Open thou mine eyes, and I will consider the wonders of thy law. He knows that a cloud of obscurity stands in the way of mortal and bodily eyes. He knows that those things which are commanded corporeally in the law are a shadow and a glass of things to come. He reads the law indeed, but he longs to behold the wonders of the law. He remembers that the sabbaths are holy, but he desires to be in the rest of the eternal sabbaths. He uses unleavened bread indeed, but he hastens to cast out the leaven of the old nature. He sacrifices the paschal lamb, but he longs to stand beside him who is revealed through John, the Lamb. He satisfies the law of the seventh year, but he demands to be himself free when the seven thousand years of the age have been completed.
He fulfills the law of the jubilee of the fiftieth year, but he hastens to obtain the remission and renewal of Pentecost. He knows that by the command of God both the altars were instituted by Moses according to the pattern, and Aaron was clothed with the priestly habit and adornment, but he hastens to take part in the ministries of the Prince of priests, in whose likeness these things were done. He also, now a pilgrim of this whole world, prays to be led into the holy land, the land flowing with milk and honey. All these things indeed they perform corporeally, but Paul understands this otherwise, saying: For we know that the law is spiritual. Therefore the prophet prays that he may behold the wonders of the law, which are foreshadowed to veiled eyes:
namely, that, being freed from the frail body, he may behold these things which through the corporeal observance of the law are prefigured great and wonderful in the heavens. He is not changed as one praying. For after these things he says: I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not thy commandments from me. A sojourner dwells on a land not of his own right, but as a foreigner and pilgrim he knows the fruit of temporary labor from it; the apostle knows the order of this sojourning, saying that we must journey away from the body and remain with Christ. And so the prophet, beholding by faith certain images of heavenly things, though he dwells in a body, nonetheless dwells in a thing not his own, with the eyes of his mind lifted up to heaven. He knows that treasures are to be laid up in heaven, that where the treasure is, there shall be his heart also.
That man was not in his own understanding a sojourner of the earth, who in the Gospel parable builds barns capacious for enormous crops and exhorts his soul to delights through abundance—a fool, to be deprived that very night of that very soul! Therefore the prophet, confessing himself a sojourner, prays that the commandments of God be not hidden from him. For no one, unless he is a pilgrim of his own body, is worthy of the knowledge of the commandments of God. And since the commandment of God is lucid and enlightens the eyes, it will now seem absurd for him to have said that the commandments of God should not be hidden from him, which have this by their nature, that they are both lucid and enlighten. But the negligence of the ears brings difficulty of understanding. For there the commandment is lucid and enlightening, here the commandments are hidden.
The commandment is lucid, through which we are enlightened to behold the light of the commandments. Through the commandment which is first in the law, by which we are to love God with the whole soul and with the whole strength, we are made worthy also of the enlightenment of knowledge. And as we shall pass from glory to glory, so also in the light shall we see light, so also through a glass shall we one day behold the very face. For through this commandment of the corporeal life we are now enlightened by the sacrament of baptism and by the precept of God, and we use the light and remain in glory. Through this again, from commandment we shall behold the commandments, through this from light we shall see light, through this we shall be transferred from glory to glory.
But the prophet knows that in the heavens there are many commandments of God, he knows that through the diversity of ministries there are diverse observances of the precepts—of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, and principalities. These it is surely necessary that, as they are diverse in names, so also they be diverse in offices, yet retaining the perpetual keeping of the commandments according to the firmness of their nature. And for this reason he prays that the sacraments of the heavenly commandments be revealed to him, because he knows that in the body of this earth he is a pilgrim. This is the fourth verse of the third letter: My soul hath longed to desire thy judgments at all times. The speech of this prophet is not common with that of others or of the world;
he lifted the meaning of understanding higher under the signification of familiar words, saying: My soul hath coveted to desire thy judgments at all times. For to many it will seem to have been more rightly said, My soul desireth thy judgments at all times. And perhaps some think that this very thing is contained under these words. But the prophet remembers that it is arduous and most perilous to human nature to desire the judgments of God. For since no one living is clean in his sight, how can his judgment be desirable?—or when we are to give account for every idle word, shall we covet the day of judgment, in which that unwearied fire is to be undergone by us, in which those heavy punishments for the sins of the soul are to be endured?
A sword shall pierce through the soul of the blessed woman, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. If that Virgin, so capacious of God, is to come into the severity of judgment, who will dare to desire to be judged by God? Job, having passed through every warfare and victory of human calamities, who when he was tempted said: The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be his name forever, confessed himself to be ashes, and having heard the voice of God from the cloud, declared that he was to speak no further. And will one dare to desire the judgments of God, whose voice from the heavens not even so great a prophet endured, nor could the apostles standing on the mountain with the Lord bear it? And so the prophet held to the measure both of human nature, saying:
My soul hath coveted to desire thy judgments at all times. For he does not desire the judgment, but he covets that he may desire it: the eager longing of desire, not of judgment, held him. For he covets to desire, namely, that he may remain in such innocence that he may now safely and without the terror of the judgment to be feared desire it, not yet desiring the thing itself through the consciousness of the human condition, but coveting the desire of it, that it may proceed from the consciousness of innocence. But he knows that the coveting of this desire must be continual and unwearied; and therefore he added: at all times, teaching, namely, that no idleness ought to be ours, but that we should always be held by the eager longing of this desire. Then follows: Thou hast rebuked the proud:
cursed are they that decline from thy commandments. O unhappy pride, which disdains to live under heavenly precepts, which by the swelling of an unbelieving mind loathes the divine commandments! Very many are the crimes of human vices, and diverse and innumerable the workings of sins; but there is no greater cause against us before God than pride. For thou hast rebuked not the greedy, not the wanton—to whom surely rebuke is due—but the proud; because many through pride, whereby they despise human things, spurn also to obey God. But though other works of faith be illustrious and devotion abide in all keeping of divine things, yet when pride creeps in, the memory of the things we rightly do shall be abolished.
With how great labor did that man of the Gospel set himself in the way of life, that he might not be rapacious of another's property, that he might not be injurious to anyone, that he might not be dissolute in adulteries! He labored, fasting twice on the sabbath, and by abstinence from food he subdued his own body with mighty virtue. Then with how great labor, to conquer avarice, did he confer the tithes of his substance for the use of the needy! What is more illustrious than these things? What more difficult than their work? But he fell into a snare, saying: For I am not as this sinner and publican; and unhappy man, by this vice he fell from mighty works into crime, and, made insolent through this glory of his virtues, withdrew less justified than the publican. But what shall we say of him?
The apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, against whom the devil wrestled with every art of his power, received an angel to buffet him, that through the unwearied troubles of all his sufferings no occasion of pride might creep in through leisure of time. He too, laying down a certain law for choosing and appointing a priest, when he had already placed him among those things in which one is worthy of a bishop, forbade a neophyte to be chosen, lest he should be proud, saying: not a neophyte, lest being puffed up he fall into the judgment of the devil: that is, lest through recently obtained grace of regeneration he grow insolent; he wills that one first tried by much warfare of sufferings, and by many services of faith, should be chosen.
For God does not despise a humbled heart, and the best sacrifice is a contrite heart; because whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. And therefore cursed are they that decline from thy commandments, because the proud are rebuked: because through the pride of an insolent mind we both despise human things and neglect divine things. But the word here placed is not to be heard negligently. For it would have been ready to say: cursed are they that do not obey thy commandments. About the one and about the many commandments we said fitting things in the earlier verse. But cursed are they who, instructed through this doctrine, decline from the commandments of God, that is, through the desires of present vices fall away from the hope of the eternal commandments.
For he who declines avoids that in which he is and is led from one part into another, and departs from the path by a certain deviation. Even the one who declines but slightly, therefore, from the commandments of God, the sentence of the curse comprehends, that we might understand of how great peril it is a matter to be wholly ignorant of those things from which to decline is accursed. Remove from me reproach and contempt, because I have sought out thy testimonies. Sins are worthy of reproach; and therefore sinners shall rise up unto eternal reproach. But that all sins are worthy of reproach, let us learn in the Gospels, then when the Lord began to reproach those cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, and they had not repented—and Bethsaida.
Because it was so from those cities, it must needs be that it becomes equal against all who are guilty of the same crime, and then he reproaches the human race, not repenting nor pressing on into the evangelical way, with that which is contained in the psalm: What profit is there in my blood, while I go down into corruption? For he reproaches the proud and accursed, why they have thought there to be no profit in the sacrament of his blood and death, since he was for our sake both born and suffered and died. The prophet also held to the account of human weakness. He knows that there are certain things which through the mercy of God are to be taken away from us. He knows that God is to be prayed with such a confession of our sins, that, even though we have things worthy, yet we may not be arraigned; for the crime must be confessed, that pardon also may follow.
He knows then that after arraignment the nations pass into contempt, that is, into nothingness; because it is written: All the nations are nothing, and all things that are, are as nothing. But according to the prophet's example we ought to entreat that reproach and contempt be taken away from us in this hope, in this confidence, that we may add to that which is said: Take away from me reproach and contempt, that which follows: because I have sought out thy testimonies. And he seeks out the testimonies of God, that he may not deserve to be arraigned, and he prays that reproach and contempt be taken from him, that he may not leave behind his modesty: confessing indeed that there is in his nature a cause of arraignment and reproach, which he entreats to be taken from him, but through the devotion of the testimonies sought out he hopes it to be taken away.
But the prophet seeks out the testimonies of God not in leisure, nor in the insolence of prosperous circumstances, but he seeks them out while many sit against him, while many speak against him, saying: For princes did sit and speak against me. He knows that all faith of prophecy is hateful to the princes of this world; he knows that the apostles too shall be hateful to all for the sake of the Christian name. Princes sit against the prophet and speak against him then, when they hear Isaiah saying: Hear the word of the Lord, ye princes of Sodom; and give ear to the law of God, ye people of Gomorrah.
For by the counsel of such men Isaiah was sawn asunder, Jeremiah too is shut up in prison, Daniel is cast to lions goaded by hunger, Zechariah is slain between the temple and the altar, the apostles are cut down, sawn apart, crucified, that the faith of God may be taken away, that doctrine may be hindered, that the way of eternal life may be blocked. But steadfast faith spurned these assemblies of princes and these utterances of detraction. For there follows: But thy servant was exercised in thy statutes of justice. While they clamor, namely, and hinder with all their arms, in the exercises of the statutes of justice the spirit of God perseveres. But, as we treated above, the exercise of the statutes of justice and the meditation of the testimonies is that which, since the works of the law are performed through corporeal accomplishments,
yet by exercise, and also by the meditation of the testimonies, a certain preparation of eternal goods is procured through the meditation of things present. But whence the meditation of the testimonies arises, he shows. For he added: and thy statutes of justice are my counsels, confessing, namely, that all his care, all the various and diverse motions of his counsels, are intent upon the statutes of justice of God in Christ Jesus, to whom is glory forever. Amen. DALETH. My soul hath cleaved to the pavement: quicken thou me according to thy word, and the rest. A manifold understanding cannot have in itself difficulty of the words, since, all obscurity of understanding being removed, choice rather abounds, as we behold in the first verse of the fourth section. For he says: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement:
quicken thou me according to thy word. This can be understood also of the assiduity of prayer, as though the prophet, out of confession of sins, prostrate to the earth, cleaved to the pavement. But that we may understand something deeper under these words, we deem it necessary to examine more diligently the force of the words. For he did not say: I have cleaved, but he said: My soul hath cleaved to the pavement, and we are admonished to understand that here he complained of the fellowship of soul and body. And there are many things which admonish us to think this rather probable. For the apostle said: the body of humiliation; the prophet too said: My soul is humbled in the dust; he said again: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death.
Therefore, whether because it dwells upon the soil of this earth, or because things were formed and fashioned out of the earth, the soul, which is of another origin, is believed to have become bound to the body, itself undertaking a very great contest, so that, while it abides within the body, it may tear itself away from fellowship with it, that it may use the body's habitation as though a stranger and sojourner. The prophet, moreover, though earlier in age, is not ignorant of the apostolic saying, that they who cleave to the Lord are one spirit with Him. He knows also of himself: 'My soul followeth after Thee.' Nay more, he reads in the Law: 'After the Lord thy God thou shalt walk, and to Him shalt thou cleave.' Therefore he longs to cleave to this one rather than to that.
But because he remembers that from his association with the body he has contracted no small stain of sin, he prays that, through the Word of God, although his soul be mingled with an earthly and mortal nature, he himself may nevertheless be quickened unto the heavenly life. For he knows that he now cleaves to the pavement and does not truly live; but according to the Word of God, unto whom the dead live, he prays that he may be made alive unto life. Then there follows: 'I have declared my ways, and Thou heardest me; teach me Thy statutes.' Those who lead their life according to the pleasures of the body walk in their own ways. But those who, having forsaken every habit of carnal vices, dwell in God, no longer make their journey in their own way, but in the way of God.
And let us hear this also in Deuteronomy: 'What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and His statutes, which I command thee this day, that it may be well with thee?' Therefore he who cleaves to God is in the way of God. And on what account shall we suppose the prophet to have spoken here, saying: 'I have declared my ways, and Thou heardest me; teach me Thy statutes'? For if he proclaims his own ways, it must be that he proclaims the ways of sin, since whoever is not in God's way is in the way of sin. Yet in agreement with this present saying that other seems to be, which was said:
'I will declare against myself my iniquities, O Lord'; and again: 'The righteous man is his own accuser at the beginning of his discourse.' Therefore the 'declaration' here spoken of is not praise, but a confession of his own ways, that is, a penitent profession of his own sins; and the prophet, being worthy of the spirit of prophecy, first confessed his ways, that is, his sin, so that after this declaration of them he might be made capable of the teaching of God's statutes. Both of which are taught. For when he says 'I have declared,' he shows this confession to belong to the present time; and when he says 'teach me,' it is a prayer concerning the future, because sins must first be confessed, and when the confession is completed, then one must learn.
But the prophet, abiding under the Law, asks to be taught not from those things which were then carried out by bodily ministry, but from those things which, under the appearance of present realities, embraced the sacraments of things to come. 'Make me to understand Thy statutes, and I shall be exercised in Thy wonders.' The present saying is recognized to have distinguished the statutes from their way. And so far as is understood from the very fact, everything toward which one strives by a way is not the same as the way itself by which one proceeds. Therefore the reason must be sought why the prophet prays that it be granted him rather to understand the way of the statutes than to know the statutes themselves. For he remembers that all the statutes of the Law contain within themselves the shadow of the holy statutes:
when after six years' service the Hebrew servant is set free; when the fruits of the seventh year are left to the needy and to the beasts of the land; when after the fiftieth year all things revert into the right of him from whom they had passed away. And because these things which are established in the Law are the way of those in whom their pattern is prefigured, he prays that, understanding the way of these statutes, he may be exercised in the wonders of God — that is, that he may be occupied in the works of the Law, since the Law was established as a mirror of the good things to come. Concerning the following verse I have found that many have held varying opinions, because it was altered by the other translators from the Hebrew with a somewhat different rendering than as it was written by the Seventy interpreters.
For some, in place of what was said by them, 'My soul slumbered,' put: 'My soul dropped down.' But certain of them translated not 'slumbered,' but 'dripped down.' And it is understood that 'slumbered' means one thing, 'dropped' another, 'dripped down' yet another. But for us it is neither safe to transgress the translation of the Seventy interpreters, and indeed both reason and the sense of the words so admonish us, that we may rightly and with probability understand the verse as translated. For with them it stands thus: 'My soul slumbered for weariness.' And all the preceding discourse, as also the following, contains within itself a confession of humility and of infirmity: when the soul cleaves to the pavement, when men confess their sins, when he prays for the understanding of the way of the statutes.
It follows therefore that he now complains that his soul slumbers for weariness of its mortal dwelling — a soul which does not yet understand the way of the statutes, and which even now cleaves to the pavement. And on that account he prays that he be strengthened in the ways of God, because for weariness he slumbers. But here this careful distinction is preserved, that he says he 'slumbers,' not that he 'sleeps'; because he who sleeps is already in the very act of sleep, but he who slumbers, before he sleeps, slumbers. This same distinction is preserved also in another place, when it says: 'Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.' But also in that place where he records:
'If I give sleep to mine eyes and slumber to mine eyelids' — he said the slumber to be of the eyelids, but the sleep to be of the eyes, because it is the function of the eyelids to procure sleep out of slumbering. The prophet therefore, even if he slumbers, does not yet sleep; and on that account, lest slumbering he should fall wholly asleep, he added: 'Strengthen me in Thy words'; that is, that being strengthened through the understanding of all the statutes which he mentioned above, he may not only not sleep, but may now keep fully awake without any slumbering. And he says: 'Remove from me the way of iniquity, and have mercy on me according to Thy Law.' It would have been easy to say: 'iniquity from me';
but though conscious of his own infirmity, since he remembers that in his own body there is a way of sinning, yet through the fear of God he is a stranger to all sin. Therefore he prays that the way of sin, by which it is easy to proceed to sin, be removed from him — that is, that all desires of bodily pleasures be taken away, and that no temptation, nor any of ignorance (by which, as by a way, one goes to sin), may rush upon him. Nor does he pray this of God only, but also that through His Law He may have mercy on him. And through the Law he obtains mercy in this manner, because, as I showed above, it is thus written in the Law:
'And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in all His ways, and love Him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and His statutes, which I command thee this day, that it may be well with thee?' Therefore, since the Law teaches that we must walk in the ways of God, that it may be well hereafter for him who walks in them, and since now the prophet prays that the ways of unrighteousness be removed from him and that God may have mercy on him from the Law, he prays for that very thing which is comprised in the Law, namely, that walking in the ways of God he may be established in blessedness. Then there follows: 'I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten Thy judgments.' Many love a way, but not all love the way of truth.
And whoever enter upon the way of pleasures, or of riches, or of honors, and also those who are scattered about, wandering and uncertain and impious in their doctrines, are indeed in a way, but they are not in the way of truth. But the prophet speaks by the Spirit of Him who was afterward to say in the body: 'I am the way, the truth, the life.' And because this is the judgment, according to what is contained in the Gospels — 'For this is the judgment, that whosoever believeth in Me should have life eternal' — deservedly the prophet says: 'I have loved the way of truth, and I have not forgotten Thy judgments.' For to us these things were said afterward for knowledge; but the prophet both lives and speaks in them. And his discourse of teaching and of confession coheres with itself; for he says: 'To Thy testimonies.'
'O Lord, put me not to confusion,' because by cleaving to the testimonies of the Lord he has merited pardon of his old and former sins. For he knows it was said by the words of God: 'Behold, I have blotted out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist. The Lord is able to remove all these things,' which in us are matters of shame and confusion, if we too can say with confidence: 'To Thy testimonies.' For cleaving to these, we are set free from the confusion of the shameful things and of our former crimes. But all things are concluded in their own order, according to their own subjects. For above he said: 'Remove the way from me'; then he added: 'I have loved the way of truth'; thirdly there follows this: 'To Thy testimonies.' And now he thus ends: 'I have run in the way of Thy commandments, when Thou didst enlarge my heart.'
By steps one has come to this. By the indivisible fellowship of the removed way of iniquity, of the beloved way of truth, and of the testimonies, it came about that one should run in the way of God's commandments. But the way that leads to life is both narrow and beset with tribulation: narrow, because one must enter upon it diligently and cautiously; beset with tribulation, because it is reached through many tribulations and sufferings. And shall the prophet be thought insolent, who glories that he runs this way? But he remembers that between zeal and the confession of humility the strength of his words must be moderated. Therefore, after he had said, 'I have run in the way of Thy commandments,' he added this: 'when Thou didst enlarge my heart.' That heart is enlarged which through faith is opened wide, made capable of the teaching of God. And this was said of believers:
'And I will dwell in them, and walk in them.' Therefore that heart is enlarged in which the sacrament of the Father and of the Son resides, in which by its capacious habitation the Holy Spirit takes delight. Solomon also remembers, saying: 'Wisdom is sung in the outgoings, in the broad places she acts with freedom.' The Latinity of both these words either brings us obscurity or offers the opinion of another meaning. For what we call 'in the outgoings,' the Greek rendered 'in the exodus.' And 'exodus' is properly where, out of many narrow ways, men come together into one open way. But what we name 'broad places,' the Greek named by the same word; yet the Greek speech designates 'broad places' to be breadths, and we suppose these to be the streets of cities.
Therefore Wisdom, who is Christ, is sung in that way into which He has come out to us from many; but in the breadths she acts with freedom, in which she promised not only to dwell, but even to walk about. Therefore the prophet freely runs the way of the Lord, after he had begun to be with an enlarged heart. For he could not run the way of God before he himself was made a worthy and ample habitation of God. Amen. 'Set a Law for me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes,' and the rest. In the first verse of the fifth letter we find an unusual and novel prayer of the prophet. For thus he began: 'Set for me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes'; but it is difficult to follow the reasoning of this verse from the Latin translation.
For, owing to the constraint of our common speech, the force of the word, both Hebrew and Greek, could not be so absolutely expounded. For the Greeks translated: 'Set a Law for me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes.' For in this verse he prays that a Law of the statutes be established for him; and what is in Greek, the Latinity could not unfold to the understanding of the same sense. The prophet therefore prays that the Lord establish for him a Law of the way of His statutes — that is, that by what Law he may understand and know the way of God's statutes. For he does not merely say 'statutes,' but asks for the Law of the 'way.' And what, pray, will the Law of the statutes be?