Exposition of Psalms 100-150 118.137–121.1

(vv. 137–138) "You are just, O Lord, and your judgment is right. You have commanded righteousness as your testimonies, and your truth exceedingly." The same feeling of repentance continues, giving the reason why he ought to weep much: because if he did not condemn himself, he would most rightly be punished. Great, then, in both is the righteousness of God and his right judgment, by which both punishment is decreed for the sinner and justification is not denied to the penitent. (v. 139) "Zeal for your house has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten your words." This zeal is of love, not of spite. For with a holy rivalry he wishes his enemies to be corrected, grieving and wasting away because they have forgotten the words of God. (v. 140) "Your word is exceedingly fiery, and your servant has loved it." Loving the divine saying, he burned with such love that he wished even his enemies to be set on fire for the love of God. (v. 141) "I am younger and despised; I have not forgotten your ordinances." Here the meaning of the two peoples is well understood, who struggled even in Rebecca's womb, when it was said, not on the basis of works but of him who calls, "The elder will serve the younger." This younger one, then, says that he is despised; and for this reason he has been made the greater, because God chose the ignoble and despised things, and the things that are not as though they were, so that the things that are might be brought to nothing: that is, so that the proud might be destroyed and the humble justified. (v. 142) "Your righteousness is righteousness for ever, and your law is truth." For how is the law not truth, through which comes the knowledge of sin, and which bears witness to the righteousness of God? (v. 143) "Tribulation and distress have found me, but your commandments are my meditation." The cruelty of enemies brings tribulation on this younger one, but does not take away his love. For his meditation is God's commandments, from which he repays love to those who hate him. (v. 144) "Your testimonies are righteousness for ever; give me understanding, and I shall live." This younger one, who understood more than the elders, asks for understanding in tribulation and in distress; so that he may understand how much what can be taken from him is to be despised, he who, neglecting temporal things for the sake of God's eternal righteousness, hopes for eternal life.

(v. 145) "I have cried with my whole heart; hear me, O Lord; I will seek out your ordinances." The cry of the heart is, with the sound of the voice silent, a great intensity of thought, by which this man cried out with his whole heart for this, and desired this to be granted him by the Lord who hears: that he may seek out his ordinances, so as not only to grasp them by knowledge but also to practise them in deed. (v. 146) "I have cried to you; save me, and I will keep your testimonies." The salvation of the soul makes the life of the body despised for the sake of keeping God's testimonies; and if the last temptation demands it, that one contend for the truth even to death. (v. 147) "I came before in the dead of night and cried out, and I hoped in your words." The dead of night is the time of midnight, unsuited to the things done by day. By it is signified a certain obstacle of the present age, which in comparison with the age to come is called night, and by which God's promises are deferred until the manifestation of eternal light comes. In this time of the dead of night, then, he cries to the Lord and anticipates the time of repayment by his desire, who watchfully asks for God's promises. This can also be referred to those times in which the church, by the voices of the prophets, asked for the coming of Christ and hoped that it would be fulfilled that in the seed of Abraham all nations would be blessed. (v. 148) "My eyes came before the morning, that I might meditate on your sayings." The morning came for the church when a light arose for those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. The hope of believers foresaw that morning, and it meditated on God's sayings, which in the Law and the Prophets foretold this light. (v. 149) "Hear my voice, O Lord, according to your mercy, and according to your judgment give me life." For God first, according to mercy, takes punishment away from sinners, and afterward, according to judgment, will give life to them as righteous. For not in vain is it said to him in this order, "Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord." (v. 150) "Those who persecute me have drawn near to iniquity, but they have become far from your law." Persecutors draw near when they come to the point of torturing or killing the flesh. But the nearer they are to those they persecute, the farther they are from the law of righteousness. (v. 151) "You are near, O Lord, and all your ways are truth." Even in their tribulations it is the customary confession of the saints to ascribe truth to God, in that they do not suffer them undeservedly. But it can be asked how it is said, "All your ways are truth," when in another psalm one reads, "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth." If, then, we consider all men, some of whom are freed by mercy and others condemned by truth, all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth. But if we look at the saints alone, these ways are not distinguished. For there truth is inseparable from mercy, and mercy from truth: because the blessedness of the saints comes both from the gift of mercy and from the repayment of justice. (v. 152) "From the beginning I have known of your testimonies, that you have founded them for ever." What are these testimonies but those by which God has testified that he will give his eternal kingdom to his sons? And so these testimonies have been founded for ever, because what he has promised is eternal, and because the foundation of the promise is Christ, in whom the testimonies of this hope are true. He says that he has known them from the beginning, because he speaks in the words of the church, which, arising from the beginning of the human race, has been absent from no generation.

(v. 153) "See my humiliation and rescue me, for I have not forgotten your law." This is the voice of the whole church and of all the members of Christ's body. But in this place, where the Lord is called upon to free the humbled, we understand no law of God more fittingly than that by which it is unchangeably fixed that everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. So the proud man is bound up in evils, so that he may be humbled; the humble man is rescued from evils, so that he may be exalted. (v. 154) "Judge my cause and redeem me; give me life because of your saying." It is a repetition of the same sense: for "Judge my cause" is the same as "See my humiliation," and "redeem me" the same as "rescue me." Nor does "because of your saying" mean anything other than "for I have not forgotten your law." For the humble to be given life is the same as for him to be exalted, since the exaltation of the saints is eternal life. (v. 155) "Salvation is far from sinners, for they have not sought out your ordinances." Salvation is far from the proud, because they have not sought out your grace, which alone justifies; and they wished to please themselves from themselves, not you from you. (v. 156) "Your compassions are many, O Lord." Even this, he says, that we seek out your ordinances belongs to your compassions. "According to your judgment give me life." For I know that even your judgment will not be upon me without compassion. (v. 157) "Many are those who persecute me and afflict me; I have not turned aside from your testimonies." This is the voice of the church in its martyrs, who amid torments and multiplied punishments did not yield to the persecutors, and by whose most glorious examples the whole world has been made illustrious; yet they attribute their victory not to themselves but to God, saying in another psalm, "If the Lord had not been among us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." (v. 158) "I saw those who did not keep the covenant, and I wasted away." Who are those who did not keep the covenant but those who, not bearing the tribulations of many persecutors, turned aside from God's testimonies? When I saw this, he says, I wasted away, grieving that they had fallen from such great glory. "For they did not keep your sayings." This was not to persevere in the covenant: to lose the promises of God. (v. 159) "See that I have loved your commandments." This is fruitful endurance, which bears the cruelty of persecutors with love of the commandments. "O Lord, in your mercy give me life." He whose mercy has won the palm asks also for life from his mercy. (v. 160) "The beginning of your words is truth; all the judgments of your righteousness are for ever." The judgments of God's righteousness are those by which life is pronounced for ever to the righteous and punishment to the ungodly.

(v. 161) "Princes have persecuted me without cause, and my heart has stood in dread of your words." Earthly kings persecuted the church of Christ without cause, because they had no ground for persecution, since the Christians harmed them in nothing, and they could not wring from the Christians a denial of the truth. So they had threatening words, and they inflicted savage punishments; but rather your words terrified me: "Do not fear those who kill the body and afterward have nothing more they can do; but fear him who has power to destroy both body and soul in hell." At these words, then, my heart stood in dread; and hoping for an eternal reward, I despised temporal punishment. (v. 162) "I will exult over your sayings like one who finds much spoil." He conquered through the very words he dreaded. For spoils are stripped from the conquered; and much spoil was taken when many even of the guards, marvelling at the patience of the martyrs, believed in him against whom they had raged. (v. 163) "I have hated and abhorred injustice, but I have loved your law." The law is the sayings of God, which he so feared as to love them; for it followed that he who hated wickedness would love righteousness. That fear of God's words, at which he stood in dread, was not at odds with love, but feared to be torn from what he loved. (v. 164) "Seven times a day I have spoken your praise, over the judgments of your righteousness." "Seven times" signifies "always." For by this number all the days are unfolded and all times roll round. So the church, overcome by no persecutions, in this day of tribulations always praises the author of its patience and perseverance; for, since it was time for judgment to begin from the house of God, in all temptations and distresses it gloried not in weakness [but] in the crowns of the martyrs. (v. 165) "Much peace to those who love your law, and there is no stumbling block for them." Is it that the law itself is no stumbling block to those who love it? Or that for those who love it there is no stumbling block from any quarter? But both are rightly understood. For he who loves God's law honours even what he does not understand in it, and does not doubt that something great and mystical lies hidden in the depth he does not penetrate. And again, he who loves God's law, if he does not weigh it by the changeable conduct of men, suffers no stumbling block; for even if men of good profession desert their purpose, the righteousness of the law nevertheless endures. (v. 166) "I waited for your salvation, O Lord, and I have loved your commandments." All the saints before Christ's incarnation always waited for his redemption. But this prophecy can also suit the person of those who, since the gospel has been preached with grace revealed, love the commandments of Christ and wait for his coming: so that when Christ, our life, appears, then we too may appear with him in glory. (v. 167) "My soul has kept your testimonies and has loved them greatly." God's testimonies are kept as long as they are not denied. But since even to be burned in flames for God's testimonies without love profits nothing, he therefore added, "and has loved them greatly." (v. 168) "I have kept your commandments and your testimonies, for all my ways are in your sight, O Lord." Often, while your commandments are kept, those who despise those same commandments become enemies, and it is then necessary to stand firm for God's testimonies. He says that he did this because all his ways were in the Lord's sight; as if he said, "If you had turned your face away from me, O Lord, I would have been thrown into confusion and would have kept neither your commandments nor your testimonies; but now I have kept both, because you have directed my ways by the light of your countenance."

(v. 169) "Let my prayer come near in your sight, O Lord; give me understanding according to your saying." A prayer that is received comes near, for "The Lord is near to those who are troubled in heart"; and he gives understanding according to his promise, who says, "I will give you understanding." (v. 170) "Let my petition enter in your sight, O Lord; rescue me according to your saying." He has in a way repeated what he asked. For he who receives understanding is rescued, lest, not understanding, he be overthrown. (v. 171) "My lips will pour forth a hymn when you have taught me your ordinances." I will praise the Lord, he says, and glory in you, when you have taught me by that teaching of yours by which you help what you command to be done. (v. 172) "My tongue has proclaimed your sayings, for all your commandments are righteousness." He promises to be a preacher of God's sayings; for although God gives the growth, yet planting and watering must be done by the ministers of the word. (v. 173) "Let your hand be to save me, for I have chosen your commandments." In order to proclaim your sayings I have chosen your commandments, and the love of truth has made me steadfast. Let your hand, then, be to save me from the hand of another: not so that the persecutor may not kill the flesh, but so that torments may not overcome the soul. (v. 174) "I have longed for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my meditation." The Salvation is without doubt Christ, and the righteous of old confess most truly that they longed for him. The church longed for him to come from his mother's womb; the church longs for him to come from the Father's right hand. And meditation on the law nourishes and strengthens this desire, since by its testimonies it proclaims Christ. (v. 175) "My soul will live and praise you, and your judgments will help me." These are those judgments for which it was also time to begin from the house of the Lord. But by them the church has always been helped; for, God giving the victory, it has grown through its sufferings. (v. 176) "I have gone astray like a sheep that has perished; seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commandments." This is the sheep for whose sake its shepherd left the ninety-nine on the mountains, and, seeking it, was torn by the Jewish briars and blows. But, found in part, it is still being sought. For in that part in which this one says, "I have not forgotten your commandments," it has been found; but through those who choose, gather, and love God's commandments it is still being sought, and through the shed blood of its shepherd, scattered as it is, it is being found in all nations.

The heading of the title shows that the "Songs of Ascents" begin. By the name "ascents" is signified the climbing by which each of those who make progress is carried forward from temporal things to eternal, from earthly to heavenly. And the same steps are steps both of ascents and of descents: not because those who had advanced fall away, but because he who humbles himself will be exalted; and the chief virtue of the lofty is to suffer with the weak and to bend down to those who are unwise, that is, to the little ones; so that all may set their mind on the things that are above, and a brother helping a brother may be exalted. For all the faithful have as the pattern of descending the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who, remaining in his glory in which he is equal to the Father, took up the nature and likeness of a servant, so that by the same steps by which he came down to our depths we might climb up to his heights. (v. 1) "To you, O Lord, I cried when I was in trouble, and you heard me." Whoever plans to enter the way of the Lord and walk in the divine commandments must begin to labour under many tribulations; and nothing is more useful to him than to seek the help of the one toward whom he is heading, who says, "Without me you can do nothing." (v. 2) "O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips and from a deceitful tongue." The lovers of this world oppose a religious will that is resolved to lead a devout life, and they desire to deter its holy purpose with deceitful words. It is very hard to escape their wicked lips, since they seem to give advice out of a kind of affection and to call one back from harsh labour as though to spare him; so that what is a most harmful persuasion seems to be devout concern. (v. 3) "What shall be given to you, or what shall be added to you, against the deceitful tongue?" Do you wish, he says, to climb the steps of virtues? Do you wish to overcome the fraudulent services of the deceitful tongue? Say what help you desire; or, if you are capable of heavenly instruction, by the very fact that you ask for useful things, you will climb. (v. 4) "The sharp arrows of the mighty, with desolating coals." The sharp arrows are the words of God, which, when they pierce the minds of the faithful, inflame the hearts and do not wound them. And so that the mind, transfixed by heavenly love, may be free from every contrary desire, the fiery cleansing of spiritual coals is asked for, by which, the gathered growth of harmful shoots being laid waste, a saving desolation may come about in the man, if his inner parts are empty of the hospitality of vices. (v. 5) "Woe is me, that my sojourning has been prolonged; I have dwelt with those who dwell in Kedar." This groan is that of the whole church and of all the saints, who, contemplating by faith the goods of the heavenly homeland, sigh amid the adversities of a long pilgrimage, because the spiritual dwell with the carnal, and those who pursue earthly things are troublesome to those who advance toward heavenly ones. Hence also, according to the apostle, the one seed of Abraham is divided into two kinds, and some belong to Ishmael, the son of the slave woman, others to Isaac, the son of the free woman. And the tents of Ishmael are called Kedar, so that those who are not in the inheritance may be understood not to be in the light. (v. 6) "My soul has long been a pilgrim." Lest you should understand a bodily pilgrimage, he said that the soul is a pilgrim. For the body is absent from a place; the soul is a pilgrim by affection. And so we must take care not to be far from him to whom we ought to draw near by the ascent of the mind. (v. 7) "With those who hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they fought against me without cause." It is Christian perfection to be peaceable even with the enemies of peace, in hope of their correction, not in consent to their malice; so that, if they follow neither our example nor our exhortation, they may at least have no grounds on which they should hate us.

(vv. 1–2) "I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come. My help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Having entered the way of virtues, in which are the steps of ascent to the mountains, that is, to all the most exalted of the saints, he lifts up the eyes of his heart, and through them he asks the help of God, who made heaven and earth: the earth, namely, from which he desires to rise, and the heaven to which he wishes to climb. "For who is like the Lord our God, who dwells on high and looks upon lowly things?" (v. 3) "May he not let your foot be moved, nor may he who keeps you slumber." The faithful soul answers itself by God's inspiration, and fortifies the one who desires progress against pride, which was the first cause of falling for both angel and man. Let your keeper, then, give you perseverance in humility, so that you may not be moved by any elation; lest, when you have lacked the watchfulness to stand, your protector should seem to slumber. (v. 4) "Behold, he who keeps Israel will not slumber nor sleep." If you wish, he says, to have a keeper who does not slumber, be Israel, that is, "seeing God." See God, then, first through faith, so that afterward you may see him by sight. For as it was said to Moses by the Lord, "You cannot see my face; you will see my back," so you too, see the things that are behind, so that you may be able to see the things that are first. The first things are, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God"; the things behind are, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Hence, because hearts are cleansed by this faith, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (v. 5) "The Lord keeps you; the Lord is your protection upon your right hand." Frequent repetition drives into the hearing that one must trust above all in God's protection. And man's right hand is the love of God and the desire for the things that unite to God; and the hand of this right side is the power that God has given to believers to be able to be sons of God, keeping from what is on the left and clinging to what is on the right. Hence one must trust in the Lord in all things and glory in the Lord, because he himself gave, and he himself keeps, the ability to persevere in advancing on the right. (v. 6) "The sun will not burn you by day, nor the moon by night." By the sun is signified Christ, the true light, and by the moon is signified the church, made light by his illumination. Since, then, every stumbling block by which a man is either weakened or burned arises from two causes, when there is error either in confessing the Godhead or in departing from the unity of the church, God's protection grants this, that in faith and love, which are his gifts, we may be overcome by no temptation. (vv. 7–8) "The Lord keeps you from all evil; may the Lord keep your soul. May the Lord keep your coming in and your going out, from this time forth and for evermore." The Lord keeps from all evil: not so that we suffer nothing adverse, but so that in those very adversities the soul may not be harmed. For when temptation is present, there is a kind of coming in to what attacks; and when the temptation is ended with a good end, that is, without wound to the soul, there is a going out from the depth of temptation to eternal rest. As the apostle says: "God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but with the temptation will also make a way out, so that you may be able to endure it."

(v. 1) "I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We will go into the house of the Lord." Every man enlightened by faith and eager for God's promises rightly exults and rejoices in the things that were spoken by the prophets, preached by the apostles, and declared in the pages of both Testaments concerning God's calling, which promises an eternal dwelling in the house of God to those who love the Lord and their neighbour. (v. 2) "Our feet were standing in your courts, O Jerusalem." Not in this Jerusalem which killed the prophets and stoned those sent to it, which because of its many impieties could not stand; but in that heavenly Jerusalem which is the mother of all the saints, her sons rejoice that they stand. Although they are on the way and still heading there, they rejoice as though they had arrived, because firm faith does not doubt about obtaining it. (v. 3) "Jerusalem, which is built as a city." In the courts of that Jerusalem, he says, the firmness of our faith stood, which rises not by a mass of stones but by the solidity of virtues, and is built up by the fellowship of the saints, which will never be dissolved. "Whose sharing is in the selfsame." It is clear that nothing carnal is to be thought about the building of the eternal Jerusalem, since its sharing, that is, its joining together, is "in the selfsame." And what is "the selfsame" but that which truly and eternally is? That is, the Godhead of the Trinity, which is changed by no variation, which never was not what it is, admitting no unlikeness and no inequality; to which human nature is united through the incarnation of the Word, so that, freed from temporal changes, it may possess unchangeable eternity. (v. 4) "For there the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, a testimony for Israel, to confess the name of the Lord." The tribes, that is, the peoples distributed by their families, are said to have gone up to the eternal Jerusalem. But the part is to be understood of the whole, because in every kind of men some are found righteous and others unrighteous, and not all are persecutors, nor all disciples of the truth. So to the concord of the heavenly Jerusalem only the tribes of the Lord go up, to whom faith bears witness that they are Israel, that is, "seeing God," and who without the guile of pretence give the first place to the gift of grace. For he truly goes up who confesses that his going up is not of his own work but of God's gift. (v. 5) "For there seats sat for judgment, seats over the house of David." All the more exalted of the saints are thrones of God, as it is written, "The soul of the righteous is the throne of wisdom." And the Lord says to his apostles, "You will sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The whole house of David, then, that is, the whole church, which in Christ is the seed of David and the seed of Abraham, will come to judgment, when those who sit will themselves be seats of God, and through the examination of the judges all who love God and neighbour will be taken up into the unity of the body of Christ. (v. 6) "Ask for the things that are for peace, Jerusalem, and abundance for those who love you." The prophetic word is directed to those very seats of God, and says: You who are to judge, through whom the examination of consciences will take place, and who are yourselves Jerusalem, distinguish the humble from the proud, separate the peaceable from the unpeaceable; and let there be unity and abundance for those who love you. For those who have peace with you will abound in your riches for ever. (v. 7) "Let peace be in your strength, and abundance in your towers." Your strength, O church, O Jerusalem, is love, by which you are both rich and strong. In this let the peace of your sons be; in this let the height of your towers abound; so that your partakers may be increased by that very thing by which you are great. (vv. 8–9) "For the sake of my brothers and my neighbours I spoke peace of you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God I have sought good things for you." I stood forth as a preacher of your peace not for my own sake but for my brothers'. Nor did I seek my own honour, but the salvation of others; not that my glory might grow, but that your inheritance might be enlarged. For I myself would be fortified in you only if I laboured for others' progress.