Exposition of Psalms 100-150 110.1–113.1

(v. 1) "I will confess to you, O Lord, with my whole heart." Confession is not always of sins; the praise of God too is brought forth by the devotion of confession. The one mourns, the other rejoices; the one shows the wound to the physician, the other gives thanks for health. "In the council of the upright and in the assembly": of those, without doubt, who will sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. From their council and assembly every hypocrite will be set apart, every tempter shut out. (v. 2) "Great are the works of the Lord, sought out according to all his wills." Search, seek out, trace, if you can, all the wills of the Lord: in all of them you will always find his great works. For no will is more powerful than his will; and when he allows anything to be done against it, he shows his mercy and his justice. For as he wills that man should not sin, so he wills to spare the sinner so that he may turn back and live; and so too he wills to punish the one who persists in sins, so that the stubborn may not escape the power of justice. And so, whatever you choose, O man, the Lord will not lack the means of fulfilling his will concerning you. Whether, then, he justifies the ungodly, or rebukes the sluggish, or waits for the one who has turned away, or abandons the one to be punished, he is always merciful, always just, always almighty. (v. 3) "Confession and magnificence are his work, and his righteousness remains for ever and ever." The magnificence of the Lord toward us appears in this, that with no preceding merits he justifies the sinner who confesses, so that where sin abounded grace might superabound; and by this grace the very confession was also stirred up, so that no one may exalt himself, but "let him who glories, glory in the Lord." For both the confession of the sinner and the magnificence of justification are the work of the Lord, with whom there is no iniquity, even if we do not comprehend his judgments; for his righteousness remains for ever and ever. (vv. 4–6) "The merciful and compassionate Lord has made a memorial of his wonders; he has given food to those who fear him." In every creature of God his wonders are both daily and great; but since habit makes us wonder little at them, the Lord arranged that certain signs and portents be brought forth at fixed times, so that through unusual and new things human attention might be roused and a useful fear be nourished in it by unaccustomed things; and to this fear the merciful Lord would give the food of strength and life, namely that incorruptible bread which came down from heaven, so that the Word of God might be the food of men as it is the food of angels. "He will be mindful of his covenant for ever; he has proclaimed to his people the power of his works." The Lord, who is the power and strength of the saints, has fulfilled his promises; for what is difficult for men is easy for God, and he himself works all things in all. (v. 7) "That he may give them the inheritance of the nations," that is, the inheritance which he has prepared for all the nations. "The works of his hands are truth and judgment": that is, that truth and judgment may be kept; for the hand works, that is, so that tribulation, distress, famine, nakedness, the sword do not separate us from Christ. (v. 8) "Faithful are all his commandments, confirmed for ever and ever." He who gave the commandments also gave the promises; and he faithfully repays them, confirmed for eternity and never to fail. "Made in truth and judgment." For this is true and just, that here one labours and there one rests. (v. 9) "He has sent redemption to his people." The citizens and heirs of the heavenly Jerusalem are redeemed from the captivity of this pilgrimage. "He has commanded his covenant for ever": his covenant, surely the new one, which he promised as eternal, not that old one whose promises were transitory. "Holy and terrible is his name." True wisdom is to know and love God. But one climbs to this step from fear; for as his gifts are to be desired, so his judgments are to be feared. (v. 10) "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Good understanding have all who do it." He has a good understanding who does what he rightly understands is to be done; for understanding without work is like wisdom without fear. "His praise remains for ever and ever." Let no one, then, ascribe anything to his own righteousness, let no one exult over his merits as though they were his own; but all the blessedness of the saints is referred for ever to the praise and glory of God.

The title of the psalm is: "Of the return of Haggai and Zechariah," who, after the overthrow of the temple of Jerusalem and the deportation to Babylon, when the seventy years of captivity had been completed under Darius, began to prophesy what pertained to the release from captivity and the rebuilding of the temple. But since what was then done bodily bore signs of things to come, through that release from captivity and restoration of the temple was spiritually figured the building of that temple of which Christ is the foundation; on him, the cornerstone, with the living stones fitted together, the structure of the heavenly building rises, so that out of the old ruin which came about in Adam a new temple of God may be re-formed, with the restoration of all nations. To this temple, then, pertains the prophecy of Haggai and Zechariah, who are set at the head in the title of the psalm; so that he who understands this sacrament and desires to be made firm in the framework of this building may know that the beginning of his return and renewal lies in the fear of God. (v. 1) "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord; he will delight greatly in his commandments." The blessedness of the righteous man begins from the fear of the Lord and advances into desire for God's commandments, by which his temple is built. (v. 2) "His seed will be mighty on the earth." That works of mercy are the seed of the future harvest the apostle is witness, saying, "And let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we shall reap." And what is mightier than this seed, at whose cost the kingdom of heaven and eternal life are purchased? "The generation of the upright will be blessed": that is, the works of those who are upright in heart; they are not troubled by the delay of the promises, nor do they seek passing things carnally, but they wait faithfully and patiently for things that will last. (v. 3) "Glory and riches are in his house, and his righteousness remains for ever and ever." He who is such in his house, that is, in his heart, where the temple of God is, has glory and riches; for by undoubting hope he already possesses the future things, and the kingdom of God is within him. His righteousness remains for ever and ever, for it is itself his glory and riches. (v. 4) "A light has risen in the darkness for the upright in heart." Rightly do they direct their heart to their Lord, rightly do the upright walk with their Lord, who, when they were in darkness, saw a great light, and remember that they were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord. "The Lord is merciful and compassionate and just": he who has mercy so as to have mercy, and is just in repaying; for he will make judgment for no one without mercy. (v. 5) "Pleasant is the man who has mercy and lends." This pleasant, gentle, and agreeable man God does not spew out of his mouth as of a bad smell or a loathsome taste. And his whole pleasantness lies in this, that he has mercy and lends, namely by forgiving sins and by bestowing benefits; in these two duties of kindness all works of devotion are contained, as the Lord says, "Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." (vv. 5–6) "He will order his words in judgment, for he will not be moved for ever." He who does these things orders his words in judgment. For deeds are certain words of witnesses, by which he would be defended in the judgment. For he will not be moved for ever, who, set apart at the right hand, will hear, "Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (v. 7) "The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance; he will not fear an evil hearing." He will not fear to hear what is said to those on the left: "Go into the eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels." "His heart is ready to hope in the Lord." For he did not seek his own things but those of Jesus Christ, and he waits confidently for his promises. (v. 8) "His heart is made firm; he will not be moved until he looks upon his enemies." His enemies desired present things, and when invisible things were promised to them they said, "Who shows us good things?" They wished to see the good things of men in the land of the dying; he believed that he would see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. So his heart will not be moved, nor troubled by the passing happiness of the wicked, until he sees, not below, as his enemies do, but above, over his enemies, "what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him." (vv. 9–10) "He has scattered, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever and ever." He scattered visible things in order to acquire invisible ones; he gave temporal things, to receive eternal ones. "His horn will be exalted in glory. The sinner will see and be angry." The sinner is angry: with whom more than with himself? But with that late and fruitless repentance, when he says, "What has pride profited us, or what has the boasting of riches brought us?" "He will gnash with his teeth, and he will not grow green again," as would happen if he repented at the right time. But then he will gnash, when "the desire of sinners will perish."

(v. 1) "Praise the Lord, you children; praise the name of the Lord." This exhortation is addressed not only to the years of childhood but to every age. For the apostle says to all, "Do not become children in mind, but be infants in malice, so that you may be mature in mind." In what malice, if not pride? For pride, presuming on a vain greatness, does not allow a man to walk by the narrow way and enter through the narrow gate. But a child easily enters through the narrow one; and so no one, unless he has been converted like a child, enters the kingdom of heaven. By the name "children," then, not the age of infants is addressed but the humility of souls; for those do not praise the name of the Lord who think themselves great and, wishing to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For they are not children; and while they want themselves to be proclaimed, they do not praise the name of the Lord. (vv. 2–3) "Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and for evermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised": namely, that the name of the Lord may always be blessed and everywhere praised. (v. 4) "The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens." Not only is the majesty of the Lord above all nations, but his glory is also lifted high above the heavens. (vv. 5–6) "Who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high and looks upon lowly things in heaven and on earth?" Through Isaiah the Spirit speaks thus: "Thus says the Most High, who dwells on high, whose name is for ever the Lord Most High, resting among the holy ones." And rightly those are understood as heaven in whom the Lord dwells; who, though they are holy and therefore lofty, are nevertheless humble [in] faith, and lofty from nowhere else than from humility. So the Lord dwells on high, that is, in the saints, the spiritual and heavenly; and he looks upon lowly things, that is, upon those same saints, who glory never in themselves but always in the Lord. For he delights in the loftiness of the humble and the humility of the lofty. "In heaven and on earth": that is, those whose citizenship is in heaven, though they are surrounded by mortal flesh. But if the lowly things that our Lord looks upon in heaven are some, and those on earth others, by heaven can be understood those whom, called and sanctified, he already inhabits; and by earth, those whom he calls in order to dwell in them. But the meaning is more complete if we take as called heavens those who will sit upon twelve thrones and will judge with the Lord, and by the name of earth the rest of the multitude of the saints, who will be set at the right hand, so that, praised for their works of mercy, they may be received into the eternal dwellings by those whom they made their friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness in the mortality of this life. Both these and those, then, God looks upon as lowly, because both remember what they were by their own malice and what they have been made by the grace of God. (vv. 7–8) "Who raises the needy from the earth and lifts the poor from the dunghill, to set him with princes, with the princes of his people." So let the heads of the lofty not disdain to be lowly under the hand of the Lord. For although the faithful steward of the Lord's money is set with the princes of God's people, although he is to sit on twelve seats and to judge even angels, yet the needy man is raised from the earth and the poor man lifted from the dunghill, because all the loftiness of the saints is the gift of God. (v. 9) "Who makes the barren woman dwell in a house, a joyful mother of children." For the grace of God made the church, formerly barren, fruitful, so that she rejoices in many children. In her the Lord, who dwells on high and looks upon lowly things in heaven and on earth, has from the seed of Abraham both a sublime holiness, to be set like the stars of heaven in the seats above, and, like the sand on the seashore, a merciful and innumerable multitude, to be separated from the waves on the left and from ungodly bitterness.

(vv. 1–3) "When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. The sea saw and fled; the Jordan was turned back." The history of past deeds seems to be recalled, and the way in which the people of Israel, which is the house of Jacob, was led out from the yoke of Egyptian rule seems to be called to memory. But through the prophetic word future things are indicated rather than past ones retold. And so certain things are said here otherwise than they were done there, so that the prophecy may be watchfully understood where the history does not agree. For, first, we read that the Jordan itself was not turned back, but stood still on the side from which it flowed down from above; and then, we do not read that the mountains leapt and the hills skipped; and he added these things in such a way as even to repeat them all. It is to be understood, then, that those deeds were figures of us; and therefore something is said of them otherwise, so that it may be recognized to which times it applies. For if we hold fast with a firm heart to the grace of God which has been given to us, we are Israel, the seed of Abraham; who was made father not only of the nation circumcised in the flesh, but also of all who follow in the footsteps of Abraham, who, while he was in uncircumcision, believed the Lord and was justified by faith and was made father of all nations; and it was said to him, "In you all nations will be blessed." Since, then, the Christian people is the true Israel, and Egypt is often put as a figure of the whole world, from which we must spiritually depart: just as that people could not come to the land of promise unless it were freed by divine help, so no one is rescued from the chains of this world except by the grace of God, "with a strong hand and an uplifted arm," so as to be found worthy to be a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem. Whoever, then, are Israelites, the house of Jacob and of Abraham, heirs according to the promise, recognize that they too went out of Egypt when they renounced this world, and went out from a barbarous people when by the confession of godliness they withdrew from the blasphemies of the ungodly nations. Let them ask their hearts whether faith has circumcised them, whether confession of the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has purified them: then Judea has become his sanctuary in them, and Israel his dominion. For "he gave them power to become sons of God." Here let each one remember who laboured under a hard dominion, subject to the devil's works in this world, how he was made free from the yoke, how amid the restraints of those who dissuaded him and the hindrances of those who opposed him he escaped to the way of freedom and to the hope of an eternal inheritance. So "the sea saw and fled," when the obstacles of the world, made to tremble by the word of God, gave way. "The Jordan was turned back": for whoever, turned away from his origin, deserts his Creator, glides like a river into the sea; and it is good for him to be turned back and, returning to his author, to put behind him the sea toward which he was tending before; and so the Jordan is turned back when those who have received the grace of baptism are turned to the Lord. (v. 4) "The mountains skipped like rams, and the hills like lambs of the sheep." The faithful stewards of the word of truth, the holy apostles, the holy evangelists, are mountains and leaders of the flocks; and the hills, like lambs of the sheep, are those to whom it is said, "In Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel"; of whom it is said, "Bring to the Lord the young of rams"; they are fattened on the pastures of the mountains and, exulting, are governed under the leadership of the rams. (vv. 5–6) "What is it, sea, that you fled? And you, Jordan, that you were turned back? Mountains, that you skipped like rams, and hills like lambs of the sheep?" What is it, he says, O world, that your hindrances have given way? What is it that so many thousands of the faithful throughout the world renouncing this world are turned [to the Lord]? What is it that you rejoice, to whom it will be said at the end, "Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a few things, I will set you over many"? What is it that you rejoice, to whom it will be said at the end, "Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"? (v. 7) "At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, at the presence of the God of Jacob." What is "at the presence of the Lord" but at the presence of him who said, "Behold, I am with you until the consummation of the age"? He himself, then, moves the earth; he himself converts sluggish and inert hearts. (v. 8) "Who turned the rock into pools of water, and the cliff into springs of water." This is the spiritual rock, that is, Christ, who turned his teaching, which before seemed hard and rigid, into many streams; and by sending the Holy Spirit from heaven he made drinkable the word which he had imparted to his disciples, beginning from Moses through all the prophets, that thus it was necessary for Christ to suffer. (v. 1) "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory." Grace is proclaimed, which sent forth the water of regeneration from the rock, which is Christ, with no preceding human merits; for Christ died for the ungodly, so that no one may glory except in the Lord. (v. 2) "For your mercy and your truth." These two, mercy and truth, are almost always found joined in the holy Scriptures. For in his mercy God called the ungodly, and in truth he judged those who refused to come. "Lest the nations should ever say, ‘Where is their God?’" For at the last mercy and truth will be manifested. Nor will the ungodly say, "Where is their God?" when, the sign of the Son of Man appearing in heaven and the judgment at hand, he will no longer be preached as one to be believed but shown as one to be feared. (v. 3) "But our God is in heaven above; in heaven and on earth he has done all things whatever he willed." Not in the heaven where those who worship the creature see sun and moon, but in the heaven above, which surpasses all bodies, heavenly and earthly. Yet he is not even in that heaven as though he could not be without it. For in those things in which he is, he holds them as things in need of him, he who in heaven and on earth has done all things whatever he willed: that is, among both the higher and the lower of his people he has established his freely willed grace, so that no one may glory over the merits of works. For whether the mountains skip like rams or the hills like lambs of the sheep, at the presence of the Lord the earth was moved, so as not to remain in earthly filth. (v. 4) "The idols of the nations are silver and gold." They have indeed idols of bronze, of wood, and of clay, and of one material and another; but the Holy Spirit chose to mention the precious ones among them. For when anyone has been made ashamed of what is dearer to him, he is much more easily turned away from the veneration of cheaper things; so that he may understand that even in gold and silver there is nothing but earth. (vv. 5–8) "For they have a mouth and will not speak; they have eyes and will not see. They have ears and will not hear; they have nostrils and will not smell. They have hands and will not handle; they have feet and will not walk; they will not cry out in their throat. Let all who make them be like them, and all who trust in them." Let the ungodly see, then, with eyes open and perceiving, and let them worship with minds closed and dead idols that neither see nor live. (v. 9) "The house of Israel hopes in the Lord; he is their helper and their protector." "For hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." But so that patience itself may last to the end, the Lord is helper and protector. (v. 10) "The house of Aaron has hoped in the Lord; he is their helper and their protector." So all the more exalted too, those who excel in the highest rank, so that they too may run with perseverance until they lay hold of that for which they have been laid hold of, and know as they are also known, are fortified by the Lord's help and protection. (vv. 11–12) "Those who fear the Lord have hoped in the Lord; he is their helper and their protector. The Lord has remembered us and blessed us." All, he says, who fear the Lord and hope in the Lord are brought to completion by his help. For we do not anticipate the mercy of the Lord by our merits; but the Lord remembered us and blessed us. (vv. 12–13) "He has blessed the house of Israel, he has blessed the house of Aaron. He has blessed all who fear the Lord." That is, both the higher and the lower, because both fear the Lord. If, then, you ask whom he has blessed, both of them, the answer is: the little with the greater, that is, the house of Israel and the house of Aaron. (v. 14) "May the Lord add to you, to you and to your sons." And so it was done. For there came also sons of Abraham raised up from stones; there came sheep that were not of this fold, so that there might be one flock and one shepherd; the faith of all nations came, and the number grew not only of wise bishops but also of obedient peoples, the Lord adding not only to the fathers but also to their sons, who would devoutly follow in the footsteps of their fathers. (v. 15) "Blessed are you by the Lord, who made heaven and earth": as if he said, "Blessed are you by the Lord, who made you." (v. 16) "The heaven of heaven is the Lord's, but the earth he has given to the sons of men." Not, then, this visible heaven, full of lights, made you, but one far more excellent, in which he has prepared a dwelling for himself, which is the more exalted and purer minds; in comparison with them, whatever is seen is earth. Although the little ones in the church can also be called by the name of earth, who by progressing are to become heaven, and in that very hope are nourished with milk by the great. Yet because those great ones receive the purity and richness of wisdom no longer from man nor through man, but through the Lord himself, they have received the little ones, who are indeed to be heaven, so that they may know that they are the heaven of heaven; but still they are earth, to which one may say, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." For to those very sons of men whom he made heaven he has given earth on which to work, he who knows how to provide for the earth through the heaven. Let heaven and earth, then, abide in their Lord who made them, and live from him, confessing him and praising him. For if they wish to live from themselves, they will die; as it is written, "From the dead, as from one who is not, confession perishes." (v. 17) "The dead will not praise you, nor all who go down to hell." For holy Scripture cries in another place, "The sinner, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises." (v. 18) "But we who live bless the Lord, from this time forth and for evermore."