Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 11/24

So [David], coming to a sense of these things, and being smitten by the reproaches of conscience, and having perceived the all-powerful hand of God warring against him, offers his supplication and confesses his transgression;

and, as to a physician of spirits, he lays bare his wound and asks to obtain healing.

And he sings the psalm, reminding himself of the continual misery which he endured because of his sin, and he entreats God on his own behalf to grant him a sabbath rest, that is, a respite from his calamities;

and the song will fit us ourselves as well, that is, every man who is smitten by conscience for those things in which he knows himself to have offended against the law of God—for we all stumble in many things—and who asks mercy of Him, and presses out from his eyes the tear of repentance.

For if it were not so, how is the psalm brought down even to us and applied to us? For what would another man's confession be to us, if it fitted him alone and none of the rest? It is therefore set before those who have chosen to weep over their own sins, to offer to God the present psalm—that is, the confession—as the sacrifice appointed on the Sabbath, which was a double one, and which brought those who offered it into remembrance before God.

Now the words of the sixth psalm happen to be akin to those contained in the present one.

And the addition seems to send us back to the recollection of the superscription in the sixth psalm;

so that the present words too are 'unto the end, and among hymns, concerning the eighth,'

and that [David] used it as an incantation for the healing of his own soul.

At any rate he offers up a supplication to God, by which he turns away the wrath that hangs over all who sin, and propitiates the good Lord with the words of an exceeding great confession.

'O Lord, rebuke me not in Thy wrath, neither chasten me in Thine anger.'

It is as if one were to say to a physician who applies remedies by cautery and the knife and bitter antidotes for the healing of an underlying affliction:

'Heal me not by fire, nor by cautery and incisions, but by gentle and milder medicines.'

For such a man does not refuse the healing, but the painfulness of the remedies.

So that one might, I think, and quite reasonably, marvel greatly at the reasonableness of the soul of the saints.

For in the slips which it may befall them to suffer—inasmuch as they too are not wholly freed from human weakness—one would see them neither greatly distressed, nor utterly carried down into wrongdoing; nor yet fleeing from and shaking off discipline from God, but rather asking that they may not suffer this in wrath, nor be bitterly reproved;

for this is what it means to be punished.

For it happens to all men sometimes, even unwillingly, to offend against the divine laws;

but the physician of spirits still sets right what has happened, sometimes by measured movements.

For Solomon writes somewhere:

'Chasten thy son, for so shall he be full of hope;'

'for thou shalt smite him with the rod, and he shall not die, but thou shalt deliver his soul from death.' 'For Thine arrows are fastened in me, and Thou hast laid Thy hand heavily upon me.'

So he says that the arrows of God have been fixed in him, and that the hand—obviously the one that pricks—has been laid heavily upon him, and this continually and without ceasing;

for one grievous thing after another often befalls those who are being disciplined by God or who are being tried—things that are wont to cause distress;

as also happened to Job, for one thing after another was frequently reported to him, even though he remained unshaken.

And if one should choose to understand 'Thou hast laid Thy chastening hand upon me' as meaning 'I am exceedingly weighed down and I count the blow most grievous to bear,' he would not miss what is fitting.

For he who lays his hand heavily upon someone places on him a burden hard to carry.

'Therefore chasten me not in Thy wrath,' he says, 'neither in Thine anger;'

'wherefore I beseech that I may not experience yet another wrath.'

'There is no healing in my flesh because of the face of Thy wrath; there is no peace in my bones.'

In simpler terms he intensifies the account of the blow inflicted upon him by the divine arrows, and of the hand laid heavily upon him;

and he says that no manner of healing could be devised able to suffice at all for the affliction of the flesh, that is, for the weariness of his bones, which are all but dislocated.

For their not having peace with one another signifies that they are dislocated and, as it were, have departed from their natural jointure.

And in the more severe afflictions we are somehow accustomed to say this too: 'My bones are out of joint.'

Therefore he says that the sickness of his flesh became to him near to incurable—the flesh being worn out by cares and melted away by bitter anxieties, or also withering in another way through fasting and long abstinence from food and sleeplessness.

And it is nothing strange to call one's own kinsfolk 'bones.'

For if we are members of one another, and we all have been reckoned as one body, what prevents us from calling 'bones' those who are individual members, and most especially the most needful ones? So that the risings-up of one's own kinsfolk—whom we say are figuratively named 'bones'—are harder to bear than war from enemies.

'For my iniquities have risen higher than my head.'

For just as with those in fever the fever, when it withdraws inward into the depths, produces a greater sickness, but when it advances into the open shows a hope of abatement, so also would it be in the case of the soul.

And I say that this is what was said by the Wise Man:

'Be not ashamed to confess thy sins,' and 'Declare thou thine iniquities first, that thou mayest be justified.' For it is among the most absurd of things not to be ashamed before the eyes of physicians, and to lay bare to them even the hidden ailments—for the sake, indeed, of suffering the more greatly [in treatment], but of gaining some check to the forward advance of the ailments—yet not to endure to show to the physician of spirits the ailments that have arisen in our souls, even though He knows all things, even if one should choose not to do this.

He says, then, that his sins have risen higher than his own head;

the phrase 'have risen higher' signifying that they have been laid upon him after the manner of a most grievous burden.

For this the neighbouring verse at once interprets for us, saying that they weighed him down like a heavy burden.

For a burden hard for mind and understanding to bear is the reproof that comes upon one for sins.

Yet the Lord delivers from evil those who have grown sick, saying:

'Like a heavy burden they have weighed heavily upon me.' For the deeds he had dared to commit burdened his conscience, so that he could not bear them, because of the nobility and right-mindedness of his soul.

For the stubborn and hardened man, according to his own hardness, treasures up for himself wrath, increasing his own evils;

should he slip through some snatching-away by the devil, he is grievously burdened in conscience, so that he can neither keep silent nor conceal his own evil.

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Whence, not enduring to keep silent, he disclosed the things that held him fast, saying:

'Like a heavy burden they have weighed heavily upon me' — namely, my iniquities.

But this cannot be said by those who have no perception of their own sins.

For some even take delight and boast in their own transgressions, as though bearing them with pleasure.

By 'head' he means the ruling faculty.

Since by nature wickedness is downward-tending and most heavy, so as to be compared to a talent of lead, only the one who repents perceives its weight.

'My wounds have stunk and festered.'

One might say that the welts remaining in the flesh are the remnants of blows and wounds, if it should happen that one is struck by anything whatever.

But unless these too are treated, they cause no small pain;

and they sometimes widen into ulcerations, and relapse back into their original condition.

Something of this kind is seen to happen also in the souls of men;

for sin strikes, and evil is implanted in them after the manner of a wound, if somehow it be carried through to its end.

But even if one somehow ceases from committing the transgression — that is, from the enjoyment of that strange and abominable pleasure — so long as the power of the desire remains strong and prevailing within him, even if he be somewhat checked by considerations toward the better, he still has the welts of the wounds;

and if it should happen that these persist, they would perhaps pass over, as I said, sometimes even into ulcerations, when the pleasure toward what is base is carried through to its end.

Those, then, who persist in their sins, rejoicing and taking pleasure in them, are like swine wallowing in the mire;

but the one who has slipped once, and then recovered himself, and laid aside the swinish life and — if I may so name it — the swinish perception, and taken up instead a divine perception so as to sense the stench of his own sins, abhors that filthy deed as foul-smelling and unclean.

'All that I did through folly, these things have festered in me,' not being renewed by me, 'and all things will come upon me' as I repent.

Since therefore my iniquities were lifted up in multitude, and became higher than my head, they weighed heavily upon me, and stank and festered — for this cause, healing myself...

'I was wretched and bowed down utterly; all the day long I went about mourning.'

Here he clearly enumerates the things that befall every man, as it were from conscience, whenever he has much dejection — namely over sins and deeds that are not upright.

For it falls upon hearts after the manner of a burden, and does not let them lift up their gaze, but makes them undergo the uttermost wretchedness, so that they seem even to be choked [

shattered] and covered over, and always downcast, and it constrains them even against their will;

and this to the very end, that is, to the uttermost of the suffering, until God shows mercy and delivers from the evil, granting pardon by His assent, and re-nerving the mind to lift itself up at last, and to shake off the dejection, and to take courage so as to be able to prevail and nobly to withstand the assaults of sin;

by which sin he was also compelled to be wretched and bowed down, and to go about downcast every day.

For 'when the heart rejoices,' it says, 'the countenance flourishes; but when it is in griefs, it is downcast.'

And conscience wholly gladdens over all things most excellent, bearing witness to them of a bright and sincere and most praiseworthy course of life;

but it also causes no small pain and renders the countenance downcast, whenever it accuses over faults and wounds the mind with bitter reproofs.

'My loins are filled with mockings, and there is no healing in my flesh.'

Besides these he indicates yet another misery befalling those who transgress.

'For my soul,' he says, 'was filled with mockings.'

The God-inspired Scripture calls 'mocking' the derision from certain persons, that is, the laughter from enemies.

For there are, there are indeed, some among us who are perverse and fond of scoffing, quarrelsome and formidable;

and of their own transgressions they take not the least account to speak of, but they jeer at others, if perchance it happen that these slip and are borne down.

'And this,' he says, 'there being no healing in my flesh' — that is, my flesh so fiercely subdued by the labours of ascetic discipline, that it has become beyond receiving healing.

'I roared from the groaning of my heart.'

He says that he is afflicted and roars from the groaning of his own heart.

For conscience, scourging the heart, makes it send forth groans.

For he who is altogether taken in a fault, and accused by conscience, and who understands that he has offended God, ought not to be slothful, but rather to have his understanding all but drunk with grief, and his heart afflicted as by bitter anguish, so that he even seems to roar as the groans are released from the depth, and from the inmost recesses of the heart a heavy and unutterable sound is sent forth.

'For it was not,' he says, 'that I might become manifest to the many, that I confess with my lips; but in the very heart, closing my eye, to You alone who see the things in secret I showed my groanings, roaring within myself.'

'For I had no need of many words for the confession, but for this the groanings of the heart sufficed, and the lamentations sent up to God from the depth of the soul.'

'Lord, before You is all my desire.'

For the pleasures that draw down the understanding of man toward the works of baseness are out of the sight of the all-pure God;

for He would not look upon that which is hateful to Him.

But every desire that calls toward virtue is watched over by Him.

One must therefore refer it up to God, as it were the fountain of all our desire, so that, offering the whole appetitive faculty, we may be able to say:

'The longing of my repentance, let it stand before You. And my groaning was not hidden from You.'

The Psalmist adds that 'My groaning was not hidden from You,' that we may understand him to be declaring something of this sort:

'For You,' he says, 'the all-beholding, who searches hearts and reins, I make witness of my groanings.'

'For nothing else,' he says, 'has been done by me, except only to be grieved and to weep, because I have offended against Your laws.'

It is the custom of those who lift up their supplications to boil up their groanings from the depth, as I said, since God has given this too to men for a remedy and a respite from the weighing-down pain.

'My heart was troubled, my strength forsook me.'

Again he enumerates the things wont to befall those who are sometimes overcome by bitter pleasure, which in a manner plunders the mind and carries it off to what is not fitting.

For in what manner it befell him to slip, he shows very well.

'For a tumult, that is, a disturbance entered my heart, and my mind too was darkened;'

for as long as it is uncaptured by the pleasures toward what is base, and holds its stance firmly set upon willing, through all fairness, to run the well-natured and choice path of life, it has fair weather and calm, and the greatest tranquillity within itself;

and besides this, the pure light of the sober-mindedness that is from God flashes upon it.

For as the all-wise Paul writes:

he at once declares it to be filled, and all but crams it full of war and battle — on the one hand with good reasonings holding aloof from it as regards the need to cleave to virtue, and on the other with the law of sin dragging it down toward transgression.

And perhaps this too he hints at, that even at midday I passed my life as in darkness through despondency, and by much lamentation I destroyed my strength.

'My friends and my neighbours drew near over against me and stood, etc.'

He speaks of yet another thing wont sometimes to befall the saints, and simply those who are chastened by God on account of sin;

for He withdraws His own grace from them, so that they come even to this degree of wretchedness, that they can find absolutely no one to stand by them or to suffer with them in loving fellowship;

and rather those who are near by kinship, or by disposition, or by some other mode of friendship and intimacy, have come to be in the rank of enemies.

'So of my friends,' he says, 'and of my neighbours, some even openly drew near over against me and stood' — that is, they set themselves against me, like Absalom and Ahithophel;

But they, at the very moment that called for the greatest kindness, stood far off, having fled as far as possible from any affectionate disposition toward me.

And those who sought my soul used violence.

In addition to this, those who sought my soul pressed hard upon me by force.

And those wishing me evil spoke vanities, and all the day long they devised deceits.

For with no one to come to my aid, or to take pity, or to stand beside me, my enemies pressed hard and crushed me, partly with slanders and partly with lying accusations, adding treacheries as well—that is, setting a snare.

And indeed, what did they not contrive in manifold ways, being wont to work evil? And in this manner it befell very many of the saints to suffer.

But it must be understood that Christ Himself also endured these things before us, for our sake and on our behalf.

But I, like one deaf, did not hear, and so forth.

Since, then, I have hoped in Thee, and hope does not put to shame, therefore Thou wilt hearken, because Thou art one who wills mercy, and dost not desire the death of the sinner but rather his repentance.

Therefore I, he says, was like one deaf who did not hear, and I became like those who have no word upon their tongue, who neither hear at all, nor are able to hold any rebuttals in their mouth.

For those who wish to answer their slanderers convict them as liars, defending themselves, clearly, against each of the reproaches, and dissolving the charges of their fault-finding.

But I, he says, did not become such a one;

rather I kept silent, patiently enduring, lest I should make those who hated me more embittered against myself.

For in trials one ought rather to yield, and not to retaliate against one's persecutors in like manner.

That to seem deaf in a time of trial, and to appear as one dumb, is not the work of a brutish insensibility, but rather the fruit of a praiseworthy endurance—this he here makes plain;

for I kept silent, he says, solely because I set my hopes of salvation in Thee, and because I reckoned Thee, above all others, as my vindicator—Thou who also rebuked the friends of Job for speaking harshly to a man being tested and refined, and thereby showed that it is hateful to Thee for any to assail those who are in distress and trial.

But I, having restrained both words and passions, and being all but deaf, placed all my hope on Thee, knowing that Thou dost hear, even though I am deaf toward the blasphemies uttered against me.

Lest my enemies should rejoice over me, and so forth.

I, he says, having hoped in Thee, seemed in all else to be deaf, yet this one thing alone I sought: not to fall under the hand of my enemies, nor that any of those wont to war against me should exult over me, as over one who had utterly succumbed to shaking, and was wholly overthrown, and thrust away by Thee, and had suffered estrangement born of unmixed wrath.

so that they should not speak anything discordant against Thy glory.

For this, and nothing else, is what it means for some to speak great boasts when the saints are being tested.

For they suppose at times that the hand of the Saviour will not suffice to save them, as though it were too weak against their assaults—the very One in whom they have placed their hope.

Just as, for instance, Rabshakeh the Babylonian, using immeasurable prating of the tongue against God, declared:

'Have the gods of the nations, each of them, delivered his own land out of my hand?' For I am ready for scourges, and my pain is ever before me.

My pain is ever before me; perhaps he names as 'pain' the occasion of the pain—that is, sin, which one would not be inept to call a wound of the mind and a blow to the heart.

Indeed, always to remember one's own sin would befit the saints.

'Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of men'; for the one is good and compassionate, and swift to repent over evils, according to the Scripture, whereas the others are harsh and untamed, and often stretch out their wrath to no measure.

for this is what is intimated by 'the slipping of the feet.'

Indeed, to be brought under the scourge when God smites, he counts even welcome, bitter though it be, because of the profit that comes from being disciplined;

for he submits himself to the scourge, and firmly declares that he goes to it most readily.

And this is a sufficient proof of a virtue-loving soul, one that is exceedingly grieved over whatever it may, in weakness, have been carried away to do that is unlawful, but that occupies itself with good pursuits most gladly and most eagerly.

For this, I think, would most clearly show it: to be ready for scourges, and ever to bear the pain before one's eyes—that is, sin, the cause of pain.

For I will declare my iniquity, and I will be anxious over my sin.

Such utterances belong to a faithful soul, one thoroughly persuaded concerning the judgment of God.

He has here set 'I will declare' in the place of 'I declared';

and likewise 'I will be anxious' in place of 'I was anxious' or 'I took thought';

for divine Scripture is at times indifferent regarding the expression of tenses. I did not, then, he says, become a delayer in coming to a change of mind, nor slow to tears, nor reluctant to confess, but rather, as it were straightway upon the track of my transgressions, my supplication to God on their behalf arose.

And this too profits us not a little—I mean, to know the modes of repentance.

But my enemies live, and are made stronger than I, and those who hate me unjustly are multiplied.

But if you understand the enemies as perceptible ones, you will construe it thus:

that I, he says, have wept and taken thought, and offered the tear that accompanies repentance, because I acted wantonly and offended against the sacred laws;

but those who are minded to be my enemies live and are made stronger than I.

The word 'live' is to be taken in these passages as meaning: they are at the height of their power to accomplish whatever they might wish against me.

Thus we ourselves too are often accustomed to say concerning one who is most vigorous and of robust movement, that so-and-so, for instance, is a living man;

for the righteous man would not have asked from God the death of his own enemies, since this is foreign to the good-loving God.

Therefore 'they live' here stands in place of: they are at the height of power and prosperity.

At any rate he adds immediately that they are also made stronger than he;

and he says that those who hate him are multiplied, and this unjustly, clearly through a divine turning-away, which befalls even this man who is being scoured on account of his transgressions, and who is beset with toils and trials.

For if it should befall anyone to suffer God's turning-away, and to be found out of the sight of Him who knows how to grant all safety and succour, that man will be hated even by his old friends, though there be nothing severing the friendship or causing the estrangement;

for this, I think, is what it means to be hated without cause—that is, unjustly.

And who these might be that hate him unjustly, he again makes clear in these words:

For those, he says, who repay me evil for good, were accusing me—and not for anything absurd, but for the very things for which I ought rather to have been praised, namely that I became a lover of righteousness.

For those who offend against God, as I said, find even their former friends to be enemies, whetted for no reason and raging in vain and to no purpose, and eager to render evil in return for good.

Having therefore laid bare his wounds before the God of all, he seeks the loosing of the things that have befallen him, and asks for the dressing of the wound from Him who smote.

For it is written that 'He who smites will also bind up the wound.' And the binding up and deliverance from what has befallen would be this: not to be utterly abandoned by God, but rather that He should give heed to stand by, to defend, and to save him.

And he calls God the Lord of his salvation;

for by His nods the way of salvation will be easy to travel and smooth.

And he refers us to the end, since he laments as a tragedy the meanness of human nature, and points out its end.

And there is a very great resemblance of the present ode to the psalm that precedes it:

'I will guard my ways, that I sin not with my tongue,' and so forth, 'I kept silence from good things.'

A clear proof of a heart firmly established.

For since the sin wrought through the tongue is manifold, and almost the beginning of every sin comes about through speech, I made, he says, a covenant with myself, that I should not sin with my tongue, seeing that one must render account even for an idle word, and that by one's own words one is either justified or condemned.

And how would it have been sinning, to retaliate against those who reviled him? To this we will reply as the wise Peter teaches:

'So that no one should render evil for evil, or reviling for reviling.' And Paul said, 'When reviled, we bless; when defamed, we exhort.' And concerning the Saviour Peter says:

'Who, when reviled, did not revile in return; when suffering, did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.' And the phrase 'from good things' he has set down honourably in place of 'in return for evils';

just as, indeed, it is customary often to call those who have been injured in their eyes 'seeing ones.'

And you may understand it in yet another way.

For not, he says, being one of those who are by custom liable to be dishonoured—who, even unwillingly, must bear the reproaches of their rulers—but being one among all good things, inasmuch as I was crowned even with royal glory, I nevertheless bore the dishonour, and set a guard over my mouth.

Yet not suffering this out of insensibility, but out of choosing to live wisely, and to humble myself in the eyes of God.

My heart grew warm within me.

The remembrance of sin, he says, became like a fire within my heart.

Or, since it is customary for those who are angry to be inflamed, as the blood about their heart seethes, he says, 'My heart grew hot within me' over the things for which I was reviled.

He then went on to speak in accordance with what happens in the case of fire.

For the warmth of the flame precedes the fire itself.

First, then, it grew warm, and afterward it was kindled.

While I was meditating on virtue—clearly on the forbearance of wrongs—a fire was kindled within my inward parts.

For griefs consume even the very souls of the saints, yet nothing born of anger and wrath is carried through to its completion.

To grow warm is perhaps something beyond us and not within our power; but to be able to check it by better reasonings is attainable for the saints.

But to be able to check it by better reasonings is attainable for the saints.

'My heart grew hot within me,' he says, yet I did not bring my anger forth to the outside, but I held it within myself and, as it were, stifled it, neither saying nor doing anything out of wrath, but only while meditating upon and turning over in my mind the reviling, being inwardly inflamed by grief.

That this is the noblest of achievements, Solomon will teach us when he says:

He who masters his anger is stronger than one who takes a city. [I spoke with my tongue.]

Concerning the things about which I kept silent, he says, not holding my justification as acknowledged, I sought to receive from the Lord an unambiguous assurance concerning such silence and muteness, and concerning all the other things that must be done in life, that I might discern with certainty what kind of thing is the deficiency in my perfection according to virtue, so that, in proportion to the transgression, I might display both repentance and correction. [That I may know what I lack.]

I for my part think that there is something unconvincing in such statements of those who have interpreted in this way.

Yet since he was plainly making his supplication for the forgiveness of transgressions, it was hardly the fitting time, perhaps, for him to be pressing to learn what was lacking to him in respect of virtue.

Rather, he ought to have asked for mercy over the things in which he knew he had transgressed against the sacred and divine laws, and not to have made an exact scrutiny of his own accomplishments.

It is exceedingly easy and simple for you, he says, to make known to me, O Lord, the number of my days.

For I know that you hold them measured out for me upon the earth.

Since all the substance of my life has been reckoned and discerned as nothing before you.