Selected Comments on the Psalms 1281–1299

[Ps 26, continued] in whom he also pitched his tent; for “in the sun,” he says, “he set his tent.” And the Lord is the sun of righteousness. For he speaks also from the temple. For this, he says, I had as a tent: the shelter and the help. For having prayed in the tent of God and received the blessing of the loaves, he escaped the hands of those making war on him, when Doeg, who tended the royal mules, informed Saul of his flight. “He sheltered me in the hidden place of his tent”: that is, as in a hidden place. Thus, he says, the enemies searched much for me but did not find me, since God sheltered me. And so too, “he hid me.”

“And now, behold, he lifted up my head over my enemies; I went around and offered in his tent a sacrifice of shouting,” etc. If the one who goes around offers sacrifice, and a sacrifice is a broken spirit, then the one who has broken his own soul has made it a circle, a shape that has no corner admitting corruption, nor the folly that, as Solomon says, “lurks at the corners”; and: “The fire that came down upon Job’s children touched the four corners of the house.”

“My heart said to you: I have sought your face; your face, O Lord, I will seek,” etc. When someone’s face seeks the face of the Lord, then with unveiled face he beholds the glory of the Lord, and, having become equal to the angels, he will always see the face of the Father in heaven. By the same. By the things through which one purifies himself he shows that he seeks the face of God, which the angels are said always to see.

“For my father and my mother forsook me,” etc. Blessed is the one forsaken by the devil and by his consort, wickedness, from whom he begets his lawless sons. As Paul through the gospel begets the Galatians, so the devil through wickedness begets the wicked. Now that disaster has come upon me, he says, and the attack of so many enemies, neither father nor mother could have helped me; but you yourself appeared to me as helper in place of all.

“Give me your way as law, O Lord, and guide me on a straight path,” etc. See how the one who is in the law of Moses and the letter, as not being on the way of the Lord, prays to be given the way of the Lord as law.

“Be courageous, and let your heart be strong,” etc. “Be courageous,” that is, take up courage, not by strength of body but with your heart strengthened; for so you will be able to wait for the Lord. By the same. A courageous heart and soul is

[Ps 26, continued] one that has no unclean thoughts and false doctrines.

[Ps 27 LXX / 28] Psalm 27. “To you, O Lord, I will cry; my God, do not keep silent from me,” etc. Of those who cry to God and offer up prayers: if one asks for earthly things, his voice is small; but if one asks for heavenly things, he cries aloud. Hence it is often said in the Scriptures of the saints that they cried to God. Let each, then, try to pray to God crying aloud; and I will say something more paradoxical: how he cries aloud. Going into his inner room he shuts the door, and so cries to God.

“Do not keep silent from me.” God is recorded to have spoken to Moses, and to Aaron, and to Joshua son of Nun; for they were such that God would speak to them. And through the prophets, while the people was God’s, he was not silent. And let us not think that God speaks to us from outside; rather, the holy things that come up into our heart are what God speaks to us. Understand “God spoke to so-and-so” in this way. That this is so, hear Scripture itself testifying: “Blessed is the man whose help is from you, O Lord; ascents are in his heart.” We have another hearing that hears the word of God. Divine is that perception, so named in Solomon, which hears the word of God, blended and united with it. “My God,” he says, “do not keep silent from me, and I shall become like those who go down into the pit.” We know of none of the saints who dug a cistern; but whenever a saint needed water, he dug a well. And Solomon commands us to drink from wells; and the prophet threatens those who drink from a cistern, saying as from the person of God, “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns.” “Lest you keep silent from me, and I become like those who go down into the pit.” But so that we may see who those are who go down into the pit: holy Scripture says that divine things are hot, but the things of sin and of matter cold. There dwells also the dragon, the enemy of men, who was called cold; for no living thing on earth is as cold as the dragon. Every sin, then, is cold; but divine things, it seems, are hot: “He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire”; and “I came to cast fire on the earth”; and “fervent in spirit.” And how sinners are by pits, hear: in Exodus it is written, “God killed from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the captive woman in the pit.” So those who go down into the pit are sinners and captives; but the good God calls even these

[Ps 27, continued] and proclaims release to them: “For the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind.”

“Hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication when I make supplication to you, when I lift up my hands toward your holy temple,” etc. If a temple is one who has God, and God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, then Christ is a holy temple, toward whom one raises and lifts up his own soul through the virtues. By the same. It seems to me that prayer differs from supplication, and the Apostle seems to me to assign several names to this difference when he says, “I urge, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made,” calling prayer, as it seems to me, greater than supplication, and intercession greater than these, and thanksgiving greater than all. I would say, then, that supplication belongs to one still in need, and to those who still lack something. But when, having understood the dignity of God, I ask something of God, then I pray; and when I become more fully a friend, then I give thanks to God. “When I lift up my hands toward your holy temple.” We have often spoken of the lifting up of hands. Moses lifted up his hands, and Israel prevailed; but when he let down his hands, Amalek prevailed. And: “lifting up holy hands without anger and argument”; and: “The lifting up of my hands is an evening sacrifice.” I would say, then, that our hands are our actions done in godliness. If we lay up treasure in heaven, we have our hands lifted to God and we conquer the enemy; but when our hands come down, we must be conquered. So when I lift up my hands to God and through the hands of the soul am raised up to him, Amalek is conquered by me and is nowhere. So one must lift up hands toward the holy temple of God. And the temple of God is the glory of God.

“Do not drag me away with sinners, and do not destroy me with those who work injustice,” etc. If each of the two lies in our power, why did he ascribe to God the cause of the good outcome? Is it not that sometimes God draws to such people one who is able to save them? So the Saviour was called a friend of tax collectors, though in no way harmed by them. He asks, then, to take on such a disposition. But perhaps he declines the utterly sinful, such as he goes on to describe, those who speak what they do not think. For though the Saviour was with a harlot, she was not one who spoke peaceably while thinking the opposite. By the same. What need is there to say these things? Either you do lawlessness, and he destroys you with them, and you say these things to God in vain; or you do nothing lawless, and God does not destroy you; for God is not so unjust. Let us, then, take courage from the Gospel, and say

[Ps 27, continued] that God drags the righteous man along with sinners: he drags the righteous along for the sake of the sinners and those who work lawlessness, so that they may be saved. Those who did not know this mystery accused Jesus, saying, “You eat and drink with sinners.” But he was far from being harmed by them, so as even to benefit them. So too any imitator of Christ who does this. But if someone, not prepared and without the power, throws himself into so great a danger as to be with sinners and those who work lawlessness, he will neither benefit them and will destroy himself as well. Therefore here too the prophet wishes to prepare himself, so as to be able to be with sinners and those who work lawlessness, but not to be dragged away with them. And perhaps in saying this he also declines those who commit incurable sins. For he added, “who speak peace with their neighbours, but evils are in their hearts.” They are exceedingly impious, for they are neither disposed as friends nor speak as enemies, but have enmity within themselves while feigning friendship with peaceable words. Nothing is fouler than such men. Such, then, the righteous man declines. For see how our Saviour too was with sinners and with a harlot, yet not one who spoke peaceably while having evils in her heart. Or he prays, saying: Since destruction surely follows the one who does wrong, grant me righteousness, and do not let me come to be in injustice, so that I may not perish with those who work it.

“Give them, O Lord, according to their works and according to the wickedness of their practices,” etc. He asks that they be afflicted through discipline, so that they may stop doing wrong. And he calls hidden things works; for they spoke evils in their hearts. By the same. We are taught by the word to put away all sins; for if we are not pure, we must be punished, so that we may be disciplined. “According to the works of their hands,” he says, “give to them,” as if saying, “According to the hidden things of their works render them their recompense.” The clear-sighted man, approaching realities with understanding, turns away from base things as harmful and chooses good things as beneficial. But the base man, charmed by pleasure, does evil, not seeing its harm. Since, then, he does not perceive harmful things rationally, the saint prays that painful things be repaid to him according to his works, so that through the pains he may turn away from the evils that have become causes of punishment for him.

“Because they did not understand the works of the Lord and the works of his hands,” etc. The works of the Lord are perhaps intelligible things; the works of his hands I take to be things perceived by sense. “Did not my hand,” he says,

[Ps 27, continued] “make all these things?” Or perhaps the works of the Lord are the virtues, and the works of his hands the principles of the things that have come to be.

“You will tear them down and not build them up.” The Lord will tear down evil dispositions and will no longer allow those who build them to build them up.

“And my flesh flourished again,” etc. He called the soul flesh because it is joined to the flesh, as in “All flesh shall see the salvation of our God.” Or perhaps the perceptible flesh flourishes when it has put off the passions.

“Save your people and bless your inheritance, and shepherd them and lift them up for ever,” etc. Here he calls “inheritance” the rational nature that inherits him. By the same. Christ will shepherd us who have believed in him, having sent in his place, and as himself, the Paraclete, who is the Spirit of truth. And he also lifts us up from earthly things, that is, he makes us exalted for the coming and endless ages.

[Ps 28 LXX / 29] “Bring to the Lord, sons of God,” etc. The holy Paul became a son of God through the gospel; and he too begot sons and brought them to God. He calls sons those who have received much care from God and been saved beyond expectation, whom God spared as sons. “Bring to the Lord young rams,” etc. The one who gathers the scattered sheep of Christ, and turns back the strayed, and finds the lost, brings young rams to the Lord; so does the one who acts so that men see his good works and glorify the Father in heaven. And the one who speaks of God in a word of wisdom brings glory to the Lord. And the one who has mercy on a poor man, not out of grief or compulsion, brings honour to the Lord, and in this he lends to God. For “to honour” is used especially of these things in Scripture, as is clear from “Honour widows who are really widows,” and “Honour father and mother.” And the holy court is the church.

“The voice of the Lord is upon the waters,” etc. The voice of the Lord simply upon the waters, but the Lord himself upon many waters. Here the waters signify rational natures: “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water,” he says, “and let it divide.”

“And he will crush them small like the calf of Lebanon,” etc. The calf of Lebanon is the evil one, who stiffened his neck before the Lord Almighty and threw off the yoke of the gospel, forcing himself to be a god.

[Ps 28 LXX / 29, continued] “The voice of the Lord cutting through the flame of fire,” etc. The voice of the Lord quenches the fiery arrows of the evil one; it is spiritual teaching, calling the one who has believed in Christ to a wise way of life.

“The voice of the Lord shaking the desert, and the Lord will shake the desert of Kadesh,” etc. “I am a voice crying in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord.” A desert is a rational soul deprived of God.

[Ps 29 LXX / 30] Psalm 29. “For the end; a psalm of a song for the dedication of the house of David,” etc. A right life builds a house, and the knowledge of God dedicates it.

“I will exalt you, O Lord, for you took me up,” etc. That the psalm is spoken in the person of Christ is clear from “And you brought up my soul from Hades.” But it can also be said in the person of the saint, more figuratively, of every saint as having been in Hades in the time of wickedness and brought up from there by God, when, helped by the Word and following him, he has been perfected. For no one can exalt the Lord unless the Lord himself has taken him up. For when we are exalted from the earth, raised aloft and lifted up by the cross of Christ, who said, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all to myself,” we exalt the Lord, and him who exalted the Father and, for his part, handed down to those who believe in God the loftiest conception of him. The psalm also teaches that certain invisible enemies of the human soul envy its salvation according to God, lie in wait and plot against it, and then watch whether any stumble or slip or fall may befall it; if any of these happens to it, the enemies, as those who rejoice in evil, mock it, but they suffer the opposite when it shines with progress according to God. He gives thanks, then, to God that he did not allow the enemies to gloat over his misfortunes, but drew him up, raising him from his fall. And the one who speaks of God greatly and loftily exalts the Lord, as does the one who keeps in himself doctrines fitting for God; and lifting up his own soul in all virtue and a philosophic life, he exalts the one who dwells in it. “For you took me up.” Instead of “you took up,” Aquila says “you saved.” And so the sense is clear: everyone taken up by God is saved from wickedness.

“O Lord my God, I cried to you, and you healed me,” etc. These words are said in the person of the righteous man. But if the Saviour says them, see whether this too can receive a fitting explanation thus. Believers are the body of Christ and members individually;

[Ps 29, continued] and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; and if one member is glorified, all the members are glorified with it. The body of Christ in this sense suffers and needs healing. With a view to our healing, then, there is nothing absurd in his saying to him, “O Lord my God, I cried to you, and you healed me.” For he also confesses our sins as his own, as in the twenty-first psalm, saying, “Far from my salvation are the words of my transgressions,” and in the sixty-eighth, “O Lord, you know my folly, and my offences are not hidden from you.” Both psalms are spoken in the person of Christ.

“Sing to the Lord, you his holy ones, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness,” etc. Since praise is not fitting in the mouth of a sinner, not just anyone is commanded to sing to the Lord, but his holy ones, who can sing with the spirit, and sing also with the mind. But why was the prophet not content to say, “Sing to the Lord, you holy ones,” but added “his,” as though there were holy ones not his? We say, then, that just as God alone is good without any addition, so the Lord alone is holy without any addition, as we found in the song of Deuteronomy: “Righteous and holy is the Lord.” But as with an addition there is a good servant, according to “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and a good man, according to “The good man out of the good treasure of the heart,” and what follows, so with an addition there are the holy ones of the Lord. Perhaps he also urges to thanksgiving those who formerly lived in unclean things and afterwards came to the remembrance of his holiness. By the same. Everyone who remembers God’s love for mankind gives thanks to him.

“For wrath is in his anger, and life in his will,” etc. As wrath comes forth from what is called the anger of the Lord, so life is born from his will. And if life signifies knowledge (for “I am,” says Christ, “the life”), wrath signifies ignorance. Death is opposed to life; therefore wrath signifies death, indicating the deprivation of contemplation. Rightly, then, it is said, “Life and death are in the hand of the tongue.” By the same. In the anger that is exhaled there is readiness and the wrath of retribution, and life is primarily in the will of God.

“But I said in my prosperity, I shall never be shaken,” etc. Whether it is Christ who says “I said,” or a righteous man, then after the pause there, “in my prosperity I shall never be shaken”: it is fitting for one who is in

[Ps 29, continued] prosperity to say that he will not be shaken. Of the Saviour, however, as we have often said, this is said by his humanity. But according to Symmachus, if it is “in my quiet,” the calm and untroubled state of the perfected soul can be meant, in which no one who has come to be will ever be overturned again. For the one who prospers spiritually will never be shaken.

“O Lord, in your will you gave power to my beauty; but you turned away your face, and I became troubled,” etc. Another says: it is the thankful voice of both Christ and the righteous man. For in the beauty of the Godhead spoken of before, and in its power, the humanity of Christ shared, and every saint; and they partake of these by the will of God and by their own prior free choice. But if, as Aquila renders it, “to my mountain,” the mountain of Christ must be understood as his church, which is most lofty and raised on high. To this mountain strength has been firmly given by the Father in his good pleasure. The church holds power, reigning over the rest on earth and reigning together with Christ. And if according to Symmachus it is “to the forefather,” who could be called the forefather of Christ or of the righteous man but Abraham? For him the strength could be established for his race and for all the nations blessed in him, as the divine gospels are fulfilled. By the same. And it is not out of place for Christ too, when he came to the time of his passion, to say, “You turned away your face, and I became troubled,” just as in the Gospel, where he says in one place, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and in another, “Now my soul is troubled.” By the same. This face the angels see continually. And if, according to the wise woman of Tekoa, the angels know all things on earth, the face of God is the principles of the things on earth, which express his creative word.

“To you, O Lord, I will cry, and to my God I will make supplication. What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to corruption?” etc. The one who longs only for heavenly things also cries this. Why must I, he says, keep my body in good condition with abundance of blood, when the corruption that comes from death awaits me? Should I not rather discipline the body, lest the blood, boiling over, stir it to sin? By the same. The Saviour says this, seeing that we do nothing worthy of the precious blood by which we were bought. For since some of those for whom he died persist in wickedness and ungodliness, the Saviour’s descent into corruption and the shedding

[Ps 29, continued] of his blood seemed to have happened in vain. He calls corruption the nature of the flesh that he put on, or the death to which he came. You will say that he went down into corruption, but did not receive from God to see corruption.

“Will dust confess to you, or declare your truth?” The one who through doing material things and minding earthly things has become dust, and persists in sin, will neither confess to God nor declare his truth, having gone astray both in character and in knowledge. For the one who has the image of the earthy, by being in the flesh and not in the spirit, is dust, and is in Hades; therefore he will not confess to God. But the one who declares the truth of God, appointed by him as a teacher, would not be dust; for, joined to the Lord, he is one spirit. But if someone is dust and bears the image of the earthy, he could not declare the truth of God. By the same. The earthy will not glorify. The truth is Christ; or perhaps he means the truth in realities.

“The Lord heard and had mercy on me; the Lord became my helper,” etc. The Saviour too might say this, having been heard concerning those who share with him, as about to confess to God through him; rejoicing over them he says, “I shall not be grieved” (for this is the meaning of “I shall not be pierced”), having received back my glory. He says he has been shown mercy, having been shown mercy for our sake, and having changed the mourning and lamentation over us into gladness. And at the salvation of those being saved he says, “O Lord my God, I will confess to you for ever.”

“You turned my lamentation into joy for me,” etc. As joy succeeds toil, so the knowledge of God succeeds the practical life.

[Ps 30 LXX / 31] “In you, O Lord, I hoped; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness rescue me and deliver me,” etc. As if saying, “Let me be put to shame in no part of the age, but be without shame altogether”; for some will rise to reproach and shame. What follows is the voice of one confident in himself; for to be rescued by mercy is not the same as “in righteousness”: the latter shows boldness, the former is not according to desert. Who, then, being confident, will call God to hear his own words, as the one who says these things does? One should ask, not so much from toils as from wickedness, and very quickly, that God deliver us from it before we are dyed deeper in it. By the same. God rescues us not only in righteousness but also in self-control and courage and love. Here he has put righteousness, since it embraces all the virtues. Or perhaps

[Ps 30, continued] … [Christ became for] us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

“Be to me a protecting God and a house of refuge, to save me,” etc. When God protects us, who is against us? We need God as protector if we are not content with the alliance of angels. By the same. The house of refuge is the knowledge of God.

“For you are my strength and my refuge, and for your name’s sake you will guide me and nourish me,” etc. He guides through right faith and through the practical life, and he nourishes through the knowledge of himself.

“Into your hands I will commit my spirit,” etc. As one at war for his soul (for the saints have little care for the body), and fearing to be wounded by the deceivers, he commits his spirit to God, calling God’s providential powers hands. The Saviour too, fixed on the cross, used the present text. Scripture sometimes calls the spirit the mind, as in the virgin’s being eager to be holy in spirit and body; sometimes the soul, as in James: “For as the body without the spirit is dead”; and sometimes the conscience joined to the soul, as in “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit that dwells in him.” The present text will be understood in all three ways. As one taken captive by the enemies, he says that he has been redeemed by God. By the same. Here the spirit means the mind; for the mind joined to the Lord becomes one spirit.

“You hated those who keep vanities to no purpose; but I hoped in the Lord,” etc. If sinners have hoped in the present life only, and this, according to Solomon, is vanity of vanities, then the one who keeps this life keeps vanities to no purpose. “To no purpose” goes with “who keeps vanity.” “To no purpose” means that they gain nothing from their diligence in doing evil, because God hates them and punishes them and does not let them bring to any end what they strive for.

“And you did not shut me up in the hands of the enemy; you set my feet in a broad place,” etc. The principles of temptations, when contemplated, give the soul a broad place. It is praiseworthy to confess a broad place: that, though afflicted, one is not hemmed in. Enlarged, and persevering in toils, he called the independence of his way of life a broad place.