Exposition of Psalms 100-150 122.1–129.1

(v. 1) "To you I have lifted up my eyes, you who dwell in the heavens." The mind that progresses and ascends sets its thoughts on the things above, not on the things on earth; and therefore it directs the gaze of the heart to where it desires to arrive, not with bodily steps but by the ascent of advancing virtues. And the dwelling of God is not to be understood as this heaven which is seen, of which it is said, "Heaven and earth will pass away," but as that Jerusalem which is built as a city: not only in the height of the holy angels but also in the glorification of the whole church, which, founded on Christ, is one temple of God with the powers above. (v. 2) "Behold, as the eyes of servants are on the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maidservant on the hands of her mistress, so are our eyes on the Lord our God, until he has mercy on us." What humility, what subjection, he shows, when he says that amid the troubles of temptations and the strokes of discipline the eyes of those who groan are turned to God, until he has mercy and spares; from whose judgment comes whatever is either ordered or allowed to be inflicted. For as servants and maidservants are in the power of their masters and mistresses, so the saints know that the measure of their chastisements depends on God's sentence. (vv. 3–4) "Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us." It is the voice of one being beaten and asking for understanding amid the scourges; for all this life is full of temptations, full of blows. "For we are greatly filled with contempt. And our soul is greatly filled; a reproach to the rich, and contempt to the proud." All who wish to live devoutly according to Christ must suffer reproaches from the ungodly and those unlike them, and be despised as fools and madmen who throw away present goods and promise themselves invisible and future ones. But this contempt and mockery will be turned back on them, when both their abundance has passed into want and their pride into confusion.

(vv. 1–2) "Had not the Lord been among us, let Israel now say, had not the Lord been among us." The body of Christ, which is the church, is so distributed that some of its members have already escaped the dangers of tribulations while others are still being worn down by the same labours. But since there is one deliverer of the saints who went before and of those who follow, there is one exultation of all, both of those who have already overcome adversity and of those who hope to be delivered from present dangers; and, since God's promise gives firm constancy, they use one song because they are fortified by one help, saying, "Had not the Lord been among us, the greatness of the persecutions would have overcome us; but with him presiding over our hearts, giving endurance, completing the victory, we are the glory of him who dwells in us, not the prey of our enemies." (vv. 2–4) "When men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." The whole salvation of the faithful, then, the whole strength of those who suffer, is to be referred to God, who is wonderful in his saints; for unless the Lord were in them, human frailty would succumb to the fury of the ungodly. Let Israel say, then, let the redeemed people say, the regenerated people, the adopted people: "Had not the Lord been among us, when men rose up against us, perhaps they would have swallowed us alive." And those are swallowed alive who, overcome by persecution, pass into the fellowship of the ungodly and, out of love for a short life, rush into the depth of eternal death. "When their fury was angry against us, perhaps they would have absorbed us alive." Those are absorbed alive who keep their faith in their conscience but, from fear of punishment, give in to the worship of idols. So they live, keeping the faith; but while they act against the faith, worshipping what they know is nothing, they are killed and perish. (v. 5) "Our soul has passed through the torrent; perhaps our soul has passed through an unbearable water," or "a water without substance." The greatness of the danger which those in whom the Lord was escaped makes those who were delivered marvel that they were not crushed by so great a temptation. For a word of doubt ("perhaps") is put in to show that that was overcome which could not be overcome by human ability. By the force of waters he signified the fury of the peoples. And this water is called "without substance" because sin is of no substance, and "he who loves iniquity hates his own soul," which he fills with what will not be and what makes it needy. (v. 6) "Blessed be the Lord, who did not give us up as a prey" (or "as a capture") "to their teeth." The faithful soul exults not in its own strength but in God's help. For it escaped the snares of the hunters because the Lord made all kinds of captures vain. (v. 7) "Our soul has been rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the hunters." The snare or trap of the hunters is the love of this life, whose wiles the sparrows, that is, all the humble among the faithful, escape by the defence of heavenly protection. "The snare has been broken, and we have been set free." For "the form of this world is passing away"; and all the enticements of present vanities will be broken, when the sparrows, that is, the humble, set free, will speak exulting and rejoicing at the breaking of temporal things. (v. 8) "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Rightly, then, were they not caught by the hunters of this world, who sought help in the name of the Lord, who created heaven and earth.

(vv. 1–2) "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion; he who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever." Amid the stumbling blocks of the world and the changes of temporal things, not to depart from the Lord but to remain steadfast in the love of him and of neighbour is so illustrious and lofty that those who stand in this firmness are like Mount Zion. For by faith and hope they dwell in Jerusalem: not this earthly one, but that heavenly and eternal one which is built as a city. "Mountains are around it." By the name of mountains are signified the preachers of the truth, whether angels or apostles or prophets, who pour out on those below the splendour of truth that they receive from above. "And the Lord is around his people." Whatever light there is in the mountains, it is he who makes the mountains shine; and whatever help comes through ministers belongs to him who works all things in all. "From this time forth and for evermore": so that they may be carried over from temporal things to eternal ones. (v. 3) "For the rod of sinners will not be left over the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to iniquity." Often in this world sinners gain worldly power; though they themselves are wicked, yet they are ministers of the public laws, and their power is to be honoured even by the faithful, because of the usefulness of ordered discipline. But if they break out so far as to try to turn the righteous from the worship of the true God, no obedience is to be given them, no consent. For the Lord will not leave the rod of sinners over the lot of the righteous, whose lot is God himself, who will give his righteous such perseverance that they will not fear the commands of raging ungodly men and will abstain from every work of wicked action. So rulers are to be borne by peoples, and masters by servants, in such a way that, under the exercise of endurance, temporal things are borne and eternal things hoped for. For whatever does not violate the commitment of religion increases the merit of virtue. (v. 4) "Do good, O Lord, to those who are good and upright in heart." Those are upright in heart who do not complain of the Lord's precepts and ordinances, and are not perverted by the changes of temporal things; for it is just to bear with equanimity what the one who will judge has willed to be endured. (v. 5) "But those who turn aside into obligations the Lord will lead away with those who work iniquity." Those, he says, who turn aside from the boundary of faith into ungodly complaints and pass over into imitating many crimes, the Lord will lead to the judgment of retribution, bound by equal bonds of conscience; so that they may experience as avenger the one they did not believe as judge. "Peace upon Israel." Jerusalem is interpreted "vision of peace," and Israel "seeing God." He, then, who sees God sees peace; and peace is upon him to whom God is always pleasing and who disagrees with his will in nothing.

(v. 1) "When the Lord turned back the captivity of Zion, we became like those who are comforted." The prophetic psalm belongs to the ascent of the steps, by which the progress of those who run well increases. Under the name of one city and people it signifies what is to be understood of the whole church. For Zion throughout the whole world is the body of all the saints, and the city led out of the captivity of Babylon, which is interpreted "confusion." For from Adam himself the whole human race came under the yoke of slavery; through [Christ], in all the ages of the world, the general captivity too is turned away from the sons of adoption, and whoever belong to the redemption of Christ's blood have enough joy of comfort in an undoubted hope. (v. 2) "Then our mouth was filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation." Joy belongs properly to the mind. But since what is conceived in the heart is brought forth by the mouth, he said that the tongue itself was filled with exultation, through whose ministry the abundance of a burning heart pours itself out in thanksgiving. This can happen even when the tongue is silent, since the inner man too has an invisible mouth and a secret tongue, with which affection cries out with a silent sound. (vv. 2–3) "Then they will say among the nations, The Lord has done great things with them. The Lord has done great things with us; we have become glad." Among all nations are citizens of Zion, who are daily freed from the yoke of captivity by redemption and by the price of Christ's blood, and say, "The Lord has done great things with us," who by the magnificence of his grace has re-formed us for the heavenly homeland. "Glad," because the joys of a manifest hope are true. (v. 4) "Turn back our captivity, O Lord, like a torrent in the south wind." The present life is attacked by many temptations, and even the redeemed fear the evils of captivity and unceasingly implore the help of the Redeemer, asking that on the way of the Lord, through the ascent of the steps, they may have the freedom of an unhindered course; and that, as waters that have been bound by frost are loosed when the south wind blows, so they too, the ice of their sins melted by the Holy Spirit, may be carried in a swift return to their homeland, like torrents. (vv. 5–6) "Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. Going, they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming, they will come with exultation, carrying their sheaves." "All who wish to live devoutly in Christ will suffer persecution," and the trouble of labours is the cause of the saints' tears. But the time for weeping is the time for sowing; for the works of love, which are applied to relieving human miseries, bring forth a harvest of eternal joys. For devout farmers will be crowned from the fruit of good works, and with the sheaves of glory, that is, the merits of their deeds, they will run exulting to meet the coming of the Lord the Saviour.

The title of this psalm is "A Song of Solomon." And it is surprising that a song of ascent is headed with his name, who, as is known, fell from these steps of virtues. But if, when he fell, the things said through him had been blotted out, it would have been thought that what the Spirit of God spoke he himself had said, and that these things had to be rejected as though they were his own. But now, the man's merit being set aside, what was done by God is not kept silent, and the spiritual teaching is distinguished from the transgression of the teacher. The authority of the prophecy remains, then, which is not human but divine; and it shows that the temple of God is built only by his work. (v. 1) "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it have laboured in vain." It is the voice of the apostle, saying to the faithful people, "You are God's building, you are God's field." The prophet too uses this voice, declaring that the labour of those who build the house is vain unless the work of the building is begun and completed with the Lord's help. This is certainly to be understood of the whole church, which is Jerusalem, one house, one temple, and one city in the framework of all the saints, whose construction rises from beginning to end with the Lord building it; without his grace nothing is solid, nothing firm, but all is vain and about to fall. "Unless the Lord guards the city, he who guards it has laboured in vain." As the whole standing of the holy building advances by the Lord's working, so it stands by the Lord's guarding. For the guarding of those set over others is useful when the Spirit of God presides over his people and deigns to guard not only the flock but also the shepherds themselves. (v. 2) "It is vain for you to rise before the light." The spirit of presumption is rebuked, for which it is vain to raise itself by its own strength, since no one can be a partaker of Christ's glory unless he is a true imitator and lover of his humility. If, then, anyone wishes to rise before the light and escape the darkness of night, he is deceived. For an inordinate desire to excel, which ought to have grown by humility, when it is lifted up too hastily, is plunged into the depths. "Rise after you have sat down, you who eat the bread of sorrow." When it is said, "Rise," it is an exhortation to the sublimity to be gained; but when it is said, "after you have sat down," it is shown that one must first apply oneself to humility, for he who humbles himself will be exalted. And lest it be doubted with whom this remedy lies, he says, "you who eat the bread of sorrow"; that is, you who suffer for righteousness and spend the time of the present life in the tears of tribulations: so that you who are of the Lord's body may walk the way of the head, keeping the sharing of endurance to the end, since your hope in Christ is sure, and the glory of rising again. "When he has given sleep to his beloved." God's beloved are his saints, whose death he makes like sleep, from which Christ rose from the dead. So those too will rise who are his members; for, following the light that has gone before, after the labours of humility they will enter into the fellowship of glorification. (v. 3) "Behold, the inheritance of the Lord is sons; the reward, the fruit of the womb." The inheritance of the Lord is the sons of the church, in whom are both the reward of fruitfulness and joy over the fruit of her womb. For in the womb of faith she conceived them, travailed with them, and bore them, carried in the womb together, indeed, with those to be rejected, but afterward separated according to their quality, when the sleep which the Lord gave to his beloved is over, so that resurrection may follow the sitting down. (v. 4) "Like arrows in the hand of the mighty, so are the sons of those who have been shaken out." The sons of those who have been shaken out are understood as the apostles, sons of the prophets, whose prophecy was shadowed by many coverings, which the preachers of the gospel unlocked by shaking them out. So the apostles, born afterward of the prophets, shook out their fathers and brought their secrets to light by winnowing them, so as to be like arrows sent to all the ends of the earth by the bow of the Lord's command. (v. 5) "Blessed is he who will fill his desire from them." He becomes a partaker of the apostolic blessedness who longs for the things which they obtained by desiring and taught by obtaining. The desire is said to be filled from them, then, because by imitating them one arrives at the same joys. "He will not be put to shame when he speaks to his enemies in the gate." Who is it who speaks in the gate but the one who preaches the gospel in Christ? For he himself is the door for those who enter the kingdom of God. And their enemies are those who resist the preaching of the truth; and while they contradict the divinity of the Lord's incarnation, they deserve to be shut out from entering the gate.

(v. 1) "Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways." Many men of bad conscience fear the Lord, recognizing what repayment is owed to their works; but while they remain in their sins, by whose delight they are overcome, they receive from their fear not healing but punishment. So fear shares in blessedness in those who walk in God's ways and fear to lose anything of the good by which they are made blessed, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation." (v. 2) "You will eat the labours of your fruits; you are blessed, and it will be well with you." The prophet has passed from the plural number to the singular, because we are all one in Christ, and from many members are made one body; since whether in many or in individuals there is one Christ, who is both the head in the framework and the whole framework in the head. It is asked, then, how this man who fears the Lord and walks in his ways will eat the fruit of his labours; and it is found that the righteous are fed not only by the fruits of their labour but also by that very labour by which they head toward the fruit: for before they receive the rewards of devout labour, the love of endurance becomes for them a portion of the future delight. (v. 3) "Your wife like a fruitful vine on the sides of your house." Since many of the saints did not have marriages or children, how will they be understood to have been partakers of this blessing, unless the fellowship of these affections is understood in the body of the whole church, through that spiritual marriage, namely, by which the bride is joined to her husband Christ, that is, to the bridegroom? The sacrament of this union is signified by many names, so that those who cling to the head are called now his members, now his mother and brothers, now his wife and children, now a temple and a vineyard; while through these kinds of relationships that undivided unity of faith, hope, and love is shown, and whatever is joined to Christ is also bound together with one another, so that the sides of the whole house are clothed with the abundance of a fruitful vine. "Your sons like young olive shoots around your table." Those who were called by the name of wife are mentioned by the name of sons, compared to young olive trees because of the fruit of peace: for the peacemakers will be called sons of God, who with one mind surround the Lord's table of sacraments and teaching, so that what is received from it may be violated by no dissension. (v. 4) "Behold, so will every man be blessed who fears the Lord." Head and body, Christ and the church, are one man, one Christ, who, having the blessing in his own and in himself, both receives and confers it. (v. 5) "May the Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of your life." This is not a human but a divine blessing; nor are the good things of an earthly but of the heavenly Jerusalem promised, things incorruptible. For although temporal advantages too are gifts of God, yet he does not promise as proper to the saints what he bestows in common on the reprobate too. The joys of the eternal city are eternal, and the perpetual infinity of its standing days will neither vary nor slip away. There the sons of sons will be seen, that is, the fruit of holy works, and the perpetual rewards of righteousness, which are expressed universally by the name of peace: for that whole blessedness of Jerusalem will rejoice in unchangeable peace, and the good of each will be the good of all. (v. 6) "And may you see your children's children; peace upon Israel." Every promise of eternal goods is comprised in the name of peace, which belongs especially to those who are Israel, that is, "seeing God"; of whom it is said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

(vv. 1–2) "Often they have fought against me from my youth; let Israel now say, Often they have fought against me from my youth." The spirit of prophecy exhorts the church of God to perseverance, so that it may glory in the Lord over persecutions overcome. For from the beginning the ungodly have raged against the saints, who are Israel; but the church, whether in its youth or in riper age or in the old age of the last age, has been conquered by no oppressions, by no punishments; and through the sufferings and deaths of its own its crowns and triumphs have always grown. (vv. 2–3) "Yet they have not prevailed against me. On my back sinners have built; they have prolonged their iniquity." The whole aim of the wicked against the good is to make them like themselves and to draw them from faith and uprightness into consent to their iniquity. When they cannot achieve this, they attack the life of the innocent with reproaches and accusations, building upon their back a heap of falsehoods. For it belongs to the perfect among the faithful to bear even such people and the burdens of unjust hatreds, even if they prolong their iniquity and are changed by no correction; by this stubbornness of the wicked we are kept far apart from them, and he who is upright is polluted by no fellowship with them. (v. 4) "The just Lord will cut off the necks of sinners." "Sin" is indeed a general name, which not even the saints consider foreign to themselves. But it is one thing that is taken away daily, another that is always increasing. Hence from the very kind of punishment it is shown what sinners are mentioned here, since the Lord is announced as about to cut off not the hands of sinners but their necks. For by necks is signified the pride of those who wish to be reproved in nothing and despise God's words as ravings. (v. 5) "Let all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned back." Those hate Zion who hate the church and who despise God's precepts. But since they have built on her back, what will the church do but bear such people to the end in the hope of their correction? For what follows will come. (vv. 6–7) "Let them become like the grass on the housetops, which withers before it is plucked; with which the reaper does not fill his hand, nor he who gathers sheaves his bosom." Those who despise God's sayings and love the world are compared to grass that grows on roofs and walls, which withers before harvest time, and, when they seem to stand, they have fallen; nor do the reapers, that is, the angels, find anything in them to be brought into the Lord's barns; for whatever lacks the substance of love will be assigned to the fire. (v. 8) "And those who passed by did not say, The blessing of the Lord be upon you." The proud and vain have done no work in the Lord's field, nor have they deserved to receive the grace of blessing from those who pass through temporal things to eternal ones. For all the prophets and apostles and all the saints blessed those who lived well in the name of the Lord: not in their own name, but in his by whose grace they were what they were, and whose promises they held out to the good and faithful.

(v. 1) "Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice." He who understands the depth of the evils of this life and desires to be rescued from earthly things already belongs to those who pertain to the steps of ascent, and who desire to be helped by heavenly aid, so that by the advance of virtues they may climb from the lowest things to the highest. One must cry to the Lord, then, with the voice of hoping desire, that he may rescue those who labour not from one depth only but from all the depths of human miseries. For even those who have made great progress have, to the end, things from which they desire to be freed; this is the condition even of the great and faithful, so long as they suffer the depths of the world's sea in this age. The extreme depth holds sunk those who delight in those very lowest depths, and they are the more wretched the more they think themselves faithful. (vv. 2–3) "Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If you, O Lord, will mark iniquity, Lord, who will endure?" For he who came to undo the works of the devil, that is, sins, and came to seek what had perished, gave hope even to one lying in the lowest depth, by which he might lift himself to the help of the Saviour. And so, however great the weight of bad habit by which a sinner is pressed down, he has in the form of this psalm an example of supplication to follow, so as not to despair of his deliverance; for if divine justice repaid men in this life what they deserve, no one could endure the judgment of repayment. What hope, then, there is for one who confesses, the words that follow disclose. (v. 4) "For with you there is propitiation, and because of your law I have waited for you, O Lord." What is propitiation but sacrifice? And what sacrifice but the slaying of that Lamb who took away the sin of the world, and came to fulfil the law of the Old Testament by the new law of gospel truth? And the law is the perfection of love, by which God and neighbour are loved, and through which it is said to the giver of the law, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For he waits well for God's promises who carries out his commandment; nor does he hope in vain that his own sins will be spared who pardons those of others, as the apostle says, "Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfil the law of Christ." "My soul has waited for your word." The substance of my expectation, he says, is Christ, and I am not deceived by the promise of your word, because he who promised is himself the Truth. (vv. 5–6) "My soul has hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch until night, from the morning watch let Israel hope in the Lord." The hope of the faithful and the expectation of the saints is not shut up by the end of one day, since even within the short times of this life we are often renewed by the rising and setting of many days. The virtue of patience, then, is to be taken from that morning watch at which the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead in the flesh of our nature, so that all the members may hope that what went before in the head will be done in themselves. This hope must be frightened by no adversities, darkened by no terrors, but guarded bravely to the end of the present life, where a kind of night of death intervenes: so that all Israel, until it departs from this life, may not cease to hope that what was done in the Lord will be done in itself too. For this hope is proper to the spiritual Israelites, whose desire does not covet vain or temporal things; but from the morning watch of Christ's resurrection until the night of its own end it runs to, and heads for, the place to which it has already arrived in the one who went before. (v. 7) "For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plentiful redemption." The confidence of those who hope is the mercy of God; and no one ought to doubt about laying hold of the Lord's promise because he knows himself unworthy to share in it, since confession itself, through the change of conduct and mind, obtains pardon; and manifold is the redemption of him who denies none of his gifts to the corrected and breaks all the chains of the captives. (v. 8) "And he will redeem Israel from all its iniquities." Let him who is about to approach the Lord not fear, then, any iniquities; only let him vow himself with his whole heart, and cease to do and to will the things in which he displeases even himself; and let him not say that this iniquity perhaps is to be forgiven, but that one is to be punished for its quality; but let him cry from the depths and hope from the morning watch until night, because the Redeemer without sin poured out his precious blood for the unrighteous for this purpose, that he might blot out all the sins of all who believe in him.