Exposition of Psalms 100-150 138.1–140.1

(vv. 1–2) "O Lord, you have tested me and known me. You have known my sitting down and my rising up." In the prophecy of the psalm these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, who, although according to the Godhead he is of the same form as the Father and equal to him, yet insofar as the Word became flesh and took the condition of the form of a servant, says to the Father, "Lord"; for he is to him both Father and Lord: Father of the form of God, Lord of the form of a servant. "You have tested me and known me": not because he did not know, but because he made it known to others. To sit down is to be humbled; to rise is to be exalted: hence the Lord sat down in the passion and rose in the resurrection. What you willed, he says, O Lord, you approved; and it was done because so it pleased you. But whoever prefers to take this voice as in the person of the body, let him understand it as the confession of penitents, who sit down through the humility of repentance and rise through the justification of forgiveness. (vv. 3–4) "You have understood my thoughts from afar; my path and my boundary you have searched out, and you have foreseen all my ways." Let us recognize here the voice of that younger son who, having squandered his father's substance, had gone away into a far country, and, bearing the person of the gentiles who had slipped away into the worship of idols, at last came to his senses and said, "I will rise and go to my father"; and to whom, as he returned, the father ran, because he had understood his thoughts from afar. You have searched out, he says, my path, by which I went away, and my boundary, to which I came; for you hemmed in the deserter everywhere by your presence, letting me labour in my own ways so that, if I did not wish to be wretched for ever, I might return to your ways. "For there is no deceit on my tongue." I confess, he says, that it was useful for me, departing from you, to be worn down by miseries; for if it had gone well with me without you, perhaps I would not have wished to return to you. (v. 5) "Behold, O Lord, you have known all things, the last and the ancient." The ancient sin, in which we were in our first parents; the last punishment, which we all pay through many labours in the common condition of mortality. "You formed me and laid your hand upon me." All are formed in their mothers' wombs by God's shaping, under that law which the human race bears in desert of pride, the hand of divine power laid upon it, which presses down the proud in order to raise up the humble. (v. 6) "Your knowledge has become wonderful from me; it has grown strong; I shall not be able to reach it." By my pride and departure, he says, it came about that my heart was darkened and your judgments could not lie open to me. For while I delighted in the freedom of my own power, I became more needy and more fragile. From myself this difficulty grew strong for me; from myself I was put outside the light of your knowledge, to which I cannot return except from you. (v. 7) "Where shall I go from your Spirit, or where shall I flee from your face?" For one departing from God's Spirit no place is found that is empty of his presence and power. No one flees his anger but he who flees to the angry one. (v. 8) "If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I descend into hell, you are present." If, lifted up, I am raised to heaven, I find you resisting me; if I choose the things that are beneath me, I shall experience you pursuing me: for as it is evil for me to be raised up by presumption, so it is evil to be sunk by despair. (v. 9) "If I take my wings straight on, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea." He is now using good counsel who plans to take up his wings, namely the twofold protection of love, with which to fly straight on, and to dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, that is, at the end of this age: so that the whole intention of the mind, concerned with the close of temporal life, may no longer be occupied with vain desires but may be able to fly out of this age to God's promises. But who accomplishes this by his own strength, unless he helps who commands? Therefore there follows, and he says, (v. 10) "For even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will bring me." And considering the length of the way, and fearing for the outcome of the labour, he adds: (vv. 11–12) "And I said, Perhaps darkness will trample me": that is, perhaps I shall be overcome by adversities and be darkened more and more, if I do not lay hold of the end of perseverance. "And night is illumination in my delights. For darkness will not be darkened by you, and night will be lit up like day; as its darkness, so also its light." The time of my labour, he says, is a time of night, which yet the splendour of your grace illuminates. For your word has become a lamp to my steps, so that what was darkness to me began to be delights: because the darkness that is darkened of itself receives light from you. You scourge those who do the works of darkness for this reason, that we, blinded by delight in temporal pleasures, may not fail to desire eternal goods. And you are wont to shine for us at night, and make it as day, when you call us to life by harsh remedies, so that the scourges of the Father may be sweet, lest the sentence of the Father be bitter. Since, then, both the adversities and the prosperities of this life are not without temptation, by which we are either lifted up or pressed down, both become night if that light is lacking which lets us neither grow proud nor despair. (v. 13) "For you have possessed my reins, O Lord." You, Lord, he says, possess not only my heart but also my reins; and with you dwelling in my inner parts it came about that some light delighted me in the night. "You took me up from my mother's womb." He who set apart the apostle Paul from his mother's womb has also set us apart from the womb of that mother of ours, Babylon, from which, regenerated into new life, we rejoice with new hope, new delights, new light. For neither does the happiness of this age make us blessed, nor adversity wretched, if we love the true and lasting goods. (v. 14) "I will confess to you, for you have been terribly made wonderful; wonderful are your works, and my soul will know it greatly." The wonders of your grace, he says, strike terror into me; and from what is the reason for joy comes the cause for dread. For my soul knows how great things you work in order to save, and what dangers I must beware of so as not to perish. (v. 15) "My bone was not hidden from you, which you made in secret." There is in God's holy men a certain insuperable strength and unconquered patience, which God fashioned in them secretly and made hidden, having a bony firmness that is neither corrupted by prosperity nor broken by adversity. Of this virtue it is said in another psalm, "Yet my soul is subject to God, for from him is my patience." "And my substance in the lower parts of the earth." In this substance, he says, of a fragile and weak body, which is in the lowest parts of the earth, he seeks a strength that would give perseverance even to the flesh amid savage tribulations. (v. 16) "Your eyes have seen my imperfect being, and in your book all will be written." In these words is the person of the head himself, who speaks now in himself, now in his body; for the two are in one flesh. Of those, then, in whom the constancy of patience had to be strengthened, so that those who had wavered in his passion might be able to suffer for the Lord, he himself says, "Your eyes have seen my imperfect being." And since those who had been terrified to the point of despair were crowned, with you watching, even to the crowns of victory, he added, "And in your book all will be written." So all the fearful, who tremble over their own weakness, must hope for the help of heavenly power, so that love may not fall away from the place from which ability is given. "By day they will go astray, and no one among them." Or, as is found in some manuscripts, "By day they will be formed, and no one among them." My imperfect ones, he says, who will all be in eternal life, will go astray by day, that is, will be thrown into confusion about me; and there will be no one among them whom the darkness of fear does not bring to the point of despair. But if we read "By day they will be formed," it is to be understood that those of whom no one will be thrown into confusion will be formed by day, that is, by the illumination of that look by which he re-formed the blessed Peter, who was excessively afraid, to the remedy of patience. (vv. 17–18) "But to me your friends, O God, have been greatly honoured; their principalities have been greatly strengthened. I will count them, and they will be multiplied above the sand." Those very ones, he says, who went astray by day, and of whom there was none who was not thrown into confusion, have become my friends and greatly honoured, and have held the principality of the whole church. And though they have been counted by me, yet they will be multiplied above the sand, because both their multitude and their glory grow without limit. "I rose up, and I am still with you." This signifies the time in which he is still hidden at the right hand of the Father, before he is revealed in that majesty in which he will judge the living and the dead. Hence there follows, and he says, what meanwhile is done in the church through this whole time: concerning the mixture of good and evil, and all the afflictions of temporal life, while his coming is deferred. (vv. 19–20) "If you will kill sinners, O Lord, you men of blood, turn away from me. What you say in thought, your cities will receive in vanity." The proud are killed when they are abandoned by the grace of God; to them the Lord says secretly, in the thought of the humble and of those who keep unity, "You men of blood, turn away from me," what he will say openly in the manifestation of his judgment: "I never knew you; depart from me, you who work iniquity." And who are the men of blood but those who hate their brothers? As John says, "He who hates his brother is a murderer." These, then, withdrawing from the unity of the church through pride, who, as if offended by the mixture of chaff, desert the wheat before the winnowing fan of separation, will receive their cities in vanity; that is, they will gather themselves into a reprobate fellowship and vain assemblies, because he who does not have catholic love is scattered by heretical vanity. (vv. 21–22) "Did I not hate those who hated you, O Lord, and pine away over your enemies? I hated them with a perfect hatred; they became enemies to me." Perfect love for the Lord is not to love what he does not love, and to hate the very enemies of God in such a way that their wickedness is hateful rather than their nature. For what they themselves do in them is one thing, what the Creator established another. For to hate perfectly, that is, knowingly, is this: neither to hate men because of their vices, nor to love vices because of men. (vv. 23–24) "Test me, O Lord, and know my heart; question me and know my paths. And see if there is a way of iniquity in me, and lead me in the eternal way." Search, he says, my paths, that is, testing and examining my counsels and thoughts, with what affection I love the good and with what mind I bear the wicked. "And lead me in the eternal way": who, but he who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and who is the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, through whom we have access to the Father, and who is the propitiation for our sins?

(v. 1) "To the end, a psalm to David himself." The end is to be understood as none other than the one declared by the apostle, who says, "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." By its title, then, the psalm indicates from where it will speak; for in saying "to David himself" it signifies him who according to the flesh is of the seed of David. Not according to the Godhead, then, by which he is the Creator not only of David but also of natures visible and invisible; but according to the flesh he deigned to be the son of David, so that his whole body, that is, the church, may use the help of its head, and every member of it may say with his voice: (v. 2) "Rescue me, O Lord, from the evil man; deliver me from the unjust man." He who wishes to be freed from injustice desires to be rescued not from one wicked man but from one kind of wicked men; and not only from the vessels, but from their prince himself, that is, from the devil himself. For the apostle says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of the world of this darkness," that is, the rulers of sinners, over whom the instigator of all malice presides and rules. And the evil man is the same as the unjust man. For no unjust man is without malice, and in unlike sins the name of sinner is one; and even if he sins in such a way as to restrain himself from harming others, yet, harming himself in some way, he is not innocent. (v. 3) "Who have devised injustices in their heart; all the day they have set up wars." Open iniquity is less harmful than hidden; and that enemy is more treacherous who carries good things on his lips and hides evil things in the recesses of his mind. In such secret places only wars are set up, that is, things are arranged that are adverse and opposed to the good; for there are continual wars of the virtues against all the vices. (v. 4) "They have sharpened their tongue like serpents; the venom of asps is under their lips." There is no doubt what sort of people those are who are compared to serpents, who glide gently without noise or sound but creep in harmfully. (v. 5) "Keep me, O Lord, from the hand of the sinner, and rescue me from unjust men, who have devised to trip up my steps." All the wicked, whether hidden or open, are indeed to be carefully guarded against, lest they stir up any danger or bring any loss; but in nothing is their cunning more to be feared than that they may make us their companions and draw our steps from the right way into their own paths and customs. This is the most savage tripping up, when the faithful and religious, abandoning their good purpose, pass over into imitating the ungodly. (v. 6) "The proud have hidden a trap for me, and stretched out ropes as a snare for my feet." He has briefly set out the whole body of the devil by saying "the proud." For from this comes their wishing to seem righteous when they are wicked, and their fleeing nothing more than the confession of sins; and since they are falsely righteous, they envy the truly righteous, because they are vexed that their own pretence is exposed by the others' sincerity. So they do everything by the art of deceit, so as to undermine the steps of the good and make imitators of themselves of those whom they grieve to see better than themselves, to their own condemnation. And the wiles of the wicked are called ropes because, lying in wait for the steps of the upright, they add malice to malice and weave sins together with sins. (vv. 6–7) "Beside the paths they have set a stumbling block for me. I said to the Lord, You are my God." The paths of the righteous are the commandments of God; in them the wicked cannot set stumbling blocks, but they lay their snares beside them and join plausible things to true ones, so as not to seem to disagree with the law of righteousness. So let one not depart from the paths, and the snares will do no harm. And let him who walks the way of God's commandments say to the Lord, "You are my God"; this voice belongs properly to the righteous, although God is the God of the wicked too. But they are not helped by this confession as long as they are subject to the Lord by condition rather than by will. (vv. 7–8) "Hear with your ears the voice of my supplication, O Lord. O Lord, Lord, strength of my salvation." Though it seems he could rightly have said, "Hear with your ears my supplication," he says "voice": that is, not sound, which belongs even to animals, but voice, which belongs to those who hope and live; for sounds belong to things without life, but voices belong only to living things. Yet great is the feeling of the one praying that is shown, when he both repeats the name "Lord" and professes that the cause of his salvation is not in himself but in the Lord's strength. "You have overshadowed my head in the day of battle." The present life, which is all temptation, is a day of battle, because adversity, which must be resisted, is never lacking either outside or within. Labouring in this battle, then, he rightly asks for the overshadowing of God's grace, lest, worn out by the heat of labours, he wither. (v. 9) "Do not hand me over, from my desire, to the sinner." He said that he was overshadowed in the day of battle so that he might not be burned by the heat of desire: he who is overcome by it is handed over to the sinner and subjected to the hostile power. For the stubbornness of an evil will leads into the snare; and he is taken out of it whose desire is calmed by the heavenly overshadowing. "They have devised against me; do not forsake me, lest perhaps they be exalted." The thinking of the adversaries is deceitful; but so that it may not harm me, he says, do not forsake me, lest they rejoice at my rejection. (v. 10) "The head of their going around, the labour of their lips will cover them." May the shadow of your wings, he says, cover me in the day of battle. But they will labour to cover themselves with their own lie, and this will be the head of their going around. For the enemies of truth never rest in their inventions: wishing to cover themselves with their lies, they labour to the point of being entangled in endless labours; for they cannot veil themselves except by the labour of the lies of their lips. (v. 11) "Coals of fire will fall upon them; you will cast them down on the earth." As the preaching of Christ's cross was to some a fragrance of life unto life, to others a fragrance of death unto death, so these coals too are of his working, which can both enlighten the faithful and punish sinners. And this punishment of the wicked takes place on earth, that is, in this age and in this life, the fire of temporal punishment falling on them before the eternal fire comes. "In miseries they will not stand." Overcome by tribulations, he says, they will fall; and they will not stand, because they will not be corrected by the blows they deserve, but will become worse. (v. 12) "A talkative man will not be directed upon the earth." The talkative man does not grasp the knowledge of truth; for, loving always to speak, he cannot be taught. So his crooked pursuits will not be directed, because unskilled talkativeness prefers teaching to learning. "Evils will hunt the unjust man to destruction." Evils will come, and the unjust will not stand; when they are crushed by some disaster, they perish. For they do not suffer for righteousness the evils that befall them; and therefore they do not stand, because in their miseries they can sustain themselves by no confidence of good hope. (v. 13) "I have known that the Lord will execute judgment for the needy and justice for the poor." The poor are the humble and those who always sigh with holy desire, who hunger and thirst for righteousness; with it they will be satisfied, whose cause God does not neglect, and in whose glory the ungodly will see what they have lost. (v. 14) "Yet the righteous will confess to your name; the upright will dwell with your countenance." The righteous, he says, will be glorified and enriched with eternal blessedness; but they will claim none of your works for their own merits. They will confess to you the works of your mercy and ascribe all their good to your grace; and in this they will dwell with your countenance, that is, they will enjoy the eternal vision of your face. "For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

(v. 1) "O Lord, I have cried to you; hear me; attend to the voice of my supplication when I cry to you." The prayer of Christ's body is not separated from the head, which remains in the nature of the members that it took up and makes the whole church pray, the Lord saying, "I have cried to you," not with a loud voice but with strong faith. Nor, because you have heard me, will I therefore cease to cry, since the condition of my lowliness is such that, as tribulations do not cease, it always rejoices to be helped. (v. 2) "Let my prayer be directed like incense in your sight, the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice." Every Christian recognizes that this is to be understood of the head himself. For as the day declined toward evening the Lord gave up his spirit on the cross, to be put back into his body; so that the hope of all the faithful would not doubt that what had gone before in the head would be fulfilled in itself. This sacrifice, then, was above all burnt offerings; the hearts of the saints imitate it when the fragrance of incense rises to God from the good burning of their prayers, as from an altar. Its offering is not made without that confession which Christ made his own in the person of his body, saying, "The words of my sins," so that we might recognize that the confession of sins is always necessary for us, since we learn from the voice of him who took us up that they are in us. (v. 3) "Set a guard, O Lord, on my mouth, and a door of enclosure on my lips." Does the head need this protection and this fortification? But he pleads the cause of his body, and asks for what belongs to the members as though it would profit himself. For he who says, "When you did it to one of these, you did it to me," and who says to the persecutor of the church, "Why are you persecuting me?" is the same who asks in the person of his own and says, "Set a guard, O Lord, on my mouth, and a door of enclosure on my lips." (v. 4) "Do not incline my heart to words of malice, to make excuses in sins, with men who work iniquity." He asks, then, that a guard be set on the mouth of the faithful, and that it be fortified with the door of self-restraint, so that it is neither shut to confessing sins nor open to excusing them. For there are those who do not wish their crimes to be imputed to themselves, and who turn the weight of bad habit back on the necessity of nature, so as to defend the crimes of the will by accusing their condition: with these the man of Christ's body does not wish to have fellowship, saying, "And I will not share with their elect": that is, I will not join myself to their elect, whom they hold as leaders in these excuses, swollen with a kind of learning and defending the cause of crimes as if more learnedly, so that the sins of men may not seem to be sins but deeds of the stars. So the name of "elect" in the good is a gift of grace, in the wicked a lie of pride; for even when they have lost their innocence, they glory in defending the crimes they have committed. (v. 5) "The righteous will correct me in mercy and rebuke me." The chastisement of the righteous is not the savagery of hatred but the medicine of love, which does not praise but reproves the one who does wrong. Better is the severe mercy of the righteous than the soothing flattery of the sinner, of which it is said, "But let the oil of the sinner not anoint my head." Let false praise not delight, he says, the inner part of my conscience; for I prefer to be reproved rather than deceived. For who will boast that he has a chaste heart, or that he is clean from sin, since daily the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh? And let him know that it is his own that he suffers lust, and that it is grace that he overcomes the rebel. "For still my prayer is in their good pleasure." The prayer, he says, of Christ, whether that which he taught or that with which he daily intercedes for us, will yet please those who think our confession laughable, in which we say, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." For in the whole world this supplication grows strong; and those who falsely justify themselves will find that this is true wisdom for men, that no one presume on himself, but "let him who glories, glory in the Lord." (v. 6) "Their judges have been swallowed up beside the rock." Their judges, that is, their teachers, who claim judgment for themselves from the disciplines of worldly doctrines, if they are set beside the rock, that is, compared with Christ, are swallowed up, that is, they will have no place but will fail in their vanity; for even if they have said anything right and true, it is not any man's but the truth's own. "They will hear my words, for they have prevailed." The gospel of truth will be overcome by no persecution: the ungodly will give way, the talkers will give way, and the talents of adversaries will make the disciples of Christ teachers. Exiles will not terrify them, nor losses, nor deaths, nor the cross itself, because my words will prevail, and the glory of triumphs will be multiplied by the sufferings of the martyrs. (v. 7) "As the thickness of the earth is broken up on the earth, our bones have been scattered beside hell." The earth has been made rich by the deaths of the martyrs and the blood of the slain saints, whose bones have been scattered; and as fields receive the strength of fertility from ash and dung and the lowest refuse, so the whole world has been made fruitful by the blood of the slain witnesses of Christ, so that everywhere the harvest of the martyrs might grow, and those who were counted fit for hell might be planted in heaven. (v. 8) "For to you, O Lord, are my eyes; in you I have hoped; do not take away my soul." Against the savagery of the persecutors a voice is sent forth to the Lord by those placed in tribulation, lest the atrocity of sufferings overcome the strength of faith. Endurance is asked for, then, so that the love of God may be stronger than the greatness of the punishment. (v. 9) "Keep me from the trap that they have set for me, and from the stumbling blocks of those who work iniquity." What was the trap but the voice of the persecutor saying, "If you consent, I spare you," so that through the bait of the present one might go into the snares of eternal death? And what were the stumbling blocks but the examples of the lapsed, by whose ungodly failure the patience of those who persevered was burdened? (v. 10) "Sinners will fall into its net": not because anyone's own righteousness gave him the power not to fall, since the grace of God has crowned many even of the ungodly with martyrdom; but sinners are said to be about to fall because this fall makes sinners even of those who seemed righteous. "I am alone until I pass over." Christ alone is the strength of the martyrs; for him no one died before he himself died, as he says, "When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself," and, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." Before he died, then, and, rising, passed over to the Father, he was alone and had no companions in suffering; afterward these grew up from the fruitfulness of the one grain into a manifold harvest.