Tractates on the Psalms 139.1–139.17

The psalm begins in the person of a man anxious amid many assaults of enemies, against whom there are many snares and more deceits: and all this seems to fit the person of this prophet David, whose life was beset on every side and always full of dangers, with Saul persecuting him in the desert, in cities, by war and by deceits, and his own son Absalom too contriving and daring much against his kingdom and life. Besides, he was always subject to many other snares, both domestic and foreign. But nothing specific from all these is contained in the psalm, so that it might be believed to be a prayer proper to his person. Rather the psalm is recognized to be general, or perhaps from the spirit of prophecy, teaching each one of us by the example of prayer with what kind of prayer we ought to entreat God when we are tossed amid the hatreds of those who assail us.

But as I looked more deeply into certain forces and proper senses of the words, which express something higher and more sublime beyond the habit of human speech, this psalm was found to be understood rather as of that man in whom, from the virgin's childbirth, the only-begotten Son of God was born for the mystery of human salvation. For according to the nature of both kinds that was in him, namely of God and of man, he spoke not only in the Gospels but also in the prophets with words so fitted to both that, while he taught the impassible and unchangeable power of his divinity, he did not keep silent about the weakness of bodily nature either; and again, when the speech in him was of weakness from the taking of flesh, a proclamation of his divinity, in no way weakened, soon stood by. For that he is God belongs to his own nature; but that he was man is the assumption of our nature. So in the psalm he speaks from the feeling of our weakness, which he assumed: when he knows his betrayer, when he foresees the plans formed against him, when he endures the battles of questions and the poisons of detraction, when he avoids the stumbling blocks of temptations and the snares of words, when he confesses to the Father, when he prays to him, when all his strength is from him, when, though anxious from the weakness of the body, he remembers that he will not be left alone on the day of the passion. We are taught, then, that all these things are contained in the psalm in his person: and in such a way that, in what the fellowship of human nature allows, the prayer can also in some measure be understood as of our person.

For its beginning, "Rescue me, O Lord, from the evil man; deliver me from the unjust man," belongs also to the common prayer of all believers. For all the snares that the spiritual wickednesses set before us are fitted chiefly through men, and the perversity of another's nature supplies occasions for our vices. The wicked man stirs us to quarrels; the terror of adversaries and plotters drives us into anxieties; the opportunity of one who offers herself for it invites us to lust. For "the eye of a harlot is the snare of a sinner"; so, placed among these evils, we pray, saying: "Rescue me, O Lord, from the evil man; deliver me from the unjust man." But that this prayer is properly the Lord's is taught by what follows, when he says: "who have devised evils in their heart." To know the thoughts of the heart is not ours, but his of whom it is said, "God searches hearts and reins," and his also who, knowing their thoughts, said: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" He beholds all the hidden thoughts of malignant hearts by the nature of his power, which penetrates and goes through impassable approaches.

But he who prayed to be rescued from one evil and unjust man, by whom his betrayer is thought to be signified, now speaks of many who devise evil in their hearts, saying: "who devised evils in their heart, all day they set up battles. They sharpened their tongues like serpents: the venom of asps is under their lips." Not on every whole day was there fighting with arms against David, nor always in drawn-up battles. But against the Lord, according to his works in the Gospels, we find that no time was free from the hatreds of his pursuers. He heals a paralytic: at once there is talk about him with a venomous mouth for what they thought an unlawful forgiveness of sin. He restores a withered hand: at once he is enrolled among those guilty of violating the law. He heals demoniacs: at once he is accused of doing these things through Beelzebul, the prince of demons. There is nothing that is not always full of snares for him, nothing not exposed to the venom of a viper's tongue. Our life too, of all of us, and especially of those devoted to religion: what wars of hostile powers it sustains, what poisoned darts of detraction it receives! With what venom of deceitful flattery it is attacked! And all these arise through men, in whom the spiritual wickednesses work. For it is written: "The Lord raised up a satan against Solomon, Ader the Edomite." And Ader opposed Solomon, not as a man but as a satan, all the days of his life. And against Solomon indeed, because he so deserved, Ader was raised up by God as a satan; but through men of this kind these manifold hatreds of those assailing us rage, and the hostile powers prowl through their ministry.

The interposition of the diapsalma seems to have brought a change either of person or of sense. There is a repetition of the same prayer, yet in such a way that what was added before in a general way is now reviewed more completely, and what was before a complaint about words is now a complaint about deeds. "Guard me, O Lord, from the hand of the sinner, and rescue me from unjust men, who have devised to trip up my steps." The entreaty begun against one only is turned to many, so that it might be recognized to signify the betrayer in the one and the people in the many. And to the one, both now and above, he reproaches malice, sin, and iniquity; but in the many he denounces devised trippings, hidden snares, stretched-out traps of ropes, and stumbling blocks set continually along the paths, saying:

"Who have devised to trip up my steps. The proud have hidden a snare for me, and stretched out ropes as a trap for my feet; they have set stumbling blocks continually along the paths for me." For the rulers of the synagogue devised to trip up his steps when, after the death of Lazarus had been undone, they plan to kill him, when they curse the man blind from birth for having received his sight, when they decree silence about him, when they threaten death to those who confess him. So they devised to trip up by such means the excellent step and course of his divine works. The proud hid snares when the Sadducees concealed the deceit of a feigned question about the resurrection, when they held out the snare of an answer with a captious speech; proud, when they disdain to mix with sinners, when they reproach him who is the forgiver of sins for the banquets of tax collectors. They stretched out ropes too as a trap for his feet, when tribute is demanded, when he is asked about giving tribute to Caesar. Above, a snare was hidden; but now ropes are stretched out into a snare, so that this snare of questioning might be recognized as stronger in the ropes, when, through the stretched-out snare of questioning, an answer of captious profession against the name of Caesar was sought from him. And continuing along the path they set stumbling blocks for him, when he is questioned about the commandments of the law, when the rich man, as one who had satisfied the law, asks what he still lacks, when the condition of divorce is discussed before him. For these stumbling blocks of questions they set continuing along his way and the teaching of the law, so that, under the appearance of and familiarity with what is written in the law, these stumbling blocks of questions and answers might be set for him everywhere along the path of those who continue.

But we remember that for us and for our life stumbling blocks, ropes, and snares meet us everywhere, and that there is nothing where snares are not always set before us. And it is hard now to free the belly from the snare, because confusion is for those whose god is the belly. It is rare too now to free the eye from the snare, because he who has looked to desire has already committed adultery in his heart. It is hard also to rescue the tongue from the snare, for account must be given on the day of judgment for every idle word. It is the greatest labor too to bring back the heart from the snare, for evil thoughts come out of the heart. These snares are set everywhere for all of us; and the Lord must be prayed to, that we may fly away from all these snares on the wings of our faith and of the Spirit.

Then follows: "I said to the Lord: You are my God; give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my prayer. O Lord, strength of my salvation, you overshadowed my head in the day of battle. Do not hand me over, O Lord, from my desire to the sinner: they have devised; do not abandon me, O Lord, lest they ever be exalted." Here too the interposed diapsalma seems to have brought some change, and not a small one; for whereas above all the speech had been about devised tripping, hidden snares, stretched-out traps, and stumbling blocks set, now the prayer is turned to God: "I said to the Lord: You are my God." It is no light and slight confidence to have said to the Lord, "You are my God." A mind that is lustful, greedy, insolent, drunken cannot say this faithfully. We must renounce all these and cease from their servitude and service, so that, ceasing from them, we may dare to say: "I said to the Lord: You are my God." And these things are thus fitted to our person, which we mingle with the psalm only so far as is right.

But it is customary, frequent, and proper to the Lord too that he should have said, "I said to the Lord: You are my God." He never refused the honor of this confession, so that he confessed him both as Lord and as God, saying: "I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth"; and again: "to my God and to your God." His whole prayer too was always to God. About to raise Lazarus, he prays; about to bless the loaves and fishes, he prays with his very gaze toward heaven; about to drink the cup, he prays all night. After the confession of his Lord and God, then, there follows: "Give ear, O Lord, to the voice of my prayer." The confession of honor came first, when he calls him his Lord and God; the petition that his prayer be heard follows, when he prays to be heard.

But in what follows, "O Lord, strength of my salvation," there is no common profession of confidence. For he does not say "salvation of my strength." For it belongs to human prayer that we pray for salvation for our strength, that soundness from God may be in those things in which we are strong. But this, on the contrary, is a prayer that not the salvation of his strength but the strength of his salvation may be from God. He who prays for strength for his salvation already does not doubt about salvation and is sure that there is nothing perishable, nothing mortal in him. But he prays that strength may be given to the weakness he assumed: the Lord bore in himself a body which, although like ours it was due to death, was not subject to corruption, as he himself speaks through the prophet: "For you will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption."

He is not, then, uncertain about the salvation of this nature weak in itself. He asks of God only the strength of the salvation that is in him, and asks with that confidence by which he says: "You overshadowed my head in the day of battle." If this whole psalm is in the person of any man, how will such different things agree with him, that, when it has been said, "Rescue me, O Lord, from the evil man," and "Guard me from the hand of the sinner, O Lord," he should now again say, secure about everything, "You overshadowed my head in the day of battle"? And that, whereas the prayer above came from fear, now there should be rejoicing from security? All this can be said with reason by him who, bearing the nature of man and of God, had from the weakness of man the feeling of trembling and from the consciousness of divinity the confidence of security. He knows that on the day of that glorious battle, in which he will destroy death, conquer the devil, and nail all the hostile powers to the triumph of his cross, he has been overshadowed and protected. For since it had been said of him before in the person of God the Father, "I am with him in tribulation," and again, "For my hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him; the enemy will gain nothing against him, and the son of iniquity will not again harm him," what indeed does the enemy gain by inspiring Judas to the will of betrayal? The body was allowed to suffer; but death did not rule over the body allowed to it: for the holy one did not see corruption. And when the son of iniquity betrayed him, what did he add to harming him? Not only did the body return from death to life, but the nature of corruption was swallowed up into the glory of divinity.

Secure, then, and confident that he is overshadowed in the day of battle, he prays also this: "Do not hand me over, O Lord, from my desire to the sinner." He who says, "I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me," hastens to complete the work undertaken also out of the compliance of obedience; but in such a way that we remember there is in him the function of will. For he wills what the Father willed. For by saying, "I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me," he shows him by whom he was sent and whom he obeyed; yet he does not take will away from himself. He desires, then, to complete all that pleases the Father, and hastens to carry out all that is desirable to him in the passion, so that there may be nothing among these things which the sinner, coming first, might hinder. "With desire he desired" to eat the Passover with his disciples; he hastened to finish the Passover supper. He desires to drink the cup of the passion, saying: "The cup my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" To those who had come to seize him he offered himself of his own accord, as they sought him and asked who Jesus was. He knows he must drink the cup of vinegar: he asks for it so as to drink it. And reaping in it, when he had drunk, the great fruit of his will, he says, "It is finished," in which word is contained the rejoicing of a desired wish. He had often prayed in the psalms that his soul be delivered from the sword, had signified that his bone was not to be broken, had announced that his garment was to be obtained by lot. He prays that all these things that belong to his desire may be fulfilled for the faithfulness of prophecy: that the sinner may have no power over any of them, may not forestall the Passover which is desired with desire, may not fail to dare to offer the cup of the passion (for at the Lord's first answer every sinner who had come to seize him fell down), that the vinegar to be offered may not be lacking, that the soldier may not pierce his side with the lance before he sends forth his spirit, that no occasion may open for breaking a bone while the spirit still remains, that nothing of the prophecy may be lacking, that nothing of his desires may be handed over to the sinner, but that all things both desired by him and prophesied may be fulfilled in him. He prays about these things not because they were not going to be fulfilled, but so that they might be understood to have been prophesied about him.

"They have devised," he says, "against me; do not abandon me, lest they ever be exalted." Many things were devised against him, but above all this: that, money having been given to the soldiers, a report of the body's being stolen should be sold by them. But since he stood again in that same body, this meditation of impious thought was empty. No room is left for sinners to exalt themselves: the prophecy is fulfilled. Their life hangs on the tree, he is given vinegar and gall to drink, his soul is delivered from the sword, his bone is not broken, a lot is cast over his garment, nothing of the desires of the only-begotten Son of God is handed over to the sinner, he rises on the third day, he is not left in hell, nor does the holy one see corruption: and everything that is done in the Lord has, to confound and dismay the thoughts of the impious, both the wonderful efficacy of present events and the unchangeable truth of prophecy.

Then follows: "The head of those around them, the labor of their own lips will cover them. Coals of fire will fall upon them, and you will cast them down; in miseries they will not stand." After the preceding speech, in which the whole prayer to God had been about himself, now, with the interposition of a diapsalma, he has changed the order of the sense. For he has reported the most just punishment of sinners, whom first that very head of their assembly, then the labor of their lips and all the work of cursing will cover. For as Christ is the head of all the saints, so the devil is the head of all the wicked. The Lord often testifies to these impious encirclings around him, when he says, "The groans of death surrounded me," and again, "Fat bulls besieged me," and again, "Encircling they encircled me," and at once, "They surrounded me like bees." And that these things were done with the devil as prince the Gospels testify, when they say: "And the devil put it into the heart of Judas to betray him." And there was labor with the great voice of the people, when they cried out: "Crucify, crucify." The head of those around them and the labor of their lips will cover them, then, so that, while others are clothed with the glory of immortality, they are covered with the shame of their impiety and the condemnation of the devil. And what that condemnation would be with which they would be covered he added: "Coals of fire will fall upon them; you will cast them down upon the earth; in miseries they will not stand." These are the coverings of the impious, this is the eternal garment of the irreligious: that, not standing against the falling coals and the assailing miseries, they are pressed down with the very head of those around them and the labor of their lips by the burden of their condemnation.

He has kept even now the order he used above, so that, while showing the people in the many, he now seems to signify Judas in the one, saying: "A talkative man will not be directed on the earth; evils will seize the unjust man for destruction." In the talkative man is shown the two-faced, doubtful, and deceitful mouth of the betrayer, who, having learned too late the wickedness of his crime, fled from life and faith and hanged himself with a noose. For nothing in him was straight, nothing simple, nothing sincere: a thief before, then a betrayer, finally a worthy avenger upon himself; now accusing the woman of useless waste for pouring ointment on the Lord's head, now reporting to the Jews all the Lord's comings and goings, now bargaining over the price of righteous blood; always talkative, always in words, so that the prophet's saying fittingly applies to him: "In much speaking you will not escape sin." This sinner, then, in his much speaking was not directed toward life nor held to the straight way of faith, but, as was fitting, evils seized him for destruction. Having been impious toward the Lord, he afterward remained impious toward himself too. Thief of money, seller of righteous blood, betrayer of God, and, as far as lay in him, a murderer, he could have pardon neither for his life nor for his death.

The only-begotten God is not ignorant, then, of this vengeance of his; for he says: "I have known that the Lord will execute judgment for the needy and vengeance for the poor." The Lord is poor according to the man. For, according to the apostle, he made himself poor so that we might be made rich, he who had nothing in the affairs of the world but a body. For the sake of this salvation he willed to be born needy of a virgin: the Lord of heaven chose not money, not land, not cattle. He was poor, then, only in his man. But the Lord will execute not only judgment for the needy but also vengeance for the poor. Judgment for the needy must be referred to the condemnation of those who were unjust toward the Lord. For it is fitting that they be judged according to judgment, not according to vengeance. It belongs to an inferior nature to need to be avenged. The other poor are avenged, that is, those who followed the Lord by the example of his passion, who were poor from contempt of the world and of money. Judgment for the needy, then, is made when the impious are judged because of the Lord's passion. But the poor are avenged, whose blood, of those slain beneath the altar, cries out demanding vengeance on the impious: who daily, remaining in the glory of martyrdom, confess the name of God.

And the very words with which the psalm closes speak thus: "Yet the righteous will confess to your name, and the upright will dwell with your face." The confession of the righteous can also seem bodily, since many, though still placed in the flesh, confess to the name of God. But the upright dwelling with the face of God are understood to retain nothing bodily in themselves. For the nature of flesh cannot bear the sight of God, as he himself says: "No man will see my face and live." This belongs to the heavenly, the transformed, those changing earthly corruption for heavenly incorruption, whom, now bright with the honor of divinity and about to reign with him, our Lord Jesus Christ will hand over to God the Father into the kingdom, he who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.