Commentary on the Psalms (Fragments) 1 part 39/40

Each one who is piously disposed, having renounced the human will, prays to possess the will of God, saying: Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God.

wherefore also, since He does the will of those who fear Him, He turns His own will into deed — the will which the God-fearing one chose to have as his very own.

And it makes no difference to speak of the wills in the plural or the will in the singular;

for His wills are the virtues taken according to their several kinds, while His one generic will is virtue universal and common.

He who wishes to be guarded by Him, so that the evil one may in no way touch him, let him love God with his whole heart and soul and strength.

For those thus guarded by Him because they love Him, there have been prepared by Him the things unfailingly promised, concerning which it is said: Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love Him.

By 'mouth' he means not the sensible one but the intelligible, concerning which also in another psalm he said to God: You shall open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise.

the name of the Lord which is invoked upon it, concerning which the disciples of Jesus are taught, praying among other things to say: Hallowed be Your name.

And all that flesh blesses His holy name — the flesh concerning which it is said: Hear my prayer;

and moreover: And all flesh shall see His salvation.

These things are not said of sensible flesh, but of that which bears an analogy to the fleshly hearts, concerning which God says: I will remove from them their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh, upon which the spiritual law also is engraved — Paul saying concerning this that it is written not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.

The hymn is sent up to God not by ordinary people but by the one who keeps festival to God in doing what is fitting and in remembering Him with right and pious understanding.

For Haggai is interpreted 'festival,' and Zechariah 'remembrance of God.'

Everyone, therefore, who acts unceasingly according to the practical virtues keeps not one but many festivals, and is named Haggai in the Hebrew tongue;

but also everyone who remembers the goodness of God through all the things in which he has fared well and been benefited is called Zechariah in the Hebrew speech, being interpreted 'remembrance' — that is, of God.

Praise the Lord, O my soul.

But when will you do this? Both now and, as it were, always you will do it;

namely, whenever you approach, in deliverance from sins, with the uprightness that comes by virtue and by the knowledge of the truth;

For praise is fitting for the upright, since praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner.

for as long as I live — and I live always, having eternal life — I will praise.

It is shown through the foregoing that no one who has death — which every soul that sins dies — is able to praise the Lord.

I will sing to my God as long as I exist.

It has often been interpreted that to sing psalms signifies to act according to virtue.

Therefore he promises a harmonious action to accompany the 'I will praise.'

And the phrase 'as long as I exist' suggests such a thought:

as long as I exist, having a share in Him who said, 'I am He who is,' I will sing to Him who bestows existence upon me — since no one separated from the God who is can sing, inasmuch as he himself has no being.

It is also possible to divide it thus: Do not put your trust in rulers — those who belong to this age and the other evil powers (for these too hold a rule that is subject to change) — nor even in sons of men;

for there is no salvation in them, since they are mortal;

for they cannot bestow the salvation which they do not have of themselves, but only if they have received it from God.

for the Savior alone is the cause of eternal salvation, saying: There is none that saves besides Me.

But blessedness is pronounced not simply on the one whose God is a helper, but on him 'whose helper is the God of Jacob' — Jacob being helped by the God who trips up the principalities and powers and the world-rulers of this darkness.

For he who wages the wrestling against these, having tripped them up by prevailing over them, is helped by the God of Jacob, being himself a son of Jacob according to conduct, in that he does his works.

Being thus helped, he sets his hope on the Lord his God, who in the beginning made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them;

for not only these, but also all the things in them, He Himself made.

And if His works are enduring, much more is He Himself both enduring and mighty.

Take courage, therefore, because He confirms the truth of His words and of the promises in the sacred writings, and He keeps His own pledges throughout the whole age, so that His word and the promises which He promised to His own people do not fail.

And what is the truth of the word? It is the judgment that is to come, and the vindication of those who are wronged in the present life.

For do not suppose, he says, that the pious are overlooked, nor that the blood of God-beloved men goes unavenged.

the eternal nourishment, according to: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled; and according to the prophetic word which says: Behold, those who serve Me shall eat, but you shall hunger.

But if anyone wishes to understand these things also in a sensible manner:

He gave food to the hungry in the wilderness, raining down the manna, and He fed five thousand hungry men; He gave also to Elijah and to Daniel — to the one through ravens, to the other through Habakkuk the prophet.

And He executed judgment for those wronged — for Joseph and Susanna: the one wronged by the Egyptian woman, the other by the elders of Israel; and for David wronged by Saul, and for many others of which Scripture is full to overflowing.

The cast-down are the same as the fettered, differing only in conception;

for either they are hindered from acting and running toward the truth, being unwillingly fettered by vice, or they fall from the height of virtue and so become cast down.

It must be said that the fettered and the cast-down are those who sin in practice, while the blind are those who cast away the sight of the understanding, so that they may not behold the beauties of the doctrines of the truth.

As, therefore, He loosed the fettered and raised up the cast-down by extending to them remission of sins, so He made the blind wise by enlightening the eyes of their heart, being Himself the light concerning which Paul writes: God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in your hearts to give the light of the knowledge of Christ.

Since the passage before us mentions the righteous together with the proselytes, one must call 'righteous' those loved by the Lord who, according to the old Scripture, were well-pleasing to Him, and 'proselytes' those called from the nations to the teaching of the gospel;

and that this interpretation is well-founded, one must hear the Savior saying: Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and to hear what you hear.

Of these righteous men was Abraham also, concerning whom it is written: And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.

And concerning the nations, as being proselytes, one must hear Paul saying: Wherefore remember that once you the Gentiles — and after other things: That you were at that time without God, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel — and a little later: But now you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ;

for He Himself is our peace, and what follows;

and after other things: So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and members of God's household, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and what follows.

Concerning these proselytes Moses also foretold to Israel, saying: If you do not hear the commandments of the Lord our God, the proselyte who is below and beneath you shall be above, and you below, the situations being reversed.

Indeed, before the coming of the Savior, as many of the nations as were eager to worship God came over to Israel to be instructed and were obedient to them;

but now those of the Israelites who wish to come to the faith of Christ approach those from the nations who have believed, in order to receive the gospel citizenship.

In addition to these things, consider whether those just now coming to the worship of God are the proselytes, while those who have passed over and been perfected in it are called righteous;

whence He loves the righteous, but guards the proselytes.

For those who have just come to the word of truth, being not yet strong and firm, need the Lord who guards, so that they may remain unharmed; while the righteous, through their perfection, are made His own and are loved by Him.

He will take up the orphan and the widow — widows not of just any sort, but those who continue in purity and dignity;

so that He may bring them also into the heavenly blessings.

It is possible to say that the orphans who are taken up are those who, for the sake of the worship of God, leave their parents;

such as was Abraham, going out from his land and his kindred and his father's house, God having called him to this;

and moreover James and John, who because of Jesus' summons left Zebedee their father.

Consistently with these, you will say that the widows who are taken up are those separated from their husbands for the sake of perfect chastity, by the mutual agreement of both — of the husband and the wife, I mean — who for the same purpose dissolved the marriage.

But more allegorically, the souls that cast off the devil, who became their father in wickedness, or even a husband, are received up as orphans and widows.

When these have been taken up, the way of sinners, being nothing other than wickedness itself, shall be blotted out by God.

Zion, that which surveys and examines the truth, that is, the perfect soul or the Church of the living God.

'Thy God shall reign for ever,' whose kingdom shall have no end, since His rule extends unto generation and generation.

It has been said in the psalm before this one concerning His unending kingdom, which stretches out unto all ages, and how He holds dominion unto generation and generation.

Wherefore, being content with those things, inasmuch as they fit also the present expressions, we shall say nothing further.

Since the psalm is good, benefiting the one who uses it, on this account, praising Him, declare unto Him that in respect of this it differs not from a psalm of praise, especially from that one which the psalmist utters, singing with spirit and mind, and making melody with the heart.

But if the making of melody signifies acting practically, then to those who have rightly performed this good psalm He exhorts also to praise Christ through theology, so that being perfected in both deed and understanding they may gladden God.

For 'the sacrifice of praise,' He says, 'shall glorify me,' and the Spirit commands the one who is able to offer it: 'Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise.'

And He takes up the meek, raising them onto the earth which they inherit.

And this earth which they inherit is established on high, above.

Wherefore also it is written, 'He shall bring thee up upon the good things of the earth,' and further, 'And He shall exalt thee to inherit the earth.'

And the meek indeed He takes up, but the sinners He humbles down to the earth, those who bear the image of the earthy by minding the things below and the things upon earth.

Thus Paul, being meek, was caught up to the third heaven and even to Paradise, to partake of unspeakable words.

But all those who called their names upon their own lands, by being in the flesh and not having the Spirit of God, are written as having departed from God upon the earth.

Stirring up to thanksgiving those who have obtained so many good things.

'Lead off,' He said, 'in confession, hymning and glorifying Him for the things He has wrought.'

And allegorically He clothes His own divine Word, which is heaven, with clouds that pour down spiritual rain.

For 'Let the heaven rejoice from above, and let the clouds' (which clothe it) 'rain down righteousness.'

From these spiritual clouds He prepares rain for the earth, which Jesus sowed spiritually, that it might bear fruit divided into a hundred, sixty, and thirty, causing grass to spring up on the great and lofty mountains that have an uplifting of soul, so that the herbage of the servitude of men, freshly flourishing, being found, might be nourished unto fullness.

And the servitude of men are the irrational animals.

Concerning the matters here set forth, what has come up has been said in the hundred and third psalm, whence, being content with those things, let us next look on.

He springs up and gives food to the simpler ones among the sheep and cattle of Christ who have believed, saved together with men.

And God gives them food, inasmuch as they call upon Him after the manner of the perfect men, concerning whom it has been said, 'They called upon the Lord, and He heard them.'

And by the young of ravens you will understand those who have believed from among the nations and therefore call upon the Lord, that He may give them spiritual food.

For the raven is unclean and dark.

And such are the wicked demons and those who have clung fast to impiety, whose sons of old, having believed, obtained the heavenly food.

The gates of Jerusalem are the introductory instructions; set over them are the words that resolve difficulties, or those who represent the ranks—of Jerusalem, that is—and who have the ability to silence those who speak against them.

'For He has blessed thy sons in thee,' those who have acquired competence in both deed and understanding.

Or because, thus being her sons, being blessed in her, they never go beyond her, having learned by deed to conduct themselves in the house of the Lord all the days of their life.

And the word, interpreting how He who blessed her sons in her, goes on next to present Him who set thy borders in peace, every war having been banished from her borders, in reference to the Lord who shatters wars and sets the borders of the city in peace.

Calling peace that which He also imparts to her, namely of spiritual nourishment.

But if you also wish to call God's instructive words wheat (with what is any one filled by Him?), you do not err.

For it has been said in the prophet, in the person of God, to the false prophets: 'What is the chaff to the wheat? So are my words, saith the Lord.'

The wheat being His own words, the chaff those of the others—according to the expression.

Just as the wisdom from God is not earthly, nor of the soul, nor demonic, but comes down from above from Him, so also His oracle, not being of the earth, is sent forth upon the earth, becoming to each one of those who are able to serve Him the very thing that is given by the Lord as a saying to those who preach the good news with great power.

Then, this being given and distributed, it will run swiftly to more souls, being the Word of God, so that there is fulfilled the saying, 'Their sound went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.'

For as soon as His ascension took place, straightway the evangelical word passed through all the earth which is under heaven.

In view of what has been said before, it appears to us that these things have been brought in as it were in the manner of a parable, the works of the world's creation being set alongside, by way of likeness, the dispensation concerning the Church.

For just as snow is that which flows down to a place, and hoarfrost after this is dissolved and pours forth waters, so the divine Word, having descended first upon the Jews, after this was poured out upon all.

Wherefore also the sending of the Word and the breathing of the Spirit are fitly signified through the works of the world, since indeed, when the Word came into the world and the Spirit breathed, there went out from Jerusalem upon all the inhabited earth the word of the sacred and saving teaching.

But if one is to take this also with a view to allegory, since it presents the spiritual running of His Word.

For indeed the saying, 'Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow,' suggests that it is not to be understood of perceptible snow.

For how can the soul be made whiter than perceptible snow, since the brightness pertaining to the rational nature is not comparable to the whiteness of snow? To this same meaning there will also run together the saying, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow.'

For sins made white according to bodily snow I cannot even conceive.

Akin to these you will understand also those things cast down like morsels of ice, and the mist scattered like ashes.

There is need of snow and mist for farmers.

For these, coming upon the produce, cause it to increase.

As therefore also upon the good earth, the soul, if the seed has fallen, it is necessary that it come as rain, as dew, so also snow and mist upon our produce, that we, being nourished by all these, may be able to bear fruit.

And you will understand the snow and the ice and the mist as trials brought upon the saints for their testing.

For these, from the opposing powers, seek to chill the love that is in them, since indeed 'As a cistern cools, so does her wickedness cool.'

Against the face of this cold, who shall stand, except one like Peter and Paul, and Job, and Jacob, who said, 'I was scorched by the heat of the day and by the frost of the night'? To these you will take also the words spoken by Moses: 'Let my utterance be awaited as rain, and let my words come down as dew, as a shower upon the grass and as snowflakes upon the herbage.'

For by the same principle by which the words of Moses are likened to these, by this same principle the oracle of God sent to the earth is divided into all the things mentioned.

But what His cold is, before whose face no one is able to stand, is worthy of contemplation.

Lest then, just as His Word, being fiery, is compared to fire, warming and making to boil those grown cold in wickedness, whose love has grown cold on account of the multitude of lawlessness—so again, against the souls of those inflamed by pleasures and passions, there is spoken of a cold of God, before whose face none of those set on fire by the passions will be able to stand, since indeed their hearts have been kindled like an oven, like the flashing of fire, since indeed all commit adultery and are inflamed by unbridled desires.

With these there is in accord the saying, 'From the storehouses come pains, and from the extremities cold,' set down in Job.

The provident Word of God, being sent forth, will melt the snow and the things numbered together with it; but also, His Spirit having blown, the waters shall flow (and by 'Spirit' He means the south wind), the aforementioned things of the snow and their like being changed into these.

But if one must also hear these things spiritually.

The clarifying Word of God, sent forth to explain the things spoken with concealment, will melt the mist, the ice, the snow, so as to make them drinkable, as soon as His Spirit, the Spirit of God, has blown; but also the Word of God, sent into the heart of those who receive Him, will melt the trials and render them invisible; and those boiling with the Spirit, nobly enduring such trials, will dissolve them.

To him who has trodden down and supplanted the principalities and authorities and the world-rulers of this darkness, mystically called Jacob, God sends His saving and creative Word, to make clear to him all the true doctrines of piety.

Then, after the victory, to him who has become clear-sighted and has been shown to be Israel by seeing God with the mind, He sent His statutes and His judgments, that he might work all things with discernment and righteousness.

And upon these, manifesting the greatness of God's gift that has come to the holy nation, He says: 'He has not done so to any nation, but only to Israel' has He done the aforesaid things, before the sojourning of the Saviour.

Yet when Christ, the High Priest of the truly good things, had come, all the nations were filled with the divine Word.

But one might say to this, as the expression itself most clearly shows, that to call the multitude of waters an abyss (for upon it the Lord walked) is as though it were from another principle.

'And the gates of death are opened to thee with fear,' and what follows.

He says that, correspondingly to the abysses, the dragons too were named, being other than the reptiles upon the earth; and in another psalm, in certain things called waters, which are none other than that here named abyss, dragons were said to be.

It is written indeed also in the seventy-third psalm: 'Thou didst break the heads of the dragons upon the water, Thou didst shatter the head of the dragon.'

And one must be persuaded that wicked powers are signified through these, which the Word of God shattered at the time when He also descended even to the abysses.

'But observe,' He says, 'how very precisely the word does not command the dragons in the abysses to give praise, but simply makes mention of them.'

For they are not worthy to praise God.

They are of necessity called to give heed to the hymn which is sent up by all creation to the Lord and King and God of all things.

Fire, hail, snow, ice, the stormy wind that fulfil His word.

All these things, which subsist around the air, were of necessity mentioned as being parts of the whole ordered universe, and as having come into being through the divine Word and ministering to Him.

For apart from the creative Word, which at once traverses the whole universe and presides over its parts, neither snow nor fire nor ice nor tempest nor wind could ever subsist, nor indeed would they operate at all apart from His will.

In this way, then, we must understand these things as fulfilling His word.

It is possible also to call 'kings and rulers and judges' those who live in a transcendent manner and who approach affairs with discernment and careful examination, and 'peoples' those who have believed in a more humble way.

The horn of the people is the Only-begotten Word of God, to whom the saints, addressing Him, said: 'In Thee will we push down our enemies with the horn.'

Wherefore also the Word was named 'unicorn,' according to the saying: 'As the glory of a unicorn is His.'

Concerning Him it has been said: 'There will I make a horn to spring forth for David; I have prepared a lamp for My Christ.'

For He plainly declared that Christ Himself, who was to come according to the flesh from the seed of David, is the horn, whom He prophesies will spring forth after the manner of the sun and of light.

This horn, then, He says will exalt His people, so that when it is exalted it may become manifest to all the nations.

It belongs only to the holy to sing hymns, and not to sinners, since 'Praise is not comely in the mouth of a sinner.'

For 'praise is fitting for the upright.'

But who are the holy ones whose hymn it is? They are the sons of Israel, the clear-sighted, who possess a mind that beholds God, who are also called 'a people drawing near to God.'

And they draw near to God in disposition and inclination, those who possess an enlightened mind and a pure soul, having come at the exhortation of Him who said: 'Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.'

But this does not belong to just anyone.

Indeed it has been said concerning Moses the hierophant that he alone shall draw near to God.

Only those who have put on the new man are able to sing the new song, by thinking and doing the things of the New Covenant, serving in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

These same ones also make up the assembly of the holy, accomplishing the holy and faithful things of David and possessing a most holy righteousness toward God.

Whence also the praise, which is the new song, is found in the assembly of these.

Those who have accomplished holiness—so as even to be named after it derivatively—will boast in the glory that is to come and eternal.

'For I reckon,' says the Apostle, 'that the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.'

It is possible also to understand the glory in which the holy boast as that concerning which it has been said: 'The glory of the Lord shall be seen,' and, 'The glory of thy God has dawned upon thee'—there being no other glory than the effulgence of the glory of God.

Wherefore also it is written: 'He that boasts, let him boast in the Lord.'

In this glory, which is also wisdom, the holy who repose together with it will boast.

'When thou sleepest, let wisdom be with thee.'

Fittingly to these you will say: 'Honour her, that she may embrace thee.'

He who reposes with her, being fearless and without care, exults upon his bed.

Wherefore all the souls of His holy ones, like brides sharing the couch with God the Word, who is the Bridegroom of every rational nature, exult upon their beds.

The exaltations of God, made manifest through hymns and theology, are found in the spiritual throat of the holy, who exalt His name together at the same time.

For praising with much truth, they glorify and highly exalt Him, having in their hands two-edged swords—yet not thirsting for the blood of men, but holding themselves in readiness to avenge every disobedience—since the weapons of their warfare are not fleshly but mighty before God, by which they cast down every contentious stronghold, that is, the lofty reasonings that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.

Well too is it said that the swords in their hands are two-edged, since each word which the holy possess is two-edged after the manner of the living and active Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword.

Wherefore also those who use the words of truth not only cut away falsehoods, dissolving superfluous sophistries, but also wound their hearers into a love of the truth.

It is possible to call both Covenants two-edged swords found in the hands, that is, in the deeds, of the holy.

And it is possible also to call each exhortatory word a two-edged sword, since it does both things: reproving the one who receives it unto repentance, and avenging and punishing the one who disobeys utterly.

He does not say that the holy execute upon the nations that vengeance which leads to destruction, but the vengeance reasonably brought upon them insofar as they are nations and idolaters, so that, casting off the life of the nations, they may become fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.

And consequently they will also work out chastisements among the peoples, since the nations are worse than the peoples: the greater measure of correction, namely vengeance, comes upon the nations, while reproofs come upon the better peoples.

'For reprove a wise man, and he will love thee.'

'Give instruction to a righteous man, and he will increase in receiving it.'

For the peoples will not hate those who reprove them, inasmuch as they are not evil—even if through inattention they sin—whereas those who have been fixed in perfect wickedness are hostilely disposed toward those who reprove them.

You will find this interpretation also in the Gospel, if you attend to the saying of the Saviour which declares: 'If thy brother sin against thee, go and reprove him between thee and him alone.'

'And if he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother; but if he hear thee not, take with thee one or two others; and if he refuse to hear, tell it to the church.'

'But if he also despise the church, let him be to thee as the Gentile and the tax-collector.'

This man, who has become evil through despising all things, is not to be reproved.

For he will hate everyone who reproves him, even if he be holy.