Exposition of Psalms 100-150 104.1–105.25

(v. 1) "Confess to the Lord, and call upon his name." Praise the Lord, he says, and call upon him; for praise, which here is called confession, ought always to go before invocation. "Proclaim his works among the nations." This is said in the prophet to the evangelists, that Christ may be proclaimed to the whole world. (vv. 2–4) "Sing to him, and play psalms to him." That is, preach by word and by deed; for one sings with the mouth but plays the psaltery with the hands. "Tell all his wonders. Be praised in his holy name." Tell, he says, the works of God by confessing them, and in your own works be so praiseworthy that God may be praised in you. "Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord, and be strengthened." He who seeks the Lord seeks joy; let him be sought, then, in such a way that one rejoices and is strengthened not from oneself but from God. For by drawing near to the Lord ignorance will be enlightened and weakness made strong, when understanding is given with which to see and love with which to be fervent. "Seek his face always." Face is put for presence, as "the face of the wind" and "the face of fire." The presence of God, then, is always to be sought, and we must act with persevering zeal so that he who grants himself to be present may not withdraw. In this life faith seeks this, hope finds it, but love holds it in eternal life, where the love of true presence is neither lessened nor ended. (vv. 5–6) "Remember his wonders which he has done, his portents and the judgments of his mouth, you seed of Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob his chosen." Since it is a great thing, and possible for few, always to seek God according to what he says of himself, "I am who I am," he is at least to be sought by the little ones according to what he says, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; this is my name for ever." Remember, therefore, his wonders which he has done, you who are the seed of Abraham, and sons of his Jacob whom God chose; so that, if you cannot desire God more loftily, you may at least seek his presence according to the things he has done with your fathers. (v. 7) "He is the Lord our God; his judgments are in all the earth." He has shown that those are sons of Abraham who are sons of the promise, by saying, "his judgments are in all the earth"; because the sons of Abraham, whom the prophetic word now exhorts to remember the wonders of God, were throughout the whole world. (vv. 8–11) "He has remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded for a thousand generations, which he made with Abraham, and his oath to Isaac. And he established it for Jacob as a precept, and for Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan, the cord of your inheritance.’" By the things that have passed are signified the things that will remain; and through the image of the old covenant the promise of the eternal inheritance was confirmed, through the word which God commanded for a thousand generations, that is, for all. For, so as to leave nothing out, he set a number of generations which, it is agreed, cannot be completed even from Adam himself to the end of the world, until all the generations are ended, which are comprised, more than abundantly, in the number one thousand. The word of the commandment remains, that is, the word of faith, to which the eternal inheritance is promised. For when he says, "To you I will give the land of Canaan," it is not a command but a promise; but the command is that "the righteous shall live by faith," to whom an eternal homeland is promised under the name of a certain land; and since this land is not a perpetual possession, it is certain that another is signified. (vv. 12–15) "When they were few in number, very few, and sojourners in it" (that is, in the land of Canaan), "they passed from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people. He allowed no man to harm them, and he rebuked kings for their sake: ‘Do not touch my anointed ones, and do no harm to my prophets.’" When, he says, the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in the land of Canaan, they were strangers there before they received it as an inheritance; and though they were very few, they passed from nation to nation without harm. For God did not permit anyone to harm them, so that God's protection itself seemed to say, "Do not touch my anointed ones," and the rest. Although these words are not in the history, they were nonetheless in the actual effect of events, since it was brought about by God in the hearts of foreigners that God's chosen should be unharmed. And they were already then called anointed ones (christi), when the chrism was not yet in use, because they too lived in that faith which was to be revealed in the last times. For from the beginning there was justification for all the saints only in Christ. (vv. 16–17) "And he called a famine upon the land and broke every support of bread. He sent a man before them; Joseph was sold as a slave." By this arrangement it came about that they passed from nation to nation and from one kingdom to another people. That he "called" a famine is not to be taken as though famine were some person, or a substantial and living thing, which was moved by the command of one calling it, since famine is nothing else than the ruin brought on by lack of food; but "called" is said for "made." For God "calls the things that are not as though they were"; and they were not called because they were, but they will be because they have been called, that is, they have been commanded to exist by him who has made the things that are to be. But in the words, "He sent a man before them; Joseph was sold as a slave," careful inspection is needed, by which we may see how he makes good use of the evil works of men, while men turn the good works of God into an instrument of their malice. (vv. 18–19) "They humbled his feet in fetters; iron pierced his soul, until his word came; the saying of the Lord inflamed him." We do not read that Joseph received fetters, but there is no doubt of what the prophet did not pass over in silence, though the history omitted it. In the iron which he said pierced his soul we ought to understand the tribulation of harsh necessity. This tribulation lasted until the dreams were fulfilled which had been interpreted by his word, and through which he was commended to the king, so that he foretold the future to him too. But lest anyone should attribute these things to the man and not to the grace of God, it is fittingly added, "the saying of the Lord inflamed him," so that he too may be understood to have been fervent with the Holy Spirit. (v. 20) "The king sent and loosed him, the ruler of peoples, and he let him go." The king is the same as the ruler of peoples: he loosed him when fettered, he let him go when shut in. (vv. 21–22) "He made him lord of his house and ruler of all his possessions, that he might instruct his princes as himself and teach his elders wisdom." The history does not report even this about Joseph in that high station, that he imbued the elders of Egypt with spiritual wisdom. But how could it be that so great a man, a worshipper of the one true God, should be intent only on feeding the bodies of the Egyptians and providing for earthly things alone, and should not take care to instruct the minds also of those he had as his subjects?

(v. 23) "And Israel entered Egypt, and Jacob was a sojourner in the land of Ham." Israel is the same as Jacob, and Egypt the same as the land of Ham. For from the seed of Ham, son of Noah, arose the nation of the Egyptians, among whom the Israelites sojourned. And if it is asked how they are said to have passed from a kingdom to another people, when they had not yet received the land of Canaan as a kingdom, it can be taken as said by anticipation, that is, prolepsis, so that what was to be is spoken of as if done. (v. 24) "And he greatly increased his people, and made them strong above their enemies." What was briefly set out beforehand, "He made his people strong above their enemies," he begins to tell, as though we were asking how it was done, until he sets it out by narrating it too. (v. 25) "And he turned their heart to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants." God did not twist the heart of the Egyptians from what is right; but since they were evil of their own will, and such as could envy the happy, he turned them to hatred of the Hebrews by his kindness, with which he multiplied his people. By doing good to his own, he provoked the Egyptians to enmity against them: not by making them evil, but by bestowing good things on these which would burn the evil. (vv. 26–27) "He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron, whom he chose. He set in them the words of his signs and of his portents in the land of Ham." Many things were done without any words, by the rod, or the outstretched hand, or the ashes thrown toward heaven. But since even those things done without a word were not empty of meanings, like words that one speaks, they too are called words: not words of voices and sounds, but of signs and portents. (v. 28) "He sent darkness and made it dark; and they did not embitter his words." That is, the Egyptians, though they were very hard, bore Moses and Aaron patiently until all that God had determined to do was fulfilled. (vv. 29–30) "He turned their waters into blood and killed their fish. Their land gave forth frogs in the inner chambers of their kings." This is said hyperbolically, as though he had turned their very land into frogs. (v. 31) "He spoke, and there came the dog-fly, and gnats in all their borders." If it is asked when he spoke: it was in his Word before it came about; and in it, without time, was the time at which it would come about. (vv. 32–33) "He gave them hail for rain, burning fire in their land. And he struck their vines and their fig trees, and broke the trees of their borders." This was done by the force of hail and lightning; hence they also spoke of burning fire. (v. 34) "He spoke, and the locust came, and the caterpillar, without number." The locust and the caterpillar are one plague, since one is the parent and the other the offspring. (v. 35) "And it ate all the grass of their land." Even grass is fruit, as Scripture is accustomed to speak, calling even crops of grain grass. (v. 36) "And he struck every firstborn in their land, the firstfruits of all their labour." This is the last plague, apart from the death in the Red Sea. Though the plagues are ten, not all are mentioned, nor in the same order in which they are read in Moses. For prophetic praise is free from the law of historical narration. (v. 37) "And he brought them out with silver and gold." The deceit by which the Egyptians were tricked into giving silver and gold to the departing Hebrews is not to be referred to the command or inspiration of God, but only to his permission, by which he allowed carnal men too to be deceived by this desire. Yet let that fraud have something of justice in it, since it in a way took from the unjust what was owed as wages for many labours. "And there was not a weak one among their tribes." This too was a great benefit of God, that in that departure no one was weak: in body, that is, not in mind. (v. 38) "Egypt was glad at their departure, for the fear of them lay upon them." It is to be understood that this happened when, Pharaoh with his army having been overwhelmed by the waters, the rest of the Egyptians could fear that the Hebrews would return to destroy them; and when they had gone farther away, they had reason to rejoice. (vv. 39–40) "He spread a cloud for their protection, and fire to give them light by night. They asked, and the quail came." This is certainly flesh. This request was granted to the chosen, not to the complainers, to suppress the murmurings of the carnal. For this psalm does not speak of those in whom God was not well pleased, but of the faith of the sons of the promise, for whose sake those others too were helped. "And he satisfied them with the bread of heaven," that is, manna. (v. 41) "He broke open the rock, and waters flowed; rivers went forth in the dry land." By all these benefits of God the merit of Abraham's faith is commended. (vv. 42–44) "For he remembered his holy word, which he spoke to Abraham his servant. And he brought out his people with exultation, and his chosen with gladness. And he gave them the lands of the nations, and they possessed the labours of peoples." As though we were asking for what good these things were given, so that this very thing, that this happiness in temporal things was given, should not be thought the highest good, he at once refers it to something else, where the highest good must be sought. (v. 45) "That they might keep his ordinances and seek his law." It is to be understood, then, that the servants of God, the chosen sons of the promise, imitating Abraham's faith, receive these earthly goods from the Lord not so as to melt away in luxury in them or grow sluggish in a perverse security, but so that they may have all these things prepared by divine mercy, things in seeking which they could have been taken up with the busiest labours, in order that they may be free for that by which the eternal good can be gained. That is: "that they might keep his ordinances and seek his law."

(v. 1) "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever." These two psalms, 104 and 105, are so joined to each other that in the one that comes first God's people is commended in his chosen, about whom there is no complaint and in whom the Lord is well pleased; but in this one that follows, those are recalled who in the same people provoked him; and yet God's mercy did not fail even them. These things are said in the person of those who, having turned back, pray for pardon; and the examples are recalled of those on whom, even as sinners, the rich mercy of God appeared. So this psalm begins as that one did, "Confess to the Lord"; but there follows there, "and call upon his name," and here, "for he is good, for his mercy is for ever." The confession of sins, then, includes the praise of God; for he who asks for pardon ought to pray with hope, and with praise of his mercy, which he believes eternal. (v. 2) "Who will tell the mighty acts of the Lord, will make all his praises heard?" Who will recount the works of the almighty mercy of God, or be able to make all his praises heard? For what is brought forth by the mouth and what is done by deed must be spoken and done to the praise of God. (v. 3) "Blessed are those who keep judgment and do righteousness at all times." Righteousness and judgment are so like each other and so near that either can be put for the other. Yet if their proper meaning is to be kept more carefully, he is said to keep judgment who judges rightly, and to do righteousness who acts rightly. (v. 4) "Remember us, O Lord, in the good pleasure of your people." That is, that we may be among those in whom you are well pleased; for God was not well pleased in all of them. "Visit us with your salvation." That is, in your Christ, in whom sins are forgiven and souls healed, so that they may keep judgment and do righteousness. (v. 5) "To see in the goodness of your chosen, to rejoice in the gladness of your nation." Visit us, he says, so that we may see, that is, enlighten us, lest we be blind and outside the goodness of your chosen. For the inner eyes see what is right; they see equity; they desire good things. In this goodness, then, make us too see, and rejoice in the gladness of your people, which is not apart from you; for all your own rejoice only in you. "That you may be praised with your inheritance." That is, that all the good things of your inheritance, which you have chosen and adopted, may be referred to your glory and praise. For those whom you visit with your salvation cannot be praised except in your praise, since you make them praiseworthy. (v. 6) "We have sinned with our fathers; we have acted unjustly; we have done iniquity." That the descendants sinned with their fathers, who lived so much earlier, can be understood in two ways: either because they were in the loins of their fathers when those were in Egypt, as Levi too paid tithes in Abraham; or because they were their imitators by likeness in stubbornness and sinned with those whom they reproduced in their conduct. (v. 7) "Our fathers in Egypt did not understand your wonders; they did not remember the multitude of your mercy." He reproves both their understanding and their memory. By understanding they ought to have seen to the eternity of what goods they were being called through those temporal ones; and by memory they ought at least to have been taught not to forget the wonders of God, since a faithful remembrance of God's benefits could have done much to strengthen them. "And they provoked him as they went up to the sea, the Red Sea." "Went up" is said because of the lie of the land, which is such that going into Egypt from the land of Canaan is called a going down, and going from Egypt into it a going up. (vv. 8–9) "And he saved them for his name's sake, to make his power known. And he rebuked the Red Sea, and it was dried up." We do not read of any voice by which the sea was dried up; the power by which it was done is therefore called a rebuke. "And he led them through the depths as through a desert." Because by the drying up the place where the depths had been was made like a desert. (v. 10) "And he saved them from the hand of those who hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy." What price was paid in this redemption? Is it a prophecy, that this was done as a figure of baptism, where we are redeemed from the hand of the devil at a great price, which is the blood of Christ? Hence this was fittingly prefigured rather by the Red Sea. (vv. 11–12) "And the water covered those who afflicted them; not one of them was left. And they believed his words, and praised his praise." The expression is like saying, "He served this service," or, "He lived such a life." And by the praise of God he means the one contained in the song of Exodus. (v. 13) "They acted quickly; they forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel." They hurried to be made happy by temporal things, and desired present things more than future ones, when they ought to have understood from such great benefits toward them that they were being called to a blessedness without end. (v. 14) "They lusted with lust in the desert, and tempted the Lord in the waterless place." "They lusted with lust" is the same kind of expression as the one above, "they praised his praise." (v. 15) "And he gave them their requests, and sent fullness into their soul." He spoke here of the soul not as it is rational, but as the soul makes the body living; and to the sustenance of this animal life food and drink belong. (vv. 16–17) "And they provoked Moses in the camp, and Aaron the holy one of the Lord. And the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered over the company of Abiram." "Swallowed up" is the same as "covered over"; and the cause of both was one, an ungodly schism. (v. 18) "And fire blazed up in their assembly, and the flame burned up the sinners." Although even the righteous who live praiseworthy lives are not without sin, Scripture is accustomed to call by this name "sinners" not people of light faults, but people of many crimes and deep iniquity. (vv. 19–20) "And they made a calf in Horeb and worshipped the carved image. And they changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eats grass." God was their glory, if they had waited for his counsel; to him it is said, "My glory, and the one who lifts up my head." This glory of theirs, that is, the Lord, they changed into the likeness of a calf that eats grass, so that they might be eaten by him by whom those who are wise according to the flesh are eaten. For "all flesh is grass." (vv. 21–22) "They forgot God who delivered them, who did great things in Egypt, wonders in the land of Ham, terrible things at the Red Sea." The things that are wonderful are the same that are terrible; for there is no wonder without a certain fear. (vv. 23–24) "And he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood in the breach before him." He did not say "in the breach" as if to break the anger of God, but in the blow by which they were to be crushed, in which Moses put himself forward on their behalf. And it was shown how much the intercession of the saints avails with the Lord on behalf of the wicked. "To turn away his anger, lest he destroy them. And they counted the desirable land as nothing, and did not believe his words." These men would in no way be blamed for counting as nothing the land whose temporal kingdom we too ought to count as nothing, had not that land, which was called flowing with milk and honey, carried the meaning of a great sacrament. Not understanding or desiring this, but placing their happiness only in earthly things, they did not believe God's words and counted as nothing the desirable land, that is, the eternal and heavenly one.

(vv. 25–29) "And they murmured in their tents; they did not listen to the voice of the Lord. And he lifted up his hand against them, to lay them low in the desert, and to cast down their seed among the nations and scatter them among the gentiles. And they were consecrated to Baal-peor and ate the sacrifices of the dead. And they provoked him with their inventions, and ruin was multiplied among them." The anger of justice had been held back, and punishment deferred for the sinners. But after they consecrated themselves to idols and ate the sacrifices of the dead, that is, those they offered to dead men, and also mingled in sexual immorality with foreign women, ruin was multiplied among them, so that because of the increase of their crimes they were laid waste more heavily. In this devastation the priest Phinehas appeased the Lord, because he killed together a man and a woman caught in an adulterous embrace; and this was counted to him as righteousness, because the Lord saw that he had done it out of love for the whole people. (vv. 30–33) "And Phinehas stood up and appeased him, and the shaking ceased. And it was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation, for ever. And they provoked him at the water of contradiction, and Moses was troubled because of them; for they embittered his spirit. And he made a distinction with his lips." The holy Moses, troubled by the murmuring of the people, did not keep the confidence he ought to have had, and struck the rock with his rod in doubt, distinguishing this miracle from the others, as though he who had done the others could not also accomplish this. For this, then, he deserved to die before he entered the land of promise. Yet God bears good witness to him as his chosen even after his death, so that we may understand that he was punished only by being deprived of this inheritance, and not of that eternal one which the temporal and earthly possession signified. (vv. 34–36) "They did not destroy the nations which the Lord had told them of. They were mingled with the nations and learned their works, and they served their carved images, and it became a stumbling block to them." That they did not destroy the nations, and that they were mingled with them, became a stumbling block to them. (vv. 37–39) "And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. And they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the carved images of Canaan." The history does not mention such sacrifices; but let no one doubt that the psalm tells the truth. "And the land was slain with bloodshed and defiled by their works." This is a figurative expression, in which what is contained is signified by what contains it; as we call a house bad in which bad people live, and good in which good people live. So the land was slain with bloodshed when those who live in it were slain in soul and defiled by their works. "And they committed fornication in their inventions." Their inventions are not so called as though they had found them out themselves, with no prior example to follow; but they are called theirs because they made them their own by imitating them. (vv. 40–42) "And the Lord was angry with fury against his people." The disturbance of anger does not befall God; but in ordinary speech the inescapable power of punishment is called this. "And he abhorred his inheritance, and handed them over into the hands of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them. And their enemies afflicted them; they were humbled under their hands." Since he calls them God's inheritance, this abhorrence was not for destruction but for discipline. (vv. 43–45) "Often he delivered them; but they embittered him by their own counsel." Man's own counsel is ruinous to man, when by it he seeks the things that are his own and not those of God; and so it embitters the counsel of God, who promises himself as an inheritance to his own, so that they may desire to be made happy not by temporal things but by eternal ones. "And they were humbled in their iniquities. And he saw when they were afflicted, when he heard their prayer. And he remembered his covenant, and he repented according to the multitude of his mercy." He is said to have repented because he turned into mercy the sentence by which he seemed about to punish them; which God does without any change of his counsel. For even if with us some of his judgments and works vary, yet with him, who foreknows the outcome of all things, nothing is done by a new arrangement, since he has made the things that are to be. When, therefore, he repented according to the multitude of his mercy, he did what he had arranged, so as to grant what he had foreknown that he would grant. (v. 46) "And he gave them over to mercies in the sight of all who had taken them captive." This would be well referred to all the sons of the promise, who are redeemed by blood and rescued from the power of darkness, so that they may come to their senses out of the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive to his will. (vv. 47–48) "Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may confess your holy name and glory in your praise. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from age to age," that is, from eternity to eternity. For he will be praised without end by those of whom it is said, "Blessed are those who dwell in your house, O Lord; for ever and ever they will praise you." For then will be accomplished what was prayed at the beginning of this psalm: "Remember us, O Lord, in the good pleasure of your people; visit us with your salvation, to live in the goodness of your chosen, to rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that you may be praised with your inheritance." For he gathers from the nations not only the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel, but also those that are not of this fold, so that there may be, as was said, one flock and one shepherd. But the Jews reckon that this prophecy pertains to their visible kingdom; because they do not know how to rejoice in the hope of invisible goods, they are going to fall into the snares of him of whom the Lord says, "I have come in my Father's name, and you have not received me; another will come in his own name, and him you will receive." "And all the people will say," that is, the whole election of the predestined, all the sons of the promise, who are from the circumcision and, in uncircumcision, a holy nation, a people of adoption: "So be it, so be it."