Selected Comments on the Psalms 1645–1663

[Ps 132 LXX / 133] "Like ointment on the head, which runs down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron," etc. The ointment is the Holy Spirit, the head is the mind, and the beard is the word; and the word encloses the heart. The beard of Aaron is the word that fences off the passions and offers the virtues to God as priestly service. And the grace of the Spirit runs down also upon the hem of his garment; that is, it is passed on through practical virtue to moral philosophy as well. For the hem of his garment is its end.

"Like the dew of Hermon, which comes down upon the mountains of Zion," etc. In Deuteronomy Moses names this mountain Hermon; but the Phoenicians call it Sanior, and the Amorites Sanir. It is beyond the Jordan. There is a tradition that the angels who rebelled deliberated on this mountain about their rebellion and made compacts.

Of the same. The mountains of Zion are the saints who mind high things, on whom the dew comes down. Hermon is interpreted "turning away of beasts." They say too that the Jordan once had its source there. This also signifies the grace of holy baptism; for it always comes down upon the saints, and through it comes the turning away of the intelligible beasts.

[Ps 133 LXX / 134] "Behold now, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God," etc. "You who stand," he says, "in the house of the Lord," and do not "fall like one of the rulers," but watch that you do not fall, "bless the Lord."

Of the same. The contemplatives are in the house of God, and the practical in the courts of the house of our God.

"In the nights lift up your hands to the holy places, and bless the Lord," etc. For "to the holy places" one has "holily," another "in a sanctified way." By "in the house of the Lord" he showed that no one is prevented from lifting holy hands everywhere; but it is not least fitting to do this in places consecrated to God,

as in the Hebrew. [Ps 134 LXX / 135] But now it stands with "in the courts of the house of our God."

"For I have known that the Lord is great, and our Lord above all gods," etc. Jethro says: "Now I know that the Lord is great above all the gods"; but the Prophet says first, "For I have known that the Lord is great," and then, "and our Lord above all gods."

"All that the Lord willed, he has done in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the deeps," etc. All that the Lord has made in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in the deeps, is good, since it came to be by the will of God. But if there is anyone in heaven, like the spiritual forces of wickedness, or on earth, like sinful men, or in the seas, like the wickedness of the dragon, or in the deeps, like the wickedness of those ordered to go there, this evil God did not make by his will: "For from the mouth of the Most High evil and good do not come forth."

Of the same. As heaven is the dwelling of the holy powers, so the earth is the dwelling of men: "The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth he has given to the sons of men." And as in the seas, figuratively so called, dwell the demons who oppose us, among whom also the dragon was formed to be mocked, so in the deeps, allegorically so called, dwell the subterranean demons.

"Bringing up clouds from the end of the earth; he made lightnings for the rain," etc. A cloud is a rational nature entrusted with the principles of Providence; lightning is spiritual teaching, bringing rational souls back from vice to virtue.

"And he gave their land as an inheritance," etc. If our inheritance is the knowledge of God, how are the opposing powers said to possess it? And you will inquire whether they are said to possess it, not as knowing it, but as preventing us from coming to it.

"Blessed be the Lord from Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem," etc. The one who dwells in a pure heart dwells in Jerusalem. He said that he dwells in Jerusalem, not confining the divine nature there, but knowing that at that time the divine manifestation was there, in the temple of Jerusalem.

[Ps 135 LXX / 136] "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever," etc. Those who suffer hardship in this age naturally need mercy in the age as well.

"Give thanks to the God of gods, for his mercy is for ever," etc. "Giving thanks" signifies thanksgiving and doxology here;

but it is also used of the confession of sins, as [elsewhere].

Of the same. He is God of gods, of those to whom the word of God came, according to the Scripture that says: "I said, You are gods"; and: "I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob," that is, by reason of his great love for them and his closeness to them. But he is God of the demons by reason of creation. And the Apostle too says: "Even if there are many gods and many lords in heaven and on earth"; but those called gods after the Trinity are such by participation in divinity, whereas the Saviour is God not by participation but by essence. And "for his mercy is for ever" is added in the manner of a refrain. For since he always has mercy, those who sing the refrain rightly say: "For for ever," and so on.

"To him who alone does great wonders," etc. He shows him continually doing good and working wonders. And he sets down these things about him, two and three and four: that he does them, that they are wonders, that they are great wonders, and that he alone does them. These things are said not to set the Son aside, but to set him apart from the demons. And what are these wonders that he alone does? And yet, at the beginning of the psalm he was speaking not of power but of goodness. How, then, does he now fall into speaking of power? Because these wonders belong not to power only, but also to goodness and love for mankind.

"To him who established the earth upon the waters," etc. If the earth is the base of the water, how has the earth been established upon the waters? And how does Job speak truly when he says, "Who hung the earth upon nothing"? Perhaps the earth beneath the abyss hangs upon nothing, while the earth above the abyss, on which we dwell, was established upon the abyss; so that the abyss is enclosed in the middle of the earth as in a vessel. So much, if one wishes to contend for the literal history. But as to the meaning: "Give thanks," he says, "to him who established the rational nature upon true knowledge." That in the Gospels the Lord calls rational souls earth and knowledge water can be learned from the seed that fell into the good earth, and from the river of living water flowing from the belly of the believer. And the rest of the psalm follows the second interpretation. The moon and the stars light this earth while it still lives in ignorance and cannot yet be enlightened by the sun of righteousness. Again Egypt is taken as a symbol of vice, when the firstborn in thought are destroyed; and Pharaoh is punished, choked in the spiritual waters; and Israel journeys through the desert, hungry and thirsty and tempted, and the desert is a symbol

of the practical life, as he hastens to the land of promise, which they say is the knowledge of God.

"And shook off Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea," etc. Wishing to show the ease of the drowning, he used this word. And the army too shares in the punishment and is punished, since they shared in the wrongs done to the Jews and took part in the pursuit.

"For in our humiliation he remembered us," etc. When the Lord remembers us as impure, he remembers us under the aspect of his righteousness; when again as pure, under the aspect of his wisdom. But this must be known, that these aspects are predicated with regard to the contemplation of things that have come to be, which presents Christ as Creator.

"Who gives food to all flesh," etc. The flesh that is nourished by God receives the salvation of God.

[Ps 136 LXX / 137] "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered Zion," etc. Great is these men's longing for the city. And why did they sit by the rivers? Because, being captives taken from an enemy country, they lived in camps outside walls and cities.

"On the willows in its midst we hung up our instruments," etc. Know that all the souls who sit in shadow and ignorance have a fruitless word, having hung up the instruments that serve the practical life.

"For there those who took us captive asked us for words of songs, and those who led us away: Sing us a hymn from the songs of Zion," etc. I know that the demons too compel us to say psalms and spiritual songs in which there is some commandment we have transgressed, so that, hearing them, they may laugh at us as people who say and do not do.

"Remember, Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem, who said: Empty it, empty it, down to its foundations," etc. "Empty it, empty it, to the foundation in it" is set down as spoken by the enemies. It shows those who wrestle with us trying to lay hold of the natural seeds of virtue, which he has figuratively named the foundation, laid from the beginning in the soul itself; that is, so that the mind, having fallen entirely from virtue, may walk, as the proverb says, "more naked than a pestle," having neither put on Christ nor a wedding garment.

"Blessed is he who will seize your little ones and dash them against the rock," etc. Those who, according to the teaching of Christ, destroy the base thoughts of the soul dash the little ones of Babylon against the rock.

[Ps 138 LXX / 139] "Lord, you have tested me and known me," etc. In what follows too it is said, as of the heart being revealed in temptations: "Test me, O God, and know my heart." The Fifth edition here said "you have searched out," and in what follows "search out." For as gold is tested in a furnace, so are acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. And it is written in a psalm: "You have tested us as silver is refined by fire." When you have understood this, you will know that only the righteous man, and everyone who has been tested, is known, as being in Christ from God; as is clear also from "Test me, Lord, and know my heart."

Of the same. God, though he foreknows all things, still tests, not in order to know, but in order to make those who endure more proven. And so that no one might suppose that he gains knowledge by testing, he added to the saying: "You understood my thoughts from afar." For he who knows the thoughts even before they are stirred, indeed long before, how would he need a test for his own knowledge?

"You have traced out my path and my measuring line," etc. Of those who use a good path God traces out the line, and God foresaw all the measures of the way of such people.

"For there is no deceit in my tongue," etc. There is no deceit, he says, in my tongue; that is, my word is not superficial, but comes from depth and from the heart. "The heart of fools is in their mouth."

Of the same. He has figuratively named the heart the tongue.

"Behold, Lord, you have known all things, the last and the ancient," etc. Consider why the things in the middle have been passed over in silence: because vice lies in between, and exists neither in the beginning nor in the end.

"Your knowledge has become too wonderful for me; it is mighty; I cannot attain to it," etc. This is the voice of a wise teacher who has benefited many and has dispensed the wonderful mysteries of knowledge.

"If I go up into heaven, you are there; if I go down into Hades, you are present," etc. He says these things as one able to go and flee into heaven and into Hades, and to fly to the ends of the sea; and it is likely that the soul, when it has come to be by itself, is able to do so. You will compare with these words the passage in Deuteronomy

which runs as follows: "This commandment is not too great for you, nor is it far from you. It is not up in heaven, that you should say: Who will go up for us into heaven and get it? Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say: Who will cross over for us to the other side of the sea and get it for us, so that we may hear it and do it? The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart and in your hands, to do it." You will compare also these words from Amos: "None of them who flees shall escape, and none of them who seeks safety shall be saved. If they dig down into Hades, from there my hand will draw them up; and if they go up into heaven, from there I will bring them down; if they hide on the top of Carmel, from there I will search them out and take them; and if they sink from my eyes into the depths of the sea, there I will command the serpent and it will bite them; and if they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword and it will kill them."

"And I said: Surely darkness will trample me, and the night is light in my delight," etc. If ignorance of heart is darkness ("for their senseless heart was darkened," it says), it is fitting that the one who becomes the cause of this darkness for us is himself named darkness; he chooses to darken our delight in knowledge, but God does not allow it, and lights up the darkness: "For the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." For as we acquired ignorance through vice, so too we have received knowledge through virtue.

"For you possessed my kidneys," etc. Blessed is the one whose kidneys have become the possession of the Lord.

"My bone, which you made in secret, was not hidden from you," etc. Here he has named the soul "bone," which God alone made.

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance," etc. An unformed soul is one not shaped by virtue and knowledge.

"And in your book all will be written," etc. The book of God is the contemplation of bodies and incorporeal beings, in which a pure mind is by nature written through knowledge. In this book are also written the principles of Providence and of judgment; and through this book God is known as Creator, Wise, Provider, and Judge: Creator, through the things brought from not being into being; Wise, through the principles stored up in it; Provider, through the things that contribute to our virtue and knowledge; and Judge, again, through the different bodies of the rational beings, and the various worlds, and the ages that contain them.

"Days will be formed, and no one in them," etc. They will be formed in knowledge, and no one

[Ps 138 LXX / 139, continued] will be outside knowledge, so that God may be all in all.

"I awoke, and I am still with you," etc. "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Therefore awakening is the return from vice to virtue.

"I hated them with perfect hatred," etc. If the perfect man, having hated evil, abstains from all vice, then whoever shares in any of their vices whatever has not perfectly hated evil.

"Test me, O God, and know my heart," etc. If God is a consuming fire, clearly he tests the souls of men under the aspect of fire.

[Ps 139 LXX / 140] "Who devised injustice in their heart; all the day they drew up battles," etc. The demons draw up in battle against us through thoughts, sometimes stirring desires, sometimes anger, and at other times anger and desire at once, from which comes the so-called entwined thought. But this happens only at the time of listlessness, while the others come at intervals, succeeding one another. No other thought succeeds the thought of listlessness on that day, first because it lasts long, and then because it holds almost all the thoughts within itself.

"They sharpened their tongue like a serpent's," etc. He calls the sharpest thought "sharpened." Such too is the thought that snatches the mind away to blasphemy.

"Who planned to trip up my steps," etc. But the demons often do not set base thoughts before us naked, lest the mind, seeing their irrationality face to face, throw the thoughts away; instead they sow the evil thoughts along with certain other thoughts that look good. And they do this only with the perfect, who have no passions; for into the passionate and impure they cast the thoughts even openly, and these cannot drive them away.

"Coals of fire will fall upon them," etc. This fire and these coals burn wood, hay, and straw, consuming evil habits.

"I know that the Lord will execute judgment for the poor and justice for the needy," etc. This is a prophecy about the judgment to come, in which, while the ungodly are handed over to the fire, the righteous will be received into rest. Solomon too, having benefited from this, said: "For God will bring every work into judgment." And he has come to a good end, since the psalm is also headed "For the end,"

speaking of the hope stored up for the righteous: "The upright will dwell with your face." For "with your face" Symmachus says "beside your face," that is, to see God face to face with a purified understanding.

[Ps 140 LXX / 141] "Let my prayer be directed as incense before you," etc. That man's prayer is directed as incense who can say: "We are the aroma of Christ among those being saved and among those perishing."

"Set a guard, Lord, on my mouth," etc. Nothing so guards our heart as the fear of God, since by the fear of the Lord everyone turns aside from evil.

"But let not the oil of the sinner anoint my head," etc. He calls the sinner's oil beneficence that is done not for the sake of the knowledge of God, but for the sake of glory from men; for this is also the trumpeting of the one who gives alms.

"Sinners will fall into its net," etc. The net is varied punishment drawn up from the depth of vice. But this net belongs to the age to come; the net of the present age is spiritual teaching, which brings those who have strayed from godliness back to virtue.

[Ps 141 LXX / 142] "With my voice I cried to the Lord; with my voice I made supplication to the Lord," etc. As fire by nature moves upward, so it is the nature of the righteous man's voice to go to the Lord, and as it were to call him forth to supply what one needs from God.

"I will pour out my supplication before him; I will declare my affliction before him," etc. One who asks only for great and heavenly things, and prays with a new spirit, is bold to pour out his supplication before the Lord, since it has nothing lowly or shameful in it, such as there is in the supplications of those who babble and ask for things unworthy of God, not pouring them out from a pure heart. This verse, then, belongs to the boldness of a saint, and the sinner could not reasonably say it; and the next verse belongs to the one who is afflicted in every way but not crushed, who boasts in the afflictions that produce endurance by walking the narrow and afflicted way that leads to life.

"In this way in which I walked they hid a snare for me," etc. Our enemies plot against all the virtues. In courage they hide the snare of cowardice; into meekness they put rashness; into almsgiving, showing mercy not for God's sake but because of those who are watching; and into

fasting, fasting for the sake of men. And these concern the practical life; but what might one say also of contemplation, of all the snares the enemies lay for orthodox doctrines through the heresies?

"Flight has perished from me, and there is no one who seeks my soul," etc. One who has lost this flight cannot say: "In affliction you have enlarged me."

"I cried to you, Lord; I said: You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living," etc. If our Lord is Wisdom, and he himself is the portion of the living, then the portion of the living is wisdom, by which they are also called living; and wisdom is Christ.

"Rescue me from those who persecute me," etc. Continual temptations pursue the mind away from knowledge.

"Bring my soul out of prison," etc. It is not for all to say, "Bring my soul out of prison," but only for those who through purity are able to give themselves to the contemplation of things that have come to be even apart from this body.

[Ps 142 LXX / 143] "Lord, hear my prayer; give ear to my supplication in your truth; hear me in your righteousness," etc. One who has seen that he worships God in spirit and in truth, and no longer in a type, might say: "Give ear to my supplication in your truth."

"And do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living will be justified before you," etc. When the Lord enters into judgment with man and says, "My people, what have I done to you, or how have I grieved you?" no one living will be justified. Before the Lord no one living will be justified; but before men, not only the unjust, but sometimes other righteous people too, [may be justified]. And he adds the reasons for not being justified, in a way akin to this verse: "That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged."

"My soul is like a waterless land to you," etc. A waterless land is a pure soul that seeks spiritual knowledge.

"Hear me quickly, Lord; my spirit has failed," etc. When a man is listless for a long time, his spirit fails. Similar to this is: "When my spirit was failing within me."

"Make me hear your mercy in the morning, for in you I have hoped. Make known to me, Lord, the way in which I should walk, for to you I have lifted up my soul," etc. He seeks the contemplation of the age to come, which the divine Scripture is accustomed to call the kingdom of heaven.

Of the same. This can be said of making known the way that leads to virtue, or the way one walks after one's departure, which is the way of the tree of life, guarded by the cherubim and the flaming sword.

Of the same. The land of the living and the level land are the same good land, to which the good Spirit of God leads the worthy. And from this we have been taught the dignity of the Spirit. For as God, so the Spirit too has been named good; and as he begged God to lead him, so he also asks to enjoy the guidance of the Spirit, so that nothing may seem to him steep or difficult, but that he may walk the way straight and smooth and free from error.

[Ps 143 LXX / 144] "Blessed be the Lord my God, who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war," etc. One who has been taught by the Lord the war against the opposing power knows the principles of the virtues and the vices, the differences among thoughts, the marks of godlessness and its definitions; and further, he knows the principles of the fantasies and dreams of the night, of which some arise from the rational part of the soul when the memory is stirred, others from the irascible part, and others from the desiring part. But about these we have treated more exactly in the first.

"Man has become like vanity; his days pass like a shadow," etc. Since "man, being in honour, did not understand; he was compared to the senseless cattle and became like them," therefore "his days pass like a shadow." For the things of this world are like children at play. He who judges today stands tomorrow to be judged; the man haughty in office is often led away by the executioner; the rich man falls into poverty; and the one no one expected, a nobody, often rules over everything. Frequent are the changes, and uneven the reversals.

Of the same. Vanity is the worst habit of a rational soul, in which it chooses corruptible pleasures and despises the things that are everlasting and incorruptible.

"Lord, bow your heavens and come down; touch the mountains, and they will smoke," etc. The touch of God is spiritual teaching, which drives out the smoke of vice stored up in souls.

"Send out your arrows, and you will throw them into confusion," etc. These arrows are opposed to the fiery darts of the enemy.

"Deliver me and rescue me from many waters, from the hand of foreign sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of injustice," etc. Of the heterodox, because of their great doctrines,