Selected Comments on the Psalms 1241–1259

[Ps 18, continued] … can tell the glory of God. For “he who is of the earth speaks of the earth.” … those who [bear] the image of the heavenly tell the glory of God. And there are heavens that are a work of God’s hands. Note the difference: “tell” is said of the heavens, “proclaim” of the firmament.

“Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night proclaims knowledge,” etc. But those too who embrace the contemplative life lay up treasure in heaven and, having their heart there, are heavens that tell the glory of God spoken of above, through contemplation of intelligible things. The practical are the firmament, being steadfast, and they proclaim the work of God’s hands, doing the works of God and being his work. And the luminous understanding, being day, in harmony with another luminous understanding, pours forth speech: as the Old Scripture, filled with spiritual food, pouring it forth from its fullness, offers sayings to the New Covenant. And night, the deepest grasp of mystical things, leads us on to another obscurity, a grasp that the Spirit of God gives to those who have him, the Spirit who searches even the depths of God. Speech goes before words, and words bring knowledge, supplying the proofs. Both have been spoken by God so that they may be heard; therefore those who disobey have no defence. All who are earth fit for sowing take in the sound, that is, the wording of Scripture according to the sense. But those who have passed beyond these and are called ends receive the sayings, being taught clearly; for it was not a sound that Peter was hearing when he said, “You have the sayings of eternal life.” And the Saviour said, “The sayings that I have spoken to you are spirit.” For the apostles, to whom he said this, are the ends of the world.

“There are no speeches nor words whose voices are not heard,” etc. Speech and word are not the same, since a talker is not the same as an eloquent man; or perhaps the sound belongs to speeches, and the sayings to words.

“In the sun he set his tent,” etc. Our Lord is the sun of righteousness, and the Father dwells in him, as in the words, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” And again: “The Father who dwells in me does the works himself.” And the Apostle: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

“And he, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,” etc. Christ is like a bridegroom; for “he who has the bride,” he says, “is the bridegroom.” In beauty he resembles a bridegroom coming from the bridal chamber in great comeliness.

“The law of the Lord is blameless, converting souls; the testimony of the Lord is faithful, making infants wise; the ordinances of the Lord are right, gladdening the heart; the commandment of the Lord is far-shining, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure,” etc. The spiritual law is cleansing for the spiritual; it converts the soul. The testimony of the Lord can be the witness of Christ on the cross, the faithful testimony of the Lord that makes the infants wise. The ordinances of the Lord, which contain the justice of repaying each according to desert, are the Lord’s ordinances in his law; or they are those concerning his dispensation toward each person, for these, when understood, gladden the heart. The commandment of the Lord is a commandment in the form of a general law; it is spoken not in a hidden way but far-shiningly, and when kept it enlightens the eyes of the soul. “The fear of the Lord is pure”: of those who seem to fear the Lord, some, knowing what they ought to fear, turn aside from evils, for by the fear of the Lord everyone turns aside from evil; but others do not have the true fear of the Lord. For this fear is pure, and its fruits endure for ever and ever. By the same. “The law of the Lord is blameless, converting souls.” Converting from wickedness to virtue, or from things of sense to things intelligible? Perhaps the latter, for the former is what the commandment naturally does. The law of Moses is named in various ways. It is called law, as regulating the way of life; testimony, because it testifies to the consequences of transgression, showing punishment; ordinances, because, urging toward the good, it forbids injustice; commandment, as authoritatively ordering and directing what is to be done; judgments, because it shows what goods the one who keeps it will obtain, and to what punishments the transgressor will be handed over. So the law of the Lord, he says, being blameless, converts the souls of men.

By the same. “The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring for ever and ever.” Purity is abstaining from sins, and fear is pure as making men pure; for by the fear of the Lord everyone turns aside from evil. Being eternal, fear also makes eternal those in whom it comes to be. Reverence and the fear of God procure the enjoyment of eternal goods. And rightly is the fear of God pure; for human fear is blamed and bears the name of cowardice.

“For your servant keeps them,” etc. If the servant keeps them, the one who does not keep them is not a servant. He keeps the things of God that are to be desired who desires nothing else but them; therefore he has the reward of obtaining what he desires. And having set right what is open, he prays about what is hidden.

“If they do not lord it over me, then I shall be blameless,” etc. If the foreign ones do not lord it over us, then we shall be blameless, not being such before. And we shall be blameless when we are cleansed even of the greatest sin. The sayings of one who brings forth nothing impure from his own mouth will be acceptable, since he opens his mouth for the word of God alone; and the meditation of such a man’s heart, because of his boldness, is before God, not now yes and now no, but continually. And when one never lets the meditation of his heart slacken, and is not for that reason defiled by evil reasonings, the meditation of the heart can be continually before God.

[Ps 19 LXX / 20] “May the Lord hear you in the day of affliction; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you; may he send you help from the sanctuary, and support you from Zion,” etc. The one who is on the narrow and afflicted way that leads to life is surely afflicted in everything and is in a day of affliction; therefore he obtains the blessing of being heard, which the one on the broad way misses. So let us rather wish to be in a day of affliction; for the name of the God of Jacob will protect us, if, having put on his full armour, we stand against the schemes of the devil. Let us pray, then, by all means in the day of affliction, so that we may be heard, with help sent to us from an angel or some such being, or the help of Christ. By the same. The one who travels the narrow and afflicted way is always in afflictions, and when he prays he is heard; the one on the broad way is neither afflicted nor heard. Let us pray, then, in afflictions, so that we may be heard. For Hezekiah too, having received Sennacherib’s letter and showing it to God in the temple, while the people prayed for him, was heard.

“May he remember all your sacrifice, and may your whole burnt offering

[Ps 19, continued] be made fat,” etc. Irrational animals are fattened and then sacrificed and wholly burned; but rational beings are made fat after being wholly burned, if indeed, after the cleansing of holy fire, one is counted worthy of knowledge, being wholly sanctified by fire. God makes someone’s whole burnt offerings fat so that the fatness may feed the fire on the altar. Perhaps the sacrifice is of lifeless things, and the whole burnt offerings of living things. By the same. “All” indicates a multitude, as of one who remembers not a few.

“May the Lord give you according to your heart,” etc. Things that it befits God to give, and the one who asks to receive, as one who knows what he ought to pray for and as he ought. Or: may the Lord give you that for which your heart has room, your counsel, as good.

“We will rejoice in your salvation,” etc. Men rejoice in wealth or in glory or in noble birth, but the saint in the salvation of God. The salvation of the Father in the world is the Son; the salvation of the Son in the world is the cross; the salvation is he of whom it is said, “To us is born today a Saviour, the Lord,” of whom Simeon said, “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” By the same. The salvation of God is to be saved in him; in the sons of men there is no such salvation. And the requests of the one who asks, great and heavenly, are fulfilled.

“May the Lord fulfil all your requests,” etc. But not the evil requests. May he to whom you offered the sacrifices fulfil all that you asked in your mind, since the things of your counsel are not foreign to him.

“He will hear him from his holy heaven,” etc. For the Lord hears every king who is ruled by the King of those who reign.

“They were entangled and fell,” etc. The adversaries rush upon us with wickedness, but we meet them with the knowledge of Christ; for the opposing powers will fall when the salvation spoken of appears.

[Ps 20 LXX / 21] … in intelligible things, and the contemplation of the eyes in visible things and sights, and the will of the lips in the announcing of what has been understood and contemplated.

“You set on his head a crown of precious stone,” etc. The crown of Christ is God, and the crown of the rational nature is Christ. The precious stones are the pearl-words, of which it is said, “Do not throw your pearls before swine”; and the very precious pearl of the merchant; and the disciples of Christ, who, woven like a crown, will be set on the head of Christ. By the same. A man is crowned from the things he practises. The righteous man, having pursued what is righteous, will receive the crown of righteousness; the one who has delighted in the Lord is protected with a crown of delight; the one saved by grace receives a crown of graces on his own head; and the one who has stored up precious stones with gold and silver will be crowned with the stones with which he worked. And the Lord crowns those who hope in him with mercy and compassion.

“He asked you for life, and you gave him length of days for ever and ever,” etc. Inquire whether one life is given by God and another comes from matter, and compare “He breathed into his face the breath of life” with “Let the earth bring forth a living soul.” “He asked you for life”: his life before the illness. By the same. The king asked of the Lord your life as a good thing, and received it. And the good is the Life, he who said, “I am the life.” And perhaps Hezekiah, who seemed to love life, wanted that life which he loved symbolically.

“Great is his glory in your salvation,” etc. Salvation wins great glory for the king who rose from the dead; to one who already had glory it added another, from the resurrection as well, as in the words, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” By the same. The glory of the king is great in the salvation of the Lord, and not in anything lower than that. “Glory and majesty you will lay upon him.” Christ had glory and majesty, being in the form of God; and when he also became man, God highly exalted him.

“May your hand be found by all your enemies,” etc. The enemies of the Lord find him, and those who hate him are found by him. Through the law we find God, but through the gospels we are found by him, we who formerly were enemies and “strangers to the covenants” of God, “having no hope and without God in the world.” Or: through the practical life we find God, but through knowledge we are found by him.

[Ps 20 LXX / 21, continued] By the same. He will overtake the swiftest and destroy the mightiest. And may the hand that punishes be found making war, as in the words, “The Lord makes war with a hidden hand upon Amalek.”

“You will make them like an oven of fire,” etc. He says this about those who do evil; for they are an oven of fire, since their hearts were heated like an oven. And somewhere it is said, “All are adulterers; their hearts are like an oven.”

“The Lord in his wrath will throw them into confusion,” etc. They are thrown into confusion at the expectation of punishment, not simply all men, but those who are evil through pleasure and hold false opinions. “And fire will devour them,” since they are wood, hay, straw.

“Their fruit you will destroy from the earth, and their seed from the sons of men,” etc. Not their substance, for that is indestructible, but the quality by which they put forth wood, hay, straw, the evil works; or also the seed that the wicked and ungodly sowed, which God makes to vanish from the sons of men. It is a benefit to be rid of sins and evil thoughts; for an evil thought is a seed of sin.

“For they turned evils upon you; they devised a counsel which they cannot establish,” etc. In everything the base, once overthrown, attempt the impossible. For they devise a plot against the one who does not … By the same. Each of the wicked turns his evils upon the one he tries to harm, or the one he wrongs, or the one toward whom he is impious. By the same. We are turned when we are moved contrary to nature.

“For you will make them turn their back; among your remnants you will prepare their face,” etc. After those who hate the Lord are made like an oven of fire at the time of his presence, and are thrown into confusion by the Lord in his wrath; and when fire devours them, and the Lord destroys their fruit from the earth, since it was not fruit of the Spirit; and when he destroys their seed from the sons of men (for those who hate the Lord turned evils against him and devised counsels they cannot establish); and when after this he makes them turn their back in flight: then he will prepare their face among the remnants, so that even among these, after so many [punishments], they may obtain relief and may contemplate.

“Be exalted, O Lord, in your power; we will sing and play of your mighty deeds,” etc. If Christ is the power of God, the Lord, being exalted in his own power, is exalted in Christ. One sings

[Ps 20, continued] when he contemplates, and plays when he acts according to virtue. One must both contemplate his mighty deeds and act in accordance with them.

[Ps 21 LXX / 22] “O God, my God, attend to me; why have you forsaken me?” etc. This is the voice of the Lord Christ nailed to the cross; and in another way it also represents our condition. For we were the ones formerly forsaken and overlooked; then, now taken up and saved by the sufferings of the one who cannot suffer, he, as it were making our folly and fault his own, says in what follows in the psalm, “Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions,” as if saying, “My sins make me far from salvation.”

“But you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel,” etc. From this we learn that the Lord is praise itself, and the praise of Israel.

“But I am a worm and not a man,” etc. The worm is not born from mating, but from wood, and it eats up wood, hay, straw. Perhaps our God too is a fire consuming wretched and inflammable matter. And if rational natures too are called trees (for “all the trees of paradise,” he says, “envied you”), and in these Christ is naturally born as wisdom and righteousness, Christ is fittingly called a worm, having come to be in such trees. But also, as a worm, he became a bait for the devil and his angels; and he is found straight by the wise and crooked by the fool. He also becomes a worm to us when we sin, convicting and gnawing our conscience.

“For you are the one who drew me out of the womb, my hope from my mother’s breasts,” etc. For the Father delivered him, who was God, at his birth; and, I think, him alone of those who have come into being, since he alone was from the Holy Spirit. And if, while still being given milk, he knew how to hope with perfection, then about “who drew me out” it might be said that he was plotted against and hindered even from coming out of the womb, so that he needed God to draw him out of the womb. Perhaps for everyone who is born some invisible power draws him out of the womb: a holy one, as for Paul, set apart from his mother’s womb; a worse one, as for the sinners estranged from the womb. But the Saviour alone the Father himself drew out of the womb, so that, aware of this privilege, he said, “For you are the one who drew me out of the womb,” while other men are not drawn out but come out: for “Esau came out,” he says, “like a hairy hide.” And for this reason he alone did not come into the

[Ps 21, continued] folly and condition of infants; for while still sucking his mother’s breasts because of the body, he knew how to hope in the one who drew him out of the womb. For all men, once born, first approach wickedness; but our Lord, as Isaiah says, “before he knows good or evil, refuses evil, to choose the good.” With these you will examine the account of John “leaping for joy,” and that of Jacob “supplanting his brother in the womb,” and that of Jeremiah, “sanctified before he came out of the womb.”

“My hope from my mother’s breasts; upon you I was cast from the womb,” etc. Enosh hoped to call upon God, but not from his mother’s breasts; but Christ, before knowing good or evil, chose the good, so that he is fittingly said to have hoped from his mother’s breasts. For “there is no man,” he says, “who will live and not sin.”

“From my mother’s womb you are my God,” etc. Either because he prayed as soon as he was born—perhaps even before he was born, for he was more understanding than Jonah, who prayed in the belly of the sea monster.

“Do not stand far from me, for affliction is near, for there is no one to help,” etc. Perhaps he said “affliction is near” while hanging on the cross, referring to the struggles in Hades against the powers there. And he says this as though none of the angels was helping him; for none of them dared to go down with him that far.

“Many calves surrounded me; fat bulls encircled me,” etc. You may refer these words also to the intelligible demons. You will understand the calves as the evil powers that work earthly things, since the animal tills the earth; the fat bulls, because of the many-sided learning of wickedness, as the powers that preside over deceitful words and through them gore men; and the lion as the devil roaring against us and snatching many, from which lion the good shepherd snatched two legs and the lobe of an ear: the lion straining the ear of man’s soul through disobedience, and through the legs its course. By the same. From “Many calves surrounded me” you will inquire whether some things are said about the time before his departure and others about the time after the departure, or all about the time after the departure. And it is likely that he saw powers standing around, wishing to take his soul and bring it down into gloomier places.

“I was poured out like water, and all my bones were scattered,” etc. The bones of wisdom are the holy doctrines of the church, which the Jews were commanded by law not to break at the Passover: “You shall not break a bone of it.” The Word is poured out like water by those who present it in a watery way, and by those who speak it into unfit vessels and pour it out; and all the bones of the Word are scattered by those who do not preserve its height but dissolve its harmony in the Scriptures, so that this bone of it is with one person, another with another, and another with someone else. But God, in the perfect state, gathers bone to bone and joint to joint from the true Israel. Or, according to “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled,” there are certain intelligible bones of the soul.

“And you brought me down into the dust of death,” etc. Christ was brought down not into death but into the dust of death; for his soul was not left in Hades, and his flesh did not know corruption.

“They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots,” etc. The Jews, keeping the written law, divide the perceptible garments of the Word; but we, keeping the spirit of the word, divide the intelligible garments of our Saviour, being baptized into Christ and putting him on as wisdom and truth and righteousness.

“Rescue my soul from the sword,” etc. The sword that can strike the soul is therefore intelligible, the one of which it is said, “And a sword will pass through your own soul too.” A sword, then, is a temptation calling the soul to unbelief in God, or knowledge falsely so called, or an unclean thought drawing the soul toward sin; which happens to those who wish to succeed in the practical life.

“And from the hand of the dog my only one,” etc. The offspring of this dog are themselves called little dogs, of which it is said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

“I will tell your name to my brothers,” etc. These words are spoken as by one raised from the dead by him and heard in what he prayed for.

“From you is my praise in the great church,” etc. “In the Lord my soul shall be praised,” that is, not in noble birth or in wealth, but in wisdom and righteousness.

“The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and

[Ps 21, continued] those who seek him shall praise the Lord,” etc. “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord,” etc. After knowledge comes forgetting, and after forgetting remembrance. And he rightly put “they shall remember”: for, having received their being from God, they will remember the one who created them, and having remembered they will turn—not one nation, as has been said, nor two, but all the ends of the earth, illumined by the light of the knowledge of God.

“For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he rules over the nations,” etc. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. As though he were saying that all, having been unjust, have become just, having ceased to become earthly and corruptible.

“And my soul lives for him,” etc. The soul that belongs to God lives for God alone, having knowledge not only of the things that have come to be but of God himself.

“The coming generation shall be announced to the Lord,” etc. “A generation goes, and a generation comes.” And the generation of wisdom, according to the wise Solomon, is “fear of the Lord, and wealth and glory and life.”

[Ps 22 LXX / 23] Psalm 22. “The Lord shepherds me, and I shall lack nothing,” etc. As the sheep is fed by grass and water, so man is given life by action and knowledge.

“He turned my soul back; he led me on paths of righteousness,” etc. If there is a path of righteousness, there is also a path of self-control and love and continence, through which one enters the kingdom of heaven.

“For even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for you are with me,” etc. From here the speech is not about God but addressed to God himself. To walk in the midst of the shadow of death is not the same as to sit in the shadow of death. For the one who sits is settled in it, firm in evil and in the shadow of death; therefore he is in darkness and needs mercy, that light may rise for him. But the one who does not sit but passes by, traveling as it were through the midst of the shadow of death, not standing but running past through the very shadow of death, does not walk alone; for the Lord travels with him. And where is it written of sitting in the shadow of death? “To those who sat in the region and shadow of death a light has risen.”

“Your rod and your staff, these comforted me,” etc. That the rod is said of