — since he too is both made and called Christ, and remembers that he is a partaker of Christ — nevertheless he confessed that he is rather a partaker of all who fear God. And he is a partaker even of those who then fear God, when he suffers together with those who suffer, when he weeps with those who weep, when, as a member of the same body, he grieves in the pain of another member. By this fellowship of sufferings, therefore, he becomes a partaker of those who fear God. But whoever, through his own insolence, disdains one who believes in Christ and is redeemed by Christ, that man is not a partaker of those who fear God, since he is not their consort in suffering together with them.
But the prophet did not set this down bare and by itself, when he says: 'I am a partaker with all them that fear Thee.' There are many who fear God and yet are disobedient; there are many who fear God and yet are unbelieving, whom the condition of their nature indeed subjects to the fear of God, but the perversity of their own will withdraws from obedience to God. And on this account it would not have sufficed for the prophet to have said: 'I am a partaker with all them that fear Thee,' had he not added: 'and that keep Thy commandments.' For the fear of faith is in obedience alone, and the awe of religion is in submission. Of these, therefore, he is a partaker who approve their fear in the keeping of the commandments of God. Then follows: 'Thy mercy, O Lord, filleth the earth; teach me Thy justifications.'
The earth is full of the mercy of God — the earth that is defiled, that is corrupted, that is irreligious, that is faithless, that is lost. And if perchance anyone shall dare with impious mouth to accuse the prophet, as though he supposes that the mercy of God has not been poured out upon all the earth, let him recall that the Lord said in the Gospels: 'Be good, as your Father who is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.' For God is patient and merciful, since He prefers the repentance of sinners rather than their death, and lavishes His gifts upon the just and the unjust, granting to each one, through His patience, a time of long-suffering.
And because the prophet remembers that this goodness and perfection of God — which under those justifications of the law is bodily foreshadowed — is always to be hoped for by him, he says: 'Teach me Thy justifications, O Lord.' He had read them all in the law; but because he was hoping for the heavenly things, which are contained in the earthly ones, he has no need of an earthly teacher. For he prays to be taught by Him who says: 'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' The prophet disdains to have it opened and given him by a teacher of the law. He awaits, as the master of heavenly knowledge, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. TETH. 'Thou hast dealt kindly with Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word,' and the rest.
Already at the beginning of the psalm we mentioned that nothing else is contained in it but the teaching of human life, through which we might be instructed unto the knowledge of God, as it were as little ones, by the very elements of letters. For in his own person the prophet confirms us as to how we ought to conduct ourselves in every kind of divine service, so that through the discipline of the instruction we have attained we might hold to the order of faith, as is taught in that very first verse of the ninth letter. For it is said thus: 'Thou hast dealt kindly with Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word.' And perhaps certain persons will suppose that the prophet spoke of prosperous circumstances and rendered thanks to God for those things which had happened favorably to him. But he knew that thanks are to be rendered to God even in adverse circumstances;