Selected Comments on the Psalms 1109–1125

[Ps 2, continued] “and their sins with whips; but my mercy I will not scatter from him.” That is why Christ himself is called a rod in Isaiah. But since some do not need the harsh treatment, showing themselves worthy of the kindness of the word’s contemplations, he is also called a flower by the same prophet: “For a rod will come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower will come up from the root, and the Spirit of God will rest upon him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and godliness, and a spirit of the fear of God will fill him.” The more beastlike of those who come to God through Christ, then, need a rod to shepherd them.

It is necessary next to explain how the Father, who gives the Son the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession, says to him: “Like a potter’s vessel you will shatter them.” For who gives an inheritance so that it may be shattered by the heir? We must show from the Scriptures, then, that the shattering of some is for their benefit. We have found in the fiftieth psalm: “A sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and humbled heart God will not despise”; and in another prophet the command: “Howl from the breaking of your spirit.” There is, then, a spirit in us that must be broken, so that, once broken, it may become a sacrifice to God. And what else could this be but the worse spirit, which seems sound while it is at work, but is broken when by the word of God we have shattered its powers? There is also at times a heart in us that is proud over wicked doctrines, built up into the unity of a connected system, harmfully thought to be whole and lofty; it must be broken and humbled, so that, having thus put off what made it deserve to be despised by God, it may be brought near to him who rewards those who perceive their own state, who blame their wicked disposition and flee for refuge to the kindness of God, who alone can do them good. From what has been said, “Howl from the breaking of your spirit” is also clear. In the same way, then, as a broken spirit is to be offered to God as a sacrifice, and God does not despise a broken and humbled heart, because it has come to be rightly in this state, and accepts a howl sent up from the breaking of the spirit, so we shall understand a certain shattering that Christ works in obedience to the one who gave him the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession: he shatters what is earthy and material, which has attached itself to the soul from the passions and the marks of vice, by which they were idolaters and sexually immoral. For it is said in the seventy-seventh psalm: “When he killed them, then they sought him, and they turned back and rose early to God; and they remembered that God is their helper, and God the Most High their redeemer.” It is not absurd, then, to be killed in this way,

[Ps 2, continued] Of the same. If he shepherds according to the promise of God, then Christ is a shepherd. He is a shepherd who shepherds with a rod of iron, and a good shepherd.

Of the same. The rod of God is his authority, the punishment of the disobedient, that is, on the cross; for its material is wood, but its strength is iron.

“And now, kings, understand; be instructed, all who judge the earth,” and so on. It is not foreign to the Savior’s kindness to say to the kings of the earth who stood up, with the rulers gathered together against him: “And now, kings, understand” — that is: if before, in ignorance, you plotted, now understand and repent. But since “of the earth” is not added, perhaps by “kings” he means the saints; for properly a king is one who knows how to rule without being accountable to another. And how is he not a king who inherits the kingdom of heaven and will be in the kingdom of God? The saint, striving to reign, must begin with himself and his own impulses. For he must first reign over these, no longer ruled by sin, which has been practiced in reigning in our mortal body. “Be made knowing,” as Aquila rendered it, seems more emphatic than “understand,” commanding them to take up a knowledge proper to no one else than to kings.

“Be instructed, all who judge the earth.” In the same way as we took the kings in two senses, we can also understand those who judge the earth. Either the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ would be called judges of the earth, since judging is the proper work of rulers; or the judges of the earth are the saints, as we shall show. “Be instructed” means either “hand yourselves over to instruction and teaching,” or “to the punishments that instruct those who need such remedies.” One will reasonably ask whether someone is commanded to be instructed by the instruction that comes through punishments, and to hand himself over to it willingly. To this inquiry, since several difficulties arise in this passage, we must answer that perhaps some, being children, are dragged to such instruction even against their will; and these are those of whom the Prophet says: “If his sons forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments; if they profane my statutes and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod and their sins with whips; but my mercy I will not scatter from him.” And perhaps some, coming to a sense of their own failings, hand themselves over, as those needing healing, to the one who has this skill, for the most painful treatments, which are able to make them better. I think that among these are those spoken of in

[Ps 2, continued] Isaiah: “They will wish that they had been burned with fire”; and those who pray, according to Jeremiah, and say: “Instruct us, Lord, but with judgment, and not in anger, so that you do not make us few.” For in refusing the painful and the more severe, they do not by these words refuse punishments altogether. Let us consider whether the voice that says, “I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I sinned against him, until he justifies my cause,” is not that of those who are punished willingly. Perhaps, then, those who judge the earth will not be instructed unless they hand themselves over to be instructed.

But since we were more inclined to take the kings called to understanding as the saints, let us likewise consider those who judge the earth. We find that this is proper to the saints: to judge, by the good they have done, those who did not strive for the like. “For the men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment and condemn the people of this generation, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here,” says the Savior. And: “The queen of the south will be raised in the judgment and will condemn the people of this generation, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” So the Ninevites and the queen of the south are among those who judge the people who heard the Savior and did not change, and who despised the teaching of Jesus. Perhaps in this way too the apostles of Christ will judge the twelve tribes of Israel that do not believe in Christ. And those who have believed throughout the whole earth will judge the whole earth, each in his own part judging the unbelievers there. The word, then, calls those who judge the earth to the instruction that comes through the handing on of knowledge, as Solomon too in Proverbs says to the same end: “Receive instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather than tested gold.”

Of the same. Or he calls them to repentance, and calls them kings, persuading them to return to the dignity they had. Understand, then, O kings, why the nations have been given to me as an inheritance.

“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in him with trembling,” and so on. To some it will seem that one who serves is certainly a slave, especially here, since “with fear” is added, and the one who has received a spirit of slavery is “in fear.” And it will not seem so falsely. But a son too can serve. And fear is not the only cause of serving; love is too. By love, at any rate, the Apostle teaches us to serve one another. Indeed, our Savior and Lord himself was in the midst of his disciples not as one reclining at table but as one who serves, serving and washing their feet. And it is not permissible to say that he did this anywhere from fear; for it is clear that it was by perfect love

[Ps 2, continued] that he did these things. If, then, those named “kings of the earth” earlier are now also called kings, the command to serve the Lord with fear can be given to them, as to slaves who from the beginning are unable to receive the spirit of adoption. And in their case “with fear” must be taken as the fear that brings punishment: the one who fears this has punishment and has not been made perfect. What follows, “Rejoice in him with trembling,” must be understood in the same way. But if the kings are the saints, and those who judge the earth are those interpreted in the explanation above, since sons too can serve the Lord, then “fear” must be taken in the sense of what some call reverence, which in no way brings punishment. That the fear which does not bring punishment is named in Scripture as the achievement of the perfect is clear from: “There is no want for those who fear him.” We shall seem to force the sense, because “with trembling” is added. But perhaps the perfect are the kings, while those who are still trained by fear are the judges of the earth, whom the Savior commands to rejoice, not loosely nor unrestrainedly, so that they may not fall into slackness and conceit, but “with trembling” and, as it were, with restraint, considering that one can fall, if divine oversight should abandon the one who has come to be in something worthy of rightful exaltation. The word “rejoice” is from the usage of Scripture; we think it is joy in the mind, which has fellowship with the Holy Spirit in the soul, who rejoices with a saint.

“Lay hold of instruction, lest the Lord be angry, and you perish from the righteous way,” and so on. By “be instructed” he presents progress, and by “lay hold of instruction” perfection. To one who observes carefully it is clear that the one who is imperfect in instruction and not yet progressing can still have a share in the Lord’s wrath, but the perfect cannot have a share in it. For if someone is commanded to lay hold of instruction so that the Lord may not be angry with him, he may indeed share in the wrath if he does not lay hold of instruction, even though he is progressing in instruction; for it is the full grasp of instruction that frees completely from the sufferings that come from wrath, not the introduction and beginning of instruction. For one who is still being instructed is certainly imperfect, and being imperfect he can experience the wrath of God. But since “righteous” is not added either in the Hebrew or in the other translations, we suspect that the Seventy either added it by design or that the copies have been corrupted. By design, so that we may understand it thus: “If you do not lay hold of instruction, you will perish from the righteous way and fall from it, the Lord having become angry with you.” But strictly speaking, if the wrath of God is instructive, how will someone perish from the righteous way because the Lord has become angry? It is not at all because of the wrath that you will perish from the righteous way; rather, this will follow upon you because of your sins. If “righteous” is not read, since those who have not laid hold of instruction are certainly on a way that is not

[Ps 2, continued] good, it can be said implicitly that, if you do not lay hold of instruction, the Lord will be angry, so that you perish from the way in which you are spending your time, and are no longer on it.

“When his anger is quickly kindled, blessed are all who trust in him,” and so on. Even if anger is mentioned after wrath, it is clear to one who observes the phrasing of Scripture that anger is kindled first, and that when God has become wrathful someone perishes from the way. The kindling of the anger “quickly,” or its subsiding after a little while or a short time, teaches the punishment after the departure from this life.

“Blessed are all who trust in him,” and so on. “Trust” must be understood as expressing a faith joined with a knowledge free from suspicion, most firm, settled and unshaken, in which the one who trusts does not despair of the Lord’s coming to him even in what seem the hardest times, with nothing drawing him away.

[Ps 3] “A psalm of David, when he fled from the face of Absalom his son,” and so on. The psalm seems to have been spoken by David when he fled from the face of Absalom his son. But it is not possible to preserve everything in the psalm in relation to the history; for what does “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord will help me” contribute to the matter at hand? And if someone wishes to be a slave to the letter, seeking nothing beyond it, let him show how the Prophet speaks truly when he says: “You broke the teeth of sinners.” We must inquire who David is, and who Absalom, and what his attack on his father is, and the flight of the king who bore meekly the rebellion of the son who desired his kingdom, and commanded those under him to spare the young man Absalom. In many places of Scripture we have found that David is Christ, as in the eighty-eighth psalm: “I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I anointed him. For my hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him. The enemy will gain nothing against him, and the son of lawlessness will not again do him harm. And I will cut down his enemies before his face, and I will put to flight those who hate him. And my truth and my mercy will be with him, and in my name his horn will be exalted. And I will set his hand on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers. He will call upon me: You are my Father; and I will make him firstborn, high above the kings of the earth. Forever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant will be faithful to him. And I will establish his seed forever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” And in Isaiah, who says:

[Ps 3, continued] “And a throne will be set right with mercy, and he will sit on it with truth in the tent of David, judging and seeking judgment and hastening righteousness.” Since David the man lived long before Isaiah, it is not he who is prophesied as one who is going to judge, but Christ, to whom the Father gave “authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.” And in Ezekiel Christ is clearly said to be David, in the vision addressed to the shepherds whom the word blames for not having managed the sheep well. Next let us see who Absalom, the son of David, is. Some will think that he is an image of Judas the traitor, others of the devil. Melito of Asia, for one, says …

“Lord, why have those who afflict me multiplied? Many rise up against me; many say to my soul: There is no salvation for him in his God,” and so on. As far as the letter goes, these things are said by David as he flees from Absalom, who had risen up against him, when two hundred chosen men went from Jerusalem with Absalom, going in their simplicity, who did not know anything, all of whom afflicted David. But we have rather taken these words as spoken in the person of David, as we showed in our remarks on the title. As far as the history goes, those who afflict David, multiplying, are the many who joined Absalom; and those who set themselves against him are Ahithophel and Shimei and Tekon, and any other of those who had great power. Those who say that there is no salvation for him in God may be others besides those who afflict and rise up against him, who did not follow Absalom at all but gave David up as defeated and said these things. Those who afflicted the Savior in the flesh are the Jews who cried out: “Away, away with such a one from the earth.” Judas the traitor and Caiaphas rose up against him. Those who said to his soul that there is no salvation were those who passed by at the time of the passion, saying: “Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him.” But one may understand in a higher way the different kinds of people who afflict and rise up against him and despair of salvation being in him, thus: all the leaders and teachers of doctrines other than the teachings of Christ would be those who rise up against him; those who approve of them and are taught by their teaching are those who afflict him. Those who do not believe — without teaching the contrary, or being taught falsehoods — that there is divinity in the teaching of Christ, would be said to say to his soul that there is no salvation for him in God: either for him, in the history that reports the wonders of his coming, or in the word of his teaching, that there is not the salvation it promises. All sinners, however, can also be those who afflict him in another way.

[Ps 3, continued] And just as a wicked son afflicts his father, not with the intention of harming him, but because of the father’s affection it follows that he is certainly afflicted at the son’s sins, in the same way the wickedness of each sinner afflicts the Son of God. The more someone is engaged in good works and sound doctrines, the more, as a greater man, he is afflicted by more people, many rising up against him, so that many again may say, “There is no salvation for him in God,” despairing of his case, as though he could not be harmed toward salvation by any of these things. God permits many to afflict the righteous man, giving him an occasion of the weight of glory that comes from surpassing afflictions. And if ever the righteous man in perplexity should say to God, “Why have those who afflict me multiplied?” — while he is still speaking God will say: “Here I am, so that the momentary lightness of affliction may work for you, beyond all measure, a weight of glory.” That is also why “many are the afflictions of the righteous.” If there is a salvation, but not in God, “in God” is rightly added.

“But you, Lord, are my helper, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head,” and so on. If David says it, the voice befits the Prophet’s faith, as he bears such great hardships unshaken and trusts that he will not be forsaken, but, besides being helped, will be glorified in God and exalted, restored to the kingdom. But if it is Christ who speaks, … to be persuaded in this way both about rising again, as about being plotted against by men, and about not being forsaken, since the Father would help him and restore him to the glory he had from the beginning, and exalt him, or rather highly exalt him, as the Apostle too says: “Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The glory of those who think they are in glory differs: one might say that his glory is his country, another his family, another his beauty; and there are those who have thought the strength of the body and the art of bodily contest to be their own glory, priding themselves on having thrown so many opponents. And why list the things in which those who do not know God pride themselves, whose “glory is often in their shame,” according to the Apostle? But the glory of the saint is God, in whom he trusts — not believed in at random, but by a faith reckoned as righteousness, through which one can see signs of God’s presence and of fellowship with his power. For example, the glory of Moses was God, who bore witness to the prophet’s friendship even to his face, before the whole people of the Hebrews and the Egyptians openly. And the glory of Elijah the prophet was God, when he raised the widow’s son, and when he prayed for

[Ps 3, continued] rain, and obtained his request as soon as he asked. For God says: “Those who glorify me I will glorify.” It is no less a matter of God’s being openly the glory of those who minister wondrous powers …

“With my voice I cried to the Lord, and he heard me from his holy mountain,” and so on. It is worth asking why the two half-verses were not placed before the words said earlier; for it would be very natural for the prayer to be placed before the thanksgiving for the benefits. The difficulty may be solved thus: what is said here is not a prayer, but a report that the prayer was made. For since a prayer was made in silence, and the one who brought his petition to God obtained it as soon as he prayed, receiving what he wished, he rightly, having obtained it, places his thanksgiving to God before his account to men of what he had prayed for. If it had been the other way round, and as soon as he had obtained what he asked he had told how he prayed, and only after that given thanks, he would have weakened the petition owed promptly in thanksgiving by first telling us, who would read it, how he prayed. But the difficulty is better solved thus: the beginning of the psalm contains a prayer; then, after the prayer, from the diapsalma on there is thanksgiving for having obtained what he asked; and when the thanksgiving is finished, the Prophet turns to us and narrates in what way he prayed and was heard.

Let us consider, according to the letter, “With my voice I cried to the Lord,” and what follows, in accordance with the usage of Scripture, and what it means that the saints often prayed to God with a cry. One may consider in this connection also that Jesus stood and cried out, saying: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” The Apostle gives us starting points when he says that the Spirit in the hearts of the saints universally cries, “Abba, Father,” so that there is an intelligible cry, an intense one, which is a voice of the soul, which it perhaps uses when it has laid aside the instrument through which it utters such things. And we think that the rational process taking place in the ruling part of the soul is the voice of the soul; and if it is more substantial, and proceeds about greater things and not about those lying below and lowly, it would be the intelligible cry. Those who cry to God with this cry are heard, unless by the economy they are left, so as to carry off greater crowns in greater contests, as is said in Habakkuk: “How long, Lord, shall I cry, and you will not hear? I will shout to you when I am wronged, and you will not save me? Why have you shown me toils and pains, to look upon misery and ungodliness?” The Savior too always utters this cry in great doctrines; thus the Word of God stands always crying out, as

[Ps 3, continued] Wisdom too does in Solomon — Wisdom which is the same as the Word of God in subsistence — calling with a lofty proclamation to the mixing bowl, saying: “Whoever of you is foolish, let him turn aside to me”; and to those lacking sense I give command, saying: “Come, eat of my bread, and drink the wine I have mixed for you.” The intense voice, then, of the one who speaks in the psalm to the Lord is heard from nowhere else than from the holy mountain, that is, from heaven, since elsewhere too it is said: “He will hear him from his holy heaven.” And he hears from on high, since it is written: “He will hear him from on high and from his holy temple.”

“I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord will help me,” and so on. We think that the words have nothing human in them that follows the history about David when he fled from the face of Absalom, if we wish to keep the person of David by the letter; and on this account we could put to shame even those who are unwilling, compelling them to raise the history to a higher sense and to accept that what is announced is certainly spoken in the person of Christ. But so that we may not seem to betray the reading that can be preserved according to the letter, these things too must be said. We say, then, that David says these things accusing himself, because he was not watchful about the kingdom and did not apply the attention required, so that Absalom had an opportunity to attack, and he suffered these things through Absalom’s attack. “For while I was lying down,” he says, “and sleeping, these things befell me. But I rose up, since the Lord will help me; and having risen, I will not fear the myriads of people who attack me.” And what follows will seem to be preserved without forcing. These things we think are interpreted as to the letter; but as to the higher sense, as we said before, they are announced in the person of the Lord, now narrating his own lying down and his sleep in the passion. Let us first consider the difference between lying down and sleep as it is understood according to the letter: lying down is with respect to rest, about which Paul also says, “We shall all fall asleep, but we shall not all be changed”; sleep is a relaxing of the soul as it loosens itself from the body and slackens its tension, because it cannot bear the strain without pause. In Job especially we suppose the difference is presented, in these words: “Now I would have lain down and been at rest; and having slept I would have ceased, with kings, counselors of the earth.” We needed the difference between lying down and sleeping in order to understand how it would be shown in the case of the Savior. It is usual for the departure from this life to be called a falling asleep, and we remember that sometimes it is also called sleep. “He fell asleep,” it says, “with his fathers”; and: “Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, into the holy city, and appeared to many”; and: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”;