Commentary on the Psalms 1 part 5/42

It has also the buttresses of the eyebrows, which divert the moisture of the sweat to the temples, and deliver the organ of sight from the injury thence arising.

Such careful protection does he implore to obtain.

'In the shelter of Thy wings Thou wilt shelter me.'

[9.] 'From the face of the ungodly who have afflicted me.' Again employing another image, he deems it right to obtain foresight and care.

For he had heard the great Moses also saying:

He names it the security of providence;

for the movement of the wings is most swift.

'My enemies have compassed about my soul.'

[10.] 'They have shut up their fat, their mouth has spoken pride.' Some have interpreted 'fat' as prosperity and good condition.

But to me it seems that he thus names goodwill and brotherly love;

this the sequence of the words makes plain;

for having shut off, he says, all natural compassion, and having given no place to the reasonings of loving-kindness, they utter lofty and overweening things;

and they set for me ambushes of every kind and lyings-in-wait.

'Having cast me out, now they have encircled me; they have set their eyes to bow down to the earth.' They themselves drove me out of my ancestral land;

and again they run this way and that, eager to seize me;

since they will not look upon what is upright;

but they have the eye of their mind bent to one side.

For thus also Symmachus interpreted it:

'They set their eyes to incline to one side upon the earth.' 12.

'They laid hold of me as a lion ready for the prey, and as a lion's whelp dwelling in secret places.' Having cast off the rational element of their nature, they imitate wild beasts craving food, keeping watch for it, and rushing forth suddenly.

'Arise, O Lord, forestall them, and trip them up;

deliver my soul from the ungodly;'

for he said 'trip them up' by a metaphor from those who secretly cast down the runners.

'And deliver me from their plotting, wielding Thy sword against them.'

For thus Symmachus rendered it: 'Unto Thy sword, O Lord, from the few of the earth.'

'For by Thy decree,' he says, 'Thou consignest men to death.'

'And let their belly be filled with Thy hidden things.' But as for me—even though it be easy for Thee to consign them to death—yet I entreat that they be scattered while yet alive, and that their evil concord be dissolved, and that they partake of the punishments laid up with Thee.

So too in the song of the great Moses, God Himself says:

'Are not these things laid up in store with Me, and sealed up in My treasuries? In the day of vengeance I will repay, in the time when their foot shall slip.'

'They were filled with sons, and left their remnants to their infants.' This too Symmachus interpreted thus:

'Sons shall be filled, and shall leave their leavings to their infants.'

'I know,' he says, 'that Thou wilt bring Thy just punishment not only upon them, but also upon their sons and their descendants, who have imitated the wickedness of their forefathers;'

and the phrase 'shall be filled' stands for 'they shall partake of evils to the full.'

'But I shall appear in righteousness before Thy face; I shall be satisfied when Thy glory appears to me,' to Thy Servant;

for they indeed shall pay such penalties;

but I shall revel in the good things that come from Thy just providence, having received the fullest experience of Thy beneficence.

The sense of this psalm is also embedded in the history of the Kings.

It is worth marvelling at the prophet's philosophy.

For, having endured so many plots at the hands of Saul, he did not rank him among his enemies;

but, setting him apart from his foes, he made no mention of him as of an adversary.

The phrase 'unto the end' is prefixed, since it also contains a prophecy of the calling of the nations and the alienation of the Jews;

which things came to pass in far later times.

'I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.'

'The Lord is my firmament, and my refuge, and my deliverer;

my God is my helper, and I will hope in Him.'

With love the prophet requites the benefits;

For this alone is the man who has been well treated able to render back to God in return.

This too God enjoined as law at the very outset of His legislation.

For it says, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.' But upon the love of the beloved there follows service.

For love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

But not enduring to take his fill of love,

he then makes the divine benefits into forms of address, and turns the catalogue of the good things he has obtained into a catalogue of names;

and he calls God his strength, as having partaken of it;

his firm support, as having become steadfast against his enemies;

his refuge, as having God for a wall and a strong rampart;

his deliverer, as having been freed from his foes through God;

his helper, as having obtained succour from that quarter;

his defender, as having God become his champion in the time of need;

his horn of salvation and his upholder, as having been preserved through His providence.

He has set down 'horn of salvation' as a metaphor drawn from animals, which ward off their foes with their horns.

[The kingdom too is called a horn: 'For He will give strength to our kings,'

'and will exalt the horn of His Christ' — that is, the kingdom of His Christ.] Verse 4.

With praise I will call upon the Lord,

and I shall be saved from my enemies. Here we are taught to confess our thanks for the good things already granted, and again to ask for what is still lacking;

'for by doing this,' he says, 'I shall prevail over my foes.'

Then he recounts the manifold assaults of his enemies.

The pangs of death encompassed me,

and torrents of lawlessness troubled me.

The pangs of Hades surrounded me;

the snares of death came upon me before I was aware. By 'pangs of death and of Hades' he means the deadly perils.

For just as the pangs come at the very moment of birth, so the greatest perils draw near to death;

and by 'torrents of lawlessness' he means the unjust and sudden onslaughts of his enemies;

for just as a torrent, receiving the confluence of waters borne from this side and that, dashes down all at once,

so also Saul and the other enemies employed their assaults.

By 'snares of death' he called the ambushes;

for what the snare is to the brute beasts, that is the ambush to those under attack.

For both are contrivances of secret harm.

And in my affliction I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God;

the Lord heard my voice out of His holy temple;

and my cry will enter before Him, into His ears. Though beset by so many calamities, having despised all human aid, I called upon the divine inclining, and I was not disappointed in my hope;

for at once He received my supplications.

By 'temple' here he does not mean the one made with hands;

for it had not yet been built at that time;

for it was Solomon who erected it afterwards;

rather, he thus gave the name to heaven.

And the earth was shaken and became trembling;

and the foundations of the mountains were troubled;

and they were shaken, because God was angry with them.

Smoke went up in His wrath;

and fire from His face will consume;

coals were kindled from Him. All these things he has set down, not as having in every respect come to pass thus, but as thus conceived by faith.

For not only in taking vengeance, but also in striking fear into men, God has often done such things, terrifying them with thunders, and crashings, and earthquakes, and with fire.

Thus too, wishing to strike fear into Israel, He showed Mount Sinai smoking with fire.

And He teaches other men as well not to do the like, that they may not suffer the like.

And He bowed the heavens and came down;

and thick darkness was under His feet.

And He mounted upon the Cherubim and flew; He flew upon the wings of the winds.

And He made darkness His hiding-place.

Here again, recounting the manifestation of God, he instils no small dread into his hearers.

Nevertheless, we know neither a descent nor an ascent of the divine nature;

for the Divine is uncircumscribed, present everywhere, containing all things.

But through these things we are instructed in the diversity of the divine dispensations.

For at one time He appears to men more graciously;

at another, more majestically.

And there are times when, wishing also to instil fear, He shows things strange and unwonted.

So then, the phrase 'He bowed the heavens and came down' let us understand to mean that He revealed His own manifestation.

And 'thick darkness under His feet' signifies the invisibility of His presence;

and the mounting upon the Cherubim and the flight of the winds signify the swiftness of His manifestation;

and 'He made darkness His hiding-place' signifies the invisibility of His nature.

And 'His tabernacle round about Him' signifies the light that is about Him;

wherefore also the blessed Paul said:

He who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light. Dark water in the clouds of the air.

[Verse 13.] From the radiance before Him the clouds passed through. For just as, he says, when the air becomes murky through the density of the clouds it sends forth the flash of lightning, so the God of all, though invisible, both sends out the rays of intelligible light and punishes with the chastising fire those who live in wickedness;

for this he made plain by adding:

Hailstones and coals of fire.

[Verses 14, 15.] And the Lord thundered from heaven.

and the Most High uttered His voice.

He sent forth His arrows and scattered them;

and He multiplied lightnings, and threw them into confusion. These things have often happened in our own days as well;

for in the wars that have lately taken place, when the northern Barbarians came against us, He consumed them with hail and fire; and the Persians who not long ago marched against us from the East, expecting to take our cities without bloodshed, He bound with these fetters and prevented from advancing further;

and some He sent on their way to death, while others He sent forth as messengers of what had come to pass.

And the fountains of the waters appeared;

and the foundations of the world were laid bare;

at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your wrath. This too has happened among us in many regions;

for the earth was moved and parted asunder, and an immeasurable depth appeared upon the lofty mountains, and water was given in waterless places;

the Governor of all does these things, displaying to men His power to punish, and teaching that He is able in an instant to bring utter destruction upon all;

yet using His loving-kindness, He defers the punishment and awaits repentance.

He sent from on high and took me;

He drew me out of many waters. And teaching what he means figuratively by 'waters,' he added:

He shall deliver me from my mighty enemies, and from those that hate me, for they were too strong for me. Manifestly, he says, He showed His care for me to my foes;

for this is what he meant in saying, 'He sent from on high and took me,' that is, He persuaded all men that He had granted me help from heaven.

He deemed me worthy of this providence, having beheld the strength of my enemies.

For 'they were too strong for me,' he says.

They confronted me in the day of my affliction. Here he seems to me to hint at the rebellion of Absalom, which came to pass after his sin.

For by 'affliction,' which Symmachus renders 'misery,' he means the weakness of the soul, through which the sin was committed.

And the Lord became my support.

[20.] And He brought me out into a broad place. When I was being thrust down and cast down, he says, God upheld me, and turned my straitness into spaciousness, granting life in place of the death I had expected;

and this he also says in another psalm:

I was thrust that I might fall, but the Lord took hold of me. He shall deliver me, because He delighted in me. I hope, moreover, that in the time to come also He will deem me worthy of the same help, and I shall prevail over my adversaries, even though they have very great power.

And the Lord shall reward me according to my righteousness;

for I have kept the ways of the Lord;

and I have not impiously departed from my God.

For all His judgments are before me, and His ordinances have not departed from me. He does not, he says, exercise His providence over me unjustly, but knowing my aim and aware that it is my earnest concern to keep all His commandments;

for since he had shown the great care that God had exercised concerning him, he demonstrates the justice of it, exhorting his hearers to virtue, and teaching that it is not possible for us to attain this unless we possess a genuine goodwill toward God;

for the prophet did not wish to lay bare to all a catalogue of his own achievements, but rather to set forth how one may enjoy the divine providence.

And I shall be blameless with Him. And how is it possible to accomplish this? And I shall keep myself from my iniquity. By abstaining, he says, from those things which I did wickedly, I shall be blameless in the time to come;

And the Lord shall reward me according to my righteousness, and according to the cleanness of my hands before His eyes. Then indeed, he says, when I have become altogether blameless, I shall obtain the perfect good things.

For the God of all oversees all things, and it is to good deeds—these he named 'cleanness of hands'—and to the godly aim of the mind that He renders His recompense.

Then he teaches this very thing more plainly.

and with the innocent man You will be innocent.

And with the chosen man You will be chosen.

For to the holy You give what is worthy of holiness;

and to the innocent, and to those set free from sin, what is fitting;

and to the chosen and perfect, what is perfect;

but to those who have turned aside from the straight path and travel the contrary road, You cause them to find the end of their way corresponding to it.

For You will save a lowly people;

and the eyes of the proud You will humble. For those who are either of moderate spirit, or humbled by circumstance, You deem worthy of salvation, and make illustrious;

but those who raise their eyebrows and are slaves to arrogance, You compel to stoop to the ground and to reckon the worthlessness of their nature.

For You will light my lamp, O Lord; my God, You will enlighten my darkness. Since he has often called afflictions 'darkness,' he fittingly names their removal 'light.'

This providence, he says, I enjoy from You;

for the lamp which has received the true light—

he thus names the form of the servant—

is mine, and shall be fashioned from my loins.

And this too he says in another psalm:

I have prepared a lamp for my Christ. [30.]

For in You I shall be delivered from temptation, and in my God I shall leap over a wall. Every plot and every ambush—

for by 'temptation' and 'wall' he means the ambush—

through Your grace I shall escape.

The words of the Lord are tried in the fire. This too I have learned from Your words that cannot lie;

for by 'tried in the fire,' as we have already said before, he means those things that are approved and free from falsehood.

He is a defender of all who hope in Him. Not I alone;

but also all who have this hope in Him shall enjoy the same help.

For who is God besides our Lord, and who is God except our God? For there is no other God;

so that one might grant the request to this one, and another to that one.

The God who girds me with power;

and He made my way blameless. Strengthened by His power, I too press on to walk the straight path.

Making my feet like a deer's;

and setting me upon the high places. For just as He gave the deer by nature to trample venomous beasts;

so He made me stronger and higher than my enemies.

And You have given me the shield of my salvation;

and Your right hand upheld me;

and Your discipline set me upright to the end;

and Your discipline itself will teach me. And You disciplined me when I had sinned, and You raised me up when I had fallen;

and You taught me how great an evil sin is, and You deemed me worthy of salvation.

You have enlarged my steps under me;

and my footprints have not grown weak. In the straitness of affliction You gave the spaciousness of comfort;

Sustained and cheered by it, I have held out even to the present moment.

For the phrase 'Thou hast enlarged me' Symmachus rendered as 'Thou hast made room for me.'

'I will pursue mine enemies, and overtake them;'

'and I will not turn back until they are consumed.'

'I will crush them, and they shall not be able to stand;'

'they shall fall under my feet.' Thus, strengthened by Thy providence, I hope to prevail over all my foes;

and not to desist until I have made them once more subject to me;

for this he intimated when he said:

'They shall fall under my feet.'

'And Thou hast girded me with strength for battle;'

'Thou hast bound down under me all that rose up against me.' To me Thou hast granted courage and might;

but Thou hast fettered the onset of the enemies;

and this is what came to pass both in the case of Goliath and in the case of Saul.

For the one, who was squandering the time for action upon foolish words, he laid low with his sling;

while the other (Saul), fettered by sleep, he easily escaped.

In like manner too he escaped the plots of the men of Gath.

'And Thou hast given me the backs of mine enemies.' That is to say, Thou hast turned them to flight;

for it is proper to those who flee to turn their backs.

'And them that hated me Thou hast utterly destroyed'—Saul, Ahithophel, Absalom, and countless others.

'They cried, and there was none to save;'

'unto the Lord, and He heard them not.' For neither did the foreigners, calling upon their own gods for aid, enjoy any providence from them;

nor did Saul, and Absalom, and Shimei, and the rest of the enemies of the Israelites, have God as their ally.

'And I will beat them small as dust before the face of the wind;'

'as the mire of the streets I will smooth them out.' They shall become utterly gone and vanished, since Thy grace works together with me.

'Thou wilt deliver me from the contentions of the people.' Hence he foretells the madness of the Jews against the Saviour, and the salvation of the Gentiles.

And he exhorts us to have no fellowship whatsoever in their contentiousness.

Therefore it is through Him who was born of him according to the flesh that the prophecy is fulfilled.

as ever ruling over all things as God, but after the incarnation also receiving the willing servitude of those who have believed in Him.

And he says that they who never at any time accepted a lawgiver or a prophet of mine, being called, most readily obeyed and loved my lordship.

'Strange children have dealt falsely with me;'

'strange children have waxed old, and have halted from their paths.' But those who were called sons, and were enrolled in the rank of sons, made themselves strangers, becoming ungrateful for the benefits, halting in the faith, and forsaking the path of godliness.

So too God says through Jeremiah the prophet:

'How art thou turned into bitterness unto me, thou strange vine? Yet I planted a fruitful vine, wholly true.' The one shows His own husbandry, the other convicts their ingratitude.

'They have waxed old and have halted'—Symmachus rendered it: 'They shall be dishonoured and put to shame.'

And the outcome bears witness to the prediction;

for they are full of dishonour, seen as abominable to all.

'The Lord liveth, and blessed be my God;'

'and let the God of my salvation be exalted.' Having recalled the contention of the Jews, he hints at the Passion, and the resurrection after the Passion.

And since the Jews are wont to call the crucified One a corpse, He Himself cries aloud:

'The Lord liveth, and blessed be my God, and let the God of my salvation be exalted.' And He not only lives, but has also ascended into the heavens, and grants salvation to those who desire it.

'It is God who giveth avengings to me;'

'and hath subdued peoples under me;'

'my deliverer from mine angry enemies.'

'Thou wilt exalt me above them that rise up against me;'

'and from the unjust man Thou wilt deliver me.' He, then, who will accomplish these things in far later times, will deliver me also from those who war against me unjustly;

and the people whom Thou hast subdued under me, Thou wilt render obedient.

It is possible to behold the fulfilment of this prophecy;

and of this providence Thou wilt account worthy not me alone, but also my children;

but even unto the age Thou wilt preserve the renown for my seed.

But this, understood in a Jewish sense, refutes the prophecy.

For after the return from thence, Zerubbabel alone held sway, and left no heirs of the leadership.

If, therefore, the prophecy is true—as indeed it is true;

for the Spirit of truth revealed it;

and He possessed this even before the ages, as Maker and God;

but received it again as man, in the last of the days;

wherefore also through the divinely-inspired Ezekiel the God of all said:

This too the blessed Isaiah cries aloud:

'There shall be the root of Jesse, and one that riseth to rule the nations; in Him shall the nations hope.' Having learned these things, the blessed Matthew thus began the Gospel narrative:

For He said that the one law was given to men without writings, through creation and through nature;

'For the invisible things of Him,' he says, 'from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made;' and again:

'For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves;' but the second law was given in writing through the great Moses:

'For because of transgressions,' he says, 'the law was added, ordained through angels in the hand of a mediator.'

And he knows also of a third law, established after these—that of grace;

first, that which proclaims the Creator in the creation;

then, that given through Moses, implanting a fuller knowledge of the Creator in those who are willing to give heed;

after this, that of grace, which perfectly cleanses souls, and frees them from the present corruption;

for the sake of which the psalm too directs us to the end, foretelling the new covenant at the end.

'The heavens declare the glory of God;'

for if one who beholds a very great and beautiful edifice marvels at the builder;

and one who sees a ship well and beautifully constructed considers the shipwright;

and with the beholding of the image there enters in also the remembrance of the painter;

much more, surely, does the creation, when seen, guide those who behold it toward the Creator.

He made mention of heaven and of the firmament in accordance with the teaching of the great Moses.

For that man too first said that the heaven had come into being, and then recounts also the making of the firmament;

which again he called the heaven of heavens, he says.

And let the plural name of the heavens disturb no one.

For it is customary for Scripture to name it sometimes in the singular, sometimes in the plural.

For it says, 'The heaven of heaven belongs to the Lord.' And again:

'To him who covers the heaven with clouds.' But again the same writer, in the plural: 'Praise him,' he says, 'you heavens of heavens.' And the words 'The heaven of heaven belongs to the Lord' have the same meaning. For the visible heaven was fashioned as a kind of roof for the earth;

and the higher heaven is to this one what this one is to the earth.

It is possible to see among us also cities that have a double name.

For indeed we say both Tarsus and Tarsi of one and the same city;

and Thebe and Thebes of the same city.

So too the ancients called it Mycene and Mycenae, knowing that the city named in the plural was but one.

These things I have said not without reason, but because of those who attempt to reckon up many heavens.

'Day to day utters speech;'

For, for the need of mankind, day and night, waxing and waning, borrowing time from one another and again repaying to each other their debt, display the providence that watches over them.

But the words 'utters speech, and declares knowledge, and they recount glory' do not teach that the things seen are living beings;

rather it is a kind of personification, instructing all men to be led up from the things seen to the invisible God, and to offer to him their hymn of praise.

'There are no tongues nor words whose voices are not heard.'

'Their sound has gone out into all the earth;'

'and their words to the ends of the world.' Symmachus rendered this more clearly, saying:

'And night unto night declares knowledge;'

'not by sayings, nor by words, whose voices are not heard, but into all the earth their sound has gone out;'

or, according to Aquila, 'their rule.'

For, uttering neither words nor speech, but pointing to the rule and their own proper order, they call all the earth and sea to the divine hymnody.

'In the sun he set his tabernacle;'

'and he himself is as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber.'

'He will rejoice as a giant to run his course;'

'his going forth is from the extremity of heaven;'

'and his circuit to the extremity of heaven.' And these things the three translators rendered more clearly.

'In the sun,' he says, 'he set his tabernacle among them;'

that is, in the heavens.

For thus also the great Moses taught:

'And God made the two great luminaries;'

so that, borne upon them, he both in beauty imitates a bridegroom coming forth from the bridal chamber with much comeliness;

and in swiftness resembles some giant coursing through with great vigor and strength;

[with nothing standing in his way, or attempting to hinder his forward march;

so also this one rises from the east, and in a single day runs through the heaven and reaches the evening, imparting to every living thing its own proper warmth.] 'And there is none who shall be hidden from his heat.' Here he mentioned 'heat' instead of 'light,' showing the energy of the natural light to be greater than that made by hands;

for even those who are far off are able to enjoy its heat.

For the light made by hands cannot do this for those who do not draw near to it.

But the sun, sending forth its rays even from afar, imparts its heat together with its light.

It would have sufficed even for these things to reveal the Maker to men;

but nevertheless he also gave a law as a help, able to turn back those who go astray.

'For the law of the Lord,' he says, 'is blameless, converting souls;'

'the testimony of the Lord is faithful, making wise the simple.'

'The ordinances of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;'

'the commandment of the Lord is radiant, enlightening the eyes.'

'The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever and ever;'

'the judgments of the Lord are true, being justified altogether.'

'They are more to be desired than gold and much precious stone;'

'and sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.' Law and testimony, and ordinances, and commandment, and judgments—he is calling the Mosaic law;

for thus also the law itself names itself;

'These are the ordinances and the judgments which the Lord gave to Moses.' And elsewhere:

'You shall keep the law of the Lord your God, and shall observe his commandments;' and it is called 'law,' as regulating and ordering the best manner of life.

And 'testimony,' as testifying against those who sin, and pointing out the punishment for transgression;

and 'ordinances,' as teaching what is just and forbidding what is unjust, and declaring righteous those who act rightly;

and 'commandment,' as enjoining and ordering with lordly authority what is to be done;

and 'judgments,' as pointing out the divine verdicts, and teaching what good things he who keeps them will obtain, and to what punishments he who transgresses them will be handed over.

He says, then, that the law of God, being free from every blemish, turns back the souls of men, and renders them blameless.

And the ordinances gladden the heart, pointing out the ground of justification.