Tractates on the Psalms

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–1.2 · 1.3–2.1 · 2.2–2.24 · 2.25–2.47 · 2.48–13.6 · 14.1–51.6 · 51.7–51.24 · 52.1–52.21 · 53.1–53.14 · 54.1–54.19 · 55.1–56.10 · 57.1–58.13 · 59.1–60.7 · 61.1–62.12 · 63.1–63.12 · 64.1–65.5 · 65.6–65.29 · 66.1–67.13 · 67.14–67.32 · 67.33–68.16 · 68.17–69.5 · 91.1–118.0.5 · 118.1.1–118.2.11 · 118.3.1–118.4.12 · 118.5.1–118.6.12 · 118.7.1–118.8.19 · 118.9.1–118.10.18 · 118.11.1–118.12.15 · 118.13.1–118.13.13 · 118.14.1–118.14.20 · 118.15.1–118.16.17 · 118.17.1–118.18.9 · 118.19.1–118.21.8 · 118.22.1–119.24 · 120.1–120.16 · 121.1–121.15 · 122.1–123.9 · 124.1–125.11 · 126.1–126.21 · 127.1–128.14 · 129.1–131.6 · 131.7–131.28 · 132.1–134.11 · 134.12–134.27 · 135.1–135.15 · 136.1–136.14 · 137.1–138.10 · 138.11–138.34 · 138.35–138.47 · 139.1–139.17 · 140.1–141.8 · 142.1–142.14 · 143.1–143.22 · 144.1–144.23 · 145.1–146.13 · 147.1–149.4 · 150.1–150.2

1. 0.1Hilary rejects both the fivefold division and the title "Psalms of David" and, following Acts, calls the collection "the book of Psalms."
2. 0.2The psalms have several named authors, so the collection is a book of prophecies by many writers; the added names of Jeremiah, Haggai, and Zechariah are not in the authentic Septuagint.
3. 0.3Ancient tradition assigns untitled psalms to the author named in the last preceding titled psalm.
4. 0.4Moses could have named Samuel in Psalm 98 (99) by prophecy, just as Josiah was named before his birth; the tradition goes back to Ezra.
5. 0.5The psalms are to be read with reference to Christ's coming, passion, kingdom, and our resurrection; prophecy is sealed to worldly wisdom, and those who deny Christ have taken away the key of knowledge.
6. 0.6Christ holds the key of David and alone opens the sealed book; the seven seals are the mysteries of his body, passion, death, resurrection, glory, kingdom, and judgment, which the psalms prophesy.
7. 0.7The psaltery, struck from above and perfectly straight, is a figure of the Lord's body through which the heavenly Spirit spoke.
8. 0.8The Hebrew psalms had no fixed order; Ezra collected them, and the Seventy arranged them in an order matching the significance of their numbers.
9. 0.9Historically Psalm 3 is later than Psalm 50 (51), which shows that the order follows the meaning of numbers, not chronology.
10. 0.10Psalm 50 (51), on forgiveness, is placed at fifty, the number of jubilee, before the historically earlier Psalm 51 (52) on the unrepentant Doeg.
11. 0.11The three fifties of the Psalter correspond to rebirth through forgiveness, the kingdom of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the final praise of God in the Father's kingdom.
12. 0.12Fifty is seven sevens completed by the eighth day; during the fifty days after Easter, and on Sundays, the apostles forbade kneeling and fasting.
13. 0.13The eighth day is figured in Psalm 8's title "for the winepresses," in Psalm 6's "for the eighth," and in the same title on Psalms 80 and 83.
14. 0.14Psalm 118 (119), with twenty-two groups of eight verses, displays the mystery of the eighth.
15. 0.15Hilary lists the twenty-two books of the Old Testament matching the Hebrew letters, notes that some add Tobit and Judith to make twenty-four, and links Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to the inscription on the cross.
16. 0.16The fifteen Songs of Ascents combine seven (the law) and eight (the gospel), by which one climbs to heaven, as the priests climbed fifteen steps in the temple.
17. 0.17The different psalm headings ("for the end," "psalm," "song," and their combinations) have different reasons, which Hilary will briefly explain.
18. 0.18"For the end" in a heading marks psalms about the final, eternal goods in which faith comes to rest.
19. 0.19Hilary defines "psalm," "song," "song of a psalm," and "psalm of a song" by the relation of instrument and voice.
20. 0.20"Psalm" headings concern good works, "song" headings concern knowledge of God, and the combined headings join works and knowledge in one order or the other.
21. 0.21The four musical headings guide the interpretation of the psalms; untitled psalms are general teaching of the Holy Spirit for every believer.
22. 0.22Historical headings, names, and pronouns in the titles are keys to the spiritual meaning of the psalms.
23. 0.23The diapsalma marks a change of speaker, sense, or musical mode.
24. 0.24Each psalm, like a house in a great city, must be opened with its own key; Hilary turns to Psalm 1.
25. 1.1The first key to the psalms is to discern the speaker; Psalm 1 is spoken neither by the Father nor by the Son but by the prophet about the blessed man.
26. 1.2Many have taken the blessed man of Psalm 1 to be Christ, but without good reason; when prophecy refers to him must be discerned with care.
27. 1.3Psalm 1 does not fit Christ: he is Lord of the law, not one whose will is in it, and as Creator and firstborn he cannot become like a tree.
28. 1.4The blessed man is the believer conformed by righteousness to the body the Lord assumed.
29. 1.5The Spirit opens the Psalter with exhortation, the mystery of the incarnation, promise of glory, warning of judgment, and the difference in the resurrection.
30. 1.6The blessed man keeps five observances; the ungodly differ from sinners, as a son who insults his father differs from a dissolute but loving son.
31. 1.7The ungodly deny a creator and judgment and ascribe everything to chance and necessity; their counsel never comes to rest, so one walks in it.
32. 1.8Heretics too follow ungodly counsel, measuring God by their own judgment; the blessed man does not even wish to walk in it.
33. 1.9Sinners in the church are on a way to which nature carries us; the blessed man does not stand on it but turns back.
34. 1.10The chair of pestilence is not Moses' chair but the judge's seat of worldly office, whose duties of punishment infect even a devout Christian.
35. 1.11Abstaining from evil is not enough; the blessed man's will, not merely his fear, is in the law of the Lord.
36. 1.12Meditating on the law day and night means living it in every action, so that the whole life becomes unceasing prayer.
37. 1.13Hilary turns to the image of the tree, trivial to worldly readers but glorious in prophetic teaching.
38. 1.14The tree is the tree of life in paradise, which is Wisdom, that is, Christ, as Proverbs and the Gospels show.
39. 1.15The blessed man will be like the tree of life when planted in paradise; its fruit, given at the fullness of times, is the transformation of our body into the likeness of Christ's glorified body.
40. 1.16The unfading leaves are the words of God, which protect the promised fruit and never pass away.
41. 1.17The one tree of life on both sides of the river in Revelation signifies the single mystery of baptism; its leaves are the healing words of preaching.
42. 1.18Unlike Adam, who lost immortality, the redeemed will be like the tree of life, and all in them will prosper eternally.
43. 1.19The ungodly will be like dust driven by the wind: not annihilated but reduced to a state fit only for punishment.
44. 1.20The ungodly will rise, but not to judgment; they will remain to suffer punishment, as John 3 explains.
45. 1.21John 3:18–19 seems to leave no one to be judged; Hilary prepares to resolve the difficulty.
46. 1.22Judgment is for the mixed: church members who love Christ yet love darkness more, being neither simply believers nor unbelievers.
47. 1.23Psalm 1:5 agrees: the ungodly are already judged, sinners will be judged and are excluded from the counsel of the righteous.
48. 1.24God "knows" the righteous by acknowledging them, as he acknowledged Abraham and not the sinner Adam; the ungodly, already judged, perish.
49. 2.1Acts 13 calls this psalm "the first"; Hilary will explain why it is second in our numbering.
50. 2.2The Seventy, heirs of a secret Mosaic teaching, translated Hebrew ambiguities correctly, whereas later translators went astray; bereshith is an example.
51. 2.3The Septuagint's authority rests on its pre-Christian date and its translators' learning; they numbered, ordered, and divided the psalms.
52. 2.4Paul followed Hebrew custom in calling the psalm first; Christians should follow the Septuagint numbering.
53. 2.5Acts 4 interprets Psalm 2 of Herod, Pilate, the nations, and Israel gathered against Jesus.
54. 2.6The raging nations are the Roman soldiers who mocked and tortured Christ.
55. 2.7The peoples who meditated vain things are the Jews from many nations who studied the law without recognizing Christ in it.
56. 2.8The kings are Herod and Pilate; the rulers who gathered are the chief priests, who forfeited both rule and priesthood.
57. 2.9After the diapsalma the apostles speak: they break the bonds of sin for the nations and throw off the yoke of the law from themselves.
58. 2.10Because Father and Son are one in divinity, honour and insult to one are honour and insult to the other; both laugh at and mock their enemies.
59. 2.11Christ, even when on earth as Son of Man, remained in heaven as Son of God without losing what he was.
60. 2.12God's laughter is a bodily image for his judgment on those who plotted Christ's death, whose labour came to nothing because the crucified one is God.
61. 2.13Before explaining God's anger, Hilary insists that God is unchangeable and free of passions, being wholly self-sufficient.
62. 2.14God created all things through Christ not for his own gain but for the good of what he made.
63. 2.15God made man to share his blessedness; what he asks, love and obedience, profits us, not him.
64. 2.16God gave freedom of will so that goodness might be meritorious, setting reward before us and punishment as a restraint.
65. 2.17God's anger is not a passion in him but the appointed punishment as felt by those who suffer it.
66. 2.18God does not change; his "anger" in Psalm 7 is the judgment he has decreed for the unrepentant, announced in advance and delayed to allow repentance.
67. 2.19Isaiah 1 is an example of God speaking in anger, with severe threats against Israel.
68. 2.20In Isaiah 1 God's anger turns to an offer of cleansing; his anger troubles in order to bring repentance.
69. 2.21In the New Testament too God's anger aims at salvation: John's call to repentance, Christ's invitation, and the conversion of Saul.
70. 2.22The angry speech of Psalm 2:5 is the proclamation of Christ's kingship and sonship, meant to frighten the unrepentant into repentance.
71. 2.23"Today I have begotten you" cannot refer to the Son's eternal generation, which is before all time; the Gospels and apostles will show its meaning.
72. 2.24Christ's kingship is confessed by the thief, the magi, and Pilate's question, which Jesus answers without boasting.
73. 2.25Before the high priest Jesus confesses he is the Son of God and foretells the Son of Man at God's right hand: the Son of Man remains the Son of God.
74. 2.26The Sion over which Christ reigns is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly city that killed him.
75. 2.27"Today I have begotten you" refers to the resurrection, when the humanity Christ assumed was begotten into the glory he had with the Father before the world.
76. 2.28Paul distinguishes Christ as "firstborn of all creation" from his birth as "firstborn from the dead," the same person in both.
77. 2.29Christ, born of the virgin and again at baptism (where the words of Psalm 2:7 were heard), remained the same Son of God.
78. 2.30Acts 13 refers Psalm 2:7 to the resurrection, and Matthew 28 shows that the risen Christ received all power.
79. 2.31The inheritance Christ asked for is all the nations, no longer under angelic rulers as in the Song of Moses but made one people of God.
80. 2.32"The ends of the earth" means what bounds the earth, the heavens above and the abyss below with its inhabitants, all given to Christ.
81. 2.33Philippians 2 explains Psalm 2: the one who took the form of a servant was exalted after the cross and given the ends of the earth, heaven, earth, and underworld.
82. 2.34Hilary raises the objection that ruling with an iron rod and shattering the nations seems contrary to God's goodness.
83. 2.35The Greek of Psalm 2:9 means "shepherd them," showing the gentleness of Christ's rule, the good shepherd.
84. 2.36Paul's "rod" in 1 Corinthians 4 is the word of correction, not a magistrate's punishment.
85. 2.37In the Old Testament the rod is the teaching of the kingdom, and Christ himself is the rod from Jesse's root, tempered by the flower; his rod is of iron because it is unbreakable.
86. 2.38The Greek "crush" points to the contrite heart God desires; breaking like a potter's vessel aims at restoration.
87. 2.39Jeremiah's potter shows that God breaks in order to remake: he shatters vices and reshapes us in virtue.
88. 2.40God's "repentance" means that he ceases to punish those who cease to sin; as a potter remakes a vessel, God restores the repentant.
89. 2.41Breaking the potter's vessel also signifies death and the resurrection of the same body transformed, and our dying with Christ in baptism.
90. 2.42The kings told to understand are not earthly rulers, who belong to the devil's realm, but believers who rule themselves and in whom God's kingdom reigns.
91. 2.43Understanding the whole psalm, believers become heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, and so kings.
92. 2.44The judges of the earth are the saints, whose faith condemns the unrepentant by comparison, like the Ninevites and the queen of the South.
93. 2.45Service is to be in fear, fear tempered by joy, and joy restrained by trembling.
94. 2.46"Lay hold of discipline" calls for eager seizing, like the violent who take the kingdom of heaven.
95. 2.47Paul's pressing on to lay hold of what Christ laid hold of him for shows how discipline must be seized: God took our nature so that we may attain his.
96. 2.48Without discipline we will perish from the just way on the day of the Lord's anger.
97. 2.49Punishment begins immediately at death, as the parable of the rich man and Lazarus shows, while final judgment awaits.
98. 2.50The psalm ends with the blessedness of those who trust firmly in the Lord.
99. 9.1The Spirit teaches through varied kinds of speech; Psalm 9, "for the end, for the hidden things of the son," must be read through those two terms.
100. 9.2"For the end" in a title means the psalm concerns the last things; "hidden things" are what only God knows or reveals.
101. 9.3The hidden things are the mysteries of Christ: incarnation, virgin birth, and resurrection; but these are not yet "the end."
102. 9.4The end is the consummation of 1 Corinthians 15: resurrection, glorification of the saints, destruction of death, and the Son's handing over the kingdom so that God may be all in all.
103. 13.1Scripture must be preached and heard with the reverence due to the words of God.
104. 13.2Psalm 13 (14), "for the end," is full of complaint until its final verse, which resolves it with the hope of salvation from Sion.
105. 13.3Like a man in a plague-stricken city longing for a distant physician, the Spirit, seeing the world's corruption described in the psalm, cries out for Christ, the physician who heals by his word.
106. 13.4Sion is Christ's body, the flesh he assumed, from which alone our salvation comes.
107. 13.5"Salvation" is a name of the Lord promised to the nations, as Isaiah, the Psalms, and Simeon show; it is announced to the Gentiles rather than to carnal Israel.
108. 13.6The captivity turned back is that of the Gentiles in idolatry; the new Israel is the believer who sees God, and heaven rejoices over each repentant sinner.
109. 14.1Psalm 14 (15), concerned with the present, asks who may dwell in God's tabernacle and rest on his mountain.
110. 14.2The psalm's brief precepts gather all of Scripture's teaching; dwelling in the tabernacle comes before rest on the mountain.
111. 14.3The earthly tabernacles were figures that passed away; the true tabernacles are the churches founded by the apostles everywhere, many yet one.
112. 14.4Dwelling in the church is the first step and involves labour; rest on the mountain follows and is undisturbed.
113. 14.5The mountain of the Lord is Christ's assumed body, on which the church is built and in which the redeemed will rest with the angels.
114. 14.6The first requirements are a life kept spotless after baptism and the actual doing of righteousness.
115. 14.7Speaking truth in the heart marks the spiritual man, who knows the mysteries of Christ, as distinct from the natural man whose virtue is merely human.
116. 14.8Pagans and heretics too practise fasting, renunciation, and virginity; these avail only when joined to the true faith in Christ.
117. 14.9Truth must be in the tongue and in deeds, so that our actions do not belie the faith we confess.
118. 14.10Hilary allows that some lies are necessary, such as protecting a fugitive or the sick; the psalm condemns deceit that harms a neighbour.
119. 14.11The righteous man does not reproach his neighbour in pride but corrects gently, as the humble tax collector rather than the Pharisee was justified.
120. 14.12Humility must not become servility: the openly wicked, even powerful ones, are to be held of no account.
121. 14.13All who fear the Lord, whatever their station, are to be honoured equally.
122. 14.14The baptismal renunciation is an oath that must be kept to the end, since former righteousness is lost by later failure.
123. 14.15Lending at interest to the poor is a cruel kindness; what is done to the poor is done to Christ, who became poor.
124. 14.16Gifts are not forbidden, only those that corrupt judgment or harm the innocent; gifts should be accepted out of love, not greed.
125. 14.17Whoever does these things will not be moved; the psalm should be memorized and kept as provision for eternity.
126. 51.1The title "for the end, understanding" shows that Psalm 51 (52) concerns the end, for which all things exist.
127. 51.2The title recalls Doeg's report to Saul about David at Nob and the slaughter of the priests; the psalm follows Psalm 50 (51) on forgiveness.
128. 51.3Abimelech means "my brother's rule"; Christ, the true David, entered his brothers' royal house by becoming man, making us co-heirs of his kingdom.
129. 51.4Doeg signifies the people who betrayed Christ to Pilate; David at Abimelech's house signifies Christ in his body, eating the Passover and despoiling the devil.
130. 51.5Boasting in iniquity is condemned, as opposed to boasting in the Lord and the cross; "all day" means a whole lifetime.
131. 51.6Doeg stands for Israel, mighty through God's gifts in the exodus and conquest yet mighty in wickedness, from the golden calf to the crucifixion.
132. 51.7The tongue serves reason and cannot think; yet a fool's heart is in his mouth, whereas the wise man's tongue follows his meditated wisdom.
133. 51.8The tongue acts like a razor that wounds instead of grooming: the people's tongue, made for God's praise, cried "Crucify."
134. 51.9The people loved wickedness more than kindness, handing over their God to death and taking his blood upon themselves.
135. 51.10The verse distinguishes loving wickedness from refusing even to speak righteousness, which is Christ, of whom Hilary's Jewish contemporaries will not hear.
136. 51.11The diapsalma marks a change not of speaker but of sense: complaint gives way to sentence.
137. 51.12After the diapsalma comes the sentence of destruction; the Greek for "words of casting down" means words of drowning in the sea.
138. 51.13The world is a sea ruled by the devil; Christ came to draw us out with the net of his teaching, but the people who betrayed him cast themselves into the depth, like the drowned Egyptians.
139. 51.14Having chosen Caesar over God as king, the people lost their city and tabernacle and were scattered.
140. 51.15Plucked from the tabernacle, the people lost its prophecy, sacrifices, Passover, and festivals.
141. 51.16The tabernacle is also Christ's body, the true vine, which took the nature of all flesh; the unbelieving and the fruitless are torn from it though they share its nature.
142. 51.17Christ's kingdom is open to all through his assuming human nature, but the unbelieving uproot themselves from the land of the living.
143. 51.18The faithful dead live to God, who decreed death and can decree life; he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living.
144. 51.19The righteous, seeing the fall of a people once so blessed, both fear the example and rejoice in their own righteousness, joy and fear tempering each other.
145. 51.20It is folly not to rely on God as helper; we must fear lest we share the fate of the one who trusted in himself.
146. 51.21Riches should make us grateful and generous; gold is rightly used by feeding the hungry and freeing captives, whereas the unbelieving people trusted in the law's shadow and human traditions.
147. 51.22The prophet is a fruitful olive in God's house, the church, never cut off like the unbelieving branches; his hope reaches beyond death to the resurrection.
148. 51.23Righteous works need God's mercy to attain eternal life; confession is possible only in this life, since after death the will is no longer free.
149. 51.24The name the prophet awaits is Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made, the name angels worship and demons fear.
150. 52.1Psalm 52 (53) resembles Psalm 13 (14), but its title "for the end, understanding, to that David" shows that it concerns the end and is addressed to Christ.
151. 52.2The fool denies God only in his heart, ashamed to say it aloud, since creation shows God plainly; vice persuades us of what reason cannot accept.
152. 52.3Transgressing God's law leads to corruption and abomination; Christ became flesh to clothe corruption with incorruption.
153. 52.4"None does goodness": we speak well more easily than we act well.
154. 52.5God looked down from heaven in his many saving acts, through Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets.
155. 52.6Few seek God with understanding, inquiring into creation, history, and the purpose of angels, the Spirit, and the Son.
156. 52.7Understanding is the proper work of the rational soul, but vice and bodily pleasure turn us from seeking God.
157. 52.8We first become useless through sin and then turn aside from the good, as Adam hid from God after his sin.
158. 52.9If none does good, how were Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the apostles good, and how does Christ speak of good men?
159. 52.10The verse applies only to the fools and the corrupt named earlier; "not even one" includes every one of them, excepting none.
160. 52.11Only God's unchangeable goodness is perfect; human goodness is changeable, yet we are truly good when we are good.
161. 52.12God pardons the changeableness of those whose will is good, as with Moses and Peter, who denied through fear but wept and later confessed by martyrdom.
162. 52.13God's people are distinct from those who devour them: persecutors, slanderers, and clergy who enrich themselves from the offerings; such do not truly call upon God.
163. 52.14The ungodly fear idols and powerful men instead of God; Christians who flatter kings and surrender the church's freedom for fear of bodily harm show the same ungodly fear.
164. 52.15God scatters the bones of men-pleasers; like Paul, we may please men only by pleasing God and seeking others' good rather than our own.
165. 52.16Bones signify the hope of eternity, as in Christ's unbroken bones and Ezekiel's vision; God guards the bones of the righteous and scatters those of men-pleasers.
166. 52.17All will rise, but the despised will rise to shame without being changed into glory.
167. 52.18The cry for salvation from Sion looks to Christ, the Word made flesh, whose flesh is Sion and whose name means salvation.
168. 52.19Salvation is given not to Israel according to the flesh but to the children of promise and faith, as John, Christ, Daniel, and Ezekiel show.
169. 52.20Christ, who read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue, turned back the captivity of the nations by freeing them from demons and sin.
170. 52.21Jacob, the supplanter, signifies the Gentile believer who takes the place of the elder people; Israel, "one who sees God," the baptized believer who sees God by faith.
171. 53.1David, a man after God's heart, prefigured Christ's meekness by not fighting his persecutors but praying, as Christ did in his passion.
172. 53.2The Ziphites' betrayal of David prefigures the betrayal of Christ; the psalm is to be understood of him who is the end of the law.
173. 53.3"Ziphites" means "sprinklings of the mouth": a people cleansed by ritual in word but not in heart, which betrayed its David.
174. 53.4David's sufferings prefigure Christ's passion, so the prayer is Christ's: he asks, as man, to be saved in God's name, regaining the glory he had before the ages.
175. 53.5"Judge me in your power": by obedience to death Christ's humanity was exalted and given the divine name and power, as Philippians 2 says.
176. 53.6Only Christ, who knows the Father and committed no sin, could confidently ask that his prayer and the words of his mouth be heard.
177. 53.7Though equal in power with the Father, the Son prayed and suffered as man to give an example of humility, undergoing human weaknesses by assumption, not by nature.
178. 53.8Christ's persecutors, no true children of Abraham, sought his soul, not recognizing God in the one who, remaining Son of God, had become son of man with body and soul.
179. 53.9After the diapsalma the prophet declares the answer to each petition: God helps, upholds the soul, and turns evil back on the enemies.
180. 53.10The innocent may trust God's help in persecution and death; God is not the author of evil but turns punishment on the wicked while sparing the righteous.
181. 53.11Christ, the truth, destroys his enemies by rising from the dead; their later destruction by famine and war is seen as God's punishment.
182. 53.12The Son suffered voluntarily for human salvation; the suffering was real and penal, yet his divine nature did not feel pain.
183. 53.13The law's sacrifices were compulsory under a curse; Christ freed us from the curse by voluntarily offering his own body as the perfect sacrifice.
184. 53.14Christ gives thanks for deliverance; having died and descended to the underworld, he rose and looks down on his enemies, the temple of his body rebuilt.
185. 54.1The title "for the end, among the hymns, understanding" directs the psalm to Christ, the end of the law.
186. 54.2Christ, remaining God while becoming man, speaks in the psalms sometimes as man and sometimes as God.
187. 54.3God hears every prayer, but only an innocent prayer obtains his "giving ear"; Christ asks this with confidence.
188. 54.4God gives ear (the Canaanite woman), despises worldly prayers (the man asking for his inheritance), and attends to silent faith (the woman touching his fringe).
189. 54.5Christ's "exercise" was the work of our salvation, prefigured by Isaac going out to meet Rebecca; he was troubled by insults and abuse in his passion.
190. 54.6Christ took on our fear and troubles so that they fell upon him rather than being in him; able not to die, he did not refuse our death.
191. 54.7Christ needs no wings from another: the dove's wings signify his return to spiritual glory, as the Spirit rested on him at the Jordan.
192. 54.8Rejected by his own people, Christ dwells in the "desert," the Gentiles, foretold by Isaiah 35 as blossoming; he rests in them as in his temple.
193. 54.9Hilary does not deny the literal sense but adds the Christological one, since David's sufferings were fulfilled in Christ.
194. 54.10After the diapsalma Christ awaits salvation from the storm of his passion, as in Psalm 68 (69), and asks the Father for his former glory.
195. 54.11The Greek "sink them" recalls the flood and Babel; the prayer foretells the people's being swallowed by the nations and scattered among their languages.
196. 54.12The city's iniquity and contradiction, above all its rejection of Christ at his trial, overran the walls of its spiritual protection.
197. 54.13The complaint is against Judas, an intimate apostle, whose betrayal is worse than the insults of Gentiles who did not know the law.
198. 54.14The punishment of descending alive into the underworld falls on all who share the betrayer's wickedness.
199. 54.15Christ cried to the Lord and was heard; evening, morning, and noon signify the whole day, reckoned by the law from evening; God freed him and humbled his enemies.
200. 54.16Those who refused to believe even in the risen Christ will rise but not be changed into glory; they defiled the covenant and were scattered.
201. 54.17Judas, keeper of the common purse, spoke smoothly of caring for the poor when objecting to the anointing, but sought to steal; his soft words were darts.
202. 54.18We should cast our care on God, who nourishes and keeps the righteous from being overwhelmed, as Christ teaches and as Jacob experienced.
203. 54.19The wicked are led to the pit of destruction, fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem; Christ rose from the pit, and full days are kept for those who hope in the Lord.
204. 55.1The title of Psalm 55 (56) points beyond David's capture at Gath: the inscribed title signifies Christ's victorious death, "the people far from the saints" is unbelieving Israel, and "for the end" refers to Christ.
205. 55.2The psalm will be read both as David's own complaint and as Christ's, whose human feelings imply no dishonour to God.
206. 55.3"All day" means a lifetime; the real enemies are spiritual powers who incite human persecutors.
207. 55.4The saint does not fear the world's power; knowing the coming judgment, he hopes in God, while his persecutors have cause to fear.
208. 55.5Hope in God frees the saint from fear of men; Christ too, remaining God in the flesh, worked divine deeds and feared nothing from flesh.
209. 55.6Christ's enemies plotted secretly, could not bear his rebukes, and watched his steps to trip him up.
210. 55.7Those "saved for nothing" will be raised but not changed into glory, rising only to punishment, while those justified by Christ's blood are saved from wrath.
211. 55.8The holy one's tears, shed by David for himself or by Christ for us, are before God and plead for his promises.
212. 55.9When Christ calls on God, his enemies are turned back to punishment.
213. 55.10Christ gives thanks, praising the word by which he knows God as his God.
214. 55.11The saint hopes in God and does not fear men, since death leads to immortal glory.
215. 55.12Christ is lord of his own resurrection; the same body will rise, changed rather than newly created, and he will please the Father in the reconciliation of the world.
216. 56.1The title "do not destroy" (Greek "do not corrupt") shows the psalm is Christ's prayer not to see corruption, as Psalm 15 (16) says.
217. 56.2David's prayer in the cave prophesies Christ's resurrection and his lowly dwelling in a body; one hiding in fear could not have played harp and psaltery.
218. 56.3Trusting God, the holy one shelters under his wings, as chicks under a hen, until iniquity and the weakness of the body pass.
219. 56.4God sent his mercy and truth, Christ, from heaven and rescued his soul from the lions' whelps after the sleep of death; those who trampled him are put to shame.
220. 56.5Bodily images in Scripture describe the mind: the teeth and tongue of the enemies signify persecution and slander.
221. 56.6Christ's exaltation above the heavens presupposes his descent to the depths, as Ephesians 4 says; his glory over the earth is the outpouring of the Spirit.
222. 56.7The exaltation is for Christ's humanity, in which we share; his persecutors fell into the pit they dug for him.
223. 56.8Ready in faith, the prophet bids psaltery and harp, figures of himself, to awake at dawn, the hour of resurrection, to praise God among the nations.
224. 56.9God's mercy reaching the heavens and truth the clouds refer to the resurrection, when the saints meet Christ in the clouds and creation is freed from corruption.
225. 56.10God is exalted beyond all the heavens and all knowledge, yet his glory remains with us on earth, as Christ promised to be with us always.
226. 57.1Psalm 57 (58) has the same heading as the previous one without a historical note; it rebukes the ungodly and promises joy to the righteous.
227. 57.2Speaking righteousness is easy; God judges the heart, where iniquity is done even when the hands refrain, as with adultery in the heart.
228. 57.3Sinners' estrangement from the womb reflects God's foreknowledge, not a necessity of nature; their fault is a will deliberately deaf, like the ancient serpent.
229. 57.4God breaks the persecutors' teeth; they flow away like useless water and melt like wax in the fire of judgment, never seeing the sun of righteousness.
230. 57.5The wicked are not annihilated: their souls are punished even before the resurrection, like the rich man in the Gospel, and their raised bodies will bear the thorns of their sins.
231. 57.6The righteous, at rest like Lazarus, rejoice at God's judgment, their hands clean of the blood that rests on the persecutors.
232. 57.7The righteous have their reward; believers are not judged and unbelievers are already judged, so judgment remains for those between sin and faith.
233. 58.1Saul's guarding David's house to kill him prefigures the Lord shut in at Jerusalem for death; the psalm can be read both literally and of Christ.
234. 58.2The psalm traces the growth of sin from enmity to rising up, iniquity, and bloodshed, which is why the Gospel restrains anger at its root.
235. 58.3The strong who hunt the soul of the sinless one are the persecutors armed by the devil, who entered Judas.
236. 58.4David, who confessed his sin and his birth in sin in Psalm 50 (51), cannot be the sinless speaker here.
237. 58.5Only Christ, who did no sin and in whom the prince of the world found nothing, can say this; he is the giant who runs his course from heaven and back.
238. 58.6Christ prays that the Father meet him at his ascension and visit the nations in him; all are visited through his incarnation, yet workers of iniquity are judged.
239. 58.7After the diapsalma the fate of the people is foretold: temple destroyed, city forbidden by imperial edict, they circle it hungry for God's word.
240. 58.8Even convicted, they continue to rage in word against the faith now given to the Gentiles.
241. 58.9The unbelieving nations too are laughed at by God; the faithful among them are few, and the world mocks the crucified without believing in his resurrection.
242. 58.10Christ kept his soul for God, laying it down to take it up again; even before his resurrection God's mercy showed him to be Son of God by the signs at his death and the centurion's confession.
243. 58.11God does not destroy Israel but scatters it, keeping a remnant for mercy; when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, Israel will be saved and know the God of Jacob as Lord of the earth.
244. 58.12Meanwhile the scattered people hunger for their lost temple worship, imitate it elsewhere without satisfaction, and murmur as in the wilderness.
245. 58.13The closing thanksgiving fits both David and Christ; praise "in the morning" points to the resurrection at dawn.
246. 59.1The title of Psalm 59 (60) records David's victory, yet the psalm is sorrowful; the historical note gives the time of writing, not the subject, and the Septuagint's "valley of Salt" carries spiritual meaning.
247. 59.2"Those who will be changed" are converts from the synagogue and the nations to the church; the "valley of salt" signifies believers, the salt of the earth; the psalm was written when Nathan foretold the eternal king.
248. 59.3God's anger is that of a father, merciful in punishing: he destroyed the earthly temple, law, and kingdom but gave the heavenly city, justification by faith, and the kingdom of heaven.
249. 59.4The psalm applies to all mankind, cursed in Adam and justified in Christ; God gives a sign to escape his wrath, and the "wine of compunction" is sorrow for sinful joys.
250. 59.5God's right hand, Christ seated in our flesh, frees his beloved from the power of darkness.
251. 59.6God speaks in his Holy One, Christ, and "divides Sichem," Samaria, where the gospel was received in part, separating believers from unbelievers.
252. 59.7Measuring the valley of tabernacles, the world, signifies the gathering of the full number of Gentile believers into the church.
253. 59.8Galaad and Manasseh signify that the whole earth belongs to Christ by right.
254. 59.9Ephraim, the younger son preferred by Jacob's crossed hands, prefigures the church taken up into Christ's body.
255. 59.10"Judah my king" is spoken by the Holy One, Christ, who inspired Jacob's prophecy of the eternal king from Judah.
256. 59.11Moab, from whom Christ descends through Ruth, is the "pot" in which raw flesh is made food of life, a figure of purification by fire.
257. 59.12Stretching the shoe into Edom and subjecting the foreigners signify the apostolic preaching reaching all nations.
258. 59.13The prophet longs for the heavenly Jerusalem but knows that first Edom, the failing elder people, must be reached; God, who abandoned Israel's armies, will at the last save its remnant.
259. 59.14Human help is vain; with God's help believers overcome sin, Satan, and death through Christ.
260. 60.1Psalm 60 (61) is a simple hymn of the righteous man's eternal hope and thanksgiving.
261. 60.2"The ends of the earth" are the limits of the flesh, from which the believer, living in Christ yet groaning in the body, cries out.
262. 60.3The rock is Christ, who has raised us in hope; this hope is a tower of strength against the devil until we dwell in God's tabernacle for ever.
263. 60.4Meanwhile the saint is protected under God's wings, a protection granted to the prayer of faith.
264. 60.5The inheritance is eternal life for all who fear God; the king's reign until his enemies are subdued spans the generations up to the regeneration, while he himself remains eternally before God.
265. 60.6When the redeemed are filled with God's fullness, they will no longer need to seek mercy and truth, as Christ promised joy that no one will take away.
266. 60.7The saint will praise God for ever, rendering his vows in the heavenly Jerusalem.
267. 61.1Psalm 61 (62) teaches fear of God, patient endurance, and contempt for wealth, the root of all evils.
268. 61.2After the endless confusion of pagan philosophy and religion, the believer finds in the prophets, the apostles, and the incarnation the firm ground of faith and is no longer moved.
269. 61.3Pagan philosophy, denying the incarnation and future judgment, pushes over man, already a leaning wall, into vice.
270. 61.4The believer, rebuilt as God's house, runs thirsting for righteousness and gives no occasion for reproach, though enemies bless with their mouths and curse in their hearts.
271. 61.5The saint perseveres, his soul subject to God, learning patience from Christ's suffering and hoping to share his glory.
272. 61.6The prophet urges all to hope in God and pour out their hearts before him in tears.
273. 61.7The ungodly are vain and deceitful, using the scales of justice to cheat, and fall back into the errors they claim to escape.
274. 61.8Love of money is the root of iniquity; riches, even when they come freely, must not hold the heart, since they do not go with us beyond death.
275. 61.9God's one utterance reveals two: power belongs to God the Father and mercy to the Lord, the Son, to whom all judgment is given; Father and Son are confessed together, neither without the other.
276. 62.1David in the desert, prefiguring Christ's sojourn in the wilderness, devotes his solitude to divine things.
277. 62.2The saint begins the day at dawn with prayer to God, whom he knows as his own.
278. 62.3Both soul and flesh thirst for God; the body, often thought incapable of salvation, shares in the hope of eternity if it lives by the Spirit; the saint longs to appear before God.
279. 62.4Prophecy speaks of the future as past; the saint will appear before God in his Holy One, Christ, in whom the Father is seen.
280. 62.5To see God's power and glory is to see Christ, the power of God, and so share in eternity.
281. 62.6God's mercy is better than this life, which ends in death; like a seed that dies and rises, those who die with Christ live in him.
282. 62.7The saint praises God by word and by deeds ("lifting up hands"); God's mercy surpasses both this life and the life in Abraham's bosom.
283. 62.8The saint offers not animal sacrifices but himself as a sacrifice of praise, the fat of the offerings figuring a soul filled with joyful praise.
284. 62.9Remembering God at night keeps the bed pure and makes morning prayer confident; God's protection guards against temptation.
285. 62.10Love makes the soul cling to God; the one who clings is taken up by God's right hand, Christ, to share his glory.
286. 62.11Persecutors cannot destroy the soul; they will descend to punishment, separated from the saints, and share the lot of the foxes, figures of Herod and the demons.
287. 62.12The king, Christ, rejoices; those who swear by him swear by the true God, and the mouths of the wicked are stopped when he comes as judge and every knee bows to him.
288. 63.1Psalm 63 (64), headed only "for the end," is to be read spiritually.
289. 63.2Some refer every psalm to Christ; this is pious, but care is needed not to diminish what is truly his.
290. 63.3Interpreters must distinguish psalms about Christ's divinity, his humanity and works, the nations, Israel, and moral teaching.
291. 63.4The psalm could be read of the plot against Christ and the apostles' preaching, but Hilary will read it differently.
292. 63.5The psalm is the prayer of every saint beset by philosophers, heretics, the greedy, the pleasure-loving, and the ambitious, against whom only vigilant prayer avails.
293. 63.6We must pray always, not only when trouble comes, so that God rescues us from the fear of being overcome; faith, not fear, merits mercy.
294. 63.7The danger is from tongues: false teachers aim their arrows at the "spotless," the newly baptized, not yet firm or instructed in the faith.
295. 63.8Heretics and philosophers have long prepared hidden snares to undermine the faith of the simple.
296. 63.9The arguments of philosophers fail before the faith: God is creator and governor, the soul is from God's breath and survives death, the body will rise, and God judges human life.
297. 63.10Against heretics: the Son is eternal with the Father, the Word and Wisdom of God, creator, lawgiver, speaker in the prophets, and the risen one who glorified the flesh.
298. 63.11When the searchers fail, the man of deep heart exalts God; the simple teaching of the newly reborn, the "arrows of little ones," defeats false doctrines.
299. 63.12The arrows of the little ones wound the adversaries, who fear when they recognize their error and God's judgment, while the righteous rejoice in God's works.
300. 64.1Psalm 64 (65), also "for the end," announces the gathering of the nations to praise God.
301. 64.2"A hymn befits you in Sion": Sion is the church, the body of Christ and the heavenly Jerusalem, where God is praised.
302. 64.3Asceticism outside the church, of philosophers, magi, or heretics, is useless; vows of chastity and fasting are worthy only within the church, where the Spirit intercedes.
303. 64.4"All flesh" means all mankind; the nations, misled by idolatry and philosophy, will come to God for forgiveness through Christ, the propitiation.
304. 64.5Many are called but few chosen, the chosen being those in the wedding garment of baptism; there are many mansions of differing glory, and all the worthy share heavenly honour.
305. 64.6The good things of God's house are the church's gifts and the unseen glory to come; the holy temple is the believer's body and also Christ's humanity, in which the fullness of the divinity dwells.
306. 64.7Christ is the hope of the whole world, even the islands of the sea, not of one nation only.
307. 64.8The "mountains" God prepares in his strength are not physical ones, as passages in Micah and Psalm 17 (18) show, where mountains tremble before the descending Lord.
308. 64.9The mountains are the hostile powers led by the devil, which God the Word, his assumed humanity girded with power, crushed and prepared for judgment.
309. 64.10The sea is the world, ruled by the devil; when Christ is preached, the demons fall silent, oracles cease, and exorcism by Christians troubles the nations, some of whom come to fear God.
310. 64.11"Those who dwell at the ends" are believers at the border of the flesh, wishing to leave sin but not yet wholly free, unlike Paul, who lived beyond the flesh with Christ living in him.
311. 64.12The signs that inspire fear include the church's morning and evening prayers, which open and close each day with God's praise.
312. 64.13God visited the earth, that is, humanity, and made it drunk and rich with spiritual gifts.
313. 64.14The river of God is the Holy Spirit poured into believers; the prepared food is the communion of Christ's holy body, which saves now and prepares for future fellowship with God.
314. 64.15The prophet prays that the streams of grace in the baptized be made to overflow; the first drops of the Spirit's gifts grow into streams and rivers.
315. 64.16The "year of kindness" is the eternal age of recompense; its crown is Christ's victory over corruption and death, surrounded by his saints.
316. 64.17The fields are the faithful under the law, the desert the Gentile church, the hills the martyrs, and the rams the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles clothed with immortality.
317. 64.18The valleys abounding with grain are believers of humbler faith, who will still receive life though not the highest glory.
318. 64.19Because they cry out and sing, the fields, hills, and valleys are clearly people praising God for their rewards.
319. 65.1Hilary explains the title “a song of a psalm” as a hymn of thanks for spiritual knowledge gained through obedient action.
320. 65.2Hilary quotes the opening verses and lists the order of the prophet’s exhortations.
321. 65.3Hilary contrasts the Latin iubilate, a shepherd’s call, with the Greek alalaxate, a battle cry of victory.
322. 65.4The shout of joy is the church’s battle cry against the devil, heard in its prayers, hymns, and responses.
323. 65.5Singing psalms to God’s name means honoring him with good works done through the body, as the instrument of the soul.
324. 65.6God’s works in creation show his terrible majesty, and he, not the things he made, is to be confessed as God.
325. 65.7Hilary lists the philosophers’ and pagans’ errors about the world and its elements as the enemies’ lie about God.
326. 65.8Against the lie of false gods, all humanity is to worship the true Creator.
327. 65.9After the pause, the prophet calls those far from God to come and see his works, as Paul speaks of peace to the far and the near.
328. 65.10The works the prophet calls us to see are God’s saving acts at the Red Sea and the Jordan, which confirm faith in him.
329. 65.11The crossing of the Jordan benefits all because there John baptized and the Lord consecrated the waters of baptism.
330. 65.12The one who rules is Jesus, whose assumed flesh receives the name above every name; the Greek speaks of rule over a designated age.
331. 65.13Christ’s rule over the age in his glorified body comes at the end, when every power and death itself are destroyed.
332. 65.14God’s eyes turning toward or away is not bodily motion but the presence or absence of his help according to merit.
333. 65.15Those who deny God’s mercy to the nations, boasting of descent from Abraham, provoke him to anger.
334. 65.16The pause marks a shift from the prophet’s voice to the apostles’, joining Old and New Testament preaching.
335. 65.17The apostles call the nations to bless “our God,” the God of the law and prophets, not pagan gods.
336. 65.18The Greek means “make the voice of his praise heard”: God is to be praised by bold public preaching.
337. 65.19The praise to be made heard is God’s gift of steadfastness to the apostles and martyrs, whose feet carried the gospel everywhere.
338. 65.20God tests believers like silver in fire, not to learn their faith but to purge them of vices so that they shine.
339. 65.21Hilary describes the martyrs’ prisons, scourgings, beheadings, burnings, and drownings as ways the soul is set in life.
340. 65.22The psalm’s fire, water, snare, and burdens describe the martyrs’ sufferings, through which they pass into the refreshment of the resurrection.
341. 65.23The martyrs offered their bodies whole like burnt offerings, to enter God’s heavenly house.
342. 65.24The martyrs’ vows are not animal sacrifices but the offering of themselves and the instruction of others; incense means prayers, rams priests, oxen tamed converts.
343. 65.25Hilary explains that the Greek word for “goats” here means creatures born in winter, the same word as for winter torrents.
344. 65.26The winter-born goats are those born into martyrdom by the storm of persecution, like the penitent thief.
345. 65.27After the pause the speaker invites those who fear God to hear what God has done for his soul.
346. 65.28The cry of the mouth must be matched by inward devotion “under the tongue,” as in secret prayer.
347. 65.29God hears the prayer of one who harbors no iniquity in his heart, and the psalm ends in praise as it began.
348. 66.1Hilary introduces Psalm 66 (67) as a short gospel psalm spoken by the prophets and apostles.
349. 66.2Mercy, the free forgiveness of sins, comes first; the blessing asked for is the spiritual fulfillment of the blessing given to Adam.
350. 66.3God’s face shining on us is the light of his knowledge given to darkened hearts through his mercy.
351. 66.4The Greek shows the prayer is that God’s way, Christ, be made known on earth; “salvation” translates the name Jesus.
352. 66.5The peoples’ confession and the nations’ joy follow the preaching, in hope of just judgment and guidance into the way of life.
353. 66.6The repeated call to confess means first confession of sins, then confession of praise because the earth has given its fruit.
354. 66.7The earth’s fruit is the fruit Adam’s earth lost through sin and regains in those conformed to Christ, first in Christ’s own sinless body.
355. 66.8“Our God” is the God of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, in whom the earth bore fruit even in martyrdom.
356. 66.9The fear of God, a gift of the Spirit and the beginning of wisdom, is wished for all the ends of the earth.
357. 67.1Hilary introduces Psalm 67 (68) as a psalm woven of the mysteries of the law and the Gospels, from the incarnation to the ascension and kingdom.
358. 67.2“Let God arise” looks to Christ’s resurrection, before which the hostile demons flee but cannot escape God’s face.
359. 67.3Like smoke and melting wax, the power of the wicked dissolves at God’s judgment.
360. 67.4The righteous rejoice “in joy,” a true joy perfected by the sight of God, unlike pleasure in harmful things.
361. 67.5The prophet’s call to praise names the God to be praised, so that knowledge, not mere exhortation, leads us to sing.
362. 67.6Christ, whose name is Lord, rose above the setting of death; we prepare his way by leveling our vices so he may enter our hearts.
363. 67.7God is father of those who renounce the devil and judge of the church widowed from the law, and also, literally, protector of orphans and judge of true widows.
364. 67.8God’s holy place is the church, where the like-minded dwell, sinners are freed, and the spiritually dead are led out of their tombs.
365. 67.9The Exodus wonders prefigured the gospel: God, who gave manna at Sinai, now passes to the desert of the nations and gives the bread from heaven.
366. 67.10The “willing rain” is the preaching of apostles chosen by God’s foreknowledge, weak at first but perfected as pillars of the church.
367. 67.11The inheritance is the nations, once like beasts, who are made spiritual and dwell in the sweetness God prepared for the poor.
368. 67.12God gives the word to the many apostolic “powers” of Christ the beloved, and adorns the church with spoils taken from the devil and the nations.
369. 67.13The silvered wings and golden back of the dove signify the preachers adorned by the Spirit and later rewarded with eternal honor.
370. 67.14The leaders of the churches are made kings and whitened as snow on Salmon, the mountain of peace, like the transfigured Christ.
371. 67.15Hilary lists heresies that break the church’s peace: two Gods of law and Gospel, Christ as mere man, the Son as a creature, and the Father become flesh.
372. 67.16The “curdled mountains” are corrupted teachings, soured from the pure milk of faith; God dwells only in the one mountain of peace.
373. 67.17Against those who say the gospel changed the law, Hilary answers that Christ the mediator gave the law through angels and now preaches the gospel.
374. 67.18God’s chariot of ten thousands, like Daniel’s vision, is the host of angels through whom the law was given at Sinai in the mediator’s hand.
375. 67.19The Lord of Sinai is the same Christ who ascended in his holy humanity, took captivity captive, and received the nations as gifts.
376. 67.20God is blessed daily as more people abandon idols and are led to salvation, and “day to day” means for ever.
377. 67.21The cross, folly to others, is God’s wisdom; Christ alone, the firstborn from the dead, has the “issues of death,” going out from death and raising our nature to glory.
378. 67.22It befits God’s goodness that he who gave us life and breath at creation should give us eternal life in himself through the only-begotten.
379. 67.23Following Colossians 2, Hilary explains that by dying and rising Christ cancelled the decree of death and triumphed over the demonic powers who caused his death.
380. 67.24The shattered heads are the demonic powers of the air, who tread unnoticed on human minds and prompt sin, and whom Christ condemned in his death.
381. 67.25“From Bashan into the depth of the sea” means Christ’s descent from the shame of the body into the storm of the world and the cross, where he crushed the enemy powers.
382. 67.26The foot dipped in blood signifies divine vengeance, fulfilled in the Roman capture of Jerusalem and in the condemnation of the demonic powers.
383. 67.27God’s ways were seen at the Red Sea and again at Christ’s ascension, when the heavenly gates were opened to the king of glory.
384. 67.28Benjamin is Paul, and the princes of Zebulun and Naphtali are the apostles called in Galilee; the church draws its teaching from the fountains of Israel.
385. 67.29“Command your power” means God commanding his Son, who is God’s power; what God foreordained in us he confirms in Christ.
386. 67.30The kings bringing gifts from the temple are believers, temples of God freed from sin, who offer themselves to God in the heavenly Jerusalem.
387. 67.31God is asked to rebuke the demonic beasts and the bull-like leaders of the people, so that those refined like silver are not shut out.
388. 67.32God is the God of the Gentiles too; those who make war against the nations’ salvation and refuse Christ’s peace are to be scattered.
389. 67.33Egypt’s envoys are those present at Pentecost, and Ethiopia is the eunuch who hastened to baptism; all kingdoms will come to God.
390. 67.34Christ, who humbled himself to death, ascended above the heaven of heavens toward the east, as the Dayspring returning on high.
391. 67.35Christ’s voice of power, shown in his miracles, will above all raise the dead and clothe them with incorruption.
392. 67.36God’s glory rests on the spiritual Israel caught up in the clouds; all will rise, but some to life and some to judgment.
393. 67.37God is wonderful in his saints, whom he will raise, conform to Christ’s glorious body, and bring into unity with the Father and eternal life.
394. 68.1Psalm 68 (69) concerns “those who will be changed” and contains the mystery of Christ’s passion, in which he speaks with the weakness he assumed.
395. 68.2Christ prays to be saved because, though he would die, death could not hold him; the assumed weakness prays, the divinity holds the hope.
396. 68.3The waters reaching his soul are the persecutions and assaults that drove Christ to the cross and to prayer.
397. 68.4Christ’s suffering comes from his assumed flesh: emptying himself, the second Adam sank into the mire of our nature and down into death and the underworld.
398. 68.5The depth of the sea is the realm of death, as Jonah and Job show; Christ came there and was overwhelmed by death’s storm.
399. 68.6Christ’s hoarse throat and failing eyes reflect his human weariness; he cried out and lifted his eyes in hope in the Father.
400. 68.7Those who hated Christ without cause outnumber the hairs of his head; sinless, he was made to pay the debt of sin and death he did not owe.
401. 68.8Christ bore the “foolishness” of the cross and the penalty of sins not his own, defeating the prince of the world, and prayed that the saints’ hope in him not be shamed.
402. 68.9Christ’s weakness was assumed, not natural; for the Father’s sake he bore the reproach of the cross, made sin for us though sinless.
403. 68.10Christ became a stranger to his kin by cleansing the temple out of zeal for his Father’s house.
404. 68.11The insults of blasphemy and demon possession hurled at Christ were really the reproaches of those who reproach God.
405. 68.12Christ’s fasting, temptations, and tears became occasions of reproach; he wept at Lazarus’s tomb over unbelief, and all kinds of people spoke of him.
406. 68.13Amid insults Christ turned wholly to prayer, knowing that his suffering was the “time of good pleasure” for human salvation.
407. 68.14Though all creation pleases God, the passion is the special “time of good pleasure,” when Christ reconciled all things, defeated the powers, and freed creation.
408. 68.15Christ prays not to stick in the mud or be shut in the pit, confident that, though he died in the body, death could not hold him.
409. 68.16Christ prays as a man in trouble, yet asks to be rescued not for his own sake but so that his enemies might be overthrown by his resurrection.
410. 68.17God alone knew that Christ’s weakness was assumed; Christ awaited and desired his sufferings, as he desired to eat the Passover.
411. 68.18Christ sought one who would grieve with him in faith and found none; the gall and vinegar fulfilled the Scriptures, and he said “I thirst” so that all might be fulfilled.
412. 68.19The table of Scripture, which reveals Christ throughout the law and prophets, becomes a snare to those who crucified him, darkening their eyes and burdening them with the law.
413. 68.20God’s anger means an appointed penalty, not passion; it fell on the nation in the destruction of the city and temple.
414. 68.21Because they persecuted the one God had struck, iniquity is added to their iniquity and they are blotted out of the book of the living.
415. 68.22God’s striking serves healing, as with Sodom, Dathan and Abiram, and the sinner handed over by Paul: “I strike and I heal.”
416. 68.23God struck Christ for our healing, as he once struck Adam; those who then persecuted him, bribed the guards, and harassed the apostles added iniquity to iniquity.
417. 68.24Hilary distinguishes the book of the living, of those who kept the law, from the book of the righteous, of those justified by faith in Christ.
418. 68.25Christ is both God and man: emptying himself he took the form of a servant without ceasing to be God, and the man he assumed was taken up into the glory of God.
419. 68.26In Christ, the end of the law, animal sacrifices give way to the sacrifice of praise, which pleases God more than a young calf.
420. 68.27The poor rejoice and seek God for the soul’s life, because God heard Christ, the poor one, and freed those bound by sin.
421. 68.28All creation, awaiting freedom, is called to praise God; heaven, earth, and sea stand for things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.
422. 68.29Hilary asks how heaven, earth, and sea, so wonderful in themselves, could be called to praise God merely for rebuilding earthly Zion and the cities of Judah.
423. 68.30The praise cannot be for earthly cities, later destroyed by Babylon, Antiochus, and Rome; nor can cities be built to dwell in a city.
424. 68.31The saved Zion is Christ’s risen body, the “watchtower” in which we contemplate our hope; all creation praises God for the reconciliation achieved in it.
425. 68.32The cities of Judah are the churches, gatherings of believers who are Jews inwardly, dwelling in the heavenly Zion.
426. 68.33The inheritance in Zion belongs not to descent by flesh but to those who love the Lord’s name.
427. 69.1Psalm 69 (70), “for remembrance” like Psalm 37 (38), asks God to remember the wicked for punishment and the saints for reward, in the person of Christ.
428. 69.2The one set as help over the mighty, the firstborn whose throne endures like sun and moon, is Christ, not David son of Jesse.
429. 69.3His enemies will be shamed by his resurrection, kept from meeting Christ in the clouds, and sent back to judgment; all will rise, but not all will be changed.
430. 69.4Those who seek God will rejoice; saying “Let God be magnified” adds nothing to the unchanging God but expresses our praise for his gifts.
431. 69.5The needy and poor one is Christ, who became poor for us and, eager for his passion, prayed for swift deliverance through the resurrection.
432. 91.1The law’s observances, including the Sabbath, were shadows that profited by faith in Christ to come; Hilary will explain the meaning of the Sabbath.
433. 91.2The psalm says nothing of weekly rest; the rest God swore the impious would not enter cannot be the Sabbath day, which they keep.
434. 91.3The Lord himself broke the Sabbath; God works constantly in sustaining creation, yet without labor or weariness.
435. 91.4Beyond the visible works Moses described, Paul teaches that all things, visible and invisible, were made through Christ, in whom the Father works daily.
436. 91.5Hilary recounts the Sabbath healing of the paralytic at the pool and Christ’s reply, “My Father works until now, and I work.”
437. 91.6The Son, equal to God, does nothing of himself but what he sees in the Father’s will, which he knows through shared love and nature.
438. 91.7God works on the Sabbath, sustaining all creation through the Son; no day of God is without work.
439. 91.8God’s rest is Christ, in whom the Father’s fullness dwells and in whom the Father rejoiced at the completed creation; the impious will not enter this rest.
440. 91.9Those in Christ enter God’s rest; through his assumed flesh we are joined to him, if we put off the old man in baptism and crucify the flesh.
441. 91.10The true Sabbath is eternal rest, prepared for now by prayer, reading, fasting, humility, good works, chastity, and patience, as the Jews prepare on the eve of the Sabbath.
442. 118.0.1Hilary introduces Psalm 118 [119] as an alphabetic psalm that teaches like the alphabet taught to children, with eight verses for each of the twenty-two Hebrew letters.
443. 118.0.2Hilary argues that God's words, like ordinary speech, use different terms for different things, and that understanding them requires God's grace.
444. 118.0.3Using Psalm 18 [19], Hilary shows that law, testimony, precept, judgment, and justification are distinct things, which Psalm 118 [119] distinguishes letter by letter.
445. 118.0.4Hilary insists that simple faith needs instruction in how to live, as Paul placed the word of knowledge after the word of wisdom.
446. 118.0.5Hilary explains the eight verses for each letter by the holiness of the number eight in circumcision, sacrifice, Christ's presentation, and the flood.
447. 118.1.1Hilary notes that the psalm puts blameless conduct before the searching of God's testimonies, as Hosea puts sowing and reaping before enlightenment.
448. 118.1.2The blessed are those who walk to the end in the way of the Lord's law, which is Christ, forgetting what lies behind as Paul did.
449. 118.1.3The words "of the Lord" distinguish God's law from the law of sin of which Paul speaks.
450. 118.1.4Hilary traces how the eight verses of the first letter speak in turn of law, testimonies, commandments, justifications, and judgments.
451. 118.1.5The law, as distinct from the other terms, is the shadow of things to come and must be read spiritually, as Paul reads it.
452. 118.1.6A commandment is something to be observed, like the prohibitions of murder and adultery, and it enlightens by being kept.
453. 118.1.7God's testimonies are the many witnesses he has set up, from heaven and earth to the angels who fill the world, so that no one sins unseen.
454. 118.1.8Since even a human witness restrains sin, Christians should fear to sin before the angels who see God daily and before the devil who accuses sinners.
455. 118.1.9God's own testimonies must be searched with the whole heart, not half-heartedly.
456. 118.1.10The many ways of the Lord (law, prophets, apostles) lead to the one best way, Christ, as the merchant sells many pearls for the one pearl of great price.
457. 118.1.11Commandments are to be kept with earnest care, not carelessly, or the merit of devotion is lost.
458. 118.1.12God's justifications cover every relationship, from slaves and family to church leaders and God himself, and must all be kept equally, including right belief about the Father and the Son.
459. 118.1.13Only one who keeps all the commandments alike, not choosing some and passing over others, will not be put to shame.
460. 118.1.14The upright confession of one who has learned God's judgments must bear fruit in keeping his justifications.
461. 118.1.15Though God lets us be tested, we must pray, as the psalmist and the Lord's Prayer do, not to be forsaken beyond our strength.
462. 118.2.1The second letter asks how a young man corrects his way; Hilary praises training in God's precepts from youth, before habits of sin take hold.
463. 118.2.2Jeremiah's words on the young man who bears the yoke and sits alone in silence describe one trained in God's fear from youth.
464. 118.2.3Hilary raises the difficulty of the psalmist asking God not to drive him from the commandments, since God desires repentance, not death.
465. 118.2.4God drives away only the careless, as Jeremiah curses careless work and the gospel takes from the one who does not have; the psalmist sought him wholeheartedly.
466. 118.2.5Only the careless are driven from God's commandments, by their own fault, not by God's ill will.
467. 118.2.6Hiding God's words in the heart means keeping holy things from those unfit for them, as Paul gave milk to infants and Christ forbade casting pearls before swine.
468. 118.2.7After keeping, seeking, and hiding God's words, the psalmist praises God and asks to be taught his justifications, since only God's grace makes them known.
469. 118.2.8God's judgments are an unsearchable deep, but the "judgments of his mouth", revealed in his words, are what the psalmist declares.
470. 118.2.9The psalmist delights in God's testimonies as in all riches: not worldly wealth but the riches of teaching that Paul also names.
471. 118.2.10Practice of God's commandments must come before consideration of his ways, for faithful works lead to knowledge.
472. 118.2.11Commandments are exercised in present action, while justifications, such as the release of slaves and the fallow year, are meditated on as figures of future hope.
473. 118.3.1Only one with a pure conscience, like the Spirit-filled prophet, can ask God to repay his servant; the rest of us must rely on God's mercy.
474. 118.3.2By calling himself God's servant the psalmist tempers his request with humility and shows he is not a slave of sin.
475. 118.3.3"I shall live" points to the future life of the resurrection, since now we dwell in a body of death, hidden with Christ until he appears.
476. 118.3.4The law's uncleanness from touching the dead is a figure, not a bodily rule, as Moses, Elisha, and Christ show; it signifies that we are made clean only in the resurrection.
477. 118.3.5Even after baptism a further cleansing remains: by the Spirit, by the fire of judgment, by death, and by martyrdom.
478. 118.3.6Like "I shall live", "I will keep your words" is fully true only in the future life, when we see face to face.
479. 118.3.7The psalmist asks to see the spiritual realities behind the law's Sabbath, Passover, jubilee, and priesthood, which are prefigured in its bodily observances.
480. 118.3.8The psalmist is a sojourner on earth with his treasure in heaven, unlike the rich fool of the gospel.
481. 118.3.9The bright commandment to love God enlightens us now, in baptism and obedience, so that we may later see the hidden commandments, passing from light to light and glory to glory.
482. 118.3.10The psalmist, a stranger on earth, prays to learn the heavenly commandments kept by the ranks of angels.
483. 118.3.11Hilary notes that the psalmist does not say he desires God's judgments, but that he longs to desire them.
484. 118.3.12Desiring God's judgment is dangerous, since no one is clean before him; even Mary, Job, and the apostles could not bear it.
485. 118.3.13The psalmist longs not for judgment itself but for the innocence that would let him desire it without fear.
486. 118.3.14God rebukes the proud above all sinners, because pride scorns to obey him.
487. 118.3.15Pride wipes out good works, as the Pharisee's fasting and tithes were undone by his boast over the tax collector.
488. 118.3.16Even Paul was given a thorn to keep him from pride, and he forbade a new convert to be made bishop lest he grow proud.
489. 118.3.17The curse falls on those who, once taught, turn aside even slightly from God's commandments.
490. 118.3.18Sins deserve reproach, and Christ will reproach those who, like the unrepentant cities, think his blood and death of no profit.
491. 118.3.19Confessing that his nature deserves rebuke, the psalmist asks God to take away reproach because he has sought God's testimonies.
492. 118.3.20The psalmist keeps God's justifications though princes plot against him, as they did against Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and the apostles.
493. 118.3.21The psalmist's every counsel is turned to God's justifications, which prepare for eternal goods.
494. 118.4.1The fourth letter opens with the soul cleaving to the ground, which Hilary takes as the soul's complaint at its union with the earthly body.
495. 118.4.2The psalmist, knowing that whoever cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him, asks to be lifted from his cleaving to the earth into heavenly life.
496. 118.4.3Those who leave fleshly vices walk not in their own ways but in God's, as Deuteronomy commands.
497. 118.4.4Declaring his ways means confessing his sins, after which the psalmist can ask to be taught God's justifications.
498. 118.4.5The psalmist asks to understand the way of the justifications, since the law's ordinances (release of slaves, the sabbatical year, jubilee) are the way that prefigures future goods.
499. 118.4.6Hilary defends the Septuagint reading "my soul has slumbered from weariness" against other translators' "dripped", as fitting the psalm's confession of weakness.
500. 118.4.7The psalmist only slumbers, not sleeps, and asks to be strengthened by God's words so as to stay fully awake.
501. 118.4.8The psalmist asks God to remove the way that leads to sin and to show him the mercy promised in the law to those who walk in God's ways.
502. 118.4.9The psalmist loves the way of truth, which is Christ, and remembers God's judgment that whoever believes has eternal life.
503. 118.4.10By cleaving to God's testimonies the psalmist gains pardon for past sins and is spared shame.
504. 118.4.11Step by step the psalmist comes to run in the way of God's commandments, the narrow way of affliction that leads to life.
505. 118.4.12The enlarged heart is one opened by faith to receive God's teaching and indwelling, and Wisdom, who is Christ, walks freely in its broad places.
506. 118.5.1The fifth letter opens with the prayer that God legislate the way of his justifications, which the Greek expresses better than the Latin.
507. 118.5.2Just as roads have their measured stations and Israel's journey was ruled by the pillar of fire and cloud, the psalmist asks for the law of the way of God's justifications.
508. 118.5.3There are ways of testimonies, commandments, law, prophets, gospels, and apostles; the psalmist asks for a law that keeps him within all of them, like the scribe who brings out things old and new.
509. 118.5.4The psalmist seeks the end of the law, which is Christ, and seeks it always.
510. 118.5.5David, though raised in the law, asks for understanding of a law he does not yet know, showing that wisdom begins by asking.
511. 118.5.6What the psalmist wants to understand are the spiritual meanings of the creation week, the Sabbath, the feasts, the sabbatical and jubilee years, circumcision, Passover, and the promised land.
512. 118.5.7The Greek word for "path" means a well-worn track, which the Latin word does not convey.
513. 118.5.8The path of the commandments was travelled from the beginning, before the law, by Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, and the other saints.
514. 118.5.9God is the guide on the path, and Christ went first through every suffering his followers endure.
515. 118.5.10From the Greek genders Hilary shows that what the psalmist "wished for" is the law, not the path.
516. 118.5.11The psalmist ascribes everything to God's gift, including the inclining of his heart to the testimonies.
517. 118.5.12Against the excuse that all is God's gift and so ignorance is blameless, Hilary shows the psalmist joining prayer for God's gifts with human effort to seek and keep them.
518. 118.5.13Comparing the Septuagint's "profit" with another version's "greed", Hilary shows that the psalmist turns from the money the world calls profit.
519. 118.5.14The psalmist asks that his bodily and inward eyes be turned from the vanities of theater, circus, fine clothes, and gold.
520. 118.5.15Turning the eyes from vanity leads to life in God's way, the future life hidden in Christ.
521. 118.5.16The psalmist asks to receive God's word with fear and to have even the suspected reproach of sin cut away, so that God's judgments may be welcome to him.
522. 118.5.17The fifth letter ends with the psalmist's longing for God's commandments and his prayer for life in God's righteousness.
523. 118.6.1Against those who scorn Scripture as unreasoned, Hilary affirms its perfection, which the sixth letter will further show.
524. 118.6.2The psalmist asks first for mercy, then for salvation, and grounds his confidence in God's word.
525. 118.6.3Having God's promised mercy and salvation, the psalmist can answer those who mock his hope.
526. 118.6.4The psalmist asks first and only then gives his reason, teaching humility against those who demand God's gifts as a debt.
527. 118.6.5Sin can take the word of truth from the mouth, for God forbids the sinner to preach his statutes; the preacher must be pure.
528. 118.6.6"Utterly" acknowledges that only Christ is sinless; the psalmist asks only that the word not be wholly taken from him.
529. 118.6.7The psalmist will keep the law now and forever, since the law's shadow points to its eternal reality in the age to come.
530. 118.6.8There are eternal laws for the dead, for the resurrection, and for the angels, which the psalmist hopes to keep in the age to come.
531. 118.6.9A heart that seeks God's commandments is enlarged to receive God's indwelling, while sin narrows it.
532. 118.6.10Speaking God's testimonies before kings means either bold confession before earthly rulers or preaching before the saints, who are called kings.
533. 118.6.11God's commandments must be meditated on daily and loved exceedingly.
534. 118.6.12Love of the law must bear fruit in persistent works, the psalmist's lifted hands.
535. 118.7.1The seventh letter begins with the prayer that God remember his word, which gives hope that consoles in every trouble.
536. 118.7.2God's word consoles the psalmist in humiliation, and amid the injustice of the proud he does not turn from God's law.
537. 118.7.3Remembering God's judgments in every action strengthens the psalmist to endure the world's trials.
538. 118.7.4The psalmist grieves for sinners who forsake God's law, as a father grieves for a mad son or as members suffer together.
539. 118.7.5Wherever he sojourns, the psalmist sings God's justifications, teaching that the psalms should be kept in the heart and constantly sung.
540. 118.7.6The psalmist remembers God's name at night, when temptation is strongest, and fills the night with prayer and confession.
541. 118.7.7Constant searching of God's justifications makes the memory of God the psalmist's lasting possession.
542. 118.8.1Following corrected Greek manuscripts, Hilary places "The Lord is my portion" as the first verse of the eighth letter, not the last of the seventh.
543. 118.8.2Only one who renounces worldly ambitions, wealth, and pleasures can say that God is his portion.
544. 118.8.3The Levites received no land because the Lord was their portion.
545. 118.8.4Peter, with no silver or gold, had God as his portion and healed the lame man in Christ's name; Paul likewise gloried only in the cross.
546. 118.8.5The hundredfold promised in this life is God himself dwelling and walking in us, which requires leaving the world while still alive.
547. 118.8.6The psalmist's promise to keep the law refers to the future, spiritual law, not the bodily law he already kept.
548. 118.8.7Though no one may see God's face and live, the pure in heart will see him; the psalmist entreats God's face while knowing it is now beyond bodily sight.
549. 118.8.8As people long to see kings, the psalmist burns to see God, whose sight will transform the saints from glory to glory.
550. 118.8.9The psalmist asks for mercy according to God's word, which threatens sinners as a consuming fire and promises light and life to believers.
551. 118.8.10The psalmist thinks over his ways before acting and then turns his feet to God's testimonies, teaching us to act only after reflection.
552. 118.8.11Foreseeing temptations and persecutions, the psalmist has prepared himself so as not to be troubled in keeping God's commandments.
553. 118.8.12Paul shows the same preparedness, confident that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.
554. 118.8.13Christians too should be prepared, as Christ commanded, so as not to be troubled by temptations or tortures.
555. 118.8.14Though the cords of sin and the devil's snares bind us, the psalmist does not forget God's law, which frees us from them.
556. 118.8.15The psalmist rises at midnight, the hour of the Exodus, of the bridegroom's coming, and of Paul and Silas's release, to praise God's judgments.
557. 118.8.16Though himself an anointed partaker of Christ, the psalmist humbly calls himself a partaker of all who fear God, sharing their sufferings as members of one body.
558. 118.8.17True fear of God shows itself in obedience, so the psalmist joins himself to those who both fear God and keep his commandments.
559. 118.8.18God's mercy fills even a corrupt earth, for he sends sun and rain on just and unjust and patiently gives time for repentance.
560. 118.8.19The psalmist seeks to be taught the heavenly justifications not by an earthly teacher but by Christ.
561. 118.9.1The ninth letter opens with thanks for God's kindness, which the psalmist gives even in adversity, as for a physician's or father's loving severity.
562. 118.9.2Whatever God does to his servant is good, because it is according to his word and he alone is good.
563. 118.9.3The psalmist asks to learn the goodness joined to discipline, which corrects vices, and knowledge, which only the faithful receive.
564. 118.9.4Suffering follows sin and corrects it; humbled after sinning, the psalmist now keeps God's word.
565. 118.9.5Because God is good, his justifications are good, and the psalmist asks to be taught them in that goodness.
566. 118.9.6When the proud mock God's servants in suffering, as Job's friends did, the faithful must still say that God has dealt kindly with them.
567. 118.9.7The flatterers who were sweet as milk in the psalmist's prosperity curdled into bitterness in his humiliation, while he meditated on God's law.
568. 118.9.8Humiliation is good for the psalmist because through it he learns God's justifications.
569. 118.9.9"The law of your mouth" is the teaching of Christ, God's mouth, power, wisdom, and image, whose beatitudes are worth more than thousands of gold and silver.
570. 118.10.1Man is the most useful and beautiful of God's earthly works, the only rational creature, able to use all things to know and worship his maker.
571. 118.10.2Man is great when he knows he is made in God's image; when he falls into vice Scripture calls him viper, horse, mule, or fox.
572. 118.10.3The psalmist's words "Your hands have made me and fashioned me" point to the special dignity of man's origin.
573. 118.10.4All other creatures were made by a command, but man alone after God's deliberation, "Let us make man", which is his first dignity.
574. 118.10.5Heaven was established by God's hand, but man was made by both his hands, a sign of man's higher dignity.
575. 118.10.6Unlike other creatures, man, made of inner and outer natures, had a twofold beginning: made in God's image, then formed from dust.
576. 118.10.7Man's soul, made after (not as) God's image, which is the firstborn of creation, is incorporeal; his body was taken from earth and formed.
577. 118.10.8Man's double nature of soul and body, and God's plural "Let us make", explain why the psalmist says he was made by God's hands.
578. 118.10.9The psalmist humbly asks for understanding of how he was made, teaching us to confess ignorance and ask God for knowledge.
579. 118.10.10The God-fearing rejoice at the sight of a holy man, especially in seeing his hope in God's words, while the wicked resent him.
580. 118.10.11The psalmist knows that his present sufferings come from God's just judgment, to prove and purify him like fire.
581. 118.10.12The psalmist says "I have known" rather than "believed", since knowledge, as Paul ranks the gifts, surpasses faith.
582. 118.10.13The psalmist knows that God's judgments in humbling him are just, imposed to expiate human sins.
583. 118.10.14The psalmist does not ask to be spared suffering but to be encouraged in it by God's mercy, as promised to those handed over for his sake.
584. 118.10.15The psalmist hopes for the true life of the age to come through God's mercy, since present life is a body of death; meditation on the law prepares for it.
585. 118.10.16Praying that the proud be put to shame is not a curse but a prayer for their repentance, in keeping with Christ's command to love enemies.
586. 118.10.17The psalmist wants God-fearers to turn to him, so that by his teaching they may repent of past sins.
587. 118.10.18Even the psalmist dares not claim a spotless heart but prays for one, since all evils come from the heart.
588. 118.11.1The eleventh letter opens with the soul fainting for God's salvation, which Hilary identifies with Jesus, whose name means salvation.
589. 118.11.2Like a wife or father straining to see a returning loved one, the psalmist's eyes fail with longing, as the prophets longed to see Christ.
590. 118.11.3The psalmist's eyes are those of the mind, longing for the encouragement Christ brought when he descended to the dead, as Peter testifies.
591. 118.11.4The wineskin in the frost is the body cooled by self-control against the heat of vices, so that it does not forget God's justifications.
592. 118.11.5Knowing his days are few, the psalmist asks for judgment now on his spiritual persecutors, the devil and his powers, as Christ later gave his apostles power over the enemy.
593. 118.11.6The psalmist rejects the moral systems of philosophers and the perverse doctrines of heretics, since nothing equals God's law.
594. 118.11.7The psalmist does not ask to be spared persecution, which proves faith, but to be helped in it.
595. 118.11.8Persecution is useful to faith, as war trains a soldier; the psalmist asks not to escape the contest but for help to win the crown.
596. 118.11.9Though spiritual enemies nearly overthrew him through bodily temptations, the psalmist did not forsake God's commandments.
597. 118.11.10The psalmist looks for the life of the age to come and promises to keep the testimonies of God's mouth, the gospel precepts of Christ.
598. 118.12.1The twelfth letter opens with the abiding of God's word in heaven, as the psalmist raises us toward heavenly mysteries.
599. 118.12.2God's word abides in heaven, where the sun, moon, and stars keep their appointed courses without fail.
600. 118.12.3"For the age" means for this present world, which will pass away, not for eternity; the word established in creation abides for this age.
601. 118.12.4God's word abides in those renewed in Christ as in heaven, but leaves when vices like greed, lust, anger, and drunkenness take hold.
602. 118.12.5God's word knocks at the soul's door like sunlight at closed shutters; it enters as soon as the soul, cleansed of vices, opens.
603. 118.12.6God's truth abides in two generations only: the people of the law and prophets, and the people of the gospels and apostles.
604. 118.12.7The founded earth that abides may be the physical earth set on the waters by God's wisdom, but also the earthly bodies of the faithful, which are being prepared for heavenly glory.
605. 118.12.8The day that continues is the light of the saints, which will last when all things finally serve God and Christ's enemies are under his feet.
606. 118.12.9These verses point to the new heaven and earth and the glorified body, while the ordered courses of the present creation also witness to God's greatness.
607. 118.12.10Meditation on God's law preserved the psalmist in humiliation and must sustain Christians even under torture and persecution.
608. 118.12.11Though Christ is the end of the law, the psalmist will not forget the law's justifications, which were the beginning of justification and faith.
609. 118.12.12Only one free of the vices that enslave can say "I am yours" to God; the psalmist, seeking God's justifications, belongs to him alone.
610. 118.12.13Sinners and the devil wait to destroy the man who belongs to God, but he withstands them by understanding God's testimonies.
611. 118.12.14Reading the Greek, Hilary takes the psalmist to see beyond every consummation: the end of the law, the incarnation, the resurrection, Christ's kingdom, and the judgment.
612. 118.12.15God's commandment is exceedingly broad, since believers please him in many ways (fasting, faith, almsgiving, love) as the gifts of grace differ.
613. 118.13.1The thirteenth letter begins by noting that the psalm teaches both knowledge of God and obedience to his commandments.
614. 118.13.2The psalmist keeps the law out of love, not fear, unlike those who fast, give alms, or attend church only to avoid reproach.
615. 118.13.3Being wiser than idol-worshippers would be no great thing; the psalmist's enemies must be others.
616. 118.13.4The psalmist's real enemies are those who keep the law's Sabbath and Passover without knowing Christ, whom they put to death.
617. 118.13.5The psalmist's teachers, who claim the keys of heaven, do not see that the law testifies to Christ; the disciple who awaits him understands more than they.
618. 118.13.6The younger disciple understands more than the elders of the former people because he has searched God's commandments.
619. 118.13.7Understanding must bear fruit in action: the psalmist keeps his feet from every evil way.
620. 118.13.8We must first restrain ourselves from evil before we can keep God's word steadfastly.
621. 118.13.9True keeping of God's word means never turning aside from his judgments.
622. 118.13.10The law God set is the gospel law contained in Moses' law and given through Christ, the new lawgiver the psalmist prayed for.
623. 118.13.11God's words are sweeter than honey because they reach the soul, soothing the fever of unhealthy desires as honey soothes a feverish mouth.
624. 118.13.12Understanding comes from doing God's precepts; God gives it to those who begin to seek it, and the one who understands hates iniquity.
625. 118.13.13Love and hatred must be rightly directed: we should love virtues and hate vices, and so love Christ, who is peace, truth, and righteousness.
626. 118.14.1The fourteenth letter opens: human life is in the night of ignorance, but the psalmist follows Christ, the true light who enlightens every man.
627. 118.14.2God's word is a lamp to the feet in the world's night, guiding every step of thought, word, and deed.
628. 118.14.3The lamp of God's word must not be hidden but kept burning, as in the tabernacle, to light ourselves and others.
629. 118.14.4The apostles are the lamps of the church, Christ's body; John the Baptist was a burning lamp; the wise virgins entered with their lamps lit.
630. 118.14.5God's word, first a lamp for the feet at home, becomes a light for the open road, guiding our progress.
631. 118.14.6Enlightened by God's word, the psalmist binds himself by oath and firm resolve to keep God's judgments.
632. 118.14.7Nothing in God's judgments is unjust; Job's losses and sores served to prove his faith and win him glory.
633. 118.14.8The psalmist's oath is fulfilled in humility, the chief lesson Christ, who took a body from the virgin, taught by his example.
634. 118.14.9Wealth, glory, and noble birth make people proud, but in God's sight almsgiving, poverty of spirit, and humility are true riches and nobility.
635. 118.14.10Christ, equal with God, humbled himself to the cross, and as the reward of humility the humanity he assumed was exalted into the Father's glory.
636. 118.14.11Spiritual gifts must be used humbly: Paul was given a thorn lest he be proud, and Hezekiah lost his praise through pride.
637. 118.14.12Though David had noble birth, kingship, wisdom, prophecy, and wealth, he was exceedingly humble, and so could safely ask for eternal life.
638. 118.14.13David went beyond the law's requirements by sparing Saul and Absalom and mourning them, offering freely what the law did not demand.
639. 118.14.14Paul likewise counsels virginity and celibacy beyond the law's command, and gave up rights he was allowed, offering freely more than was required.
640. 118.14.15The psalmist practises the law's judgments but asks to be taught their spiritual meaning, which he does not yet understand.
641. 118.14.16Having given himself wholly to God, the psalmist keeps his soul always in God's hands and never forgets the law.
642. 118.14.17Though the devil sets snares everywhere, one whose soul is in God's hands flies free like a sparrow from the fowler's net.
643. 118.14.18Christians are birds made for the sky; if they linger on earth they are justly snared, but flying like a dove they find rest.
644. 118.14.19The psalmist's inheritance is God's testimonies, both bearing witness to God in persecution, as the apostles rejoiced to do, and the Scriptures given before witnesses.
645. 118.14.20Against those who blame their unbelief on God's withheld grace, Hilary says that perseverance is God's gift but the beginning of faith comes from our will, which God then increases.
646. 118.15.1The fifteenth letter begins with an apparent conflict between "I have hated the wicked" and Christ's command to love enemies.
647. 118.15.2Christ's command to hate father and mother seems to contradict both love of enemies and the law against cursing parents.
648. 118.15.3The command to hate one's family applies when they try to turn a martyr from confessing Christ; then such hatred is honorable.
649. 118.15.4The psalmist hates not personal enemies but transgressors of the law, out of love for the law.
650. 118.15.5Against spiritual enemies we need God's help, which is merited by hope in his word, that is, in the coming of the Word made flesh.
651. 118.15.6The "malicious" whom the psalmist sends away are chiefly the evil impulses of the heart that Christ names, which hinder the search of God's commandments.
652. 118.15.7Though mocked for fasting, continence, and giving up wealth, the psalmist prays not to be shamed in his hope of the life hidden in Christ.
653. 118.15.8The psalmist asks not to be spared enemies but to be helped against them, and looks to final salvation in the resurrection.
654. 118.15.9Meditation on God's justifications will continue forever, as the angels are always occupied in God's service.
655. 118.15.10God despises not sinners as such, since all sin, but apostates who depart from him; sin can be pardoned through repentance, but departure condemns itself.
656. 118.15.11All sinners are transgressors, because a natural law, written on every heart, forbids injury, theft, perjury, and adultery.
657. 118.15.12Beyond sinners of the earth, who break natural law, are sinners of heaven, who fall away after receiving grace; the latter's departure is without pardon.
658. 118.15.13The psalmist asks that his flesh be nailed with Christ through fear of God, dying and being buried with him so as to become a new man.
659. 118.16.1The sixteenth letter, like the others, teaches what each should wish, do, profess, fear, and cleanse, as the Spirit-filled prophet instructs all.
660. 118.16.2The psalmist first does what pleases God and only then asks for protection, unlike those who neither work nor please yet resent being unheard.
661. 118.16.3Chastity, contempt of money, and frugality benefit the one who practises them, but they are not the merit the psalmist appeals to here.
662. 118.16.4The psalmist did judgment and righteousness, deeds that benefit others, and so he can ask for protection.
663. 118.16.5A soul empty of God is occupied by the devil; Paul handed notorious sinners over to Satan, as those cast out of the church are handed to his power.
664. 118.16.6Hostile spirits drive us to sin, pride, anger, hatred, lust, and greed, but cannot seize the innocent unless God withdraws.
665. 118.16.7The proud slanderers are the devil and his angels, who incite us to sin and then accuse us before God.
666. 118.16.8The psalmist's inner eyes fail with longing for God's salvation, Jesus, and for his word of righteousness.
667. 118.16.9Passages that seem unjust to the ignorant (Pharaoh's hardening, Jacob and Esau, Adam's expulsion) are just, and will be understood when Christ comes.
668. 118.16.10Asking God to "deal" with him, the psalmist humbly calls himself servant and appeals to mercy, for we can only will and begin, while God's mercy helps and completes.
669. 118.16.11The psalmist asks to be taught the hidden meaning of the law's justifications, such as the Hebrew slave's release and pierced ear, which need a heavenly teacher.
670. 118.16.12Everyone calls himself God's servant, but only one who serves God in every part of life, as the psalmist does, says it truly.
671. 118.16.13The psalmist asks God for true understanding, not the empty understanding of pagans, Jews, or heretics, in order to know God's testimonies.
672. 118.16.14When the law was cast aside, it was the Lord's time to act: to take a human body and bring salvation to the nations in the gospel.
673. 118.16.15The psalmist loves God's commandments because they foretell the Lord's coming in the flesh; loving is more than doing.
674. 118.16.16Gold and topaz, the most prized of metals and gems, are less to the psalmist than God's commandments.
675. 118.16.17Despising gold, gems, and lust, the psalmist is directed to all God's commandments and hates every wicked way, so as to be in Christ, the way.
676. 118.17.1God's testimonies are wonderful before they are searched, because the law's sacrifices and Passover point to future goods; so the psalmist searches them with his whole soul.
677. 118.17.2God's words are all that the prophets spoke at his command, as Moses and Isaiah show.
678. 118.17.3God's words are veiled and sealed, needing spiritual teaching to be opened, as Isaiah and Daniel show.
679. 118.17.4The gospels declare the hidden meaning of the law and prophets through Christ's birth, incarnation, and miracles, and reveal it to the little ones.
680. 118.17.5The "mouth" opened to draw in the Spirit is the heart, which must be widened by faith to receive God's word, lest the evil one snatch it away.
681. 118.17.6Since God's look can bring punishment, as on Egypt and Sodom, the psalmist asks him to look with mercy, as he does on those who love his name.
682. 118.17.7God's mercy, though from his goodness, is earned by innocence; the psalmist asks to be looked on as the patriarchs were.
683. 118.17.8Surrounded by enemies, the psalmist asks God to direct his steps by his word so that no iniquity may rule him.
684. 118.17.9Temptation leads to glory, as with Abraham, Job, and Joseph; the psalmist accepts temptation but fears being ruled by sin.
685. 118.17.10Slander from those closest to us, brothers, friends, sons, spouses, is the hardest temptation, as Abel, Noah, Jacob, Job, and David found.
686. 118.17.11Christ's command to cut off the offending eye, hand, or foot refers to those closest to us who cause us to stumble.
687. 118.17.12The psalmist asks for the light of God's face, which will transform the saints as Moses' face shone, so that they may see God face to face.
688. 118.17.13Weeping rivers of tears, David continues to repent of his old sin, confessing it always while having ceased from it.
689. 118.18.1The eighteenth letter: in every suffering we must confess God just, for he permits trials so that our patience may defeat the devil.
690. 118.18.2Rather than complain against God in trials, the psalmist wastes away with zeal for God against those who forget his words, such as Christians who feast on fast days or live in debauchery.
691. 118.18.3This zeal is Christ's in cleansing the temple, which our bodies are, and that of Phinehas and Elijah.
692. 118.18.4The psalmist treats as enemies those who forget God's law, for God's enemies must be ours, as he took Abraham's enemies as his own.
693. 118.18.5God's word is "refined by fire" like pure metal, containing nothing useless; the psalmist loves it, which is more than obeying.
694. 118.18.6"Young and despised" fits David, the youngest son passed over until God chose him to be anointed king.
695. 118.18.7The verse also fits the younger people, the Gentile church, chosen in place of the elder people as Jacob received Esau's birthright.
696. 118.18.8The Exodus wonders, the conquest, and the law's rites find their truth in the church: circumcision of the heart, baptism in the Jordan, the true Passover, and the bread of sincerity.
697. 118.18.9The church, persecuted for its confession, keeps meditating on God's commandments; and (section 10) the psalmist hopes for God's eternal testimonies, like Lazarus rather than the rich man.
698. 118.19.1The nineteenth letter: the psalmist's cry is not of the voice, which the gospel forbids in prayer, but of the heart.
699. 118.19.2Like Abel's blood and Moses' silent prayer at the Red Sea, the cry of the heart reaches God; the Spirit cries "Abba" in believers.
700. 118.19.3The psalmist asks for salvation only after seeking to be heard and to know God's justifications, and promises to keep his testimonies, unlike those who demand salvation as a debt.
701. 118.19.4The psalmist anticipated maturity by a chaste and continent youth, and his hope in God's words never rests.
702. 118.19.5The psalmist rises before dawn to meditate on God's words in prophets, psalms, and the lives of the saints.
703. 118.19.6Though perfect in good works, the psalmist relies wholly on God's mercy, unlike those who think one fast or a small alms earns them a hearing.
704. 118.19.7Those who come near to injure the faithful move far from God's law; we must not let anger or envy turn us against our brothers.
705. 118.19.8God is near because he is wholly present everywhere, as the soul is present throughout the body yet does not go with a diseased limb that is cut off.
706. 118.19.9No comparison fits God, but the sun, present everywhere yet shut out by closed windows, suggests how God is present to all yet absent from the corrupt.
707. 118.19.10Since God is present everywhere, every sin is committed within him, which makes it the greater insult.
708. 118.19.11God's commandments are wholly true, so neglecting them is all the more dangerous.
709. 118.19.12From Adam to Joshua, God's testimonies in the lives of the patriarchs are the foundation on which the heavenly Jerusalem is built.
710. 118.20.1The twentieth letter: the head of all the commandments is humility, as Christ taught the apostles when they disputed who was greatest.
711. 118.20.2David, though king, prophet, and ancestor of Christ, asks God to see only his humility, leaving vengeance to God.
712. 118.20.3With a clear conscience, the psalmist asks God to examine his own judgment, mindful that we are judged as we judge.
713. 118.20.4Like Paul, who knew only Christ crucified, the psalmist awaits the redemption in Christ's blood to which the law, prophets, and patriarchs testify.
714. 118.20.5Salvation is far from sinners who refuse to seek God's justifications, since willful ignorance has no pardon; the psalmist seeks them so that salvation may be near.
715. 118.20.6The law's release of slaves, sabbatical year, and jubilee prefigure the heavenly remission of all things, and so show God's many mercies.
716. 118.20.7Though persecuted by many, the psalmist does not turn from God's testimonies.
717. 118.20.8The psalmist wastes away with grief over those who break God's covenant, as Israel did after Sinai, and as Christ wept over Jerusalem and Paul over the unrepentant.
718. 118.20.9The psalmist loves God's commandments rather than fearing them, yet still relies on God's mercy for the life to come.
719. 118.20.10The beginning of God's words about man, "Let us make man in our image", is truth, fulfilled when the one reborn in Christ bears the image of the heavenly Adam.
720. 118.21.1The twenty-first letter: persecuted without cause like David and like Christ's disciples, the psalmist fears only God's words, lest denying Christ he be denied.
721. 118.21.2Persecuted without cause, the psalmist rejoices in God's words like a victor taking spoil, as Christ bound the strong man.
722. 118.21.3Joy in God's words goes with hatred of iniquity and love of his law.
723. 118.21.4Beyond doing the law, the psalmist praises seven times a day the judgments whose deeds, Sabbath, slave release, fallow year, jubilee, signify God's eternal plan.
724. 118.21.5Seven is the number of the week, the sabbatical years leading to the jubilee, the angels before God's throne, and the Spirit's gifts, so praise is fittingly sevenfold.
725. 118.21.6All the law is summed up in love of neighbor; such love keeps peace and gives no cause of stumbling, as Paul abstained from meat for his brothers' sake.
726. 118.21.7The psalmist keeps the commandments by awaiting God's salvation, Jesus, the end of the law, as the angel told Joseph and Simeon recognized.
727. 118.21.8Knowing that all his ways are before God, the searcher of hearts, the psalmist keeps God's commandments and testimonies in every path of life.
728. 118.22.1The twenty-second and last letter: the psalmist's prayer draws near and enters God's presence, asking first for understanding and then for deliverance.
729. 118.22.2Prophetic speech "utters forth" what the Spirit gives beyond human thought; the psalmist's lips utter a hymn, and once taught he will declare God's words.
730. 118.22.3God first gives the prophet understanding and then makes it public; his commandments are equitable, aiming at the salvation of all, so that our birth leads to eternal life.
731. 118.22.4The psalmist freely chose God's commandments, as each person is free to choose his way and will be punished or rewarded for it.
732. 118.22.5The psalmist longs for the Savior Jesus, whom the apostles were blessed to see, and his meditation on the law looks to that future hope.
733. 118.22.6Born in sin, the psalmist looks for true life in the age to come, where he will praise God, delivered from death into the land of the living.
734. 118.22.7The psalm ends with the lost sheep, which Christ the shepherd carries home on his shoulders to the joy of the angels.
735. 119.1Hilary begins Psalm 119 [120], the first Song of Ascents, noting that one explanation of their shared title will serve for all.
736. 119.2Historical psalm titles (Absalom, Abimelech, Nathan) still call for spiritual understanding; Hilary asks whether the titles of the Songs of Ascents are historical.
737. 119.3The steps of Hezekiah's sign do not match the fifteen Songs of Ascents, though they show God's light advancing for some and withdrawing from others.
738. 119.4The temple's fifteen steps came after the psalms, but the psalms speak for every age, and the temple's bodily forms are understood as figures through them.
739. 119.5Christ, the eternal high priest, has entered the true holy of holies through his blood, and Isaiah's call to repentance and justice names the steps by which we ascend to him.
740. 119.6Fifteen, made of seven (the law's Sabbath) and eight (the gospel's eighth day), is the number of the Songs of Ascents, steps by which we climb to heaven.
741. 119.7Some read the Songs of Ascents as prophecies of the Babylonian exile and return; Hilary lets the psalms themselves show which captivity and city they mean.
742. 119.8The psalmist's cry in distress is not over death, loss, or bereavement, which faith turns to good, as Paul's longing to be with Christ shows.
743. 119.9The real distresses are the influences that drag us into sin, worldly ambition, idleness, false religion, schism, and heresy; crying to God against them is the beginning of salvation.
744. 119.10The wicked lips are those of open unbelievers who deny providence; the deceitful tongue is that of heretics who twist Scripture under the name of religion.
745. 119.11God asks questions, as of Adam, Cain, the woman healed, and Peter, not to learn but to bring confession, which wins pardon or the reward of faith.
746. 119.12God's answer to the deceitful tongue is the sharp arrows and burning coals of his word, which pierce falsehood and warn of judgment.
747. 119.13Job called his sufferings the Lord's arrows; the psalmist may be invoking such punishing arrows against the deceitful tongue.
748. 119.14Others read the arrows as heavenly teaching and the coals as the cleansing fire Christ brought, like the coal that purged Isaiah's lips.
749. 119.15Christ himself is the chosen arrow of Isaiah, who wounds us with love as the bride of the Song says.
750. 119.16The arrows and coals serve both purposes: punishing deniers of God and purifying those who confess him.
751. 119.17Truly to value heaven is to long for it, so the psalmist grieves that his sojourning on earth is prolonged.
752. 119.18Like Paul and the saints, the psalmist longs to leave the body and dwell with God, praying for the coming of the kingdom.
753. 119.19Job and Jeremiah cursed the day of their birth not because God made and sanctified them, but because of the burdens of bodily life that followed.
754. 119.20Kedar was an Ishmaelite desert people, now called Saracens; but the psalm is not about the Babylonian captivity, as some suppose.
755. 119.21Kedar means "darkness": the dark tent of the body, in which the bride of the Song, black yet beautiful, is enlightened by Christ.
756. 119.22The saints live beside the dwellers in darkness without dwelling among them, being in the Spirit rather than the flesh.
757. 119.23The psalmist kept peace with those who hated it, as Christ made peace, commanded love of enemies, and left his peace to his disciples.
758. 119.24Though peaceable, the psalmist kept preaching God's word, and the enemies of peace attacked him for it.
759. 120.1Hilary begins Psalm 120 [121], noting but not adopting the view that it refers to Christ's passion, when the sun was darkened.
760. 120.2The eyes of the mind can make absent things present, as one thinking of spring in winter forgets the cold.
761. 120.3The eyes lifted to the mountains are the mind's eyes, which must be opened to understand the law's meaning beyond its visible rites.
762. 120.4The mountains are the prophetic books, or the angels who minister to us, since Daniel calls the Lord himself a great mountain.
763. 120.5Though the eyes look to the mountains, the psalmist confesses that his help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
764. 120.6In verse 3 the Holy Spirit, the other Advocate, speaks through the prophet to bless the one who confesses God as his help.
765. 120.7The "foot" means the movement of the mind and will, as in Ps 73:2 and Christ's command to cut off the stumbling foot.
766. 120.8God does not hand us over to sin; when we leave him by sinning, he withdraws, and that withdrawal leaves us to the demons.
767. 120.9God never sleeps, but his help seems to sleep or watch as our faith does, as he is holy with the holy and turned away from the perverse.
768. 120.10The keeper of Israel never sleeps; Israel means "one who sees God" and now includes the church, so all who confess God as their help are kept.
769. 120.11"The hand of your right hand" means our best works, which God guards against the demons that try to weaken them.
770. 120.12The sun burns by heat and the moon by cold, each weakening the body in its season.
771. 120.13The promise cannot be meant bodily, since even Jacob suffered from heat by day and frost by night.
772. 120.14The promise points to the age to come, eternal day under the sun of righteousness, prefigured by the pillar of cloud and fire in the desert.
773. 120.15God keeps the soul not from death, sickness, or poverty, but from the devil's assaults: vices, flattery, slander, ambition, and lust.
774. 120.16God keeps the soul's going out at death, to rest in Abraham's bosom, and its coming into the kingdom through Christ, the door.
775. 121.1Hilary begins Psalm 121 [122]: whoever hopes for the heavenly Jerusalem, built of living stones, rejoices at what was said to him.
776. 121.2The joy is that we shall go into the Lord's house, the free and heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly city.
777. 121.3Those whose feet stand in Jerusalem's courts are the apostles, keepers of the keys, who announce the heavenly house built of living stones.
778. 121.4"Built as a city" shows that earthly Jerusalem was a figure; the heavenly city is being built through all ages until the fullness of the nations and Israel's salvation.
779. 121.5The church is one body through faith, love, concord, and sacrament; those who separate themselves by sin, pride, or quarrels have no share in the city whose sharing is "in the selfsame".
780. 121.6Not all go up to the heavenly city, only "the tribes of the Lord", not those who belong to the devil.
781. 121.7The tribes who go up are the nations who received the word from Zion, a testimony against Israel according to the flesh, which crucified the Lord.
782. 121.8The nations confess Christ as God, a testimony against Israel, which received every gift yet rejected the law, the prophets, and Christ himself.
783. 121.9Israel will be judged by the apostles and by the Ninevites and the queen of the south, figures of the church of the nations.
784. 121.10The seats of judgment are in the church; "David" names Christ according to his flesh, and the past tense expresses God's sure foreknowledge.
785. 121.11"Ask for the peace of Jerusalem" means, in the Greek, inquire about it: the heavenly city is built in peace and unity, which must be learned.
786. 121.12Those who love the heavenly Jerusalem will have abundance, foreshadowed in Jacob's blessing and given now in the church's mystery and sacraments, the grain, wine, and oil of the psalm.
787. 121.13The heavenly city's strength depends on its peace, since only those united in peace have perfect strength.
788. 121.14The heavy towers are the firmest of the faithful, who love God; to them belongs the fullest abundance of the heavenly city.
789. 121.15Preaching peace makes the brothers into the Lord's city, and seeking its good makes the city itself God's house and temple.
790. 122.1Hilary begins Psalm 122 [123]: the Songs of Ascents climb step by step, and now the eyes of the mind are lifted to God who dwells in heaven.
791. 122.2God's true heaven is the Son, in whom the Father dwells by the same nature, since the visible heaven will pass away.
792. 122.3God also dwells in believers: the Father dwells in the Word made flesh, the heavenly Adam, and through him in those made heavenly in Christ.
793. 122.4Hilary does not deny that God's throne is in the highest heaven, but holds that his worthy dwelling is also Christ and those made heavenly in him.
794. 122.5If pagans cling stubbornly to false gods, believers should all the more keep their eyes fixed on the true God, creator and giver of resurrection.
795. 122.6As servants watch their masters' hands, the faithful watch God; but the servants of sin watch the works of their vices, their many masters.
796. 122.7Christians confess one God without denying that Christ is God: Scripture names Father and Son each as God and Lord, one from one, of the same substance.
797. 122.8The one maidservant is the soul enslaved to the flesh; as sinners cling to their vices, faith must cling to God unchanged until he shows mercy.
798. 122.9The psalmist waits steadfastly for God's mercy, praying twice for it, with the perseverance with which sinners cling to their vices.
799. 122.10The faithful are hated, persecuted, and killed by the wicked, by Jews and pagans, and by heretics; they grieve for their persecutors and look to God, who alone can reverse their contempt.
800. 122.11The rich man and Lazarus show the reversal of fortunes: the poor sufferer is comforted, the self-indulgent rich man tormented.
801. 122.12The verse expresses the gospel reversal: either the despised faithful will later abound, or the proud and rich will be shamed at the judgment.
802. 122.13Since God reverses the lot of rich and poor, we must not despise the humble and needy but care for them, as Paul and Peter agreed.
803. 123.1Hilary begins Psalm 123 [124]: having obtained mercy, Israel, the one who sees God, is taught to say that without the Lord his enemies would have swallowed him alive.
804. 123.2Since all good things are from God, we must not boast in strength, wealth, birth, or wisdom but in the Lord, as the psalm teaches us to confess.
805. 123.3Delivered from persecution by God's presence, we should ascribe everything to him, as Paul and Jacob teach.
806. 123.4Being "swallowed alive" means the living death of sin; God keeps the soul from it.
807. 123.5Waters in Scripture signify peoples; the waters that would engulf us are the dark, earthly peoples roused by the devil against the faithful.
808. 123.6The devil's torrent overwhelms those empty of God, but for those in whom God dwells it soon dries up and can be crossed.
809. 123.7The teeth of the torrents are the vices, anger, lust, hatred, gluttony, greed, which would devour the soul if God were not in us.
810. 123.8The fowlers' snares are leisure, money, ambition, and lust, set for every soul; glory lies in flying free of them.
811. 123.9The snare catches only those who already sin; like the sparrow that stays by the house, the faithful remain in the church and are freed through the name of the Lord Jesus.
812. 124.1Hilary begins Psalm 124 [125] by insisting that Scripture's figures, such as waters that praise and clap, must be understood spiritually, not by the sound of the words alone.
813. 124.2The psalm cannot refer to earthly Jerusalem, which killed the prophets and the Lord and was destroyed and left desolate; its meaning must be sought elsewhere.
814. 124.3Mount Zion is the church, founded on Christ the cornerstone, and the heavenly Jerusalem; Christ is Daniel's stone that became a mountain, emptied in the flesh and exalted through his passion.
815. 124.4Those who trust in the Lord are like Zion, beholding their resurrection in Christ's; dwelling now in the church, the earthly form of the heavenly Jerusalem, they must stand firm.
816. 124.5The mountains around Jerusalem are the saints and angels who guard the church, rising above the earth and rejoicing in God.
817. 124.6Angels and saints guard the church, but the Lord himself, present everywhere by his Spirit, surrounds his people against the spiritual powers that assail them.
818. 124.7The rod of sinners, the power of persecutors, will not rest long on the righteous; their trials are brief, so they must not be driven to sin.
819. 124.8God rewards those good in deed and in heart, for goodness done only for show or fear is not goodness before God.
820. 124.9Those who turn aside into the bonds of sin, which Isaiah calls on us to loose, will share the punishment of the wicked.
821. 124.10The bonds to avoid are not marriage, which Paul does not call criminal, but the chains of money-making and trade that ensnare faith.
822. 124.11Israel, the faithful, will receive peace, which is Christ, who made both peoples one.
823. 125.1Hilary begins Psalm 125 [126]: some psalms cannot fit their own times, which shows that they must be read spiritually, as Christians understand them.
824. 125.2Christians understand the psalms not by their own wisdom but because Christ opened the Scriptures to his disciples and gives understanding to those who ask.
825. 125.3The psalm cannot be about the return from Babylon, which was followed by a worse captivity; it is the joy of the soul freed from captivity to vices.
826. 125.4Bodily captivity cannot enslave a faithful soul, as the three youths, Daniel, Eleazar, and the Maccabean martyrs show; the soul's captivity to vices is far worse.
827. 125.5Hilary describes the misery of those enslaved to greed, lust, drunkenness, anger, and envy.
828. 125.6God turned back our captivity through the forgiveness of sins, freeing the soul from vices and making us the new Zion in the body of Christ, to the wonder of the nations.
829. 125.7We are now only "as those comforted", having the Spirit, the other Comforter, while full comfort awaits the revelation of the sons of God.
830. 125.8Our mouths are filled with joy because God has changed our sins into virtues: adultery into chastity, drunkenness into fasting, idolatry into authority over demons.
831. 125.9The nations marvel at our change from vice to virtue, and we confess with joy that the Lord has done great things for us.
832. 125.10Though free, the psalmist prays "Turn back our captivity", joining in the confession of the whole people captive to sin, as the tax collector's confession justified him.
833. 125.11Sowing in tears is the spiritual sowing of repentance and confession, which Paul contrasts with the sowing of the flesh; those who sow so will reap joy at the judgment.
834. 126.1Hilary grants that the Songs of Ascents may refer to the Babylonian captivity and return, but warns against an understanding limited to past bodily events.
835. 126.2Because the return from Babylon was followed by worse ruin, the psalm must speak of eternal hopes: the heavenly Jerusalem and the Lord's kingdom.
836. 126.3Some read the psalm as Solomon's prophecy, during the building of the temple, of its later destruction, fulfilled again in the rebuilding under Zerubbabel.
837. 126.4Haggai's prophecy of the overturning of kingdoms shows that Zerubbabel's rebuilding was also vain; the city lies in ruins.
838. 126.5Human building and guarding are vain; only the house the Lord builds and the city he guards will last.
839. 126.6Scripture uses our word 'house', but God, whom heaven and earth cannot contain, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
840. 126.7The Zion God chose for his rest is not the destroyed temple but believers, whom Paul calls the temple of God.
841. 126.8God's house is built on the prophets and apostles from living stones joined to the cornerstone, growing into the body of Christ; Israel will share it after the fullness of the Gentiles.
842. 126.9Hilary traces the Lord's guarding of his city from the patriarchs through Christ's promise to be with his disciples always.
843. 126.10Christ's word about the cities of Israel and Paul's about the fullness of the Gentiles show that the Lord builds his city until it is complete.
844. 126.11Philosophy cannot build God's house; those not built by the Lord will not share the glory of the resurrection begun in Christ.
845. 126.12The command 'Rise after you have sat' shows that the city is not of stone but of those who will rise from the rest of death.
846. 126.13The bread of sorrow is the grief of the will that knows the good yet is held back by habitual sin; Christ blesses this mourning.
847. 126.14'Rise' is a present command to faith; 'after you have sat' defers its fulfilment to the future.
848. 126.15The 'sleep' given to the beloved is the death of the saints; resurrection follows when the fullness of the Gentiles and the remnant of Israel are complete.
849. 126.16The Lord's inheritance is not carnal Israel but the sons of God; Christ, the virgin's fruit of the womb, receives the believing nations as his reward.
850. 126.17Psalm 2 and Philippians 2 show that Christ, by taking human birth and obeying unto death, received the nations as his inheritance.
851. 126.18God's arrows, swift and sure, signify the prophetic and apostolic teachings that carry his word.
852. 126.19The 'sons of the shaken off' are the prophets and the apostles and teachers drawn from the cursed nations, sent as saving arrows through the world.
853. 126.20Blessed is the one who fills himself with the teaching of these 'arrows'; they are the builders of God's city.
854. 126.21The preachers will not be ashamed before their enemies at the one gate of the Lord, Christ, through whom alone one comes to the Father.
855. 127.1In Scripture the fear of the Lord is reached through seeking wisdom; it differs from natural fear, which arises from weakness and is not taught.
856. 127.2The fear of the Lord is learned; it consists in love and obedience, not in dread of calamity, and so those who walk in his ways are blessed.
857. 127.3Christ is the one Way, reached by the many ways of the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, the apostles, and the commandments.
858. 127.4The psalm's shift from plural to singular teaches that all believers are one in Christ.
859. 127.5'Eating the labors of your fruits' reverses the ordinary order and cannot be understood in a bodily sense.
860. 127.6The 'labors' to be eaten are good works that nourish the soul now, with the living bread, while their fruit is reaped in eternity.
861. 127.7Taken literally, a fruitful wife and children cannot be the blessedness of those who fear God, since the patriarchs lacked it, sinners enjoy it, and virgins forgo it.
862. 127.8Since Scripture's blessings are spiritual, the wife and children must be understood spiritually, as Christ the bridegroom has the church as his bride.
863. 127.9The 'wife' is wisdom, whom Solomon sought as his bride and Proverbs calls the 'manly' or valiant wife.
864. 127.10Wisdom, the wife, bears good works as her children, who surround the table of the Lord's bread and of Scripture.
865. 127.11The full goods of Zion and Jerusalem await the age to come, when we shall see face to face and enjoy peace after the devil's defeat.
866. 128.1The righteous are attacked often from youth; as Paul's sufferings show, only one who competes lawfully through many trials is crowned.
867. 128.2The psalm names no attackers because men are only the agents; the instigators are the spiritual powers of wickedness.
868. 128.3Job's afflictions and Judas's betrayal show the devil working his will through human agents.
869. 128.4We should not be angry with those who wrong us, but recognize and resist the devil who prompts them, and pity his instruments.
870. 128.5The prophet teaches Israel to confess that its many attackers never prevailed; persistent attack proves the strength of the faithful.
871. 128.6Unable to win openly, sinners plot behind the backs of the faithful, but those who run forward in faith outrun them.
872. 128.7Sinners endlessly prolong their iniquity, joining sin to sin like a long rope.
873. 128.8God patiently waits for repentance, but at last cuts the stiff necks of persistent sinners; necks bowed to Christ's yoke are spared.
874. 128.9Zion, meaning 'watchtower', is the church, the body of Christ; those who hate her will be put to shame and lose the glory of the resurrection.
875. 128.10The impious, sowing to the flesh, are like grass on the housetop that withers before harvest; bodies built on faith are firm.
876. 128.11The hand signifies works and the bosom the will and conscience, which counts for more, as the widow's coins show; the impious fill neither.
877. 128.12Those who 'pass by' are pilgrims who pass over earthly cares to heavenly knowledge, like Moses at the bush; they withhold blessing from fruitless works.
878. 128.13The psalm's curse is not a wish but a prophetic statement meant to alarm sinners.
879. 128.14The prophet's final blessing shows his wish for sinners to repent and sow what bears fruit.
880. 129.1Following Paul's 'O the depth', Hilary confesses that God's judgments and the mysteries of creation, providence, and Scripture are beyond human knowledge.
881. 129.2The cry 'out of the depths' may come from the depth of God's mysteries, of human calamity, or of secret prayer.
882. 129.3God is incorporeal spirit; his 'eyes' and 'ears' are names for his one undivided power, and though he hears all by nature, faith asks to be heard.
883. 129.4Being made in God's image does not make God bodily; a God composed of soul and body would be composite and therefore not eternal.
884. 129.5Hilary holds that God first made the soul in his image (Gen 1:26) and later formed the body from dust and joined the two by his breath (Gen 2:7).
885. 129.6The image of God is the inner man, the soul, whose swift incorporeal mobility imitates God; renewal in that image is putting on knowledge, faith, and goodness.
886. 129.7The 'eyes' and 'ears' of God may also be understood as the angels, who serve and carry prayers not because God needs them but because we are weak.
887. 129.8Hilary distinguishes iniquity (sinning outside God's law, as the Gentiles do) from sin within the law; iniquities are washed away in baptism.
888. 129.9The 'propitiation' with God is the only-begotten Son, who took away sins on the cross; since Father and Son are one, the verse fits either.
889. 129.10The prophet keeps the law's bodily rites but in spirit waits for the Word, Christ, the end of the law, hoping all day like the first workers in the vineyard.
890. 129.11Hope is open at every hour; like the eleventh-hour workers, those who come late receive the reward by God's mercy, so we must hurry now.
891. 130.1This short psalm teaches humility, the greatest work of faith: the heart must not be lifted up.
892. 130.2The Greek verb implies roving eyes; the eyes should be lifted up to God once and stay there.
893. 130.3David did not walk 'in great things above him': raised from obscurity to be king and prophet, he loved persecutors and spared his sons rather than seek revenge.
894. 130.4The psalmist is humble in heart, the source of evil thoughts, but lofty in soul and thought, which are directed to heaven.
895. 130.5The weaned child, like Isaac at Abraham's feast, signifies one who has outgrown the milk of beginners and is ready for the living bread.
896. 130.6The psalmist calls all Israel to an unending hope in the Lord, now and in the age to come.
897. 131.1This psalm concerns the Son of God's incarnation; the Jews refer it to David, though the prophets long after David promised a future 'David'.
898. 131.2The promised 'David' is Christ, shepherd, king, righteous judge, and light, who took David's name with his flesh; the psalm fits him, not Jesse's son.
899. 131.3The prayer is the Son's, asking the Father to remember the man he assumed and his meekness.
900. 131.4Christ acted as one bound by an oath to suffer: he rebuked Peter, refused the sword, and said 'It is finished' when all was fulfilled.
901. 131.5No human could keep a vow never to sleep, nor build a house for the infinite God; the vow must be understood otherwise.
902. 131.6Christ's vow was to make human beings a dwelling for God; he would not return to heaven with his assumed humanity until he had found such dwellings in believing hearts.
903. 131.7Christ left the 'couch' of heavenly rest by becoming man and obeying unto the cross, and vowed not to return until God's tent was found.
904. 131.8Christ's death was a sleep like that of Jacob's fearless lion of Judah; the image shows both his impassible security in death and his oneness with, yet distinction from, the Father.
905. 131.9The sleep and rest refer to Christ's body; for him death was rest, not penal change.
906. 131.10Before his rest Christ chose the apostles as God's tent; the place names in the psalm cannot fit David, who only bought the site Solomon built on.
907. 131.11Neither the histories nor the psalm support the Jewish reading; Ephrata and the fields of the wood do not match the threshing floor in Jerusalem, and the temple is gone.
908. 131.12The singular oath belongs to Christ, but the plural 'we heard, we found' is the prophets' voice, since many foretold the Lord's rest.
909. 131.13Ephrata is Bethlehem, where Christ was born; the 'fields of the wood' are the Gentiles, once the devil's lair, where the church is found.
910. 131.14Entering God's many tents and worshipping where his feet stood means the many churches and a final standing in the Gospel, the end of the law and prophets.
911. 131.15Longing, like the prophets, to see what was promised, the psalmist prays the Lord to arise into his rest, the church found among the Gentiles.
912. 131.16The 'ark of your sanctification' is Christ's body, golden within and without, holding the true manna and the words of life, unlike the lost ark of the covenant.
913. 131.17Priests clothed with righteousness and rejoicing saints are enlightened by Christ's divinity because of the body he assumed, signified by 'David'.
914. 131.18God's oath to David of an everlasting throne in Zion cannot refer to the earthly city, long destroyed, nor to David's scattered descendants.
915. 131.19The oath of Psalm 89, with its firstborn who calls God Father and whose throne endures for ever, belongs to Christ, not to the son of Jesse.
916. 131.20Believers are the 'fruit of the womb' of Christ by spiritual birth, as the prophet's 'male giving birth' and Paul's labor pains show.
917. 131.21The sons to be taught are the 'little ones' of the Gospel; those who keep what they are taught will sit on thrones, as Christ promised the apostles.
918. 131.22'My throne' and 'your throne' are the same because Father and Son are one, sharing one substance and glory without difference.
919. 131.23The Zion God chose for his rest is not the ruined mountain but the heavenly Jerusalem, the assembly of the faithful sanctified by the church's sacraments.
920. 131.24Hilary follows the Septuagint 'widow' (not 'catch'), praising widows' continence and, with Romans 7, reading the widow as the church freed from the law to be joined to Christ.
921. 131.25The poor are satisfied when the church feeds them, since Christ receives such service as done to himself, and when those poor in spirit receive the food of eternal life.
922. 131.26The priests' clothing with salvation and the saints' full exultation signify the resurrection, when our bodies are conformed to Christ's glorious body.
923. 131.27The 'horn of David' is Christ's eternal kingdom in God's rest, the kingdom of heaven promised to the poor in spirit.
924. 131.28The lamp prepared for Christ is John and all prophecy pointing to him; his enemies will be confounded while God's glory flourishes upon him.
925. 132.1Hilary notes that the good and the pleasant do not always coincide, which is why the psalm joins them.
926. 132.2Brothers dwelling in unity means not shared houses but the church, God's house, united in love.
927. 132.3As in the first church at Jerusalem and in Paul's exhortations, believers should be of one mind, seeking peace with all, like members of one body.
928. 132.4The ointment on Aaron, a figure of Christ's invisible anointing with the oil of gladness, signifies the sweet fragrance of believers' unity.
929. 132.5The ointment flows from Christ the head to mature believers (the beard) and to the whole body down to the hem, as the women anointed Christ's head and feet.
930. 132.6Hermon, meaning 'anathema', is a mountain of pagan worship, linked by a book of uncertain authorship with fallen angels; Zion is the church.
931. 132.7The dew of blessing, lost through Adam's sin, comes down from pagan Hermon to Zion when Gentiles turn to the church, where unity of love wins eternal life.
932. 133.1The songs of ascents end with a call for God's servants, not the servants of sin, to bless the Lord who has raised them.
933. 133.2Only those who stand firm in the Lord's house, unmoved, can bless him; this house leads up to the heavenly Jerusalem.
934. 133.3Since there are many dwellings with the Father, standing in the courts is a higher rank than standing in the house, as flowering surpasses planting.
935. 133.4Some regard 'in the courts of the house of the Lord' as an addition from the next psalm, but Hilary follows the ancient translation.
936. 133.5Lifting hands in the night means doing works of mercy in this dark age, the true evening sacrifice, given cheerfully as Moses' raised hands won the battle.
937. 133.6Works of mercy earn the blessing of the Lord of the church, who is the Creator of heaven and earth.
938. 134.1The psalm's account of the Exodus must be read like a skilled herbalist reads a field: its events, rightly understood, offer spiritual healing.
939. 134.2Praise completes the blessing of the previous psalm and begins, in order, with the name of God, the God of heaven, earth, and the patriarchs.
940. 134.3From praising God's name we advance to praising God himself, as servants who stand firm in his house and inner courts.
941. 134.4God is praised for his kindness, which sinners need; 'singing psalms' means praising him with the works of the body.
942. 134.5Hilary asks why the psalm names Jacob rather than Abraham, and why it distinguishes Jacob chosen from Israel possessed.
943. 134.6Jacob, who supplanted his brother, gained the birthright and blessing, and became Israel after wrestling with God, figures the church, which takes the inheritance of the people of the law.
944. 134.7'I have known how great the Lord is' is the Son's voice, since only the Son, image of the infinite Father, knows his greatness.
945. 134.8The 'gods' over whom God is supreme are not idols; Christians confess one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, God from God, neither of whom has a counterpart.
946. 134.9Scripture calls men gods (Ps 82, John 10, Moses) and, by implication, the heavenly powers; above all these is our God.
947. 134.10God surpasses all so-called gods in power, doing whatever he wills, since he owes his being to no one.
948. 134.11The wonders of heaven, earth, and sea are great, but Hilary asks what precisely the psalm means by all that God willed and did.
949. 134.12Taken literally, the verse about clouds, lightning, and winds makes little sense, which points to a deeper meaning.
950. 134.13These natural events do show God's power, but the verse must also be understood spiritually.
951. 134.14Of all God's works man is dearest to him: made deliberately in God's image, redeemed, destined to judge angels, and now transformed in Christ from vice to virtue.
952. 134.15The clouds brought from the end of the earth are the apostles, lowly and 'last', whose teaching shades believers from the heat of judgment.
953. 134.16The lightning is knowledge of God's power, as in Christ's coming; teachers who flash with it pour out the rain of life-giving words, as Moses did.
954. 134.17The winds from God's treasuries are the angels, ministering spirits sent to guard weak humanity against the powers of darkness.
955. 134.18The Exodus events, the work of the Creator, are also, as Paul teaches, figures of what God now does spiritually in us.
956. 134.19Egypt is the world, struck by God's judgment; the signs 'in its midst' are the wonders at Christ's cross, and Pharaoh drowned is the devil overthrown in baptism.
957. 134.20Through their names, Sihon (fruitless tree), the Amorites (embitterers), Og (wall), Bashan (shame), and Canaan (motion) signify the vices and powers Christ destroys in us.
958. 134.21The promised land, since lost by Israel, signifies our bodies, freed from vices and glorified, the inheritance of the true Israel who bear the heavenly image.
959. 134.22Like the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, 'your name is for ever' is a prayer for our sake, that God's name, kingdom, and will may abide in us.
960. 134.23God's memorial, the law, passed from the first generation, the Jews, to the second, the Christians, once the measure of impiety was filled.
961. 134.24God judges his people Israel under the law but is comforted in his servants, the believers who pass from death to life.
962. 134.25Though God lavished benefits on Israel, it killed the Lord of the vineyard; he is comforted in the Gentile martyrs and faithful, as Moses' song and Eleazar's martyrdom attest.
963. 134.26Idols of gold and silver have only the form of a dead body; their worshippers will become like them, lifeless.
964. 134.27Israel, Aaron, Levi, and those who fear the Lord are ranks within the church; 'Israel', those who see God by knowledge and contemplation, rank above even priests and ministers.
965. 135.1Scripture is never idle, but we often fail to hear it read in church because our minds are busy with worldly cares and sins.
966. 135.2Scripture teaches us gradually, part by part; this psalm teaches that the whole universe exists because of God's goodness and mercy.
967. 135.3'Confess' means both praising God and confessing sin; confession is not informing God but acknowledging one's error, which implies ceasing from it.
968. 135.4The righteous always confess their past sins, as Paul did; we confess confidently to a God who is good and never ceases to be merciful.
969. 135.5God is God of the living, whom he makes 'gods' by transforming them into heavenly glory, out of his mercy, not his need.
970. 135.6The 'lords' and 'kings' whose Lord God is are believers who master their bodies and sins, a dignity given by his mercy.
971. 135.7God alone does great wonders: even the wonders of Moses and Joshua's halting of the sun were his work.
972. 135.8God made the heavens out of mercy and with order, tempering the highest heaven with the waters above so that creatures could bear his presence.
973. 135.9The lower heaven, the firmament, is manifold, which is why Scripture speaks of many heavens.
974. 135.10Scripture does not reveal the number of the heavens; Paul speaks of a third heaven and of unspeakable things; it suffices to know there are many.
975. 135.11The earth hangs balanced in the middle, held within God's all-pervading Spirit, in whom we live and move.
976. 135.12The earth hangs firmly on the waters beneath the firmament, which divides the upper and lower waters, all by God's mercy.
977. 135.13'Alone' does not exclude the Son, God's Wisdom, through whom the Father works; the works of the Son are the Father's.
978. 135.14The Red Sea divided into 'divisions' signifies the many ways (fasting, chastity, almsgiving, faith, hope, love) by which believers cross the world to the promised land.
979. 135.15God remembered our lowliness in the incarnation, redeemed us by Christ's blood from the devil and death, and feeds the redeemed with the living bread, all from his mercy.
980. 136.1The psalm seems to concern the Babylonian captivity; some give it Jeremiah's title, but among the Hebrew elders it has none.
981. 136.2The events of Israel's history, as Psalm 78 and Paul teach, were figures of the future, written for our instruction.
982. 136.3The captivity is a figure of the soul's captivity to vices and demons, from which Christ came to set captives free.
983. 136.4Literally, the psalm voices the grief of Jerusalem's captives remembering Zion amid their sufferings.
984. 136.5Zion is the heavenly Jerusalem and Babylon, 'confusion', is this world and the disordered body; everyone exiled through Adam weeps as a spiritual captive.
985. 136.6A literal reading raises absurdities; spiritually, the rivers are the fleeting pleasures of the world, beside which the exiled soul weeps for Zion.
986. 136.7The willows, which revive by water, signify the saints reborn in baptism; the instruments hung on them are our bodies, raised from earthly desires by the example of the saints.
987. 136.8The captors who demand Zion's songs are the vices that intrude even into worship and Scripture reading; the holy refuse them any share in the songs of Zion.
988. 136.9The law of sin in our members seeks to take the body captive; we must resist, for a body enslaved to sin is a 'strange land' in which the Lord's song cannot be sung.
989. 136.10The Greek shows the curse means 'let my right hand be forgotten': whoever forgets Jerusalem forfeits a place at God's right hand.
990. 136.11A mouth silent in God's praise is dead; while others rejoice in their vices, the prophet's sole joy is the heavenly Jerusalem.
991. 136.12The 'sons of Edom' ('earthly') are bodily vices that seek to empty the soul down to its foundation, Christ; the psalmist prays God to remember them.
992. 136.13The 'daughter of Babylon' is the flesh, born of confusion; blessed is he who repays her by subjecting her to the spirit and killing her vices.
993. 136.14Dashing Babylon's little ones against the rock means crushing vices at their birth against Christ, before they grow strong.
994. 137.1Confession means either praising God, as when Christ confesses to the Father, or confessing sins, as at John's baptism.
995. 137.2Confession of sin does not inform God but acknowledges, through knowledge of God's teaching, that what one did is sin.
996. 137.3Confession means ceasing from sin; to confess 'with the whole heart' one must abandon all sins, not trade one vice for another.
997. 137.4The psalmist's 'I will confess' can mean praising God for hearing him or confessing sins now abandoned.
998. 137.5The psalmist sings before the angels, who watch and guard the faithful, as Elisha's servant saw the angelic host around them.
999. 137.6He worships 'toward' the temple, not in it; the temple is every holy person, God's dwelling.
1000. 137.7Confessing God's name refutes heretics who separate the God of the law from the God of the Gospel: he is the God of the patriarchs and the Father of the Only-begotten.
1001. 137.8Confessing God's mercy refutes rigorists who deny pardon to penitent sinners.
1002. 137.9Confessing God's truth refutes those who say Christ had only an apparent body; the risen Christ showed his flesh and bones.
1003. 137.10God's name is now magnified among all peoples, while pagan temples, idols, and divination fall silent.
1004. 137.11The righteous pray every day, since all days hold danger and the day of the Lord comes like a thief; God strengthens the soul to bear every trial.
1005. 137.12The 'kings of the earth' are believers who rule their own bodies now that sin's and death's reign is broken.
1006. 137.13The ways of the Lord are the prophets and apostles leading into one way; God's works, and man made to know them, display his invisible glory.
1007. 137.14God, though most high, regards the humble and is near them, while he knows the proud from afar, being absent from them.
1008. 137.15The righteous accept tribulation, which tests and strengthens faith, trusting God's right hand, Christ, to protect them against the devil's attacks.
1009. 137.16'The Lord will repay for me' agrees with the Gospel: Christians leave vengeance to God and do not return evil for evil.
1010. 137.17The psalm ends praying that God's eternal mercy will not abandon man, the work of his hands, whom Christ promised to be with always.
1011. 138.1All prophecy comes from the Spirit, and Christ himself taught that the psalms speak of him; so this psalm is referred to Christ.
1012. 138.2What is said of Christ's humanity must not detract from his impassible divine nature; in emptying himself he did not cease to be in the form of God.
1013. 138.3Weak things said of Christ refer to the humanity he took; he bore our sins and weaknesses without becoming weak, and as God he did not feel pain.
1014. 138.4Tribulation proves the saints, as with Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Paul, whose patience was rewarded; the psalm now applies this to Christ.
1015. 138.5Christ, in his assumed humanity, was proved by humble obedience unto the cross and so exalted into the Father's glory.
1016. 138.6Christ was proved by humbling himself in baptism, temptation, and the passion, and each time acknowledged: by the Father's voice, by the angels, and at the transfiguration.
1017. 138.7Christ's 'sitting' signifies his teaching, as from Moses' chair, and his 'rising' his works, as after the Sermon on the Mount and at the foot-washing.
1018. 138.8'From afar' means long before: God foreknew Christ's humble and patient thoughts, as Isaiah's servant prophecy shows.
1019. 138.9The Greek words behind 'path' (a well-worn track) and 'way' (a fixed measure of distance) shape the meaning of the verse.
1020. 138.10Christ walked the well-worn path he had already trodden in the prophets, often rejected by Jerusalem.
1021. 138.11Christ completed the measured course appointed by the Father, from finishing his work to drinking the cup and saying 'It is finished'.
1022. 138.12The Father 'searched out' Christ's path by foretelling the details of the passion through the prophets; in Christ, the truth, there was no deceit.
1023. 138.13'Your knowledge has been made wonderful from me' cannot be said by the prophet or even Moses, but by Christ, who revealed the Father's name.
1024. 138.14The 'last things' are those of Christ's humanity; the 'ancient' are his eternal existence as the Word.
1025. 138.15'You formed me' refers to the Son's eternal divine form, 'you laid your hand upon me' to his human birth; the psalm belongs wholly to Christ.
1026. 138.16Through Christ the wonderful knowledge of God is revealed: God is in all things, everywhere, whole, beyond place and time.
1027. 138.17Father and Son are one in power and nature, not merely in will; the Father is 'greater' only as Father, by generation, which is why the Son 'cannot attain' to him in that respect.
1028. 138.18Wherever the Son goes, heaven, hell, or the ends of the sea, the infinite Father is present; the Son does not go beyond him.
1029. 138.19Christ is always God, man from the time of the incarnation, and God and man together; his humanity advances into the Father's glory.
1030. 138.20The verses must be divided between Christ's divinity and humanity; the last, about taking his own wings, can only be said by one of a superior nature.
1031. 138.21'Where shall I go from your Spirit' refers to the Son's eternal divine existence; 'where shall I flee from your face' to his assumed humanity, which cannot bear or escape God's face.
1032. 138.22Ascending into heaven belongs to Christ's divinity, descending to the underworld to his true humanity; God is present in both.
1033. 138.23The 'wings' taken 'before the light' signify Christ's own power and his resurrection, by which the assumed humanity is raised into the Father's glory.
1034. 138.24Wings signify the transformation of bodies into heavenly nature at the resurrection; Christ's wings are his own, given by his nature and power after his voluntary passion.
1035. 138.25'Perhaps darkness will trample me' expresses not fear of death but mockery of those who thought Christ feared the underworld.
1036. 138.26Christ's death was not darkness to him but delight and light: he broke the gates of the underworld and redeemed humanity, the Father being always with him.
1037. 138.27Christ's humanity, wholly devoted to the Father, was 'made terribly wonderful' through the signs at his death, his resurrection and ascension, and the wonders of the apostles.
1038. 138.28Though Christ's wonders were his own power, he ascribes them to the Father's works out of reverence; only the Son knows the Father's works 'well'.
1039. 138.29Christ's 'bone' made in secret is the church, as Paul applies Adam's words about Eve to Christ and the church; the hidden mystery is revealed to little ones.
1040. 138.30As Paul teaches, the hidden mystery now revealed is that the Gentiles share the inheritance in Christ, 'Christ in you, the hope of glory'.
1041. 138.31The revealed mystery is Christ dwelling in the humble and lowly; 'my substance in the lower parts of the earth' means Christ in the lowliest believers.
1042. 138.32The Greek behind 'unperfected' means 'unwrought': what exists without having been made, which is proper to the eternal God, whom the Son's eyes have seen.
1043. 138.33The 'eyes' that are written in God's book and filled cannot be the Son's divine eyes, which need no advancement.
1044. 138.34The 'eyes' are the apostles and priests, the light of the church; if they are darkened by worldly cares and avarice, the whole body falls into darkness.
1045. 138.35The apostles 'saw' the Father's eternity in the Son, as Christ told Philip, not by seeing the invisible nature but through the works, since Father and Son are one in nature.
1046. 138.36Christ prays that the apostles be written in God's book, a higher dignity than the book of the living, as his prayer in John 17 shows.
1047. 138.37Those 'filled by day' are filled with Christ, the true light, so that no vice or worldly spirit finds room in them.
1048. 138.38God's 'friends', very much honored, are the apostles, whom Christ called friends; their 'principalities' are the churches they founded on the rock throughout the world.
1049. 138.39Some explain 'above the sand' by adding the angels to Abraham's numberless seed; Hilary offers his own interpretation without disparaging theirs.
1050. 138.40God's two promises to Abraham, sand and stars, correspond to Paul's two covenants; believers in Christ, 'above the sand', outnumber the people of the law.
1051. 138.41'I have risen' speaks of the future resurrection as past, by God's foreknowledge; 'I am still with you' refers to the time before the Son came into the world.
1052. 138.42God 'slays the sinner' not by destroying him but by putting his sins to death, so that he dies to the world and lives in Christ.
1053. 138.43The Greek ἐρεῖς can mean 'you will say' or 'strifes'; those who know Hebrew confirm 'strifes', which makes better sense.
1054. 138.44'Men of blood' are bishops whose flattering silence lets people perish, as Ezekiel's watchman shows, and teachers whose doctrine is deceitful.
1055. 138.45Deceitful teachers are heretics, contentious and destructive, who gather churches in vain through schism and are guilty of the souls they lose.
1056. 138.46There is a holy hatred of those who hate God; we love our own enemies, but God's enemies are Christ's too, since the Son is one with the Father.
1057. 138.47Only Christ, who is without sin, can confidently ask God to search him for any way of iniquity.
1058. 139.1The psalm might fit David's many dangers, but it is general, teaching all how to pray when beset by enemies.
1059. 139.2On deeper reading the psalm is Christ's, spoken from both his divine and his assumed human nature, and in what fits our nature it is ours too.
1060. 139.3The prayer for rescue from evil men fits all believers, but knowing the evil 'devised in the heart' belongs to God and Christ.
1061. 139.4Christ was attacked constantly with venomous words, as in the Gospel controversies; believers too are assailed by hostile powers working through men, as Hadad was a 'satan' to Solomon.
1062. 139.5After the pause the prayer is repeated, now against deeds; the one evil man is the betrayer and the many are the people.
1063. 139.6The snares, ropes, and stumbling blocks are the plots of the Jewish leaders and the trick questions of Sadducees and Pharisees about resurrection, tribute, the law, and divorce.
1064. 139.7For us too, belly, eye, tongue, and heart are beset with snares, and we must pray to escape them on the wings of faith.
1065. 139.8Only one who has renounced vice can truly say to the Lord, 'You are my God'.
1066. 139.9Christ always confessed the Father as Lord and God and prayed to him, as at Lazarus's tomb, the feeding of the crowd, and Gethsemane.
1067. 139.10'Strength of my salvation' shows a speaker sure of salvation who asks strength for his assumed humanity, mortal but not subject to corruption.
1068. 139.11Fear and confident joy in the psalm fit Christ, God and man: protected in the battle of the cross, he conquered death and the devil, and Judas gained nothing.
1069. 139.12Christ, willing what the Father wills, prays that his desire, the passion with all its prophesied details, be fulfilled exactly and not forestalled by the sinner.
1070. 139.13The plot to claim the body was stolen failed; every prophecy of the passion and resurrection was fulfilled, confounding the impious.
1071. 139.14The 'head' of Christ's encirclers is the devil, who moved Judas and the crowd; their own curses and the fire of judgment will cover them.
1072. 139.15The 'talkative man' is Judas: thief, betrayer, and his own executioner, never on the straight way and destroyed by his own evil.
1073. 139.16Christ, poor in his humanity, will judge those who wronged him, while God avenges the poor who followed him, the martyrs crying beneath the altar.
1074. 139.17The upright who dwell with God's face are the transformed saints, whom Christ will hand over to the Father in the kingdom.
1075. 140.1Prayer is a cry of faith, not of the voice, as with Moses at the sea, Abel's blood, and the martyrs; God 'attends' to the inward voice of prayer.
1076. 140.2Prayer rising like incense must be pure; the four spices of the temple incense correspond to the four kinds of prayer Paul lists.
1077. 140.3Lifting the hands signifies lofty works, not merely a posture of prayer, as with Moses' raised hands and Paul's 'pure hands'.
1078. 140.4The evening sacrifice of the last times is works of mercy done to the least of Christ's brothers.
1079. 140.5Since we will be judged by our words, the psalmist asks for a door and bar on his lips, as Sirach counsels a door, bolt, and measure for speech.
1080. 140.6Sinners make excuses, blaming others for their adultery or murder, and heretics labor to excuse their doctrines; the psalmist asks for a heart that needs no excuses.
1081. 140.7Pairing in twos belonged to the unclean animals; Christ makes the two one, so believers are united, not merely paired like a faction.
1082. 140.8The humble accept correction from the righteous in mercy; mercy has a just measure, as John's 'sin unto death' and Paul's restoring of one 'overtaken' show.
1083. 140.9The 'oil' on the head is the teaching and works that nourish spiritual light; it must not come from sinners, and pity for sin must not become indulgence of sinners.
1084. 140.10The psalmist's prayer continues against the sinners' 'good pleasures' because they persist in delighting in sin.
1085. 140.11The rock is Christ; at his coming the wicked and their prince, the man of lawlessness, will be swallowed up as death is swallowed in victory.
1086. 140.12The 'thickness of the earth' breaking out is the grossness of the body, swollen by vice, which can no longer be restored to its proper state.
1087. 140.13The psalmist grieves over sinners as his own scattered bones, since all are members of one body.
1088. 140.14The psalmist's eyes are fixed on God and his works, not on bodies, wealth, shows, or worldly pomp; 'taking away the soul' means losing its appointed glory.
1089. 140.15Snares are enticements to pleasure; stumbling blocks are irreligious household members or unworthy fellow Christians who provoke us to anger.
1090. 140.16The net is the devil's, who works through all the wicked; sinners fall into it because they are already sinners.
1091. 140.17The faithful stand apart, devoted to God, until they pass over the snares of the world from death into life, as Christ promised.
1092. 141.1The title 'a prayer of understanding' signals a spiritual sense: David praying in the cave prefigures Christ in his sufferings, true God and true man.
1093. 141.2The psalmist cries, prays aloud, pours out his prayer before the present God, and declares his trouble, persevering even when his spirit fails, unlike us whom small trials distract.
1094. 141.3Some verses fit David and Christ alike, but others, like 'no one knows me' and 'flight has perished', fit only Christ.
1095. 141.4At the passion none of his own accompanied Christ, none recognized God in him, and he gave himself up willingly rather than flee.
1096. 141.5Christ's cry 'You are my hope' is his commending of his spirit to the Father; his 'portion in the land of the living' is the paradise he promised the thief.
1097. 141.6Though he had power over his own life, Christ prayed to the Father out of filial reverence; his persecutors grew bold because they saw only his humble flesh.
1098. 141.7The 'prison' is the underworld, to which Christ preached; his release from it, the resurrection, proclaims the Father's power.
1099. 141.8The apostles' faith trembled until the resurrection; Christ was sorrowful 'unto death' for them. His reward is exaltation, and the righteous await their own transformation into his glory.
1100. 142.1The title about Absalom is absent in Hebrew but added by the Seventy, to direct the reader to a prophetic understanding.
1101. 142.2David's complaint is not against Absalom but against the devil who inflamed him, as he inflamed Judas; the psalm is read of the prophet and of the Lord in his assumed weakness.
1102. 142.3The psalmist asks to be heard, in God's truth (the true God, not idols) and in his righteousness, which takes account of human weakness.
1103. 142.4No living person can be justified if judged by God's standard, since passions and the devil's assaults beset us and drive us into the darkness of fleshly desires.
1104. 142.5The spiritual man is placed in darkness only 'as if' dead; his spirit remains free, troubled by his weakness and turning to remember God's works.
1105. 142.6Remembering Adam's fall and meditating on man as God's handiwork, the spiritual man strives to be as man was before sin, persevering to the end.
1106. 142.7The soul, like dry ground, needs the rain of God's word to grow green and fruitful; its progress is God's gift.
1107. 142.8Weary of the body like Paul, the psalmist asks to be heard quickly, that he may depart pleasing to God to a place of rest.
1108. 142.9The 'face of God' is Christ, the image of the invisible God; without him one would be like those who descend to the punishment of the pit.
1109. 142.10The 'mercy in the morning' is the resurrection, which the prophet hoped for and in which the apostles rejoiced.
1110. 142.11Knowing only in part, the psalmist asks to learn the narrow heavenly way, to be rescued from spiritual enemies, and to be made an upright 'land', a man restored from the fall.
1111. 142.12As Paul says, we do not know how to pray as we ought; the psalmist humbly asks God's teaching and seeks guidance for God's name's sake, not his own merit.
1112. 142.13True life requires the change of nature at the resurrection; the psalmist asks it chiefly of God's mercy, yet 'in equity', for mercy distinguishes merits, saving some and destroying enemies.
1113. 142.14The enemies seek to destroy the soul itself; God's mercy, open to all, stands especially by his servants, through Christ who is with them always.
1114. 143.1The Septuagint title 'against Goliath' does not fit the psalm's content; the Seventy added it to signal that David's fight with Goliath prefigures Christ's war with Satan.
1115. 143.2The Greek article distinguishes a psalm 'by David' (τοῦ) from one 'for David' (τῷ); this psalm is 'for David', that is, about the man Christ assumed.
1116. 143.3The parallel Psalm 18, spoken by the Lord, shows that 'teaching my hands for war' and the rest fit Christ, not David.
1117. 143.4Christ's hands were trained for war on the cross, where he conquered the world, triumphed over the powers, and reconciled all things; his nailed fingers fixed the bond of sin to the cross.
1118. 143.5Christ's confession of the Father as his refuge, made in our lowly nature, honors the Father's majesty.
1119. 143.6'My people' is the whole church; even the Gentiles, 'unknown' while Israel was God's chosen portion, are his because he made them.
1120. 143.7All things were 'given' to Christ not as God, who already had them, but to the humanity he assumed and obediently offered; human nature in him was raised into the divine glory.
1121. 143.8Man, transient as a shadow, is unworthy, yet God made himself known by assuming man, so that man, 'reckoned' through that knowledge, may be conformed to God.
1122. 143.9God's descent in fire and lightning, as in Psalm 18, signifies Christ's rescue from death; the 'mountains' that smoke are the diabolical powers, his strongest enemies.
1123. 143.10God's 'bowing the heavens' is not a bodily motion but the heavenly host's service at Christ's incarnation, from the annunciation to the angels ministering after the temptation.
1124. 143.11The devil's power, subjected at Christ's coming, 'smokes' now but is not yet consumed; it is being prepared for the eternal fire.
1125. 143.12The lightnings that scatter the demons are the apostles' preaching, the 'light of the world', anticipating Christ's lightning-like coming.
1126. 143.13The arrows that confound the demonic powers are the words of the faithful, whose renunciation of the world, chastity, fasting, generosity, and martyrdom defeat them.
1127. 143.14The 'hand' of God sent from on high is Christ, through whom the man he assumed was rescued from death by the resurrection.
1128. 143.15The 'many waters' are peoples, transient like flowing water; the 'foreign sons' are those who have ceased to be God's children.
1129. 143.16The 'vanity' of their mouth was 'We have no king but Caesar'; their 'right hand of iniquity' struck, scourged, crowned with thorns, and crucified Christ.
1130. 143.17The 'new song' is the praise of the one invisible God now sung by all nations, no longer confined to Judea, as Psalm 96 proclaims.
1131. 143.18The 'wonders' of Psalm 98 that call for a new song are not the old works of creation but Christ's raising of his own humanity by his own power.
1132. 143.19Psalm 149's new song celebrates the saints' share in God's final judgment over the nations, as Paul says the saints will judge the world.
1133. 143.20The ten-stringed psaltery may signify the Ten Commandments or the whole person acting in spiritual works; the 'kings' saved are the blessed who will inherit and judge.
1134. 143.21The 'David' delivered is Christ, who bore the nations' reproach and our sins; his resurrection as firstborn from the dead is the salvation of the 'kings' who will share his glory.
1135. 143.22Christ laid down his life freely, beyond the reach of the sword; the worldly prosperity the psalm describes is falsely called blessed, for the truly blessed people is the one whose God is the Lord.
1136. 144.1The king praised in this psalm is Christ, whose eternal reign the psalms and Daniel proclaim.
1137. 144.2The psalm praises God in ordinary language, leading us not to comprehend him but to wonder at his power.
1138. 144.3Since Father and Son are one in substance, nature, and works, the praise of God in the psalm is praise of both.
1139. 144.4Many praise God as Creator, but few confess him as the coming King and Judge; the psalmist blesses him now and will bless him in the age to come.
1140. 144.5Blessing (speaking well of a benefactor) differs from praise (acknowledging true excellence); God, perfect in all, deserves both, every day and for ever.
1141. 144.6God's greatness has no end: it is bound by no place, name, or time, and exceeds all understanding.
1142. 144.7The two generations that praise God's works are the people of the law, from Abraham, and the people renewed in Christ.
1143. 144.8God's works are praised because they were done mightily.
1144. 144.9The might of God's works is matched by the magnificence of his majesty.
1145. 144.10God's holiness is wonderful because it gives itself for others' use while needing nothing.
1146. 144.11God's holiness is joined with terror, so that it is not indiscriminate; his sweetness is terrible and his terror sweet.
1147. 144.12God's greatness, without measure, unites sweetness and terror; the memory of his abundant sweetness never fails.
1148. 144.13God's righteousness distinguishes how his goodness is received: the same sea saved Israel and drowned Egypt, the same furnace was dew to the three youths and fire to their captors.
1149. 144.14Human justice and mercy often undercut each other, but God's justice is merciful through patience: he delays punishment, awaiting repentance, and punishes only after patience has failed.
1150. 144.15God's chief praise is not his power in creation but that, being just, king, and God, he is merciful, patient, and kind to all.
1151. 144.16Creation confesses God's majesty, the saints proclaim his eternal kingdom, and an eternal reign implies eternal subjects who will share it.
1152. 144.17God's holiness, experienced in the gifts of life, guarantees the faithfulness of his promises.
1153. 144.18God upholds those who are falling, stopping them through repentance before they fall completely.
1154. 144.19Those 'dashed down' by temptation, ignorance, or weakness and who repent are raised; those who sin willfully and without repentance are not.
1155. 144.20All depend on God for bodily food and spiritual gifts; he is holy in feeding all and just in leading the faithful into his kingdom.
1156. 144.21God, present everywhere, is near to those who call on him in truth, with faith rather than idle doubt.
1157. 144.22God fulfils the will of those who fear him and pray, saving and guarding those who love him, and destroys sinners who neither feared, prayed, nor loved.
1158. 144.23The psalmist vows unceasing praise and wishes all flesh to bless God for ever, for those who bless the Eternal for ever will share his eternity.
1159. 145.1The Septuagint title naming Haggai and Zechariah marks the psalm as prophetic of the eternal Jerusalem, as the Gospel's use of Zechariah shows.
1160. 145.2The soul praises God now; the whole person will praise him in true life after the resurrection, since present life is a kind of death; meanwhile the body serves him in good works.
1161. 145.3The psalm warns against trusting in kings made gods by the ancients: as sons of men only, their spirit departs and their plans perish with them.
1162. 145.4Blessed is the one who hopes in the Creator, the God of Jacob, who alone is true and judges justly for the wronged.
1163. 145.5The food God gives the hungry is his word, which looses the fetters of vice and gives wisdom to the spiritually blind.
1164. 145.6Each kind of person receives a proper gift: the fallen raised, the righteous loved, the orphan adopted, the 'widow', the church freed from the law, received as Christ's bride; sinners destroyed.
1165. 145.7The Zion where the Lord reigns for ever is not the earthly city but the heavenly mother, built of living stones and filled with saints of both law and faith.
1166. 146.1The psalm cannot concern the rebuilding under Zerubbabel, which also perished; to call that God's building while calling Solomon's vain would be absurd.
1167. 146.2The psalm praises the building of the heavenly Jerusalem; a 'good psalm' is praise given by obedient works, as creation praises God by fulfilling its duties.
1168. 146.3The gathering of Israel's dispersed is the final gathering of the elect by the angels; the building comes first because God now builds us up for that city.
1169. 146.4Christ came to heal the contrite of heart; this healing has begun but will be complete in the resurrection, when the soul returns to the rest lost through Adam.
1170. 146.5The stars God numbers and names are the saints, Abraham's promised seed, whom Christ will call by name from their tombs and make shine.
1171. 146.6God's greatness, power, and wisdom appear in gathering, healing, and naming the saints; he exalts the meek to starry glory and casts sinners down.
1172. 146.7The psalm praises the God of Israel as Creator who provides for all creatures, refuting any division between the God of the law and of creation; the images also carry a figurative sense.
1173. 146.8In Scripture the clouds signify the teaching of the saints: withheld from the unbelieving, passing away before Christ's brightness, an ascent to God, and holding his truth.
1174. 146.9Allegorically, the rain is God's word; the mountains are patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, who provide food for 'cattle', those still ignorant of God.
1175. 146.10Many manuscripts add 'and grass for the service of men'; Hilary does not need it, but either reading praises God for providing bodily and spiritual food.
1176. 146.11The literal reading of ravens calling on God and being fed carrion is absurd and irreligious; a spiritual meaning is required.
1177. 146.12The raven from the ark is a figure of the sinner, yet ravens fed Elijah; the 'young ravens' calling on God are Gentile believers, born of sinners, now fed with the prophets' teaching.
1178. 146.13God takes pleasure not in fine horses or houses but in those who fear him and hope in his mercy, confirming the spiritual reading of the psalm.
1179. 147.1The Septuagint again adds the names of Haggai and Zechariah, pointing to the eternal Jerusalem.
1180. 147.2Jerusalem, 'city of peace', is the united assembly of the saints; it is also Zion, 'watchtower', because it beheld by faith in Christ's body the glory to which it will be conformed.
1181. 147.3The strengthened gates, blessed sons, peaceful borders, and rich wheat describe the eternal city promised to the meek, secure against every enemy.
1182. 147.4God's word ran swiftly through all the earth with the apostles' preaching, building the heavenly city everywhere from living stones until its fullness is gathered.
1183. 147.5Snow, frost, and ice signify the troubles and ignorance of this life along the narrow way; God's word and Spirit will melt them into the calm of eternal rest.
1184. 147.6In the eternal kingdom there will be no grief or change, but good things beyond sight, hearing, and thought, when God's Spirit melts all the winter of this world.
1185. 147.7God's word is declared to the true Jacob and Israel, those who by faith received Christ and are built on the rock, not to those who claim only descent.
1186. 148.1The three preceding psalms follow the order of Christian hope: resurrection, gathering of the saints, and life in the completed heavenly city.
1187. 148.2In Psalm 148 all creation, freed from bondage to vanity and sharing the glory of God's children, joins the heavenly powers in praise, as Paul and Peter foretold.
1188. 148.3In calling all heavenly things to praise their Creator who made them by command, the psalm refutes chance origins, pantheism, and worship of the elements.
1189. 148.4God created by command through the Son, as Genesis, John, Paul, and Wisdom in Proverbs testify; the Son was with the Father from before the ages.
1190. 148.5The heavenly creatures endure for ever not by their own nature but by God's unfailing command; the visible heaven and earth, by contrast, will pass away and be made new.
1191. 148.6All earthly things, even lifeless or irrational ones, praise their Creator simply by fulfilling the order he gave them.
1192. 148.7God's name will be exalted alone when the devil is bound and death abolished; then, in the new heaven and earth, he will raise the horn of his people in immortality.
1193. 148.8The hymn belongs to the saints, the true Israel, who through Christ's kingdom will be handed over to the Father's kingdom; this 'handing over' is not Christ's loss but our advancement.
1194. 149.1Psalm 148 called all creation to praise and reserved the hymn to Israel, the saints near to God; Psalm 149 now calls for a new song beyond all that.
1195. 149.2The new song belongs to the saints, the spiritual Israel and children of the heavenly Zion, rejoicing in Christ their king, as in the music at the prodigal son's return.
1196. 149.3God, who 'repented' of making sinful man, now takes pleasure in his people reconciled through Christ's body and blood, the eternal priest after Melchizedek's order sworn without repentance.
1197. 149.4The saints, once lowly and persecuted, will rejoice in glory and share Christ's judgment over the kings and nations that oppressed them, the 'two-edged sword' of his word.
1198. 150.1The 150 psalms, divided by the translators into three fifties, trace the stages of salvation: baptism and forgiveness, resurrection to judgment, and spiritual glory and praise, which the last psalm completes.
1199. 150.2The last psalm praises God in his saints, raised to incorruption, renewed in his image, and filled with his fullness, so that they praise him no longer as flesh but as spirit.