詩篇註釋 第 1 章 第 38/42 段

This too the blessed Peter says in the Acts: 'In truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears Him and works righteousness is acceptable to Him.' And the prophetic word indicated the character of the divine fear.

'They that walk in His ways.' For not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

'But he that does the will of My Father who is in heaven.' It is therefore proper to those who fear the Lord not to step outside the divine ways, but to make their journey in them continually.

'You shall eat the labors of your fruits.' But Symmachus renders it, 'eating the toil of your hands.'

So that it is clear that the Seventy too did not call the produce 'fruits,' but the members of the hands.

And he says: 'You shall harvest the fruits of the good things sown by you.'

This too the divine Apostle said: 'He that sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly.'

'And he that sows in blessings shall also reap in blessings.' — 'Blessed are you, and it shall be well with you.' For not in word only shall you be envied and admired.

But in deed also you shall possess good fortune.

'Your wife shall be like a flourishing vine on the sides of your house.' Since at that time they reckoned this a good fortune, the word promises them also fruitfulness of wives, so that they are likened to vines that bloom and are laden with clusters.

'Your sons shall be like young olive plants round about your table.' In the fifty-first psalm also he compared the righteous man to an olive tree.

'For I,' he said, 'am like a fruitful olive tree in the house of God.' And here too he likened the children of him who fears the Lord to young olive plants, as bearing the watering of piety, and the ripe fruit, and not casting off their leaf, according to the man pronounced blessed in the first psalm.

'Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.' For God is a judge of character, not of lineage.

Thus He deemed Job, who traced his descent from Esau, worthy of crowns.

Thus He guided Abimelech to the truth.

Thus the eunuch, thus Cornelius, thus all the nations.

'The Lord shall bless you out of Zion' — according to the glory that then prevailed.

For God was believed to dwell there.

'And may you see the sons of your sons.' It was reckoned a great blessing to advance to a deep old age and to behold one's children's children.

Therefore he defines the blessings as agreeing with their notions.

But that he did not regard the possession of good things to lie in these, the blessed Isaiah taught.

'Let not the eunuch say, I am a dry tree; for thus says the Lord.'

'To the eunuchs that keep My sabbaths and choose the things that I will, I will give them in My house and within My walls a place of renown and a good name, better than of sons and daughters.' — 'Peace upon Israel.' Again he prays for peace upon Israel.

But true peace is the peace toward God.

But the carnal Israel, having fallen away from that peace, is deprived of the other also.

A Song of the Steps. This psalm too contains a prediction of the nations that rose up against the Jews after the return.

'Many times have they warred against me from my youth.'

[Verse 2.] 'Many times have they warred against me from my youth.'

'For indeed they were not able to prevail against me.' By 'youth' he means the sojourn in Egypt and the departure from there.

And as he sings the praises of his Benefactor, he enumerates the divine graces: that from above and from the beginning many adversaries rose up against me and endeavoured to surround me with evils of every kind;

yet through divine assistance I escaped their plots.

More truly, however, these words befit the new people, which received many assaults of enemies, yet prevailed over them all, and made its very foes into worshippers.

'Upon my back the sinners wrought.' But Aquila and Theodotion rendered it, 'they ploughed.'

'They prolonged their iniquity.' Aquila has 'they lengthened,' while Symmachus has 'they extended in doing harm';

that is to say, 'They persisted a long while in warring against me, and in increasing their own iniquity.'

'The Lord is righteous; he has cut in pieces the necks of sinners.' The 'necks' Aquila and Symmachus rendered as 'nooses.'

For indeed, the nooses that they had prepared for the saints, their God cut in pieces; and the collars they had stretched about them he shattered, and he cut in pieces the very necks of the sinners.

'Let them become like the grass of the housetops, which withers before it is plucked up.'

'Wherewith the reaper does not fill his hand, nor he who gathers the sheaves his bosom.' Some of the copies do not have 'to be withered,' but rather 'to be plucked up';

which very thing we always see happening in the case of standing crops.

For no one endures to reap the ear of grain while it is yet green, but waits for it to ripen and to dry, and only then applies the sickle.

But the herbage that springs up on the housetops, before it puts forth fruit, is dried up by the sun's onslaught;

to these he calls upon the enterprises of the enemies to be likened, and, like them, to meet with an untimely end.

'And those who passed by did not say:'

'The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we have blessed you in the name of the Lord.' Those who behold the flourishing crops are wont to marvel at the diligence of the farmers, and, as they pass by, they bless those who reap such harvests;

but for those who gather the grass of the housetops, no one ever uttered any such thing.

'A Song of the Ascents.' The choir of the righteous offers up this supplication to God;

and the very preface of the psalm bears witness to this.

'Out of the depths I have cried unto thee, O Lord.' That is to say, 'From below and from the very heart I send up my supplication.'

For at one time the prophet Jeremiah says to the God of all things:

'Thou art near to their mouth, but far from their reins'; and at another time God himself, through Isaiah the prophet, accuses the Jews, saying:

'This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.' But these who now make supplication send up their prayer from the depth of the heart.

'Lord, hearken unto my voice; let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.' And though he uses these words after a human manner, he knows the Deity to be incorporeal;

for he has designated the faculty both of hearing and of seeing.

For our eyes possess the power of sight, while our ears are entrusted with the faculty of hearing.

But God sees by that whereby he hears, and hears by that whereby he sees.

'If thou shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord.' The choir of the righteous supplicates the Lord not to measure out punishments according to their sins.

So too did those about the blessed Ananias take upon their own persons the transgressions of the people.

'Lord, who shall stand?' For if thou shouldest justly hold fast the scales of judgement, who is able to bear the sentence pronounced by them? for of necessity all would undergo destruction.

'For with thee there is propitiation.' Thou hast lovingkindness joined to thy righteousness, and thou art by nature more disposed to use the former than the latter.

'For thy name's sake I have waited for thee, O Lord; my soul has waited upon thy word.' For 'name' Aquila and Theodotion rendered 'fear,' while Symmachus rendered 'law.'

For he says: 'Knowing this thy goodness (for thou usest mercy as a kind of law), I do not renounce the more hopeful expectations, awaiting the promise of good things.'

For here he has called the good promise 'word';

and lovingkindness he promised to those who repent.

'My soul has hoped in the Lord, from the morning watch until night.' That is to say, 'throughout the whole day';

for the 'morning watch' is the last hour of the night;

for the last watchmen keep guard until that time.

'From the morning watch let Israel hope in the Lord.' The righteous are not content merely to possess the riches of hope in God for themselves, but they also urge all others to the same possession, and they make plain the gain that springs from it.

For he it is who is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

So too the divine Gabriel said to the holy Virgin:

'Thou shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.' INTERPRETATION.

'A Song of the Ascents.' The prophetic word teaches humility of mind, and brings forward the persona of those who love it, as they pray and beseech God.

'Lord, my heart is not lifted up.' The loftiness of the heart brings ruin not only upon the impious, but also upon the saints.

'Every one that humbles himself shall be exalted, and he that exalts himself shall be humbled.' — 'Neither were mine eyes lifted up.' It is proper to the proud to raise their brows, and to puff out their cheek, and to despise all men.

But those who are freed from this passion do not instruct the Judge in this as though he were ignorant, but they call him as one who knows to bear witness.

'Neither did I walk in great things.' But Symmachus has 'in great matters';

and Aquila, 'in majesties.'

'above me.' But Symmachus has, 'Neither in things surpassing me.'

That is to say, 'I measured myself, and I did not lay hand to things that surpassed my worth.'

'If I was not humble-minded, but exalted my soul, as one weaned upon its mother, so mayest thou requite my soul.' But Symmachus has, 'If I did not make my soul equal and like to one weaned toward its mother, so let it be requited to my soul.'

That is: 'If I did not fear thee, like an infant just now weaned from the breast and standing in awe of its mother, and subject myself to thee, but instead held a lofty mind, I count myself worthy to receive the same recompense,' he says.

'Let Israel hope in the Lord, from henceforth and for evermore.' The prophetic word has shown for what reason it made the recital of its good deeds.

For not to glorify themselves do they recount their own virtue, but to rouse others to the like zeal.

'A Song of the Ascents.' This psalm bears much kinship to the eighty-eighth.

The psalm placed before it also made mention of this, and clearly taught the moderation of his disposition.

'How he swore unto the Lord, and vowed unto the God of Jacob.'

'If I shall enter into the tabernacle of my house, if I shall go up upon the couch of my bed;'

'If I shall give sleep to mine eyes, and slumber to mine eyelids,'

'and rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.' These things the history of Chronicles teaches more clearly.

For first he himself besought the divine One that he might build a temple.

But since God, through the prophet Nathan, forbade it, and foretold the building that was to be by Solomon, he deferred the building, yet did not embrace ease;

rather, he gathered together gold and silver and iron and bronze and timber and stones.

And all these things, as I said, that book teaches those who are willing to consult it.

'Behold, we heard of it in Ephratha, we found it in the plains

of the wood.' He besought to build a temple for God;

but the only-begotten Word of God promised to build for himself, from the fruit of his loins, a temple both living and rational.

'Behold, we heard of it in Ephratha, we found it in the plains of the wood.' Now Ephratha was the name of that which is now called Bethlehem.

And since there were two tabernacles — the one of stones and timber, the other of body and soul; and the one came to be in Jerusalem under Solomon, while the other in Bethlehem the grace of the all-holy Spirit wove together —

The godly of that time saw the one thing, but were still awaiting the other;

and so the prophetic word fittingly said:

'Behold, we heard of it in Ephratha' — that is, that it would come to be through the Holy Spirit,

built by Solomon according to the promise given through the Spirit.

'Let us go into His tabernacles; let us worship at the place where His feet stood.' He changed the tense,

and they say: 'Entering there we worship,' believing that the temple had been counted worthy of a divine manifestation.

For this is the sense of the words 'where His feet stood.' For we believe that the Deity is not only incorporeal, but also uncircumscribed.

But the divine Scripture speaks of Him in a more bodily manner, measuring its words to human ears.

'Arise, O Lord, into Your rest.' They call the worship according to the Law the 'rest' of God — not that He needs it, [nor that He takes delight in it,] but that He welcomes the piety of those who offer it;

and again they entreat that His grace may be manifested, and that He may give to the temple its former splendour.

'You, and the ark of Your sanctuary.'

Since the ark, containing the tablets of the Law, lay in the Holy of Holies, and upon it rested the mercy-seat, and through it certain intimations of the divine manifestation were made to the high priest, he fittingly made mention of the ark.

For God, who made heaven and earth, according to the words of blessed Paul, 'does not dwell in temples made with hands.'

So too the wise Solomon prayed:

'If heaven, and the heaven of heaven, will not suffice You.' This the God of all things Himself also said:

'Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet.

What kind of house will you build Me? Or what is the place of My rest?'

'Your priests shall be clothed with righteousness, and Your holy ones shall rejoice.' When this comes to pass, he says, and the house is built, and the ark is again placed in the inner sanctuary, the priests, performing the worship according to the Law, shall be justified, while those who have not partaken of the priestly dignity, but have nonetheless been zealous for piety, shall be filled with all gladness.

Then they call to mind the promises that had been made.

'Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne.' This is one promise, and it has already received its fulfilment.

For not Solomon alone, but also those descended from Solomon, were counted worthy of the royal thrones.

For this too the blessed Isaiah foretold:

'For unto us a child is born, a son also is given to us, whose government is upon His shoulder; and His name is called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counsellor, mighty God, potentate, prince of peace, father of the age to come, amen.' And a little after:

'The other, however, God did not give unconditionally.'

For which reason the throne was seized by tyranny, and ten tribes received the kingdom of another;

'You promised to rest upon Sion forever.'

And this too has met with its fulfilment.

For even though the old temple became desolate through the madness of the Jews, yet there again, by divine grace, the sites of the Cross, of the Resurrection, and of the Ascension were counted worthy of honour;

and from every land and sea all men run together to draw the blessing that gushes forth in those places.

'Here I will dwell, for I have chosen it.' This too has reached its fulfilment, and a certain exchange of the houses has taken place.

And the prophetic word also made mention of Sion.

And in that place is the site both of the Cross and of the Resurrection.

'Blessing I will bless her prey.' But Symmachus renders it: 'Blessing I will bless her provision.'

That is, 'I will furnish them with an abundance of all good things.'

'Her poor I will fill with bread.' 'And I will supply to those in want the necessary provision of things needful.'

'Her priests I will clothe with salvation.' What above he called righteousness, here he named salvation.

'And her holy ones shall rejoice with rejoicing.' And the lovers of piety shall be filled with all gladness of heart.

Since he transmitted the rule neither to his descendants nor to his children, one could not rightly name him a 'horn,' having ruled for but a short time.

For the horn signifies something strong and enduring.

And since the prophecy does not fit Zerubbabel, the word foretells the birth of Christ according to the flesh.

So too the blessed Peter said in the Acts:

'His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon Him My sanctuary shall flourish.' Now of the shame the Jews are witnesses, who embraced enmity and reaped shame.

After the return from Babylon, however, they again came together, and loved concord, and had one rule, and performed in common the worship according to the Law.

These things, then, this psalm foretells.

He calls the tribes 'brothers,' since the tribal chiefs from whom they take their names were sons of one father.

'Like the ointment upon the head, that runs down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron.' The high-priestly oil was composed of various fragrant spices;

but none of those spices by itself gave off so great a fragrance, whereas the mingling and blending of them all produced the fullest possible sweet scent.

To this he fittingly likened the concord of the brothers.

For the joint contribution of the many good deeds produces the fragrance of perfect virtue.

'That runs down upon the hem of his garment.' 'The gift of love,' he says, 'resembles that ointment, which was poured upon the head of Aaron, yet did not descend only as far as the beard, but sanctified even the part of the tunic about the breast.'

For by 'hem' he named what we call the collar.

This also Aquila called 'the mouth of the garments.'

just as it filled it, so from the head down to the subjects the benefit that comes from concord makes its way.

'Like the dew of Hermon that comes down upon the mountains of Sion.' Again he passed to another image, teaching the usefulness of concord;

and he said that it resembles the dew which is borne from Hermon to Sion.

And so abundant is this dew that it even sends drops down upon the roof-tiles.

it is a mountain, and it too belongs to Palestine, distinct in territory from Israel.

'For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life for evermore.' Not in Hermon, but in Sion, in which also the life-giving dew of the all-holy Spirit was sent down upon the holy apostles, through which all who believe reap the eternal blessing.

A Song of Ascents. This one too suits those who returned from Babylon.

And it offers to all the godly an exhortation, that they should praise God not only by day but also by night.

For it is proper to those who have received the wounds of sin to weep, and to lament, and to entreat the divine loving-kindness.

'You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.' Having enjoined them to sing praise, he also taught the manner of the praise.

For everywhere the divine Paul enacted that holy men should lift up hands;

and not least in consecrated places is it fitting to offer to God the worship that is due.

For the night is well suited to praise, affording much quiet, and being freed from the many disturbances.

And the lifting up of hands he enjoins as the custom that has prevailed.

'May the Lord bless you from Sion, He who made heaven and earth.' For lest anyone should suppose that the God of all things was circumscribed within Sion, he fittingly showed Him to be the Maker of all things;

for by 'heaven and earth' he comprehended the whole creation;

for in heaven are angels, and on earth are men, and the things that came into being for their sake.

A Song of Ascents. This is another hymn of praise, and the same in kind, offered to God by those who had obtained their freedom.

As for the 'Alleluia,' we have already given its interpretation.

'And he praises the name of the Lord.'

'Praise the Lord, O you servants.' Since the divine nature is invisible, yet he exhorts them to hymn it, he fittingly said, 'Praise the name of the Lord.' Be content, he says, with the appellation of God, and do not seek to behold what it is not lawful to behold.

'You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.' Having been delivered, he says, from the bondage of the Babylonians, and now enjoying the beauty of the divine courts, sing praises to him who is the giver of these good things.

'Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.' Let the goodness of him who is hymned be the occasion of your song of praise.

'Sing praises to his name, for it is a lovely thing.' From this too great gain accrues to you.

Then he makes mention of the benefits that had been shown toward them.

'For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, and Israel for his own possession.' But Symmachus renders it thus:

'And Israel as his own special treasure.'

He deemed him worthy, he says, of greater care, and called him his own people; and though he takes thought for all mankind, for this one he has been concerned in a special way.

These things the blessed Moses also declared:

'When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered abroad the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God;'

'and the Lord's portion came to be his people Jacob, the lot of his inheritance Israel.'

...strength, and that in no way will the gods worshipped among the other nations be able to be compared with him.

For no one, in truth, compares that which in no way exists with him who exists and ever exists.

Then from creation he demonstrates the power of God.

'Whatever the Lord willed, he did, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.' The things that came to be are commensurate not with his power, but with his will.

For he was able to fashion many times more than these, and far greater;

but he willed things of just such number and such kind.

Nevertheless all things are his works: heaven and the things of heaven, earth and the things of earth, sea and the things in it.

By 'deeps' he means the boundless multitude of the waters.

He called them 'seas' in the plural, since the one sea is divided into many open waters.

For there is the Atlantic gulf, and the Ocean, and the Tyrrhenian, and the Ionian, and the Aegean, and the Arabian, and the Indian, and the Euxine Sea, and the Propontis, and the Hellespont, and many other open waters, many times more than those named.

'Bringing up clouds from the ends of the earth.' For by the divine Word the downward-tending nature of the waters is drawn up, and becomes suspended aloft, and waters the mainland.

He said that it is brought up 'from the ends of the earth,' since it is formed from the waters of the sea.

And the 'ends of the earth' are the gulfs of the sea.

'He made lightnings for rain.' By the lightnings he foretells the supply of rains, and shows a marvel most paradoxical of all.

For the fire of the lightning, coursing through the waters, neither heats them nor is itself extinguished.

'He who brings winds out of his treasuries.' He does not say that there are certain treasuries or storehouses of winds, but since the divine will, when it so wishes, often easily sets in motion the air that was windless, he called it a 'treasury of winds.'

For at the same moment that he gives the nod, they come forth from every quarter.

Having thus pointed out the common work of creation and providence, he next recounts the benefits shown to the Jews.

'Who smote the firstborn of Egypt, from man to beast.' He placed the last plague first, since after this one they received their freedom.

'He sent signs and wonders in your midst, O Egypt.' By these he made plain the manifold miracles and chastisements.

'Upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants.' For the kingly dignity did not suffice to deliver him from the God-sent scourges; rather, both the ruled and the ruler fell into the same calamities.

Thus also the God of all said to the great Moses:

'Behold, I will smite every firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits upon his throne, to the firstborn of the captive maidservant who is at the mill.'

'Who smote many nations.' Those who long ago dwelt in Palestine.

'And slew mighty kings.'

'Sihon king of the Amorites;'

'and Og king of Bashan.' Of these the divine Moses destroyed the kingdom.

'And all the kingdoms of Canaan.' These the blessed Joshua subdued, and distributed to the people the lands and cities that had been held by them.

This too the Prophet says here.

'And gave their land as an inheritance;'

'an inheritance to Israel his people.' For just as a certain paternal lot, the land that had long been held by those impious kings, their God gave to Israel.

'O Lord, your name endures forever, and your memorial from generation to generation.' For the greatness of the wonders wrought by you has taught all men your name;

and indeed, for the generations to come the memory of your benefits will be preserved.

'For the Lord will judge his people, and concerning his servants he will be entreated.' For you will not overlook us when you see us assailed by our enemies, nor will you bring upon us punishment worthy of our sins, but you will be gracious and kindly disposed;

having thus shown the power of the God who truly is, he ridicules the weakness of those who are called gods but are not.

And since he named them gods, he exposed them as bereft both of the reality and of the appellation.

...of the hands of men. Our God, he says, is the maker of all things, whereas those idols not only possess no creative power, but even received their very form from human craft.

For their constitution is from matter and craft.

'They have mouths, but they will not speak; they have eyes, but they will not see.'

'They have ears, but they will not give ear.' They have, he says, images of the senses, but are deprived of their operation.

'For neither is there breath in their mouth.' But of this even the nature of the irrational animals partakes;

for each of the living creatures breathes.

But the idols do not share in this even in the manner of the irrational animals.

'Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.' They deserve to partake of this same insensibility, both those who fashion them and those who worship them.

For it is just that those who partake of reason, yet suppose to be gods things bereft of life and reason, should share in the irrationality of those things.

'O house of Israel, bless the Lord.' Those men, he says, render such great service to lifeless idols;

but do you hymn the Maker of all things.

And he enjoined that each order should hymn him by itself, thereby showing the distinction.

'O house of Levi, bless the Lord.' Here again is another distinction.

For the Levites are more honored than the rest, but inferior to the priests.

Therefore, lest these too should snatch at the priestly dignity (for they dared this even of old, while the divinely inspired Moses was still living), he necessarily separated these also from the priests.

'You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord.' This too is another rank, one not deriving its descent from Jacob, yet embracing his piety.

And thus they used to name the pious 'proselytes.'

And this too is sufficient to teach the Jews that the God of all prefers kinship of character to kinship of the body.

'Blessed be the Lord out of Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem.' Being blessed, God blesses;

but he blesses in deed, while he is blessed in word.

And those who hymn him offer words, but he in return gives back the blessing that comes through deeds.

He said that He dwells in Jerusalem, not confining the divine nature there, but knowing that at that time the divine manifestation was there.

This hymn too the prophetic grace composed for them, working out their benefit by means of many lessons.

'Give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever.' Offer to God, he says, the hymn of thanksgiving, remembering the good things bestowed by Him, and marvelling at His immeasurable mercy.