詩篇註釋 第 1 章 第 17/42 段

The phrase 'my king' means: 'appointed king by me, and reigning over my people.'

'To my anointed, to Cyrus,' that is, 'to him who has been anointed and appointed by me.'

'Moab is the cauldron of my hope.' This Aquila interpreted thus:

'Moab is the cauldron of my washing.'

And the Syriac has, 'the pot of my washing.'

For since it is in such vessels that we are accustomed to wash our feet and to cleanse the garment soiled by the feet, he indicated the subjection of Moab by the image of the pot of washing.

The cauldron is also used in divine Scripture with reference to punishment.

So too the blessed Ezekiel teaches, when he was commanded to call Jerusalem a cauldron, the inhabitants flesh, the Babylonian fire, and the broth the necessary sustenance.

When this had failed, the flesh was burned up.

So too the blessed Jeremiah saw a cauldron with a fire burning beneath it;

'and its face was from the face of the north.'

He says, then, that Manasseh too will receive back his own land;

and Ephraim will regain his former power;

and Judah will be proclaimed king over all;

and the Moabites will be made subject to them, beholding their irresistible might.

And not only those, but also the Idumeans and the foreigners.

'Upon Idumea I will stretch out my sandal.'

'To me the foreigners have been made subject.' Nor would anyone err who understood the cauldron to be the divine font, which punishes and consumes and does away with sin, while it rekindles by the divine Spirit and refashions and wipes away the stain, that is, the filth of the transgressions of those who are renewed through it,

not only in it, but also among all the nations. For besides the Moabites, 'I will enslave the Idumeans also, and I will compel the foreigners to be subject.'

Now divine Scripture calls the Palestinians 'foreigners,' not because the other nations were of the same stock, but because the others were set apart at a distance, while these were not only neighbors but even dwelt in their very midst.

Thus the Jebusites dwelt in Jerusalem for a very long time;

thus the Gibeonites in Gibeah;

and the Gazites, and the Ashkelonites, and the others dwelt nearby.

And these things the histories teach more plainly.

Having thus been taught these things by the God of all, the prophet longs to see the people's prosperity after the return;

'...me into the fortified city? Or who will lead me as far as Idumea? Is it not you, O God, who rejected us?' For there was no other who could deem us worthy of such providential care. He calls Jerusalem 'the fortified city.'

This Symmachus interpreted as 'the walled city.'

For since it had been laid waste and stripped of its walls, but after the return had received back its own encircling ramparts, the prophet yearns to see it fortified with walls, and to run as a king even as far as Idumea, and to see his perpetual foes compelled to serve.

'These things,' he says, 'do you accomplish, O Lord, you who rejected us and handed us over to the dominion of the Babylonians;'

thus, having foretold the good things, he entreats concerning the grievous ones.

'And will you not go forth, O God, with our armies?' 'You see us,' he says, 'so bitterly warred against, and yet you do not lead our host, nor perform mighty deeds as of old.'

'for vain is the salvation of man.'

'Come to the help,' he says, 'of those who are in evil plight;'

'for you alone are able to dissolve our calamities;'

'but the help of men, if you are not present, is vain.'

'In God we shall do valiantly.' That is: 'let us turn to him, and serving him, let us appoint him our guardian.' 'And he himself will bring to nothing those who afflict us.' 'Let us call upon his providence,' he says, 'and take courage in it;'

'for this alone suffices to dissolve our hardships and to overthrow the dominion of those who war against us.'

For having said, 'In God we shall do valiantly, and he himself will bring to nothing those who afflict us,' he teaches the people in captivity what manner of prayer it is fitting to offer to God.

'Hear, O God, my supplication;'

These things any man among mortals would rightly say, should he fall into distressing circumstances;

beseeching through them that his entreaty may be accepted and that he may be counted worthy of the providence from on high. Then he teaches who they are that pray.

'From the ends of the earth I have cried to you.' For since Babylon lies at many stages' distance from Palestine, those who had been carried off supposed that they dwelt at the utmost bounds of the inhabited world, compelled as they were to dwell in that land.

'When my heart was in anguish, you raised me up upon a rock.' 'I beseech you to obtain from you consolation of soul.'

'For being in pain and lamenting the calamities that pressed upon me, I enjoyed your succor and became superior to my enemies.'

This is said in the person of those carried off captive from Jerusalem into Babylon and granted their recall;

but it also fits each one who works out his own salvation through repentance, and no longer walks in the by-path, but treads the sole and undeviating way;

and this is clear from what follows. 'You have guided me.'

'For you have become my hope;'

'a tower of strength from before the enemy.' 'Having hoped to partake of your providence, I did not fail of my hope;'

'for you became for me both a guide and a strong tower.'

'I will dwell in your tabernacle for ever;'

'I will find shelter under the covering of your wings.' He names Jerusalem the tabernacle of God.

For in it he manifested himself to them.

'I shall enjoy the providence that comes from you.'

For by 'wings' he means the guardian care of God.

And the phrase 'for ever' he has set down in the sense of 'perpetually.'

For Thou, O God, hast hearkened unto my prayers;

Thou hast given an inheritance to them that fear Thy name. I sing Thy praise continually, since, having received my supplications, Thou hast rendered unto us, the descendants of our forefathers, the inheritance promised to them.

These things they say straightway, as soon as they have set out upon the road.

It should be known, moreover, that the words here set forth contain also riddling intimations of the true inheritance;

and to these men, as in a type, He rendered the promised land.

'Thou shalt add days upon the days of the king; his years unto the day of generation and generation.'

his years unto the day of generation and generation.

At that time Zerubbabel reigned over them;

but not all the utterances of the prophecy fit him.

For the words, 'Thou shalt add days upon the days of the king,' fit him also;

but they fit rather Him who according to the flesh sprang from him, through His great love for mankind becoming man in a manner known to Himself.

For in His case the words of the prophecy prove true;

'His years unto the day of generation and generation;'

'he shall abide for ever before God.' For He received no beginning of days, neither shall He endure any end.

For even though, having become man, He accepted death on our behalf, yet 'His years are unto the day of generation and generation.'

For 'in the beginning He was, and was with God, and was God.'

And the phrase 'before God' means, coexisting always with the Father. For to Him the same prophet said in the hundred-and-first psalm:

For just as that one led back the captivity from Babylon to the fatherland;

'I am the life and the resurrection;'

'and he that eateth Me shall live in Me.' 'His mercy and His truth, who shall search out?' For who, he says, is able accurately to comprehend the just and discerning mercy of God? for 'His judgments are a great deep.'

'So will I sing praise unto Thy name for ever, that I may pay my vows from day to day.' For I will ever hymn Thee;

each day I will recount Thy gracious gifts;

and I will not prove false to my promises;

for by 'vows' he means his promises.

For as one presiding over the choir in the divine temple, he hymned the God of all, as the Book of Chronicles says.

The psalm foretells the Macedonian uprisings, and the plots of Antiochus Epiphanes against the Maccabees;

and it teaches the champions of piety what manner of reasonings it befits them to use in the season of adversaries.

and to partake of swine's flesh sacrificed to idols, they rouse their own reasoning toward piety, and whet their zeal on behalf of godliness.

'Dost thou not,' he says, 'O my soul, prefer the service of God above all things?' Then they go on to teach the gain that comes therefrom.

'For with Him is my salvation.'

[Verse 3.] 'For He Himself is my God and my Saviour;'

'my helper, I shall not be greatly moved.' This service, O my soul, affords thee salvation.

For He is God and the bestower of good things, and able to establish those who are shaken.

Calling therefore upon His succour, I shall be delivered from those who seek to cast me down.

Having thus kindled their own reasonings toward piety, they turn their tongue against the adversaries.

'How long do ye set upon a man? Ye all slay him, as a bowing wall and a tottering fence.' The sense of the verse is by way of transposition.

'How long do ye use cruelty against us, taking no thought of our common nature, but, as though we were some leaning wall and a fence in danger of falling by the wind, do ye hasten to thrust and cast us down, holding a murderous intent?' That is to say, Do not exalt yourselves so greatly over us, as over weaklings.

For we have as helper the God of all.

'Yet they took counsel to reject my honour.' 'They have one aim,' he says, 'to strip me of the providence of God, from which I have all my honour and glory.'

For the honour of the godly is to serve God;

wherefore also the divinely-inspired Paul everywhere names himself a servant of Christ.

'They ran in thirst.' Not as a trifling matter do they hold this plotting;

but with all eagerness they do it, thirsting to cast me down into the pit of impiety.

And what devices they employ, he tells:

'With their mouth they blessed, and in their heart they cursed.' They used flattering words, seeking to deceive;

but within they held destruction concealed.

Having thus displayed their plots, they again exhort themselves to endure, and to await the divine inclination of favour.

'Nevertheless be thou subject unto God, O my soul;'

'for from Him is my patient endurance.' Do not forsake, O my soul, the service of God, but, strengthened by the support supplied from Him, bear the assaults of hardships.

'For He is my God and my Saviour, my helper; I shall not be removed.' For knowing Him to be the true God and the fountain of salvation, I will not endure to change my service, and run to another lordship.

For the word 'I shall be removed' he has set down in place of 'I shall be transferred.'

'I will not become,' he says, 'a deserter, and a slave of impiety.'

'In God is my salvation and my glory;'

'the God of my help, and my hope is in God.' [Behold again, the prophetic mind has more clearly indicated to us the hypostases of the undivided, light-bearing, and ever-existing Trinity;

not speaking of three gods, away with such a thought;

that they may repel the assaults of impiety.

For which cause they also rouse all their other kinsmen to the same piety, not enduring to be called victors alone.

'Hope in Him, O all ye congregation of the peoples; pour out your hearts before Him, for God is our helper.' Despising all men, O kinsmen, make firm your hope in Him;

and lay all your mind upon Him, awaiting without doubt the help that comes from Him.

For the phrase, 'Pour out your hearts before Him,' means this, namely: Consecrate to Him all your thoughts, and admit no doubt of mind.

[Knowing full well that 'a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,' and that 'no one can serve two masters.'] (10)

'Nevertheless the sons of men are vanity;'

'the sons of men are liars in the balances, that they may do wrong.' This Theodotion rendered more clearly:

'Nevertheless the sons of men are a vapour;'

'the sons of man are false, like the swaying of a balance.' 'Nothing of human things,' he says, 'is abiding, but it resembles a vapour sent up and straightway dispersed, and the swaying of a balance, now sinking down, now rising up, and having nothing settled or abiding.'

And the interpretation of the Seventy is to be understood thus:

'All human things are vanity;'

'yet nevertheless the most of men take courage, as though the fleeting things were lasting;'

'and they neglect equity, but hold unevenly the balances of the mind;'

'and they despise the just, but rejoice in injustice.'

They together, springing from vanity. Yet even so they carry off no gain from this;

for all things are vain, and subject to sudden change.

For thus did Symmachus render it:

They are made vain together. From this he offers an exhortation to those who take the opposite course and exult in their wealth:

Do not set your hope on injustice, and do not long after plunder. Do not, he says, deem worthy of desire that human transience which is established out of injustice.

If riches flow in, do not set your heart upon them. When you see wealth pouring into your houses like a river, do not enslave your reasoning to it.

And why then do you counsel and exhort these things? Verses 11, 12.

Two things have I heard: that power belongs to God,

and mercy is yours, O Lord;

for you will render to each according to his works. I heard, he says, God the Lord of all declaring that there will be judgment, and a recompense of good things and of evil.

The word once he set down not with reference to number, but with reference to that which shall by all means come to pass.

God has declared, he says, once for all, and this belongs to the class of things that cannot fail to come to pass:

namely, the punishment against the lawless, and the loving-kindness bestowed upon the godly.

These very things God promised in giving the Law.

For I am, he says, the Lord your God, a jealous God, visiting the sin of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me;

and showing mercy to thousands and to tens of thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[The very same things we hear also in the Gospels: how the Lord of glory, at his second coming from heaven, will separate men as the shepherd does, and will set the sheep on the right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then, having again fallen into danger and escaped it, he reaches the wilderness.

In which he composed this psalm;

both disclosing the love he bore toward God, and foretelling the destruction of Saul.

[And to all men he has given an occasion whereby they ought earnestly to entreat God and to await the help that comes from him.] Verse 2.

O God, my God, unto you do I rise early;

In how manifold ways does my flesh long for you. Theodotion rendered it, in how many ways;

and I have set down all the interpretations, teaching that the word posaplos ('in how manifold ways') is not two parts,

the how being divided from the manifold;

but rather that it is one part of speech, signifying the intensity of longing.

And he wishes to say that both my soul and my body yearn for you and long after you, just as one who is thirsty longs for water most sweet and most limpid.

In a land desert, and untrodden, and waterless.

[Verse 3.] So in the sanctuary I appeared before you. I received no harm from the desert;

but as though standing beside your sacred tabernacle itself, so do I offer up to you my hymn of praise.

For by in the sanctuary he means the tabernacle.

For the divine temple had not yet been built.

That I might see your power and your glory. I stand before you, picturing to myself your ineffable power.

For since your nature is beyond attainment, I take from the things wrought by you the occasions for my doxology.

[And the people who have believed from among the nations might continually say:

So in the sanctuary I appeared before you;

in which you are sacrificed without being slain, and are divided without being parted, and are consumed while remaining unconsumed.] Verse 4.

For your mercy is better than life; my lips shall praise you. Above all the life of the wealthy, and of the mighty, the carefree life and the anxious, the delicate and the dissolute, I choose your mercy, and I move my lips to your praise.

Thus will I bless you in my life;

in your name I will lift up my hands. And this I will continue to do throughout my whole life:

praising with my tongue, and stretching out my hands, and beseeching your loving-kindness.

As with marrow and fatness may my soul be filled. And your praise I reckon to be the fatness of the soul;

and I think it becomes thereby plump and well-nourished.

For an enduring luxury and delight is the meditation upon your oracles.

And with lips of exultation shall my mouth praise you. For which cause I will offer you my hymn with all eagerness, knowing the gain that comes from it.

If I remembered you upon my bed, in the early hours I meditated on you.

Because you have become my helper, and in the shelter of your wings I will exult. This Symmachus rendered thus:

I call you to remembrance upon my bed;

at every watch I meditated upon you;

and being sheltered beneath your wings, I sang praise.

And by watches he means the nocturnal ones;

for those entrusted with the duty of keeping watch divide the night-time and do this, relieving one another in turn.

And some divide it into three, others into four.

And the Lord came to the holy apostles in the fourth watch of the night.

and with hymns I requited the benefits that had been done to me.

For as with a certain shelter of wings, you guard me with your invincible providence.

[And this very thing the people who have believed from among the nations by all means calls to mind upon its bed, praising in the morning the Saviour of all.

Because you yourself have become a helper, and in the shelter of your wings I will exult. And the same one might justly call wings the Old and the New Testament, sheltered and nourished and gladdened by which, through the regeneration of the washing, he was advanced unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.] Verse 9.

My soul has cleaved after you. Not even for a brief moment, he says, am I able to withdraw my mind from the remembrance of you;

but being set aflame by warm affection, I am bound to your longing as though by some glue of memory.

Then he shows the fruit of longing.

But your right hand has upheld me. For seeing me so disposed, you deem me worthy of your providence.

But they, in vain, sought my soul. Though I had done them no wrong, they are eager to slay me.

They shall go into the lowest parts of the earth. But I know that they shall be delivered up to death.

Then he also foretells the manner of their end.

They shall be delivered up into the hands of the sword. This they shall suffer by a warlike right hand.

They shall be portions for foxes. And this, he says, they shall not endure at the hands of any mighty enemies;

but at the hands of the neighbouring foreigners;

who, after the manner of foxes, now attack, but often and continually, being driven off, take to flight.

nor shall they be deemed worthy of burial, but shall lie exposed as food for the wild beasts.

But the king shall rejoice in God. 'For I,' he says, 'having received the kingdom from You, will not take pleasure in the death of those men, but in Your providential care, through which I escaped the manifold plots of my enemies.'

Everyone who swears by Him shall be praised, for the mouth of those who speak unjust things has been stopped. Henceforth all men shall with boldness both name the king and swear by his welfare;

no longer fearing the slanderers, whose mouth has been stopped by death.

But when this man had died, all men henceforth without fear rendered to the king the honour that befitted him, and made the king's welfare the matter of their oath, treating this as a mark of devotion and a token of goodwill.

And he foretells their deliverance.

[He foretells by what prayers the people from among the Gentiles, when turning to God, ought to entreat the Saviour.] 2.

Hear, O God, my voice when I make supplication to You;

and strengthen my mind;

so that I may not dread the assaults of my enemies.

Shelter me from the conspiracy of evildoers, from the multitude of those who work iniquity. He calls 'conspiracy' their concord and their agreement in wickedness, over which he prays to be shown the stronger, being fenced about by the divine protection as by a wall.

Then he recounts their manifold contrivances.

Who have sharpened their tongues like a sword;

they have bent their bow, a bitter thing.

To shoot down the blameless in secret places. 'They stitch together slanders,' he says, 'for the war being contrived against me;'

and this though I have furnished them no cause.

For here by 'blameless' he means the guiltless one.

And the phrase 'a bitter thing' Aquila rendered 'a bitter word;'

and Theodotion, 'a bitter speech;'

and Symmachus, 'They filled their bow, a bitter word.'

And the phrase 'in secret places' Symmachus rendered as 'secretly;'

that is, employing ambushes and snares.

And this the following words also teach.

Suddenly they will shoot him down, and they will not be afraid. 'Lying in wait,' he says, 'they will attack suddenly, having no dread of the God who watches over all.'

They strengthened for themselves an evil purpose;

they told of hiding snares. This Symmachus stated more plainly;

They confirmed an evil purpose, they proposed to hide snares.

For in contriving my death, they proposed and took counsel together as to what devices they must use against me, and by the deed they confirmed their words;

and they dare these things, supposing that God takes no thought of human affairs.

For this is what the following words make clear;

Who shall see them? 'They suppose,' he says, 'that there is no judge of the things that are done.'

[This applies on the one hand to those around Absalom and Saul and the rest;

and on the other hand also to the lawless men who from time to time have devised machinations and snares against the Churches of God.

And note what he says in what follows.] 7.

They searched out iniquity, they failed in their searching out of searchings. 'They set every calculation in motion,' he says;

'they devised every contrivance against me;'

they left no form of plotting undone, openly assailing, secretly lying in ambush, employing spies, roaming the deserts, searching through the rocky regions [seeking out in mountains and caves and the holes of the earth the athletes of godliness, concerning whom the divine Paul declares, of whom the world was not worthy].

Man shall draw near, and the heart is deep.

[8.] And God shall be exalted. This Theodotion interpreted more plainly;

And the mind of man, and the deep heart, God shall shoot down.

For though they hide their designs ten thousand times over, these things are manifest to the God who watches over all;

He shows His own exaltation, exacting punishment from such men.

Their wounds became the arrow of infants.

[9.] And their tongues were made feeble against them. Yet, even employing such great cunning, they missed their aim.

For just as the arrows shot by very young children bring no harm to those they strike, so the tongues of these men did not injure those at whom they were aimed;

but the injury has come upon those who shot them.

All who beheld them were troubled. And those who saw them failing in their undertakings will be, or were, filled with tumult and dread, and marvelled at the divine providence.

For this is what the following words make clear.

And every man feared, and they proclaimed the works of God;

and they understood His deeds. For coming to a clear perception of God's providential care, they feared the divine tribunal.

And all the upright in heart shall be praised. And those who direct their reasoning towards God, and who cannot bear to walk outside the straight path, shall reap glory even from men.

I mean the prize-bearing martyrs and the athletes of godliness.] INTERPRETATION.

A song of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and of the people of the sojourning, when they were about to go forth. In some copies there is added, 'A song of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and of the people of the sojourning, when they were about to go forth.' This neither the Hebrew has, nor the other translators, nor the Seventy in the Hexapla;

but someone, as it seems, added this heading, having attended neither to the meaning of the psalm nor learned the history.

For, in the first place, Jeremiah had no share in the captivity;

but having been given the choice to live wherever he wished, he chose to dwell in his homeland.

Hence it in no way fits those going forth into captivity;

but rather those who were dwelling in captivity.

For being far from their homeland, and longing to hymn God, yet prevented by the Law from doing this;

for theirs is the utterance, 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' they said, entreating God in Babylon.

To You praise is due, O God, in Zion, and to You shall a vow be rendered in Jerusalem.

Hear my prayer; to You shall all flesh come. And all the sayings of the psalm are suited to those living in Babylon.

For these, yearning for their return, offered up this hymnody to God.

And with the foretelling concerning these there is intermingled also the prophecy of the salvation of the Gentiles.

To You praise is due, O God, in Zion, and to You shall a vow be rendered in Jerusalem. 'In that city,' he says, 'You commanded that praise be offered to You;'

'there, then, I entreat that this be rendered to You.'

[And concerning this the blessed Paul spoke to the Gentiles;

You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.

[This, on the one hand, the people carried off from Jerusalem cry out in prayer;

this, on the other hand, is also entreated by him who presses on to escape from the captivity of idols;

and he stated it more plainly in what follows, when he said:] To You shall all flesh come. This holds a clear foretelling of the Gentiles' knowledge of God.

For now, he says, we entreat that we may obtain our return, and that in the temple consecrated to Thee we may offer up our hymn.

The words of the lawless have overpowered us. But Symmachus renders it thus:

The words of the lawless have oppressed me.

Then he teaches the cause of their servitude.

And Thou wilt be propitiated toward our impieties. I was not condemned to servitude unjustly, he says, but because of the impiety I once dared to commit;

and I beseech to be delivered from it through Thy loving-kindness.

Hence they count blessed the manner of life in their homeland, as a teacher and provider of godliness.

Blessed is he whom Thou hast chosen and taken to Thyself;

he shall dwell in Thy courts; we shall be filled with the good things of Thy house.

Enviable, he says, and blessed is the people whom Thou hast honoured above the other nations.

For by abiding constantly at Thy sacred courts, it reaps thence benefit and blessing.

[verse 6.] Wonderful in righteousness. For Thy temple is full of sanctification, and it teaches those who draw near Thy righteousness through Thine oracles.

Hearken to us, O God our Saviour;

the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of those who are far off upon the sea. Here again he foretells the salvation of the whole world, and calls to mind the prophecy of the patriarch Jacob;

for it is his saying: The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a ruler from his loins, until He come to whom it is laid up, and He is the expectation of the nations. Him also here he called the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of those who are far off upon the sea. And by these words he signifies both those dwelling in the islands and the men upon the continents lying opposite, and those allotted to inhabit the uttermost bounds of the inhabited world.

Hearken to us, he says, O Thou who a little later dost illumine the whole nature of mankind with the light of the knowledge of God.

Then, so far as is possible, he recounts the power of God.

Who preparest the mountains by His strength;

being girded about with might.