Exposition of Psalms 100-150

(v. 1) "Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord." This psalm is to be understood through its whole body from its first verse, and we are to confess to God that "all his ways are mercy and truth": so that, whatever causes concerning the truth of things press upon our thoughts, we may not be moved to any complaint, but may sing mercy and judgment to the Lord with devout confession. For to resolve all the questions which the foolish wisdom of this world dares to raise against the providence of God, the most unconquerable principle is this, by which it is understood that amid the inequalities of the present life neither is mercy absent from God's justice nor justice from his mercy, until, when temporal things are finished, both become everlasting by a just judgment, when glory receives those on the right and punishment those on the left, according to the quality of their deeds. (v. 2) "I will sing psalms, and I will understand in the spotless way, when you will come to me." In this confession, he says, I shall be of good understanding, and through the spotless way of my conduct I shall perceive you coming to me. For since I cannot be good without you, if what I do is right, I do not doubt that you are in me. "I walked in the innocence of my heart, in the midst of my house." True innocence is that which harms neither itself nor another. "For he who loves iniquity hates his own soul." One whom guilt constricts, and whom a life of unlawful action accuses, cannot walk about in the breadth of his soul, that is, in the dwelling of his heart. But a devout and unpolluted conscience enjoys free spaces within itself, and since it has the recesses of its own building whole, it does not wander off into desires for what belongs to others. (v. 3) "I did not set before my eyes an evil thing." We have before our eyes the things we love, and the gaze lingers on those in which the mind delights. To turn the eyes away from an evil thing, then, is not to love whatever displeases God. "Those who committed transgressions I hated." Men are to be loved in such a way that their transgressions are hated; for it is one thing to love what they were made, another to hate what they do. (v. 4) "A perverse heart did not cleave to me; the malicious man turning aside from me I did not acknowledge." I gave no consent, he says, to a perverse heart, and the malicious man turning aside from the spotless way I did not acknowledge, that is, I did not approve him, because he was unlike me. (v. 5) "The one who secretly slanders his neighbour, him I pursued." A good persecution, which hunts down not the man but the man's sin. "With the proud eye and the insatiable heart I did not eat." Pride is the tinder of envy, which is never anything but malicious and is never sated with the evils of others. With those, therefore, who delighted in such poison I did not share a meal, because I shuddered at the food of their iniquity, with which they were ceaselessly filled. "For blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (v. 6) "My eyes are upon the faithful of the land, that they may sit together with me." This is the voice of the Lord saying to those who imitate him, "You will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." "He who walked in the spotless way, he ministered to me." To me, he says, not to himself; for many insincere preachers of the gospel minister to themselves, "seeking their own things, not those of Jesus Christ." (v. 7) "He who works pride shall not dwell in the midst of my house." The unjust man has not dwelt in the heart of the righteous, which is his house, because what is unlike always stands far off. "He who speaks unjust things has not prospered before my eyes." The road of the unjust is not straight, and it is far different from that way over which the eyes of the Lord preside and by which he comes to his own. (v. 8) "In the mornings I put to death all the sinners of the land, that I might destroy from the city of the Lord all who work iniquity." The Lord, who speaks in the prophet, announces the day of his judgment; for, in accordance with truth, it was said at the beginning of the psalm, "Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord." For since the time of this age is a time of night, of ignorance, and of tribulation, and it is open to no one to what end each will come, the mercy of God gives room for repentance and acts in various ways, so that the righteous may make progress, the fallen be raised, those who have turned away be converted. But this patience is granted while it is still night. When the day has dawned and all hidden things have been revealed, and the ungodly have been separated from the fellowship of the righteous, the wicked will be spared no longer, but all the sinners of the land will be put to death, in that morning in which it will be declared what each deserves.

(v. 1) The title of this psalm is: "The prayer of the poor man when he was in anguish, and he pours out his petition in the sight of the Lord." This poor man, then, is Christ, who, taking the form of a servant, clothed himself with our poverty; and since he is "the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," he who is in the lowliness of the body is the same as he who is in the glory of the Father, so that he might carry through the cause of those whose nature he took up. (v. 2) "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you. Do not turn your face away from me; on whatever day I am in trouble, incline your ear to me." "Hear my prayer" is the same as "and let my cry come to you"; but the doubled petition shows the feeling of the one who asks. And "Do not turn your face away from me" he says on behalf of the lowliness of the members. For when would the Father turn away from the Son, when would God turn away from Christ? And so he asks to be heard on whatever day he is in trouble, because the tender love of the head suffers with every portion of the body, and the labour of all, which varies with places and times, is never without him who has mercy on all. (v. 3) "On whatever day I call upon you, hear me quickly." What is asked with good desire is quickly obtained, and prayers are not put off which ask for what he who is asked himself wills. So the hearing is swift when the prayer itself is first heard; and he who gave the desire to pray does not delay his help. (v. 4) "For my days have vanished like smoke." The days of the first man, whom the second took up, are most fittingly compared to smoke that vanishes as it rises. And since no one is carried over into the newness of Christ except out of the oldness of Adam, the restorer himself groans in those whom he restores. "And my bones are fried as in a frying pan." Those are called bones who are stronger in the body of Christ, by whose firmness the framework of all the members is strengthened; as Paul, the strongest bone, says, "Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?" (v. 5) "My heart is struck like grass and has withered." The whole human race was struck in Adam, from whom the universal offspring comes; and from his wound those who are saved in hope in Christ groan, not without the miseries of the mortality contracted from it. "For I forgot to eat my bread." The first man had received the bread of the word in the law of the commandment; but by taking the forbidden food he forgot the bread by which he lived, and for this reason his heart withered like struck grass. Now, then, let it revive and eat the bread it had forgotten, now that it is in the body of him who says, "I am the living bread who came down from heaven." (v. 6) "By the voice of my groaning my bones have cleaved to my flesh." By the voice of my groaning, he says, not by the voice of the groaning of those over whom I groan because they do not groan rightly, because they desire carnal things, because they covet bodily things. But since there is no lack of stronger members who take care of the weak and do not differ from the feeling of the head, by the voice of my groaning the bones, that is, the stronger parts of the body, are taught to cleave to my flesh, that is, to my weaker ones, as it is written, "We who are strong ought to bear the weakness of the weak." (vv. 7–8) "I have become like a pelican of the wilderness; I have become like a night raven in the ruins. I kept watch, and have become like a solitary sparrow on the roof." Every energetic and devoted preacher of the gospel is found comparable to these birds that have been named, according to the character of those to whom he proclaims the word of truth. If he speaks to unbelievers, he is in a wilderness like the pelican, and does not disdain deserted and uncultivated places, because even in such people the Holy Spirit makes himself a dwelling. If he preaches to those who have lost the grace they received, he becomes in a way a night raven in the ruins, not deserting those who fall, so that the well-founded building may recover both its stability and its beauty. But if he exhorts those who, though they seem faithful, are lukewarm and carnal, he becomes a kind of sparrow to those placed under the roof, that is, to those living under the weakness of the flesh, rebuking them and urging them to be on the roof rather than under it, that is, to have the flesh subject to them, not to be subject to it themselves. For "he who is on the roof, let him not come down to take anything from the house"; and, "What you hear in the ear, preach upon the housetops." But no one carries out the diligence of these affections more than the Lord Jesus Christ, poor by his own will, who, coming to save sinners, took up the labours and weaknesses of all. For "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself," so that the wilderness of the gentiles might receive the knowledge of the truth, and to the blinded Jews, ruined by their own transgression, both light and stability might be given; while he who is the enlightener of darkness says through the apostle, "You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." And he, killed by the darkness that he loved, kept watch, that is, rose again; and he became like a solitary sparrow on the roof, that is, in heaven, where until now no one has ascended except him who came down from heaven, who is "the firstfruits of those who sleep" and "the firstborn from the dead." (v. 9) "All day long my enemies reproached me, and those who praised me swore against me." These words signify what was done at the time of the passion. The Lord is reproached that he who saves others cannot rescue himself from punishment; and those who had been false praisers conspired to kill him. (v. 10) "For I ate ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping." The sacrament of the Saviour's mercy is shown, who makes even those his members for whom such medicine is fitting, and joins their cause to his own person; in them he says that he ate ashes like bread and mingled his drink with weeping. Unbelievers count this a reproach, saying that the hope of forgiveness is tinder for sinning. (v. 11) "Because of your anger and your indignation; for having lifted me up you have dashed me down." This is the very anger which Adam deserved and in which we are all born, according to which the apostle says, "We were by nature children of wrath, as the rest also were": not by God's making but by his judgment. And we are called children of wrath by nature because wrath has settled into our very beginnings, so that no human nature except that of our Lord Jesus Christ is free from it. Man was lifted up because he was made rational and in the image of God; he was dashed down because he forgot his dignity, as it is written, "Man, when he was in honour, did not understand; he is compared to the senseless beasts."

(v. 12) "My days have declined like a shadow, and I have withered like grass." I withdrew from the eternal day through sin, and fell into passing days through judgment; and since I have withered like grass, through him who is free among the dead I am being saved in hope. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." (v. 13) "But you, O Lord, endure for ever, and your memorial from generation to generation." Let the eternal one, he says, save the temporal one; for it is not because I have fallen that you have grown old: you who were there to humble me are the same to set me free, and you do not forget your promises. (v. 14) "You will arise and have mercy on Zion, for it is time to have mercy on her." What time, if not the one of which it is said, "But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law"? (v. 15) "For your servants have taken pleasure in her stones, and they will have pity on her dust." In Zion there are many stones, and very many are dust. In the stones is the joy of the saints, in the dust their pity. From Zion came the holy patriarchs, the holy apostles, and the preachers of the gospel: all these are chosen and tried stones. But the rest, who are not joined to them, are dust, which the wind will drive from the face of the earth, unless they acknowledge themselves and say, "Remember, O Lord, that we are dust." (v. 16) "And the nations will fear your name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth your glory." When this foundation has been laid in Zion and this mercy shown to its dust, another wall will come from the nations also, to be fitted to the cornerstone, and the two will be built into one by him who makes both one. (v. 17) "For the Lord has built up Zion, and he will be seen in his glory." The church grows daily into a temple of God, and the whole body is built up from the head himself. And Jesus Christ will appear in his glory when he comes to judge the world, to take some on the right into the kingdom and to thrust others on the left into punishment. (v. 18) "The Lord has regarded the prayer of the humble and has not despised their petition." This is the building of Zion and its structure. So are the living stones set in place: for one comes to the fitted beauty of it only through humility and prayer, through groans and tears; lest, when the house has been finished and dedicated, one who has come by another way should knock in vain. (v. 19) "Let these things be written for another generation, and the people that will be created will praise the Lord." These things are written in the Old Testament by a prophecy that pertains to the generation of the New Testament, that is, to the people that was to be created in Christ, of whom the apostle says, "If then there is any new creation in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new. And all things are from God." That is, both the old and the new, since both peoples received justification through one faith. (vv. 20–21) "For he has looked out from his holy height; the Lord looked from heaven upon the earth, to hear the groans of those in fetters, to set free the sons of the slain." When God looked upon the earth, that is, bestowed his mercy on men, the bonds of love were made so strong that the violence of persecution could not overcome them. For by the fear of God the martyrs overcame the fear of the world, and the fetters of faith held them back from going over into transgression; and that labour of perseverance passed into the freedom of glory, so that groans were turned into joys and fetters into crowns. And the sons of the slain, that is, of the martyrs, are also set free, who, inflamed with the same faith and freed from the bonds of worldly desires, can say, "You have broken my bonds; to you I will offer the sacrifice of praise." (v. 22) "That the name of the Lord may be proclaimed in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem." That, when the bonds of sins have been loosed, free love may serve God, and the praise of the Lord be multiplied in Zion, that is, in the watchtower, which is the church, which, not loving the present but looking forward to the future, rejoices in the hope of the promises. (v. 23) "When the peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to serve the Lord." It came about through the blood of the martyrs and the groans of those in fetters that, since those who were in groans and distress were heard, the church has in our times this freedom, in which the peoples of all nations come together into the unity of the faith, and the kingdoms that persecuted Christians have been made subject to the yoke of Christ. (v. 24) "She answered him in the way of her strength." Whether Zion or Jerusalem, which is the church, in which the praise of the Lord is celebrated, she answered him whom she praises by faith, by hope, by love. For to answer his call is to believe and obey and walk in his commandments. "In the way of strength," because it is from him that one perseveres amid all enticements and labours. "Declare to me the fewness of my days." Everything that ends and passes is small; for temporal life is small in comparison with eternity. The church asks that its days be declared to her so that she may know that she will remain until the end of the age, until those days come that can have neither number nor end. (v. 25) "Do not call me back in the midst of my days." Let my days not be cut short, he says, before the consummation of the age that you have promised, "until the fullness of the gentiles comes in," and all Israel is saved. "Your years are from generation to generation." From the beginning to the consummation, the various ages have brought forth God's saints, some and then others; and their justification is only in Christ, through whom there is one generation out of all generations, which God makes a partaker of eternity, so that without change he may be "all in all." (vv. 26–28) "In the beginning, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; and all of them will grow old like a garment, and like a covering you will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail." True eternity and true immortality exist only in the Godhead of the Trinity, for which being is perpetual, and which admits no changeableness through beginning, increase, or decline. But creatures, even those to whom the Creator has given or will give eternity, will not be wholly without end, since for them the very change made for their increase is an end. So the earth which you, Lord, founded, and the heavens, which are the works of your hands, will grow old and perish like a garment and a covering: not so as not to be, but so as to be otherwise, namely by a renewal of substance, not by a failure of nature. But you are the same, and do not pass from one thing into another; for you are he who truly is, and who in your glory can be neither less nor greater; and you grant to the sons of your servants that they may come to your unfailing years. (v. 29) "The sons of your servants will dwell, and their seed will be directed for ever." The sons of God's servants are the sons of the righteous, the sons of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; sons, finally, of the whole church, which is the body of Christ and the mother of all fathers and all sons. These, then, will dwell in the eternity of God's years, and their seed will be directed for ever. And their seed is rightly understood as the work of their righteousness, which ought to go before each one; for that blessedness of eternity does not receive the barren and fruitless.

(v. 1) "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name." The whole church with its head, which is Christ, is one man, whose proper office is at every time to bless the Lord and to urge itself on to the praise of him whom it loves with all its strength. Its inward parts are the reason of understanding, the hope of faith, the humility of fear, the strength of love, and whatever other affections there are by which the mind is lifted up to wonder at its author. (v. 2) "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his repayments." The repeated exhortation teaches that we must never cease from blessing God. And the blessing will be persevering if no forgetfulness of his repayments ever creeps in. These repayments were not made according to human merits. For condemnation was owed to sinners; but grace was given to the evil, and salvation to the lost. "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost," and "he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." He is to be blessed, then, who not only does not punish the wicked, but even returns good for evil and makes them good. (vv. 3–5) "Who is gracious to all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from corruption, who crowns you in compassion and mercy; who satisfies your desire with good things; your youth will be renewed like the eagle's." The enumeration of God's repayments shows by what steps of grace the human soul is saved. "Who is gracious," he says, "to all your iniquities." He does not say, "to all your virtues"; for it would certainly have none unless forgiveness of sins were granted. And lest these rise again, "He heals," he says, "all your diseases." And what are these diseases but evil lusts, carnal desires, and the sicknesses of all vanities? From this corruption the life of the sick is redeemed, because the body of our death became the body of Life itself, so that he might crown us in compassion and mercy, as it is written, "I will have mercy on whom I have had mercy, and I will show mercy to whom I have shown mercy"; so that we may understand that the crowns of merits are given by the same mercy through which the merits for the crowns were given. Then is added, "Who satisfies your desire with good things." For by these cures the soul has been brought to good desires, so that, spurning and casting away carnal and earthly things, it longs for spiritual and heavenly ones; for "Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." "Your youth," then, "will be renewed like the eagle's"; that is, you will be changed from oldness into newness and from old age into youth, after the likeness of the eagle, which, laying aside its feathers and changing its beak, grows young into new strength with revived vigour. (v. 6) "The Lord does mercies, and judgment for those who suffer wrong." The Lord knows that in this life his servants are subject to labours and wrongs; but he wants them to be meek and patient; for as he is merciful to deliver, so he is also just to judge. For when he says to all who suffer wrong, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay," he who announces punishment does not deny help. So the Lord does mercy, and he does judgment. But it belongs to the perfect to wish mercy rather than vengeance even for those who have done them wrong. (v. 7) "He made known his ways to Moses, his wills to the sons of Israel." It is a great and wonderful mystery that the law was given in order that, as sin increased, the proud might be humbled, the humbled might confess, and those who confessed might be healed. These are the hidden ways which he made known to Moses, through whom he gave the law, so that sin might abound and grace might superabound; and the true Israelites understood this grace, and by God's revelation saw what was the reason of his dispensations and what the counsel of the divine wills. (v. 8) "The Lord is compassionate and merciful, long-suffering and of great mercy." What is so long-suffering, what so abundant, as God, who in mercy rains on the just and the unjust and makes his sun rise on the good and the evil? Despised, he spares; denied, he spares; and he prefers the life of the sinner to his death. For all the length of his patience is a training in repentance and an offer of correction; and none of his works is empty of mercy, since he takes thought for man both by gentleness and by the scourge. (v. 9) "He will not be angry to the end, nor will he be indignant for ever." The divine goodness is angry for this reason, that it may not be angry; and in mercy it applies a temporal severity so as not to bring an eternal punishment. (vv. 10–12) "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us according to our iniquities. For as the height of heaven is above the earth, the Lord has made his mercy strong over those who fear him." As heaven, he says, protects the earth, so God protects those who fear him. "As far as the east is from the west, he has put our sins far from us." This is the power of regeneration, which strips men of sins and clothes them with the gifts of grace, so that the old may set and the truth may rise. For when the state has been changed, innocence is set in the east, and sins remain in the west. (vv. 13–14) "As a father has pity on his sons, so the Lord has had pity on those who fear him; for he knew our frame; remember that we are dust." He who deigned to take on the role of a father does nothing toward his sons except in mercy. He will scourge his adopted children rather than abandon them to be disowned. He himself knows what he made us, from what fall he has re-formed us and into what state, and how much the dust of earthly frailty weakens us. God is asked, then, to remember the human condition, that is, to persevere in having mercy on it: not because he himself forgets, but he brings it about that we do not forget his grace. (v. 15) "Man, his days are like grass; like the flower of the field, so he will flourish." Let man not be proud, whose days are like grass that flourishes a little while and soon withers; but let man not despair, whose weakness is taken up by the power of God. For "the Word became flesh," so that we, who were perishable in Adam, might be eternal in Christ. (vv. 17–18) "But the mercy of the Lord is from age to age upon those who fear him, and his righteousness upon the sons of sons." Eternal joys are promised to those who fear the Lord. And since fear gives birth to obedience, and obedience produces the doing of the commandments, therefore God's righteousness, that is, his repayment, is upon the sons of sons: who are better understood as the offspring of good works than as a progeny of children; for many righteous men are known not to have had children, and not all of those who had them had cause for glory, or not in all of them. "To those who keep his covenant, and remember his commandments to do them." He holds God's commandments in memory who does what God's commandments contain; nor can he be misled by the breadth of the precepts, since on two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. (v. 19) "The Lord has prepared his throne in heaven, and his kingdom will rule over all." What else is signified but the Lord's descent and ascent, and the session of the man he assumed on the Father's throne? To him every knee bows, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of the Father. (v. 20) "Bless the Lord, all his angels, mighty in strength, doing his word, to hear the voice of his words." Those are mighty in the word who serve the command of the Word, because they are filled with the power of him whom they serve. (v. 21) "Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will." The confession of one who blesses is true when the sound of mouth and heart is the same. But to speak well and live badly is nothing other than to condemn oneself by one's own voice. The Lord is to be blessed, then, above all by works themselves, which the conscience ought so to use that it may glory in them in the Lord. (v. 22) "Bless the Lord, all his works, in every place of his dominion." As there is no place that is not subject to his dominion, so there is no place in which his blessing ought to cease. "Bless the Lord, O my soul." The psalm is closed with the same verse with which it began, so that we may understand that we ought to persevere in blessing God; and this blessing is truly continued if one lives well without ceasing.

(v. 1) "Bless the Lord, O my soul." As in the preceding psalm, so also in this one that follows, it is the voice of the members of Christ's body. There is one man, whose heart in one faith is one and whose soul is one, urging and rousing himself to the praise of God, so that in the contemplation of creatures the Creator may be magnified. "O Lord my God, you are greatly magnified." Nothing can be added to God's greatness or taken from it: what he is, he always is unchangeably. He is magnified, therefore, not for himself but for us, and the more greatly the more he makes himself known to our understanding; so that it is not his glory but our wonder that advances. "You have clothed yourself with confession and beauty." The Lord our God has clothed himself with confession and beauty, that is, he has clothed himself with the church, which through confession has put off its foulness and received beauty; for the confession of sins is itself the adornment of right deeds. (v. 2) "Wrapped about with light as with a garment." This is his garment, which has neither spot nor wrinkle and has been made splendid by grace, which is also called light, as the apostle says, "You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord." "Stretching out the heaven like a skin." If we think of the making of heaven according to the letter, as in the likeness of a skin stretched out, a certain swiftness is shown, with which the Creator unfolded his work without any delay of difficulty. For he said, "Let there be a firmament between water and water," and so it was done; since "by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth." But if we strive to look into the figurative meaning, we find that God stretched out the heaven like a skin when we understand that holy Scripture is called heaven, whose authority he first set as a firmament in his church, and which he stretched out like a skin over the whole world through the ministries of preachers. And by the word "skin" is signified the mortality of the ministers, while their work remains, through which the truth becomes known everywhere and the invisible things of God are understood and seen through the visible elements of the letters. (v. 3) "You who cover its upper parts with waters." This too is well understood according to the letter; for God commanded that there be a firmament between waters and waters, and so it was done; and part of the waters settled on the earth, while part is set above the heaven, removed from our sight and entrusted to faith. But according to the figure, by which we have taken holy Scripture, with its divine authority, as the firmament of heaven, stretched out like a skin over the world by the report of preaching, let us understand that the upper parts of heaven are covered with waters in this: that in this heaven, that is, in the divine sayings and precepts, nothing is more sublime than love, which surpasses all of God's gifts. For it "has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." This pouring out sounds of the waters of which it is said, "And let your waters run in your streets; let no stranger share them with you." This water, that is, the love of God and of neighbour, is the proper and special virtue of the devout and holy, while the other virtues can be common to the good and the wicked. So the upper parts of heaven are covered with these waters, because the precept of love is above all the heavens, that is, above all the books, and every tongue and every teaching of the saints serves it. And the covering of this water does not press down the heaven of the Scriptures beneath it, but holds it suspended, because on the twofold precept of love the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets. "You who make the clouds your ascent." This was fulfilled visibly when the Lord, taken up by a cloud in the sight of the disciples, ascended into heaven; and the apostle, speaking of the resurrection, says, "Then we who are alive shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, and so we shall always be with the Lord." But we must see what those clouds are by which one ascends into the heaven of the divine Scriptures. They are, surely, the preachers of the truth, who lift the hearts of their hearers from earthly perceptions and carry them up to the height of heavenly understanding. By these clouds, pouring out the word of God, the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, which is the church, is made fruitful, so that, having received the rain, it may bring forth fruit, and bring forth grapes and not thorns; and may not be such a vineyard as that of which the Lord says through the prophet, "I will command my clouds not to rain upon it," and such as that to which the apostles said, "We were sent to you; but since you have thrust away the word of God, we are going to the gentiles." "Who walks upon the wings of the winds." This can be taken literally, so that we understand the swiftness of the word that ranges through all things in the saying that it walks upon the wings of the winds; for we know nothing swifter than the winds, whose speed is signified by the name "wings"; but swifter than these is the announcement of the truth, which "reaches mightily from end to end and orders all things sweetly." But in a figurative sense, by the name of winds souls are understood, not absurdly: not because they are of the same nature, but because they are likewise invisible. Their wings are the two precepts of love, by which they strive toward the Lord. But since the love of God with which he loved us is greater and loftier than our love toward him, he is therefore said to walk upon the wings of the winds, that is, upon the love of souls: because the love of God goes beyond our love; he poured out the very love with which we love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (v. 4) "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire." According to the letter, we do not doubt that there are spirits, invisible to us, who are God's ministers, and who are called angels from the office they perform. For "spirit" is the name of a nature, "angel" of an activity. These ministers of his God also makes a burning or blazing fire, as we read that fire appeared in the bush, and that fire was sent from above and fulfilled what was commanded by the ministry of angelic execution. Figuratively, however, all the spiritual in the church are called spirits; they become angels, becoming preachers and messengers of the truth. And they are also fire when they are fervent in spirit and kindle those whom they exhort; having a twofold effect, that they both enlighten souls and burn them, since by the same force they both cast in the ardour of virtue and consume the thorns and thistles of sins. (v. 5) "He founded the earth upon its firmness; it will not be moved for ever and ever." It is asserted with difficulty of this earth that it will not be moved for ever and ever, since it has been said, "Heaven and earth will pass away." Now we can understand its being founded upon its own firmness thus: that the force by which it is sustained and held together is called its firmness; and though this is hidden from us, it is rightly believed to lie in the wisdom and power of the Creator, who made all things firm in himself, in whom he also founded all things. But in a mystical sense we have taken the earth as the church, whose firmness and foundation, upon which the earth is founded, is Christ. "For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus." Not withdrawing from this foundation, it will not be moved for ever and ever.

(v. 6) "The deep is his cloak like a garment; the waters will stand above the mountains." By the name "earth" we have understood the church to be foretold, which, having Christ as its foundation, will not be moved for ever and ever. Yet it is shown that it is to be so surrounded by the flood of persecutions (which are signified beforehand by the names "deep" and "waters") that it is to be covered by the attacking peoples as if by a garment; persecution growing so much that the oppression of the persecutors is to be raised even above the mountains, that is, above all the most eminent of the saints. (v. 7) "At your rebuke they will flee; at the voice of your thunder they will be afraid." This came about when God terrified the nations with the thunder of his rebuke. For the ungodly ceased to oppress the church, and the mountains of God, whose height had been covered by the waters standing over them, recovered their eminence when those same waters receded. For when the Lord thundered, the waters were afraid, and the mountains were stripped of the flood. (v. 8) "The mountains rise, and the plains go down, to the place which you founded for them." The mountains are the swellings of the waters, that is, the waves of the persecuting peoples: while they raged, they were mountains; but rebuked, they grew quiet and became plains, a place having been founded for them in which they might be restrained. This place is understood as a certain measure of fear within which the hearts of those who rage are shut in; so that, even if they still keep the bitterness of their unbelief, they still cannot be lifted up over the sweet waters, that is, the faithful peoples; nor will those great and bitter waves turn back to cover the earth. They have received a limit which they will not pass, nor will they be able to bring a flood upon the church. (v. 10) "Who sends forth springs in the valleys." The Spirit of God rests upon the humble and quiet; and, "He who believes in me," he says, "out of his belly will flow rivers of living water." The valleys, then, signify humility, which is never without the spring of grace. And it is not strange that those who are mountains because of the greatness of the Holy Spirit should be valleys because of the humility of their own spirit: as the apostle Paul was a mountain when he said, "Yet not I," and had the spring when he said, "but the grace of my God with me." "Between the midst of the mountains the waters will pass through." The mountains are the great preachers, who send forth the waters of truth from the valleys of humility. Of this abundance they ascribe nothing to themselves, they claim nothing as their own; but the outflow of the spiritual streams is common and in the midst. Or else: let there be no discord of the mountains about the waters, that is, about the preaching, but let the peace of agreement and the fellowship of love make what flows out one and common. (v. 11) "All the beasts of the forest will drink." We have indeed seen this in creation itself, that the beasts of the forest drink from the springs and from the streams running between the mountains. But since through these things, which are known to all, certain hidden things are signified, at whose discovery the studies of the spiritual rejoice, we understand the beasts of the forest as the nations; for in holy Scripture the nations are often found indicated by the name of beasts. As when beasts of every kind are gathered into Noah's ark, and the dish let down from heaven by four cords in the vision of the apostle Peter, full of all animals, nothing else is declared than that men of every kind are to be gathered in the unity of the church. From these waters, then, which pass through between the mountains, that is, from the apostolic teaching flowing in the midst because of the harmony of communion, every beast of the forest drinks. For all were in the ark, all in the dish. And these waters pass through, because all teaching that is dispensed in this time passes, as the apostle says, "And knowledge will be destroyed, and prophecy will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when what is perfect has come, what is in part will be done away." "The wild asses will receive their thirst." By the wild asses the larger and stronger beasts are named, which take from the passing waters as much as they thirst for. For these waters are so sufficient that both small and great animals draw from them as much as they desire. The apostolic teaching is so wholesome and so life-giving that, according to the capacity of those who use it, it leaves no one without a share in it; for whether little ones or great, weak or strong, they have in it what will nourish them and what will satisfy them. (v. 12) "Above them the birds of the sky will dwell; from the midst of the rocks they will give forth their voice." There are certain birds that dwell only upon the mountains; and by their name spiritual souls are signified, which rejoice in the free air and the clear sky, but have their dwelling and food in the mountains. For the prophets are mountains, the apostles are mountains, all the preachers of the truth and all the lofty teachers are mountains, from whom the spiritual man does not stray, but in them takes both food and rest. Such birds, then, in the mountains in which they dwell, find rocks, certain strongholds of the precepts. For as that one rock is Christ, the Word of God, so the many words of God are many rocks; from the midst of them they give forth their voice, and as they sound, the rocks answer and echo, when the testimonies of the Scriptures agree with their discourses. (vv. 13–14) "Watering the mountains from his upper places." Whatever waters these mountains pour out from their valleys, whatever voices they give forth from the midst of the rocks, they have received from above, and they have been watered by divine grace so as to abound in both waters and voices, with which they might fill the thirsty and delight the hearers, bringing forth what suits each according to the measure of his capacity. "The earth will be satisfied from the fruit of your works, producing grass for the cattle and herbage for the service of men." Let no one glory in his own works as though he had from himself what he has, but "let him who glories, glory in the Lord"; for that by which one is satisfied is the fruit not of one's own merits but of grace. The earth, then, justified and made fruitful by the waterings from above, produces grass for the cattle and herbage for the service of men; so that what is necessary may be supplied to the tillers of the Lord's field who sow the seed of the word, and that those who proclaim the gospel may live by the gospel. For those who receive spiritual things are debtors in carnal things, which are signified by the names of grass and herbage. For who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Or who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get some of the milk of the flock? Food, then, is to be supplied to the service of those who preside. For the preachers of the word are both cattle and servants; and "he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward; he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives a prophet's reward; and whoever gives a cup of cold water to one of these least ones, only in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward." (v. 15) "That he may bring forth bread from the earth, and wine may gladden the heart of man." The earth produces grass so that it may bring forth bread from the earth: that is, the holy peoples serve those who devoutly serve them, and by supplying carnal things they receive spiritual things from the preachers of the word of God, who is the bread that came down from heaven. Through these, while they still walk on the earth and carry an earthly body (for which reason they themselves are also called earth), "the cup that inebriates, how excellent it is," is ministered to others, so that those who drink may be filled with the gladness of the Holy Spirit. "That the face may be made cheerful with oil." A certain grace, which is of men toward men and is especially fitted to win holy love, is called oil; in the divine anointing with which the whole body of Christ is anointed, who was anointed first and is the fountain of this oil. "And bread strengthens the heart of man." He has shown of what bread he was speaking. For visible bread satisfies the belly and strengthens the stomach; but this food is the strength of the heart and soul, of which the Lord himself says, "I am the living bread who came down from heaven."

(v. 16) "The trees of the field will be satisfied." From this grace the trees of the field will be satisfied, that is, the peoples of the Jews. "And the cedars of Lebanon, which you planted." Not only the humble of this world will be satisfied with this grace, but also the noble and exalted, who because of their eminence are called cedars; but those which the Lord planted, who has justified many even from among the rich and illustrious. (v. 17) "There the sparrows will build their nests; the house of the coot is their leader." In these cedars of Lebanon, which the grace of God plants and satisfies, the sparrows will build their nests: namely, those who have chosen humility and, having left or sold what they had, have kept nothing for themselves in this world, but, taken into the houses and estates of rich Christians, are helped with the necessary comforts. Yet though they rest in the height of the cedars, they do not take the cedars themselves as their leaders; but "the house of the coot is their leader." The house of the coot, which is a sea bird, is not in holes in the ground nor in the branches of trees, but on a rock surrounded by waters. And the rock is understood as Christ, who gave an example of patience to the humble and to the sparrows; he is their strength, so that they are not moved when the waves roar around them; and if anything in the cedars of Lebanon gives offence, they follow the house of the coot. (v. 18) "The highest mountains for the deer, the rock a refuge for the hedgehogs." The deer are the great and eminent spiritual men, who pursue all the loftiest of God's commandments and dwell in the mountains of the Scriptures. But those also who cannot hold the heights have the refuge of their humility; and although they are bristly and prickly with certain small sins (which is signified by the name of hedgehogs), yet they too are received by the rock, which, whether in the mountains or in the sea or in the valleys, is the protection of all everywhere. (v. 19) "He made the moon for seasons." The Lord founded the church, which passes through temporal things to eternal ones; and although it is destined for perpetual brightness, yet while it lives here it is subject to changes. "The sun has known its setting." Christ acknowledged his passion. The setting of Christ is the passion of Christ. But does the sun set so as not to rise? "Shall he who sleeps not rise again?" And what is "he has known his setting" but that it pleased him to die? For he took up the cross and death by his will; and just as what does not please him is foreign to his knowledge, so what accords with his will he knows and recognizes. (vv. 20–21) "You have set darkness, and it has become night." When the Lord had suffered, the hearts of the apostles were troubled by the darkness of fear, and a kind of night came about there, when he who seemed to be the Redeemer of all was killed. "In it all the beasts of the forest will pass through; the lions' whelps roaring to seize their prey, seeking their food from the Lord." In this night of despair and in this darkness of ignorance the beasts of the forest, that is, the evil spirits, lay in wait; and the lions' whelps, that is, all the fiercer demons, raging to seize as their food those whom they find in the darkness of unbelief. Yet they can inflict nothing harmful on them unless God permits; and so they ask the power to seize from him by whose judgment a man is handed over to his enemies either to be chastised or to be tested. (v. 22) "The sun has risen, and they are gathered together, and they will be put away in their lairs." The sun has risen because the sun set: that is, Christ, having died, rose again and filled the whole world with the manifestation of his brightness; and although darkness persists in the hearts of unbelievers, the church throughout the whole world, for which the sun has risen, is in the light. Hence those spirits which stir up the minds of the ungodly to persecute Christians do not dare to rage in so great a light of the truth received everywhere, but, gathered into their lairs, are confined within the hearts of unbelievers. (v. 23) "Man went out to his work, and to his labour until evening." For now, in the peace of the church, the man of God, serving the righteousness of God, acts freely, and goes out securely to works that will profit him, until evening. For at the end of the world there will be a kind of darkening by persecution from outside. (v. 24) "How great are your works, O Lord! You have made all things in wisdom." This wonder, in which one is amazed at the magnificence of the divine works, pertains to both foundations, that is, both of this world and of the church. For the beauty of temporal things signifies the glory of eternal ones, and through the visible things the things that do not appear are understood and seen. "You have made all things in wisdom," that is, they were made in Christ, who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. "The earth is filled with your creation." The beauty of the world appears widely to the eyes and is to be seen in many ways; it testifies to the wisdom and power of its author. But we ought rather to attend to that creation of which the apostle says, "If then there is any new creation in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new." For he came who would renew his work, who would refine his silver, who would form his coin. And we see the earth full of Christians who believe in him and who, leaving behind past vanity, run toward the hope of the new age. (vv. 25–26) "This great and wide sea; there are creeping things without number." Although the new creation belongs to the new age, in this life it is a pilgrim and cannot reach its homeland except by sailing across this great and restless sea amid storms, while innumerable creeping things lie in wait by guile, that is, by the onset of many temptations. We must beware of these, lest, while they creep, they creep in upon us; and we must not leave the wood of the cross, on which this savage sea is crossed under Christ's steering. "Animals small and great; there the ships will pass." In this sea are the unbelievers, and the small and the great, that is, both the weak and the leading men of this world, move among the bitter and barren waters. Though they oppose the Christian religion, yet among them the passage of our ships is safe; that is, amid the storms and waves of the sea, with Christ steering, the course of the churches is safe. "This dragon which you formed to be mocked." In this great sea, where there are creeping things without number, where there are animals small and great, where our ships also pass, there is also the dragon, who, cast down by God's judgment from the heights to the depths, was made the devil out of an angel for this purpose, that his malice and wickedness might be mocked by the saints. And although he has an unceasing desire to harm, he can inflict on no one more temptations than he is permitted. (vv. 27–29) "All things wait upon you, O Lord, that you may give them food in due season. When you give, they will gather." No food is available to all the creeping things, to all the animals, and to the dragon himself, except what the Lord has given. For though the dragon is always eager to devour, he can devour only what God, the just distributor of all foods, has assigned to him to eat. And his food is earth. So no one will be given to be eaten who has not been earth, that is, who has not given himself over to earthly desires and deeds. "When you open your hand, all things will be filled with goodness; but when you turn away your face, they will be troubled." The opening of God's hand is the revelation of Christ. For the hand of the Lord is Christ. "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" To whom it is revealed, to him it is opened; and to whom it is opened, he is filled with goodness. And that he may know that he has received this goodness from above, the Lord sometimes turns away his face, and he who seemed full of goodness is troubled, so that through sudden want he may understand that that abundance of good was not his own. "You will take away their spirit, and they will fail, and they will return to their dust." Those who gloried in themselves are taught to lose their swelling: the spirit of pride is taken from them, so that they are turned into their dust, acknowledging that they are earth and repenting of their pride, so that they may be filled with goodness again.

(v. 30) "Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." "For we are his workmanship," says the apostle, "created in good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." From the Spirit of God we have received the grace to live for righteousness. For God justifies the ungodly and renews the face of the earth, founding a new creation in the whole world through the Spirit of grace, so that, having put off the old man, we may walk in newness of life. (v. 31) "Let the glory of the Lord be for ever; the Lord will rejoice in his works." To God, then, be the glory; let God rejoice in his works. For if anything worthy of praise or of joy is done by man, it is the work of God and the gift of his grace, who takes away the proud spirit and gives the Holy Spirit. (v. 32) "Who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble; who touches the mountains, and they will smoke." These are the works of God who converts those who have turned away: he looks upon the earth that trusted in itself and presumed on its own strength, and makes it tremble, and it recognizes that this is the cause of its trembling, that God works in it so that it may be good, it having failed when he turned away. And by the same work the mountains also are touched, that is, certain of the loftier and more powerful of this world; and they will smoke, that is, they will give confession to God, and their prayers rise like smoke to God who touched them. (v. 33) "I will sing to the Lord in my life; I will sing psalms to my God as long as I am." I will refer everything, he says, to the praise of God, and I will praise the Lord without end in all his works. (v. 34) "Let my discourse be pleasing to him; but I will be delighted in the Lord." Pleasing to the Lord is the discourse of one who by humble confession discloses himself to God who knows, and to whom God discloses himself, who did not know [him]. And from such a discourse delight arises, because the confession of one who does not glory in himself advances into the knowledge of God. (v. 35) "Let sinners fail from the earth, and the unjust, so that they may not be." This seems to be the voice of anger and hatred, but it is the voice of an exceptional love. For it says what it said above, that the spirit of the proud may be taken away and they may fail, and that the Spirit of God may be sent into them, so that there may be a new creation, malice failing and the substance not perishing. For he who, when he was ungodly, was justified, will not be ungodly but will be righteous. "Bless the Lord, O my soul." Let the faithful soul bless God in all things, and "let him who glories, glory in the Lord."

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

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

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

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

(v. 1) "Confess to the Lord, for he is sweet, for his mercy is for ever." He can confess the sweetness of the Lord who has tasted it. For how will he say that something is sweet which he does not know? Let him come, then, to taste, so that he may be able to pour it forth in confession. And "for ever," that is, for eternity, is his mercy, because those on whom he has mercy in this time will be eternal. (vv. 2–3) "Let those say so who have been redeemed by the Lord, whom he redeemed from the hand of their enemies, and gathered from the lands, from the east and the west, from the north and the sea." Israel indeed seems to have been redeemed from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery; but here those are called redeemed who throughout the whole world are set free from the great and wide Egypt as though through the Red Sea, the baptism consecrated by Christ's blood. Let the Christians say, then, who have been called from the whole world, that the Lord is sweet and his mercy is for ever. (vv. 4–8) "They wandered in the wilderness and in dry land; they did not find the way to a city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble, and he delivered them from their distresses. And he led them by a right way, that they might go to a city to dwell in. Let them confess to the Lord his mercy, and his wonders to the sons of men." These verses are repeated four times in this psalm; and a confession of the Lord's mercies made so often signifies that each of the redeemed, in order to come to perfect peace, is delivered from the dangers of four temptations. The first danger is that man, straying from the truth, lives in the wilderness and error of ignorance, and, lacking the food and drink of wisdom, faints with hunger and thirst. But when, worn out by this labour, he has cried to the Lord, he is led to the way of faith, by which he may begin to go to the city of rest, and may confess to the Lord his mercies, and his wonders to the sons of men. (vv. 9–12) "For he has satisfied the empty soul and filled the hungry soul with good things: those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, fettered in beggary and in iron; because they had embittered the words of God and provoked the counsel of the Most High. And their heart was humbled in labours; they grew weak, and there was no one to help them." As the first temptation was that of error and of hunger, in ignorance of the truth, so, after someone has come to know the way of Christ and begun to know what he must believe and what he must do, he is taken up by the labours of the second temptation: when he wishes to fight against sins as if by his own strength, he finds himself hindered by the difficulties of his desires and unable, because of the fetters, to walk the way he has learned. Let him cry out, then, in this tribulation too, and ask help from the grace of God, so that, the chains of his inability broken, he may receive the power to act rightly. The Lord could certainly anticipate this of his own accord by removing the obstacles, were it not useful for man to experience his weakness and to glory over good works not in himself but in the Lord: so that he may know how to confess to the Lord the mercies of him whose gifts he receives in order to be able to overcome his desires. (vv. 13–17) "And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble, and he saved them from their distresses. And he brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their chains. Let them confess to the Lord his mercies, and his wonders to the sons of men. For he shattered the gates of bronze and broke the bars of iron. He took them up from the way of their iniquity; for because of their injustices they were humbled." For before they were freed by grace from the dominion of sin, they wished to establish their own righteousness, not knowing the righteousness of God. They were humbled, then, by the experience of their own inability, and found that without God's help they could do nothing. But a third temptation takes them up, which brings on a distaste for the word of God. For very often those whom ignorance and desire did not destroy are killed by starvation and weariness and the languor of distaste; unless, perhaps, there is no danger when there is delight neither in reading nor in prayer. (v. 18) "Their soul abhorred all food, and they drew near to the gates of death." As it is harmful to the body not to be able to take bodily food, so it is dangerous to the soul to be weary of spiritual delights. (vv. 19–20) "And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble, and he delivered them from their distresses. He sent his word and healed them, and rescued them from their corruption." It is a kind of corruption of the mind when wholesome things and the way of salvation are not loved; so to be delivered from this evil too is a very great good. (vv. 21–22) "Let them confess to the Lord his mercies, and his wonders to the sons of men. And let them offer the sacrifice of praise and proclaim his works with exultation." Not with weariness, not with grief, not with anxiety, but with exultation. But there remains a fourth temptation, which pertains both to those who preside and to those under them: for when the helmsman is pressed by a storm, all who sail with him are threatened by the same danger, and all together are saved in harbour when the storm has calmed. Accordingly there follows: (vv. 23–24) "Those who go down to the sea in ships, doing business on many waters, they have seen the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep." Those, then, whose work it is to govern peoples suffer storms of seditions and dissensions, often arising from the depth of the human heart, which can trouble the ship; and they recognize that God permits these things to happen so that those who are approved may be made more manifest, and that he himself may be called upon by the faithful in their distresses. (vv. 25–27) "He spoke, and the wind of the storm stood." That is, it remained and lasted, so that, troubled, they might pray more earnestly. "And its waves were lifted up. They go up to the heavens and go down to the depths; their soul was melting in their evils. They were troubled and reeled like a drunken man, and all their wisdom was swallowed up." Those who sit at the helm and love the ship faithfully recognize the force of this disturbance. For very often the church is so shaken by such scandals that the hearts of those who preside fail. And what remains but what follows? (vv. 28–31) "And they cried to the Lord when they were in trouble, and he brought them out of their distresses. And he commanded the storm, and it stood still into a breeze, and its waves were silent. And they rejoiced because they were silent, and he led them to the harbour of their desire. Let them confess to the Lord his mercies, and his wonders to the sons of men." Everywhere, altogether, let them confess to the Lord, not our merits, not our strength, not our wisdom, but his mercies. Let him be loved in every deliverance of ours who has been called upon in every tribulation. (v. 32) "Let them exalt him in the assemblies of the people, and praise him in the seat of the elders." Now, then, there is no doubt that all the temptations, tribulations, and deliverances described above take place in the church. What, then, has the Lord done in this church, but to resist the proud and give grace to the humble? He spurned the Jews, who exalted themselves over their descent from Abraham and the oracles of the law; and, the natural branches having been cut off, he grafted the wild olive into the olive, and from all nations chose a spiritual seed for Abraham. (vv. 33–34) "He turned rivers into a desert, and springs of water into thirst, a fruitful land into saltness, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it." Because of this proud wickedness grace abandoned the Jews, and their land became barren and deserted. For all prophecy, all sacrifice, all the sacraments ceased there and passed over to the humility of the gentiles. (vv. 35–36) "He turned a desert into pools of water, and a land without water into springs of water. And he made the hungry dwell there." The works of grace are told, which was poured out on nations formerly unclean and deserted and estranged from the worship of the truth. "And they established a city to dwell in." For he who has been justified by faith already holds the heavenly Jerusalem freely. (v. 37) "And they sowed fields and planted vineyards and produced a crop of grain." In this that labourer rejoices who says, "Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit." (v. 38) "And he blessed them, and they were greatly multiplied, and their cattle did not diminish." Those in the church are called cattle and flocks who walk in simplicity but are useful: not much learned, but full of faith. So God blessed both the spiritual and the carnal and multiplied them, so that they were not diminished. (v. 39) "And they became few, and were afflicted by the tribulation of evils and sorrows." The catholic church in its chosen ones, foreknown by God, the sons of the promise, the members of Christ's body, is not diminished nor reduced to fewness, because they truly are; or, when they have fallen, they are restored and remain; and they are always many, because nothing perishes from their number. Those, then, who either did not enter into this solidity of the eternal multitude, or, when they seemed to have entered, withdrew from it, have themselves become few, because they have been divided from that manifold unity which remains. For those are never many who tend toward not being. And what is so liable to fewness as what is bound for perdition? (v. 40) "Contempt was poured out upon the princes." Heretics and schismatics are rejected by the church, and are the more despised because they wished to be princes. "And he led them astray in a trackless place, and not in the way." Those who were heading for the city to dwell in were directed and led; but these, deserting the holy city, that is, the catholic church, were permitted to go off through the trackless waste of their error, and were handed over to their own will. For God does not lead astray by the malice of deception, but separates by the truth of judgment. (v. 41) "And he helped the poor man out of beggary." He is poor and a beggar who attributes nothing to himself but expects everything from the mercy of Christ, crying daily before the Lord's door and knocking, that it may be opened to him and his nakedness clothed. "And he made families like sheep." God helped this man as one poor man and one beggar, and multiplied him into families, that is, he extended the one church, the one people, the one sheep, through the breadth of the whole world. (v. 42) "The upright will see and be glad, and all iniquity will stop its mouth." That iniquity which chatters against unity, convicted by the truth, will stop its mouth, having nothing to say. (v. 43) "Who is wise? And he will keep these things, understanding the mercies of the Lord." What will the wise man keep, but to be poor and not rich, that is, not proud, not puffed up? For in keeping these things he will understand the mercies of the Lord: not his own merits, not his own strength, but the mercies of the Lord, who led him into the way and fed him when he was wandering and in want; who loosed and freed him when he was fighting against the difficulty of sins and bound with the chains of anxiety; who refreshed him, languishing with distaste and nearly dying, by sending the sweetness of his word; who led him, endangered amid the shipwrecks of scandals, out of the peril of the sea into the harbour of calm; who, finally, set him among that people where he gives grace to the humble, not in that where he resists the proud; and made him his own, so that, remaining within, he might be multiplied, and not, going outside, be diminished.

Psalm 107 is passed over, because it seems to have been expounded in the last part of Psalm 56 and in Psalm 59. So begins

(v. 2) "O God, do not keep silent about my praise, for the mouth of the sinner and of the deceitful man has been opened against me." Anyone who reads the Acts of the Apostles faithfully recognizes that this psalm contains a prophecy of Christ; for there it is plainly shown that what is written here was prophesied of Judas, the betrayer of the Lord: "Let his days be few," and, "Let another take his office of bishop." But if we try to take all the evil things said here of one man, the method of exposition will waver. Everything, then, will be clearer if some things are understood to pertain to every kind of enemy of Christ, among whom Judas holds the first place, and some to Judas himself in particular. So it is the voice of the Lord: "O God, do not keep silent about my praise." And his true and greatest praise is that by which he is proclaimed to be what he is, the only-begotten Son of God. Against him the mouth of the deceitful sinner broke out, when my power was covered by the weakness of the flesh. (v. 3) "They spoke against me with a deceitful tongue": then, certainly, when they praised him with captious flattery as a good teacher. "And they surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without cause." Those who earlier spoke deceitfully afterward raged against me with the voices of open hatred without cause, because they had no ground for enmity except their own iniquity, and with no advantage set before them they were malicious and cruel for nothing. (v. 4) "Instead of loving me, they slandered me." It must not be thought a small thing that he does not say, "Instead of loving me, they killed me," but, "they slandered me." For they killed him precisely because they slandered him, denying the Son of God and saying that he casts out demons by the prince of demons, and, "He has a demon and is mad; why do you listen to him?" and other such things. By this slander they turned away from him those whose conversion he sought; and this was more harmful than their preparing to kill one who would soon rise again. "But I prayed." He did not say what he prayed; but we understand what he said as he hung on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." How well it is understood that he prayed for his disciples, as he also said before his passion, that their faith might not fail; when, fixed to the wood, he did not use his power but gave an example of patience, lest by destroying his enemies with divine power he should build us up to hurry impatiently to avenge ourselves on those wicked people whom we endure; since it is written, "The patient man is better than the strong." (v. 5) "And they set against me evil for good, and hatred for my love." Although the punishment of the sufferer was voluntary, yet this is the greatest crime of the persecutors, that they returned malice for goodness and hatred for love; and what they are to receive for this ungodliness he begins to prophesy in the form of a wish. God does not desire the punishment of the guilty as though he wished to be glutted with vengeance; but he orders what is just with tranquillity, so that even the wicked may not be out of order. (v. 6) "Set a sinner over him, and let the devil stand at his right hand." Whereas above the complaint was about many, now the psalm speaks of one, and the coming punishment is arranged in the person of one, understood: not because those others will be outside punishment, but because the sentence is rightly pronounced on the head of the crime; and it does not omit from the punishment the partners in ungodliness whom it condemns in their chief. What, then, is "Set a sinner over him," but that the devil may rule over him to whom he has subjected himself, and that he may have at his right hand the one he chose? For to each, whether in good or in evil, that will become the right hand which he prefers to all things. (v. 7) "When he is judged, let him go out condemned, and let his prayer become sin." Judas could not pray through him whom he sold. Prayer not made through Christ not only cannot wipe out sin, but itself becomes sin. (v. 8) "Let his days be few," that is, the days of his apostleship. "And let another take his office of bishop." That this was done as it was prophesied, the Acts of the Apostles tell. (vv. 9–10) "Let his sons be orphans and his wife a widow." When he died, both came about. "Let his sons be carried off wavering, and beg": wavering, uncertain where to go. "Let them be cast out of their dwellings." That is what he had said above, "let them be carried off." (vv. 11–12) "Let the creditor search out all his substance, and let strangers plunder his labours. Let there be no helper for him, nor anyone to have pity on his orphans." That is, let him have neither a helper nor a guardian. (v. 13) "Let his children be for destruction; in one generation let his name be blotted out." That is, that what was begotten of him may beget no more, and may pass away quickly. (v. 14) "Let the iniquity of his fathers come back into remembrance in the sight of the Lord, and let the sin of his mother not be blotted out." If Judas had remained in that to which he was called, neither his own past nor the iniquity of his parents would in any way have pertained to him. But because he did not keep his adoption in God's family, but chose rather the iniquity of the old race, the iniquity of his fathers came back in the sight of the Lord, so that he too would be punished in it, and the sin of his mother was not blotted out in him. (v. 15) "Let them be before the Lord always, and let the memory of them perish from the earth." He said, "Let them be before the Lord," not that they should oppose the Lord, but that they should be in the Lord's sight, so that there may be no forgetting of what they deserve. And let their memory perish in this, that their name may fail, with no generation following. And if it is asked whether it is credible that the miseries of living descendants pertain to the punishment of the dead, setting aside all the debate that arises on this in many forms, we rightly believe that these things which were prophesied through the Holy Spirit came to pass; and even if it can be asserted that the punishment of the living does not torment the dead, yet on the most wicked Judas such a condemnation was pronounced that, amid his own torments, he was made more wretched still by the misery of his own and would always grieve over the destruction of his line. All these things that were said against Judas are also understood to have been prophesied against the people of the Jews: for over them too a sinner has been set, that is, the devil, to whom they subjected themselves; and he stands at their right hand, whom they preferred to the Saviour; and they will be condemned in the judgment, because by persevering in ungodliness they store up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath. "And let his prayer become sin," because it is not made through the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, and the priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. "And his days became few," which is to be taken of their kingdom, because it did not last long after the cross of Christ. "And let another take his office of bishop," because they rejected Christ, who had come only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Their sons too became orphans; of whom it was said, "But the sons of the kingdom will go into the outer darkness"; and they are rightly understood to have lost God the Father. For "he who does not have the Son," says the Truth, "does not have the Father either." "And his wife a widow." The wife of the kingdom can be understood as the people, which, having lost the kingdom itself, became a widow. "His sons were carried off wavering, and they beg." Wavering in dangers, the sons of that kingdom were conquered; and they are shown to beg because there is no doubt that they live on others' mercy. "Let them be cast out of their dwellings," he says; and so it was done. "Let the creditor search out all his substance," namely, so that their whole life, which is signified by the name "substance," may be examined, and that no forgiveness may be made of any debt, that is, of their sin; because they rejected him in whom alone is the abolition of sins. "And let strangers plunder his labours": let the devil and his angels seize the fruits of the works spent on them. "Let there be no helper for him." For by whom can he be helped who does not have Christ? "Nor anyone to have pity on his orphans": because, having lost God the Father, whose Son they persecuted, they have no one to have pity on them; not for taking up or sustaining temporal life, but for the true life, that is, eternal life. "Let his children be for destruction," certainly eternal destruction. "In one generation let his name be blotted out": because they were generated, not regenerated, therefore in one generation let it be blotted out. "Let the iniquity of his fathers come back into remembrance in the sight of the Lord," so that the Lord may render to the same people, persevering in malice, the iniquity of their fathers also. "Let the sin of his mother not be blotted out": the sin in Jerusalem, which is in slavery with her children, which kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. "Let them be before the Lord always": let their iniquity and sin not be removed from the sight of the Lord, God punishing it for ever. "And let the memory of them perish from the earth." The earth of God, the field of God, is the church of God; from this earth their memory perishes, because, though they were the natural branches, they were broken off because of unbelief.

(v. 16) "Because he did not remember to show mercy." Whether Judas or that people. But it is better taken of the people, which could have remembered, by repenting, that once Christ had been killed it ought at least not to rage against his disciples and members. (v. 17) "For he persecuted the poor and needy man." For the Lord did not disdain to become poor, though he was rich, so that by his poverty we might be made rich. And "needy" can be understood in his saying to the Samaritan woman, "Give me a drink," or in his saying on the cross, "I thirst": these are words as of one in need. "And to put to death the one pierced in heart." Compunction of heart, which properly belongs to those converted from sins, does not suit Christ, who alone was without sin. So in his members who do penance and return to their head with compunction, he too was pierced in heart, because what was done in the body was not apart from the head, in which he suffers persecutors until the end. (v. 18) "And he loved cursing, and it will come upon him." Although Judas too loved cursing, by selling and betraying the very author of blessing, yet that people loved cursing more openly when it said, "His blood be on us and on our children." "And he did not want blessing, and it will be far from him." Judas indeed cast away blessing in Christ; but the people refused it more openly when, to the man given sight who said, "Do you too want to become his disciples?" they answered, "You be his disciple." And blessing was made far from them, because it passed to the gentiles. "And he put on cursing like a garment." Whether Judas or that people. "And it entered like water into his inner parts." So both outside and inside: outside like a garment, inside like water. For he has fallen into the judgment of him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. "And like oil into his bones." It shows that the ungodly man, or people, does evil with pleasure, and delights in iniquity both inside, as with water, and outside, as with oil. This conduct is called a curse because God announces eternal torments to such people. (v. 19) "Let it be to him like the garment with which he is covered." More open is the malice with which the sinner covers himself as with a cloak, and seems covered by the very thing in which he glories even in the eyes of men, not concealing his evil but displaying it. "And like the belt with which he is always girded." He girds himself with cursing, because he undertakes evil not suddenly but by design, and so learns to do harm that he is always ready. (v. 20) "This is the work of those who slander me before the Lord." These are those who slander Christ himself, whom the Law of the Lord and the Prophets foretold. "And who speak evil against my soul": by denying that he could rise again, though he says, "I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again." (v. 21) "And you, O Lord, Lord, act with me." Some have thought that "mercy" should be understood, and some have even added it. But the more correct manuscripts read thus: "And you, O Lord, Lord, act with me, for your name's sake." Hence it is to be understood that the Son said to the Father, "Act with me," because the works of the Father and the Son are the same; which can also be perceived in "mercy." For there follows, "for your mercy is sweet": because we rightly understand that the Father and the Son together show mercy to the vessels of mercy. But "act with me" can also be understood as if he had said, "Help me." For the Father helps the Son insofar as God helps man, because of the form of a servant. For in that form in which he is equal to the Father he does not need to be helped, because the two have one work and an equal and inseparable power. The neediness and poverty belong to the weakness he took up, from which he was crucified. (v. 22) "Deliver me, for I am needy and poor, and my heart is troubled within me": according to what he said as his passion drew near, "My soul is sorrowful even to death." (v. 23) "Like a shadow when it declines I am taken away." In this he signified death itself. For as night comes from a declining shadow, so death comes from mortal flesh. "I am shaken off like locusts." This we now understand more fittingly in his members. For his faithful were shaken off, that is, put to flight by the persecutors; and by the name of locusts he wished to signify either their multitude or that they leapt from place to place. (v. 24) "My knees are weakened through fasting, and my flesh is changed because of oil." Because of oil, that is, because of spiritual grace. For when his flesh had been changed by the glory of the resurrection and he had ascended to the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit to anoint believers; and their steadfastness, which, when their bread, that is, Christ, was taken from them, had been weakened as if by fasting, was made strong by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that it was not overcome in its own afflictions, though it had failed in the Lord's passion. (v. 25) "And I have become a reproach to them": through the death of the cross. For "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us." "They saw me and shook their heads." Because they saw him hanging on the wood, and did not see him rising from the tomb. (v. 26) "Help me, O Lord my God; save me according to your mercy." This too is to be referred both to the head, because of the form of a servant, and to the body, because of his servants. For he could say to the Lord in them too, "Help me and save me," he who had said to Saul in them, "Why are you persecuting me?" And by saying "according to your mercy" he commended free grace. (v. 27) "And let them know that this is your hand, and that you, O Lord, have made it." He said "let them know" of those for whom he also prayed while they raged; because among them were also those who afterward believed in him. And the hand of God is Christ, as it is said, "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" This, then, was the hand, and he made it. For "in the beginning was the Word," and "the Word became flesh." (v. 28) "They will curse, and you will bless." Vain, then, is the cursing of the sons of men who love vanity and seek after a lie. But when God blesses, he does what he says. "Let those who rise up against me be confounded." Those who think they are prevailing against me will be confounded when I have been exalted above the heavens and my glory has been poured out over all the earth. "But your servant will rejoice," whether at the right hand of the Father or in his members; now in hope, and afterward for ever. (v. 29) "Let those who slander me be clothed with shame," that is, let them be ashamed to have slandered me. But this can be a good thing for those who are corrected. "And let them be covered with their confusion as with a double cloak." A diplois is a double cloak, by which a double confusion is announced to the enemies of Christ: that is, inside and outside, namely before God and before men. (v. 30) "I will confess to the Lord greatly with my mouth, and in the midst of many I will praise him." "In the midst of many I will praise him" can be taken of Christ, because he himself is present in the church until the consummation of the age. And he is said to be in the midst to whom the chief honour is given. But if the heart of man is, as it were, his midst, it is most rightly understood that he will praise the Lord in the hearts of many, that is, in the midst of many. For Christ dwells through faith in our hearts. And therefore he says, "with my mouth," that is, with the mouth of my heart, which is the church. (v. 31) "He who stood at the right hand of the poor man, to save my soul from those who persecute it." Of Judas it had been said, "and let the devil stand at his right hand," who wished to increase his riches by selling Christ. But here the Lord stood at the right hand of the poor man, so that his riches might be the Lord himself. And the soul will be saved from its persecutors if it does not consent to them for evil; and one does not consent to them when the Lord stands at the right hand of the poor man, so that he does not succumb to his very poverty, that is, his weakness.

(v. 1) "The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.’" When our Lord Jesus Christ asked the Jews whose son they said the Christ was, and they answered, "David's," he at once replied to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If, then, he calls him Lord in the Spirit, how is he his son?" Under this question the Jews were silent; they did not acknowledge, nor did they want to acknowledge, that he was both Lord and son of David; and they preferred to burst with puffed-up silence rather than earn instruction by humble confession. But we, taught by the gospel of the Truth himself, know Jesus Christ to be both David's Lord, according to the words, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made"; and David's son, according to the words, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." We know him as David's Lord because, "being in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God." And we know him as David's son because "he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." David himself, seeing this in the Spirit, declared it at the beginning of this psalm, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet." And Christ sits at the right hand of the Father after his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven. Hence, by the very fact that Christ was the son of David, he was made David's lord. For what was born of the seed of David was so honoured that, though he was his son, he was also his Lord. According to this dispensation the apostle too says of Christ, "Therefore he exalted him from the dead and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus is in the glory of God the Father." The Lord sits at the right hand of the Father, and his enemies are made subject under his feet. For everyone who opposes him will be his subject, either by correction or by condemnation. For it is necessary that everyone, whether adopted or conquered, be under his feet, whether by grace or by punishment. (v. 2) "The Lord will send forth the rod of your power from Zion." Zion is the same as Jerusalem, from which it is foretold that the rod of Christ's power is to be sent forth, that is, the kingdom of his might, a kingdom that begins with the Christians and has no end. For as the Word of the Father, of one Godhead and almightiness, he always reigned with the Father. This kingdom, then, which the mediator between God and men, the man Christ, acquires, begins from Jerusalem, because from there the power and authority of the gospel preaching was sent out into the whole world. "Rule in the midst of your enemies." You, he says, son of David and Lord of David, rule in the midst of the pagans, in the midst of the Jews, in the midst of the heretics, and in the midst of false brothers. We see this happen daily, until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled. For blindness has come in part upon Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles should come in, and so all Israel should be saved, and Christ should rule in the midst of his enemies. (v. 3) "With you is the beginning in the day of your power." When they asked the Lord who he was, he answered, "The beginning, who also speak to you": that is, "I who speak to you am the beginning." But the Father too is the beginning, in which beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. Since, then, the Father is the beginning and the Son is the beginning, are there two beginnings? Far from it. For as the Father is God and the Son is God, yet the Father and the Son are not two gods but one God, so the Father is the beginning and the Son is the beginning, yet the Father and the Son are not two beginnings but one beginning. "With you," then, "is the beginning in the day of your power," on the day when it will be seen as it is believed. For although, even in the form of a servant, that very taking up of our weakness is not without divine power, since even your weakness is stronger than men, and with the rod of your power you will rule in the midst of your enemies, yet that day will come on which, when all temporal dispensations have been completed and ended, you will manifest yourself to your saints and appear to them in that glory in which you are equal to the Father, so that they may see: "With you is the beginning in the day of your power." "In the splendours of the saints." The present life of the saints, though it flourishes with grace and shines with good conduct, is not in splendour, because it has not yet been released from corruption. But when Christ, the life of the saints, appears, then they too will appear with him in glory. Then "the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father," that is, in eternal life. "From the womb before the morning star I begot you." If this was said of that generation by which God the Son was begotten of God the Father, "from the womb" means from what is secret, from what is hidden, from the Father himself, from the substance of the Father. And "before the morning star" he says, that is, before times. For by the morning star, as the brightest star, the part standing for the whole, all the stars are signified, which were made for this purpose, to be for signs and seasons and days and years. What is before the morning star, then, is before the stars; and what is before the stars is before times, and therefore from eternity. But if this was said in the person of the prophet who says, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand," there is no doubt that the birth is signified by which David's Lord is David's son. For David could say, because of the line by which the virgin Mary descended from his stock, "From the womb I begot you," that is, from the virginal womb, from the womb which no male approached, in which there was only the conception of the mother without the seed of a begetter. And "before the morning star" is fittingly said, because the Lord was born before daybreak, as the testimony of the shepherds shows, who were keeping the night watches over their flock. (v. 4) "The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent: You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." If we understand the Saviour as born from the Virgin's womb before the morning star, from that point, without doubt, he is a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. For insofar as the Lord is born of the Father, coeternal and equal with the one who begets him, he is not a priest. "The Lord has sworn," that is, he promised with a decree. "And he will not repent," that is, he will not change his counsel, he will not do otherwise, nor will this sentence ever displease him. "You are a priest for ever," that is, your priesthood does not end; nor will your high priesthood be changed, as the order of Aaron ceased. There will be no end of your priesthood, but it will remain for ever "after the order of Melchizedek," that is, according to the mysteries that were declared through him. (v. 5) "The Lord at your right hand has shattered kings in the day of his wrath." The prophet's word is directed to the Lord himself, who said to the Lord, "Sit at my right hand." He himself, he says, O Lord, to whom you swore, "You are a priest for ever," is the Lord at your right hand, who has shattered kings in the day of his wrath: those of whom it was said, "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ." For whoever of such men as hate the Christian name persists in his ungodliness has indeed already been shattered and could not achieve what he wished; but in the day of wrath, that is, in the repayment of God's just judgment, they will be utterly crushed. (v. 6) "He has judged among the nations; he has filled up the ruins." Those who are lifted up in pride and persist in their elation will be destroyed so as not to be built up. For those do not cease to be destroyed who do not cease to be lifted up. But those who fall through humility and prostrate themselves, so as to be under the feet of him to whom the Lord said, "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet," will be restored to wholeness; because the Lord did not condemn these ruins but filled them up. This happens in this time, when Christ is working the restoration of the ruins in all nations. "He has shattered heads on the earth, many of them." In this life Christ bows the shattered heads of many, when he makes the proud humble. (v. 7) "He will drink from the torrent on the way; therefore he will lift up his head." As a torrent gathered from rainwater overflows, roars, runs, and by running runs its course, that is, comes to its end, so is this whole course of human mortality. Men are born, live, and die, and as they die others arise, succeed, come, and depart. From this torrent, then, from this passing roar, from this mortality, the son of David, the Lord of David, drank, deigning for our sake to be born and to die; and he drank from the torrent on the way in such a way that he did not stand in the way of sinners. Therefore he will lift up his head, because he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. "Therefore he exalted him from the dead and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."

(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."

(v. 1) "I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer." Let the soul sing this that is on pilgrimage away from the Lord; let that sheep sing it which had gone astray; let that son sing it who had been dead and has come to life again, was lost and is found. For what is "I have loved, because the Lord will hear," but "I have loved, because I have been placed in this hope, that I believe I shall be heard"? For I do not hope for this in vain. (v. 2) "Because he has inclined his ear to me." Therefore he will hear, because he has inclined his ear to me. Now if we ask from what the soul believed that the Lord had inclined his ear to it, will it not answer, "Because he first loved us, and did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all"? When this was announced to me, how should I not believe that the Lord had inclined his ear to me, anticipating me with such mercy, knocking with such a call? "And in my days I have called upon him": in the days, namely, of my misery, in the days of mortality and transgression, in which I deserted God and deserved prison, that is, the darkness of ignorance, and received the fetters of difficulty. In these days, then, (vv. 3–4) "the pains of death surrounded me; the dangers of hell found me." These would not have found me had I not strayed from you. But I did not find them, that is, I did not notice them. For I loved my deceptions, and rejoicing in the false prosperity of the world I was sinking into the real dangers of hell. But when your grace shone on me, "I found" both the causes of my tribulation and my pain, "and I called upon the name of the Lord." (v. 5) "O Lord, deliver my soul": as if he said, "Both amid the adversities and amid the prosperities of this world I have learned that I am wretched: for the former oppress, the latter deceive. Who, then, will deliver me from the body of this death, but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord?" "The Lord is merciful and just, and our God will have mercy." Merciful first, because he inclined his ear to me; just, because he makes me recognize why I was being crushed; and merciful again, for this purpose, that he may be called upon and have mercy. (v. 6) "The Lord guards the little ones; I was humbled, and he delivered me." He guards the little ones whom he wishes to be perfect; and those who have fallen into slavery through pride he makes free through humility. (v. 7) "Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to you." Return, he says, my soul, because you have the power of returning from him who has done good to you. (v. 8) "For he has rescued my soul from death." A soul has been rescued from death, even while still surrounded by mortal flesh, which from unbelieving has been made believing; and besides that perfect, eternal rest from all labours which is attained when "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," the soul that has been rescued from the death of unbelief has its rest even in this life, and it abstains not from the works of righteousness but from the doing of iniquity. Such a soul, which already lives to the Lord and has died to the world, which, watchfully intent on spiritual effort, rests in the tranquillity, not idle but quiet, of humility and gentleness, holds as already obtained whatever it waits for patiently with undoubting hope. And therefore he adds and says, "my eyes from tears, my feet from falling." These goods belong not to the temporal life but to the eternal; nor can those surrounded by mortal flesh obtain them, so as not to weep, not to groan, and to be struck by no temptation. So the hope of the saints, who, insofar as they are led by the Spirit of God, are no longer in the flesh, rightly rejoices and gives thanks over these things, which have been promised to it by the Truth. Finally, to show that it does not yet have these things but hopes for them, (v. 9) "I will please the Lord," he says, "in the land of the living." He does not, then, please the Lord fully who is still in the land of the mortal; nor can such a one be in the life that sets as he will be in the eternal.

(v. 10) "I believed, therefore I have spoken." Those who do not speak the truth they believe are as reprobate as those who do not believe the truth they speak. Perfect is the faith of this man, who says not only that he believed but that he spoke on that account, because he believed. "But I was greatly humbled." Why did he add "But I," when he could have said, "I spoke and I was humbled"? Unless because a man preaching the truth can be humbled by those who contradict the truth, but not the truth itself, which he who believes speaks out: "I believed, therefore I have spoken." (v. 11) "But I said in my ecstasy, Every man is a liar." Ecstasy is here understood as terror, since it is the voice of the martyrs, trembling as torture or death is at hand, and recognizing that it is not in their own strength to overcome what is inflicted; and that human weakness is therefore found a liar, which, presuming on its own strength, cannot help failing; since the strength of endurance is from God, who gives constancy to the one who does not fear and restores confidence to the one who fears. For he is truthful who says, "But when they hand you over, do not think how or what you will speak; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." But it is also called ecstasy when the mind is carried out of itself not by terror but by some inspiration of revelation. (v. 12) "What shall I render to the Lord for all that he has rendered to me?" By saying this he professes that something other than he deserved was rendered to him by the Lord, that is, that he received good things for evil ones; and he asks what he himself is to render for the good things, and finds nothing except what the Lord himself has given, and says, (v. 13) "I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord." Who gives this cup but he who says, "Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?" And, giving an example of suffering, he conferred the gift, redeeming the very weakness of his own with his blood, and giving the reward of their imitation, so that … (v. 15) "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." For he bought it with his own blood, which the Lord shed for his servants, so that the servants too might not be afraid to shed theirs for their Lord; though both the Lord's death and the servants' would profit the servants, not the Lord. (v. 16) "O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the son of your handmaid." As if he said: Many call themselves martyrs, many profess to be your servants, because they bear your name in vices, heresies, and errors. But since they are outside your church, they are not sons of your handmaid; but I am both your servant and the son of your handmaid. "You have broken my bonds; to you I will offer the sacrifice of praise." You, he says, made me your servant, you made me the son of your handmaid, you who broke the bonds of my captivity; and therefore I owe you the sacrifice of praise, because by your grace I am what I am, and in you I must glory over my glory. (v. 18) "I will pay my vows to the Lord." Whoever thinks well about what he should vow to the Lord and what vows he should pay, let him vow himself, let him pay himself. This is required, this is owed. Let Caesar's image be rendered to Caesar, God's image to God. But as one must see what one offers, so one must also consider where one offers. (v. 19) "In the courts," he says, "of the house of the Lord." And what is the house of the Lord but his people? Therefore there follows, "in the sight of all his people." And what is his people but what he adds, "in the midst of you, O Jerusalem"? And Jerusalem is interpreted "vision of peace." What is offered, then, is pleasing if it is paid from peace and in peace. But those who are not sons of this handmaid have loved war rather than peace.

(v. 1) "Praise the Lord, all you nations; praise him, all you peoples." At the end of the preceding psalm, lest the Jews should glory in Jerusalem and Israel according to the flesh too should claim this dignity for itself, it is shown at the beginning of this psalm who are the Israelites and in whom Jerusalem is: namely, all the nations and all the peoples who by imitation of faith have been made sons of Abraham and the spiritual seed of Israel. (v. 2) "For his mercy has been confirmed upon us, and the truth of the Lord remains for ever." The mercy of the Lord has been confirmed upon us when the ravings of hostile nations gave way to his name, by which we have been freed, and those who blasphemed him by denying him praised him by believing. And the truth of the Lord remains for ever, whether in what he has promised to the righteous or in what he has threatened to the ungodly.

(v. 1) "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever." But here the confession is not that of penitents but of those who praise the Lord, to whom it has been granted by grace to be rescued from darkness and the power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God: for this reason alone, because God is good, and has mercy with a mercy that remains for ever. (vv. 2–4) "Let the house of Israel now say, For he is good, for his mercy is for ever. Let the house of Aaron now say, For he is good, for his mercy is for ever." The house of Israel and the house of Aaron are themselves all who fear the Lord, the small, that is, and the great. From them, whether Jews or gentiles, one people has been made, running together into one flock to one shepherd, Jesus Christ; and this fellowship has been made in the grace of him who is good, whose mercy is eternal and has made them eternal. (v. 5) "In tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard me in a broad place." He who is in tribulation is in a strait place; but he who is heard is taken up into the infinity of breadth. (v. 6) "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man may do to me." The apostle says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, that is, the wicked man, but against the principalities and rulers of darkness. And what darkness but men subject to the devil? So he does not fear what man may do to him who by God's help overcomes the one who incites that man. (v. 7) "The Lord is my helper, and I will look down on my enemies." Whether they are of wicked men or of wicked angels, he will look down on his enemies whose helper is the Lord. (v. 8) "It is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man." Even if a good man or a good angel helps me, he says, I will not trust in them, but in the Lord, who helps me through them. (v. 9) "It is good to hope in the Lord rather than to hope in princes." Princes can be understood both as men and as angels; but hope is to be placed in none of them, for "there is no authority except from God." (vv. 10–12) "All nations surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord I took vengeance on them. Surrounding me they surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord I took vengeance on them. They surrounded me like bees, and they blazed like fire among thorns; and in the name of the Lord, for I took vengeance on them." We understand the Lord himself, the head of the church, surrounded by persecutors as bees surround a honeycomb. But it was mystically signified that the swarming pertained to the persecutors and the honeycomb to the believers. For the ungodly, not knowing what they were doing, made him sweeter by torturing him, so that we may taste and see how sweet the Lord is. And that "they blazed like fire among thorns" is better referred to the whole body of Christ, that is, his people. "All nations surrounded me," because it has been gathered from all nations, and everywhere the fires of persecution blazed against it. But he took vengeance on the persecutors, because, their malice extinguished, they became Christians; or else because all who have been stubbornly unbelieving will feel as judge him whom they spurned when he called. (v. 13) "Pushed, I was overturned so as to fall, and the Lord upheld me." Like a heap of sand I was turned over so as to fall, and the Lord upheld me. The persecution of the nations found nowhere to push the multitude of the faithful gathered into the unity of the faith; and though it turned it over much by harassing it, it could not uproot it and cast it away, because all together believed in him, and he upheld both each and all everywhere. (v. 14) "The Lord is my strength and my praise, and he has become my salvation." Those who wish their strength and their praise to be their own fall. But those whose strength and praise is the Lord no more fall than the Lord falls. And so he has become their salvation, not because he began to be something he was not, but because, having turned to him, they began to have in him the salvation which, turned away, they had not had. (v. 15) "The voice of exultation and salvation is in the tents of the righteous." The cruelty of the persecutors could not deprive the hope of the saints of its inner joys; nor could the ungodly take away their gladness, [nor] overcome their patience. Hence the apostle too says, "As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." (v. 16) "The right hand of the Lord has done mightily; the right hand of the Lord has exalted me; the right hand of the Lord has done mightily." It is a great act of power to exalt the humble, to make the mortal divine, to bring perfection out of weakness, glory out of subjection, victory out of suffering. But since man did not exalt himself, man did not perfect himself, man did not give himself glory, man did not conquer, nor was he his own salvation, he repeats the praise of God with most devout confession: "The right hand of the Lord has done mightily." (v. 17) "I shall not die but live, and I shall tell the works of the Lord." It is the voice of the church glorying not in itself but in the Lord. The persecutors thought that God's people would be wiped out; but the church grew, and everywhere Christ is the glory of the martyrs, in whose sufferings the works of the Lord are proclaimed. (v. 18) "The Lord has chastened me sorely, and has not given me over to death." Let the raging of the ungodly not think, then, that it could do anything by its own strength: they would not have this power unless it were given from above. Often the father of a household orders his sons to be corrected by the worst servants, while preparing the inheritance for the former and fetters for the latter. What is this inheritance? Is it of gold and silver, or of jewels, or of estates, or of pleasant farms? See by what gate it is entered, and know what it is. (v. 19) "Open to me the gates of righteousness, and having entered them I will confess to the Lord." Within the gates of righteousness is the voice of confession and exultation. For "those who dwell in the house of the Lord will praise him for ever and ever." (v. 20) "This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter through it." This is the gate of that Jerusalem which no uncircumcised and no unrighteous man enters, where it is said, "Outside are the dogs." (v. 21) "I will confess to you, O Lord, for you have heard me and have become my salvation." This confession is of praise: it does not show wounds to the physician, but gives thanks for health received to him who is himself salvation. (v. 22) "The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner": so as to create in himself the two into one new man, making peace, and to reconcile both to God in one body, the circumcision, namely, and the uncircumcision. (v. 23) "This was done by the Lord." For although he would not have been the cornerstone unless he had suffered, yet this was not done by those by whom he suffered: for those who were building rejected him, but in what the Lord was secretly building he made the one they rejected the head of the corner. "And it is wonderful in our eyes": in the inner eyes of man, in the eyes of those who believe, hope, and love. (v. 24) "This is the day which the Lord has made; let us exult and rejoice in it": the day on which he gave me salvation, the day on which that Mediator between God and men was made the head of the corner. (v. 25) "O Lord, save me; O Lord, prosper well." Save me, because it is the day of salvation; prosper the journey for those returning from pilgrimage, because you have become our way. (v. 26) "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Cursed is he who comes in his own name, whom those will receive who did not receive the Son of God. "We have blessed you from the house of the Lord." This is the voice of the great to the little: of those great ones, namely, who in their mind touch the Word of God, God, as far as they can in this life, and yet temper their speech for the sake of the little ones. (v. 27) "The Lord is God, and he has shone upon us." That Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, has shone upon us; who, being also God, equal to the Father, has made to be understood what he made to be believed. "Appoint a festal day with thronging, up to the horn of the altar." That is, up to the inner house of God, from which we have blessed you; where the heights of the altar are, where the spiritual sacrifice of perpetual praise is, where the eternal priest is and the everlasting altar, to which one must run not lukewarmly nor sluggishly but in thronging, so that of the Son, God, who for our sake became flesh, we may think no longer lowly according to the flesh, in which he deigned to be conformed to us, but loftily according to the Godhead, which is equal to the Father. (v. 28) "You are my God, and I will confess to you; you are my God, and I will exalt you. I will confess to you, O Lord, for you have heard me and have become my salvation." These things will not be said with the noise of words in that house which he urges us to enter; but love clinging to God will itself be the voice of eternal praise. (v. 29) "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever." He closes the psalm with the same words with which he began, because from beginning to end the confession of God's praises ought to persevere in us.

(v. 1) "Blessed are the spotless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord." They cannot be blessed unless they are spotless. And they are not spotless unless they walk in the way; and the way is nothing but the law of the Lord. Let him who seeks blessedness, then, be spotless in the way, and walk in the law of the Lord, which is the way of the blessed; that is, let him not be idle. (v. 2) "Blessed are those who search out his testimonies; with their whole heart they seek him." Those without doubt walk in the way of the Lord who search out his testimonies. But since many wish to have knowledge without works, he rightly added, "with their whole heart they seek him." For God is rightly sought when he is sought not for the sake of other things but himself through all things. But the blessedness of those who seek the Lord cannot be perfect amid the labours of this life. Yet those are already called blessed who will without doubt be so, because they walk spotless in the way, and, searching out the testimonies of the law of the Lord, seek him with their whole heart. They are blessed, then, in hope, because blessedness has been promised to such. (v. 3) "For those who work iniquity have not walked in his ways." Here it is asked: since iniquity is sin, and those who walk in the ways of the Lord do not work sin, how did those saints walk in the ways of the Lord who say, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"? So they both had sin and walked in the ways of the Lord, according to Paul, who says, "If I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who work it, but the sin that dwells in me." So those who walk in the ways of the Lord do not work sin, and yet they are not without sin, because it is no longer they who work it, but the sin that dwells in them. And they themselves do not work it when they do not lend the consent of their will to unlawful desires. Yet since all the saints living in the flesh truly say, "Forgive us our debts," how is it understood that they walk spotless in the way of the Lord, who must ask forgiveness of sins in daily prayer? Unless because it is true that those walking in the way of the Lord consent to no crimes, and yet are tickled by certain creeping suggestions of carnal thoughts, and for this reason daily forgiveness is necessary for them, so that they may be made spotless; for this very thing also belongs to the way of the Lord, from which he does not depart who always asks to be made spotless. (v. 4) "You have commanded your commandments to be kept exceedingly." "Exceedingly," whether you refer it to the one commanding or to the one keeping, is not to be taken as meaning more than is fitting, but as "very much." For the divine precepts are very much commanded and are to be very much kept. (v. 5) "Would that my ways may be directed to keep your ordinances." You have given, he says, a commandment, and you have ordered it to be kept; but would that you also give help, so that I may be able to do, with your help, what I have learned is to be done, with your teaching. (v. 6) "Then I shall not be put to shame, when I look into all your commandments." When, he says, my ways have been directed by your grace, then I shall not be put to shame by looking into your commandments, since I shall be not a useless hearer but an effective doer. (v. 7) "I will confess to you, O Lord, in uprightness of heart, in that I have learned the judgments of your righteousness." If my road and my course have been directed, I will both proclaim you, Lord, and praise you, and confess that this is your work. (v. 8) "I will keep your ordinances": that is, I will do what you command, if you help me. "Do not utterly forsake me." This is not to be taken as though he wished to be forsaken in some respect; but he asks that he may not be wholly deserted, and rather that divine help may never and nowhere withdraw from him.

(v. 9) "By what does a younger man correct his way? By keeping your words." The question is by what a younger man corrects his way; and the answer is that his correction is this, that he keep the words of God. But it is asked who this younger man is whose correction this is, since many old men too turn to the Lord by an observance of the commandments however late. This younger man, then, is well understood as the new people, renewed by the grace of Christ, which is corrected from the way of old error by keeping the word of faith. (v. 10) "With my whole heart I have sought you; do not drive me away from your commandments." You have brought it about, he says, that I sought you with my whole heart; bring it about that I remain in your commandments. That these may be possible for me, help me, and do not drive me away from them, that is, do not withdraw your help from me. (vv. 11–12) "In my heart I have hidden your sayings, that I may not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your ordinances." Why does he still seek to learn the sayings of the Lord, which he has already hidden in his heart? He would certainly not have done this unless he had learned them. Why does he add and say, "teach me your ordinances"? Because he wishes to learn them by doing them and to grasp them with the knowledge of practice, not only to retain them with ease of speech and the recollection of memory. (v. 13) "With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth." I have kept silent about none of your judgments, he says, but have declared absolutely all of them with my lips: those, namely, which you have told me with your mouth, that is, by the preaching of your sayings. (v. 14) "In the way of your testimonies I have delighted, as in all riches." The way of God's testimonies is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In this way, then, he delights as in all riches, who sees that through him many testimonies of divine love toward us have been fulfilled, and does not doubt that what is awaited will be fulfilled. (v. 15) "In your commandments I will exercise myself, and I will consider your ways." "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth": their fullness is found in Christ, in whom the whole church is exercised in abundant disputations against the enemies of the Christian faith. (v. 16) "In your ordinances I will meditate; I will not forget your words." I will meditate precisely so that I may not forget your words; I will meditate so as not to forget. For the meditation of not forgetting is perseverance in doing; and for this reason he asked for the help of grace, saying, "Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your ordinances," so that what he knew by word he might also fulfil in deed.

(v. 17) "Repay your servant; give me life, and I will keep your words." There are four kinds of repayment: either evil is repaid for evil, as God will repay eternal fire to the ungodly; or good for good, as he will repay the eternal kingdom to the righteous; or good for evil, as Christ by grace justifies the ungodly; or evil for good, as Judas by malice persecuted Christ. Of these four repayments the first two belong to justice, that evil be repaid for evil and good for good; the third belongs to mercy, that good be repaid for evil; the fourth God does not know, for he repays no one evil for good. But this one placed third is the first needed. For unless God repaid good for evil, there would be no one at all to whom good could be repaid for good. He, then, who says, "Repay your servant," and adds, "give me life, and I will keep your words," knows that the righteous lives by faith, which works through love. And since he had been dead through his own unrighteousness, he asks for life through the grace of God; he would certainly not ask for it if he did not believe at all, that is, if he were not alive at all. But since what he had received for desiring was not enough for obeying, he asks to be given life, that is, that the faith he has received may be increased in him; so that he who is renewed from day to day may be given life every day. (v. 18) "Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law." Give me, he says, understanding by which I may look into the wonders of your law and see the power of your precepts. (v. 19) "I am a sojourner on the earth; do not hide your commandments from me." Each person is a pilgrim where he is absent from his homeland. This man, then, who has been enrolled as a citizen of the Jerusalem above, professes that he is a pilgrim on the earth, because he is sure of the promised inheritance. But since human life on earth is a trial, he asks that in the time of tribulation and difficulty God's commandments may not be hidden from him; and these are certainly set in the open and can be known even by the ungodly. For who does not know the shortest and fullest commandment, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind," and, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself"? On these two commandments the whole law hangs, and the prophets. How, then, does this sojourner on earth pray that what is hidden from almost no one may not be hidden from him? Unless because to know the Lord belongs to few; and it follows that the commandment of love is hidden from one who loves one thing in place of another; and he who errs in the love of the Lord errs also in the love of his neighbour. Rightly, then, does he who is a sojourner on earth, and who does not love earthly things, ask that the knowledge of God's commandments be revealed to him, lest he be deceived either in the love of God or in the love of his neighbour. (v. 20) "My soul has longed to desire your ordinances at all times." I have longed, he says, to have the desire for your ordinances to the end. For you justify me; your grace makes me righteous and good; it is for me always to desire these things and to delight in this protection of yours. Otherwise I shall not be righteous, if either your grace fails me or pride puffs me up. (v. 21) "You have rebuked the proud; cursed are those who turn aside from your commandments." That rebuke is to be understood here which the first parents of men deserved by their transgression, turning aside from God's commandment through pride, since they desired not what God commanded to be loved but what the devil, out of envy, persuaded. So every proud person is subject to this rebuke, whether by inheritance or by the choice of his will. (v. 22) "Take from me reproach and contempt, for I have sought out your testimonies." This is the voice of the church, now loving its enemies and praying for its persecutors. Let every Christian say, then, let all the members of Christ's body say, "Take from me the reproach which I hear, and the contempt with which I am despised, because I have sought out your testimonies," that is, your martyrdoms: so that our enemies may come to venerate us for the very thing for which they despise us, when they understand that those whom they thought should be persecuted should be honoured. (v. 23) "For princes sat and spoke against me." The persecution was heavy because princes decreed it sitting, that is, eminent in the seats of judgment; and there is no doubt that this was done both against the head himself and against his body. "But your servant was exercised in your ordinances." What this exercise was, what follows teaches. (v. 24) "For your testimonies are my meditation, and your ordinances are my counsel." The servant of Christ was so exercised as to contend against his persecutors with love. The counsel of the princes who sat was to destroy the martyrs when they found them; the counsel of the martyrs who suffered was to find their enemies when they were lost. Those repaid evil for good, these good for evil. What wonder, then, if those failed by killing and these conquered by dying?

(v. 25) "My soul has cleaved to the pavement; give me life according to your word." He who asks to be given life because his soul has cleaved to the pavement seems to be asking to be rescued from earthly desires. But such words have gone before that we can hardly believe of the one who said, "For your testimonies are my meditation, and your ordinances are my counsel," that he clung to an earthly rather than a heavenly way of life. He does not wish, then, to be torn from the desires of the world or separated from the company of the flesh, but to be detached from carnal affections; so that that desire which lusts against the spirit may be more and more diminished, and the desire which lusts against the flesh may be increased by persevering progress. For there is no one whose soul the corruptible body and the earthly dwelling do not weigh down, until this corruptible thing puts on incorruption, and the word of God, by which eternal life is promised, is fulfilled. (v. 26) "I have declared my ways, and you have heard me; teach me your ordinances." I have confessed my sins, he says, and you have heard me; I have declared my ways, and you have blotted them out: teach me yours. He wishes, then, to learn not those ordinances in which he was exercised, but desires to come from those to these. (v. 27) "Instil into me the way of your ordinances, and I will be exercised in your wonders." By asking this he longs rather to be increased by progress. For there are certain ordinances so sublime and wonderful that those who have not experienced them think that human weakness cannot reach them. (v. 28) "My soul has slumbered through weariness; strengthen me in your words." I grow tired both from weakness and I slip back from weariness. Strengthen me in your promises, and through what you have given I will strive to climb, so that, slumbering in my weaknesses, I may be roused and spurred on in your words. (v. 29) "Remove from me the way of iniquity, and have mercy on me by your law." Lest the law of works, through which sin abounded, lead me, weak as I am, into iniquities, have mercy on me, he says, by your law, that is, by the law of faith; so that by your grace I may do what I am not able to fulfil by myself. (vv. 30–31) "I have chosen the way of truth; I have not forgotten your judgments. I have cleaved to your testimonies, O Lord; do not put me to shame." I have chosen the way of truth, where I might run; I have not forgotten your judgments, so that I might run; I have cleaved to your testimonies as I ran, O Lord: do not put me to shame. How shall I, running as I do, reach the place toward which I am heading? "For it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy." (v. 32) "I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart." The enlarging of the heart is the love of truth; and this comes about by God's gift, so that he is served not out of fear of punishment but out of love of righteousness, when the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This man, then, ran the way of God's commandments because the Lord enlarged his heart.

(v. 33) "Set before me as a law, O Lord, the way of your ordinances, and I will seek it out always." He who had already said that he ran the way of God's commandments with an enlarged heart, how does he now ask that a law be set for him? Unless because he speaks as one making progress, and knows that his progress is God's gift; and, so that he may progress more and more, he asks that what he has be increased by the one from whom he received it. So he has both run this way and wishes to run it; he has sought it out and loves to seek it out, until his joy is perfect without danger of losing it; and he always seeks it out in order to lay hold of it. (v. 34) "Give me understanding, and I will search your law, and I will keep it with my whole heart." No one, then, penetrates the height and depth of the law except one who has received understanding. And since the fullness of the law is love, and he understands the law who carries out the works of its commandments, he surely asks here that the love by which God and neighbour are loved may be multiplied in him, so that he may have perfect knowledge of this twofold commandment, on which hang the whole law and the prophets, and may keep it with his whole heart. (v. 35) "Lead me in the path of your commandments, for that is what I have willed." What he earlier called the way of ordinances he now calls the path of commandments; for the way that leads to life is narrow, and, being narrow, it is not run except with an enlarged heart. But since this man is still progressing and still running, he therefore asks for divine help to lead him. (v. 36) "Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to avarice." He who asks that his heart be inclined toward something desires to will it more fully and perfectly than he wills it. For he was willing when he said, "Lead me in the path of your commandments, for that is what I have willed"; and he prays that he may will when he says, "Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to avarice." He prays, then, that he may progress in his very willing, and may have his heart inclined not to avarice but to God's testimonies; and these testimonies suggest and teach that God is to be worshipped freely. For if the heart is not inclined to avarice, we worship God only for God's sake, so that he himself may be the reward of his worship; for he who worships God in order to earn something other than him does not love the one he worships, because he desires not him but something else. (v. 37) "Turn away my eyes, that they may not see vanity; give me life in your way." Turn away, he says, my eyes: not those of the body, whose gaze sees many vanities even against its will, but the eyes of the heart, that they may not be intent on vanity, may not seek human glory, nor, when they desire something good, do so not for love of the supreme good itself but for love of present advantage and praise; and, finally, that they may not refer their righteousness to themselves rather than to the Lord, and glory in themselves rather than in the Lord. Shuddering at this vanity, then, he rightly added, "Give me life in your way," that is, in Christ, who is opposed to vanity and is not only the way but also the life and the truth. (v. 38) "Establish your saying for your servant in your fear." The saying of God becomes firm in our heart when what that saying commands is done, and it is torn away when the contrary work is done. The servant of God asks, then, that a persevering obedience may be confirmed in him, which will not be moved from its standing by any push of evil action; and this is had only through the Spirit and through chaste fear, by which one takes care not to offend love, not that by which one fears to be condemned for ungodliness. (v. 39) "Cut off my reproach which I have suspected, for your judgments are pleasant." It is a sin to judge rashly about the hidden things of another's heart, and to blame on suspicion one whose works appear only good. This reproach, then, this vice of suspicion, he who wishes to be perfect desires to be taken from him. For of the things that are unknown to man God alone is the just inspector; and his judgments are pleasant, because they are true. (v. 40) "Behold, I have longed for your commandments; give me life in your righteousness." You have made me, he says, eager for your commandments; make me also effective. Help me to do what you commend; give yourself what you command. For in myself I have had the means of dying; but the means of living I find nowhere but in you, who have placed all equity for your man in the love of you and of his neighbour.

(v. 41) "And let your mercy come upon me, O Lord, your salvation according to your saying." What does he ask but that by his mercy he may do the commandments that he longed for, the things he commanded? And what is mercy but Christ? And according to what saying, if not according to the word of promise, by which the things that were not were called as though they were? For those to whom the promise was made were themselves also promised, so that the whole body of Christ may say, "By the grace of God I am what I am." (v. 42) "And I will answer a word to those who reproach me, for I have hoped in your words." Whether it is "those who reproach me with a word" or "I will answer a word" is ambiguous; but both sound of Christ. For it is he whom those reproach to whom he, crucified, is a stumbling block or folly, not knowing that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Word that was in the beginning and was with the Lord. But even if the reproachers themselves do not reproach the Word, which is hidden from them, since his Godhead is not known by those by whom his weakness on the cross is despised, yet let us answer the Word to all who reproach us. For it is too little to have Christ in the heart unless we confess with the mouth what we believe with the heart. But this can be done only if the believer's hope in the promises of God is firm. (v. 43) "And do not take the word of truth utterly from my mouth": that is, let me not be so disturbed under the scourge of persecution that the confession of truth is wholly taken from me. For many who failed for an hour by denying were afterward restored by repenting and took up again the palm they had lost. "For in your judgments I have hoped exceedingly": that is, because your judgments, by which you rebuke and scourge me, not only do not take hope from me but even increase it, since you rebuke the one you love, and scourge every son whom you receive. And so you often allow one who seemed strong to himself to be weakened, so that presumption may be removed and the virtue of perseverance restored by your help. (v. 44) "And I will keep your law always, for ever and for ever and ever." Having said "always," lest it be referred only to the time of this life, he added, "and for ever and ever." And the law which he desires to keep perpetually is to be taken as love; for it is the fullness of the law, and when the other commandments cease, it alone remains for ever. (vv. 45–48) "And I walked in a broad place, for I sought out your commandments. And I spoke of your testimonies before kings, and I was not put to shame. And I meditated on your commandments, which I loved greatly. And I lifted up my hands to your commandments which I loved, and I was exercised in your ordinances." The verses above contained prayer, by which the help of grace was asked for. But these contain narration, by which it is shown what the grace that was asked for bestowed: as if he said, "When I prayed for these things, you heard me, and I walked in a broad place," that is, I walked in love, which has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This is that Spirit in whom we cry, "Abba, Father"; and through this, it is his doing that he sought out God's commandments; and once received, the Spirit also brings it about that he is sought, to be received more abundantly, by asking, seeking, and knocking. Strengthened, then, by this Spirit of love, he was not put to shame before kings, he exercised his thought on God's commandments and loved those same commandments greatly; lifting up his hands not to earthly works but to heavenly ones, he was exercised in God's ordinances.

(vv. 49–50) "Remember your word to your servant, in which you have given me hope. This has comforted me in my humiliation, for your word has given me life." When it is said to God, "Remember," the desire of the one praying, by which he asks that the promise be hastened, is shown; God is not reminded as though it had slipped from his memory. "Remember," then, he says, "your word to your servant," that is, fulfil your promise; "in which you have given me hope," that is, in which word you have made me hope. "This has comforted me in my humiliation": this hope of mine, namely, has comforted me, which is given to the humble, as Scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." "For your word has given me life": for it has made me hope in you and not fail in tribulation. (v. 51) "The proud acted wickedly exceedingly; but I did not turn aside from your law." By the proud he wished to be understood the persecutors of the humble, that is, the ungodly persecutors of the godly; and so he added, "but I did not turn aside from your law," because persecution was compelling him to do this. (v. 52) "I remembered your judgments from of old, O Lord, and I was comforted." From of old, he says, since the human race took its beginning, I have remembered your judgments. And since I have proved that all your ways are mercy and truth, I have received comfort in the help of your grace, and through the very vessels of wrath I have understood the riches of your glory toward the vessels of mercy. (vv. 53–54) "Weariness took hold of me because of sinners who forsake your law. Your ordinances were songs to me in the place of my sojourning." Although he suffered weariness from the sinners among whom the pilgrimage of the present way kept him, yet God's ordinances were songs to him, because grace consoled him on his pilgrimage. (v. 55) "I remembered your name in the night, O Lord, and I kept your law." Night is …; for there is the night of mortality, a night in the proud who act wickedly; a night in the weariness caused by sinners who forsake God's law; a night, finally, in the place of this pilgrimage, until the Lord comes and brings to light the hidden things of darkness. In this night, then, a man ought to remember the name of the Lord, so as to keep his law, and to refer this very thing to God's glory; for "our help is in the name of the Lord." (v. 56) "This was done for me, because I sought out your ordinances": your ordinances, surely, by which you justify the ungodly, not mine, which make one not godly but proud. What, then, is it of which he says, "This was done for me"? It is not to be understood as the Law, which the Greek expresses in the masculine gender; it is better taken of the night, because he had said above, "I remembered your name in the night," which was done for me, that is, to profit me. For this very humiliation in the place of this pilgrimage, which is understood as night, profits those who are wholesomely exercised in it, so that they learn not to be proud; for because of that evil man was driven into this night.

(v. 57) "My portion, O Lord, I have said, is to keep your law." That is, the Lord will be each person's portion in this way, when he keeps his law. But since this is not done without God's help, he shows what he asks to obtain, adding, (v. 58) "I entreated your face with my whole heart; have mercy on me according to your saying." And what he obtained by this prayer, and to what progress he came, he shows next, saying, (v. 59) "I thought on my ways, and I turned my feet to your testimonies." I turned my feet, he says, from the ways that displeased me, so that they might go to your testimonies and have their way there. Where it is written here, "I turned my feet," in some copies one reads, "You turned my feet," so that this is attributed rather to the grace of God. But whether it is this or that, there can be no doubt that it is the divine gift when we both think rightly and call our feet back from error. For whenever we do good things, God works in us and with us, so that we may work. (v. 60) "I am ready, and I am not troubled, to keep your commandments." He confesses humbly that he has been made steadfast by grace for keeping the commandments. (v. 61) "The cords of sinners have wound around me, and I have not forgotten your law." "Of sinners" is derived not from "sins" but from "sinners." The cords of sinners, then, are the hindrances of enemies, whether spiritual or carnal, who try to entangle the saints, contending for God's law even to blood, in difficulties of every kind, and by these, as with cords and ropes, they would drag them back from steadfastness in suffering. But if they bind the body, they do not bind the mind; in it this man has not forgotten God's law, because the word of God is not bound. (v. 62) "At midnight I rose to confess to you over the judgments of your righteousness." Midnight is deep tribulation; for he was not so afflicted that he could not rise. And he rose to confess to God that by his just judgment power had been given to sinners to persecute God's saints, whom the grace of God helps, so that such exercises make them more illustrious. (v. 63) "I am a partaker with all who fear you and keep your commandments." This voice is to be understood as properly that of the head himself. For we would not be made partakers of Christ's Godhead unless he himself had become a partaker of our mortality. And through this participation his grace is supplied to us, so that we may fear God chastely and keep his commandments. For this reason God took the nature of men, the immortal the nature of mortals, and by sharing it made it his own, so that the grain might fall into the earth and, having died, bear much fruit. (v. 64) "The earth is full of your mercy, O Lord": in this, certainly, that the ungodly is justified; and, so that he may advance in the knowledge of this ineffable grace, he adds, "And teach me your ordinances."

(v. 65) "You have dealt kindly with your servant, O Lord, according to your word." You have brought it about, he says, O Lord, that the good delights me, which is certainly your great gift. "According to your word," that is, according to your promise, so that the promise may be firm for all the seed. (v. 66) "Teach me sweetness and discipline and knowledge, for I have believed in your commandments." He asks that these be increased in him, and the grace of God perfects them in him more and more in all the sweetness of goodness. God teaches sweetness by inspiring love; he teaches discipline by tempering tribulation; he teaches knowledge by imparting understanding. "For I have believed in your commandments": that is, I have believed that you commanded them, you who grant that they be done; and not man, who, though he can make a precept known, cannot bestow the gift of obedience. Teach discipline by teaching patience; teach knowledge by enlightening understanding; for I have believed that you commanded these things, who are God and give man the means of doing what you command. (v. 67) "Before I was humbled I sinned; therefore I have kept your saying." Because of the first sin, he says, I was humbled; and lest I be humbled again, I have kept your saying. So by your grace it profited me to experience punishment, so that I might acquire obedience. (v. 68) "You are sweet, O Lord; in your sweetness teach me your ordinances." He truly wishes to do God's ordinances when he wishes to learn them in his sweetness. (v. 69) "The iniquity of the proud has been multiplied over me": of those, namely, to whom it was no profit that human nature was humbled after it sinned. "But I will search your commandments with my whole heart." However much iniquity abounds, he says, love will not grow cold in me. For I search your commandments lovingly for this purpose, that I may know them more perfectly by doing them. (v. 70) "Their heart has curdled like milk; but I have meditated on your law." The heart of the proud, he says, has been hardened; but by meditating on your law I have learned that you resist the proud and give grace to the humble. (v. 71) "It is good for me that you have humbled me, that I may learn your ordinances." You have turned punishment for me into discipline, and humiliation into instruction; for I desire to know your ordinances so as to do them. For there is no true knowledge of the good unless it is known for this purpose, that it may be done. (v. 72) "The law of your mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver": so that love may love the law of God more than greed loves thousands of gold and silver.

(v. 73) "Your hands have made me and fashioned me." The hands of the Lord are the power of God, which accomplishes the works of his will, so that we may not think of God anything bodily because of the word "hand." But if the plural number troubles us, let the hands of God be taken as power and wisdom, both of which are the one Christ, who is also called the arm of the Lord. Or, finally, let the hands of God be taken as the Son and the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit too is a co-worker with the Father and the Son; only so that no bodily form be imagined in the nature of the unchangeable Godhead. As for his saying, "Your hands have made me and formed," or "fashioned me," it is not unfittingly distinguished so that "made" pertains to the soul and "formed" to the body, though these words are usually found used without distinction. And this work of God not only went before in the making of the first man, in whom all were made by a seminal principle, but is also accomplished in the daily creation of individual men. For if that working power of God held itself back from this work, all things would fail. "Give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments." Was human nature made in such a way as to lack understanding? Why, then, does he ask to be given what he has received? Unless because by the fault of sin the very rational faculty given at the first has been corrupted and must be re-formed by the gift of grace. For what remains to nature is not enough unless it receives from the restorer what it lost. So the Lord Jesus in this psalm, through the prophet, asked as if for himself that understanding be given by God to his body, which is the church. For with him the life of his body, that is, of his people, is hidden in the Lord; and he himself suffers need in that same body of his through what is necessary for his members. (v. 74) "Those who fear you will see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your words." The present life of the saints is one of fear and labour; but they have the hope of the gladness of eternal joy. Since, then, the church still fears and does not yet see itself in that kingdom where it will rejoice securely, it is the church that will be seen; for amid present temptations it does not fail to hope in the promises of God. (vv. 75–76) "I have known, O Lord, that your judgments are just, and in your truth you have humbled me. But let your mercy be done, to comfort me, according to your saying to your servant." Although the yoke is heavy on the sons of Adam, by which the human creature is pressed down, yet I have known that your judgments are just, and that man has been humbled according to truth. Let your mercy be done, then, according to your promise; let mortal life receive comfort from present gifts, so that it may wait patiently for the future goods of eternity. (v. 77) "Let your compassions come to me, and I shall live." Then I shall truly live, when I shall not fear to die. For that is true life which is called life without any addition, as though to live there were nothing else than to live without any end and without any misery. "For your law is my meditation." This meditation, unless it were in the faith which works through love, would not come to eternal life. He does not usefully meditate on God's law, then, who labours to hold in memory what he does not fulfil in action. (v. 78) "Let the proud be put to shame, for they have unjustly done iniquity against me; but I will be exercised in your commandments." Though the proud rage and work iniquity against the saints, yet the love of the godly does not grow cold and does not cease from exercising itself in God's commandments. (v. 79) "Let those who fear you turn to me, and those who know your testimonies." There is no man who could say this except him who, being the God of the universe, united human nature to himself: to him those will turn who fear the Lord and know that the testimonies of God are being fulfilled which were foretold of him through the prophets so long before. (v. 80) "Let my heart be made spotless in your ordinances, that I may not be put to shame." He returns to the voice of the body, that is, of his members, whose heart is made spotless through the very head of the body, that is, through the grace of God: in the washing of regeneration, where all past sins have been washed away; in the help of the Spirit, by which we desire against the flesh, so as not to be overcome by its desire; and in the working of the Lord's Prayer, in which we say, "Forgive us our debts." Thus, regeneration having been given to us and prayer poured out, our heart is made spotless, so that we may not be put to shame; for this too belongs to God's ordinances, when among his other commandments it is enjoined, "Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you."

(v. 81) "My soul has fainted for your salvation, and in your word I have always hoped." He does not say, "It has fainted from your salvation," but, "My soul has fainted for your salvation," that is, toward your salvation. This fainting, then, is good: for it shows the desire for a good not yet obtained but most eagerly longed for; and with this desire the saints of all times have been inflamed. For as there was never a lack of those who desired the coming of Christ's incarnation, so after he ascended into heaven there is no lack of those who long for his manifestation, in which he will come to judge the living and the dead. "My soul has fainted for your salvation, and in your word I have hoped exceedingly." For this hope of your promise has brought it about that I both desire vehemently and wait patiently for what I do not yet see. (v. 82) "My eyes have fainted for your saying, saying, When will you comfort me?" In the inner eyes there is the same fainting of his desire as it reaches toward God's sayings, that is, his promises, for one whose hoped-for comforts are long delayed. For even what is short to the one who comes to help seems long to the one who longs for it. (v. 83) "For I have become like a wineskin in the frost; I have not forgotten your ordinances." By the wineskin he wishes us to understand the flesh of this death; by the frost the heavenly benefit by which carnal desires grow numb, as if checked by cold; and so it comes about that God's ordinances do not slip from memory. (v. 84) "How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who persecute me?" In the Apocalypse too this is the voice of the martyrs; and the disciples ask the Lord to make known to them the day of the end. But patience is enjoined on the former, and the secret decree is not disclosed to the latter. In these words of the psalm, then, this very inquiry of the church is well understood as prophesied. (v. 85) "The wicked have told me delights; but not as your law, O Lord." He says that tales of vain opinions, composed with the art of delightful speech, have been told him by the wicked; but that he found nothing useful in them as he does in the law of the Lord, in which is all truth. (v. 86) "All your commandments are truth; they have persecuted me unjustly; help me." I have preferred, he says, the commandments of truth to the tales of lies; and for this the lovers of falsehood have persecuted me unjustly. Help me, then, so that I may be able to contend for the truth even to death. (v. 87) "They have almost finished me on the earth; but I have not forsaken your commandments." The slaughter of the martyrs having been made, they now confess and proclaim the truth, which, helped by you, I did not desert. (v. 88) "According to your mercy give me life, and I will keep the testimonies of your mouth." For the martyrs, because they were helped and given life by God's mercy, not denying the truth, which is life, conquered by dying for it.

(v. 89) "For ever, O Lord, your word remains in heaven." The word remains in the angels, who keep their eternal service without failing. (v. 90) "Your truth is from generation to generation; you founded the earth, and it remains." After the heavenly Jerusalem he looked to her daughter, the church, which lives in this world, and said, "Your truth is from generation to generation." By this repetition he signified either all the generations, from which God's truth has not been absent, or he wished two to be understood: one pertaining to the law and the prophets, the other to the gospel, upon the eternal foundation, which is Christ; and this earth remains, which, made firm on such a foundation, is not moved for ever and ever. (v. 91) "By your ordinance the day continues, for all things serve you": all things, namely, of which he was speaking, and which belong to the eternal day. (v. 92) "Unless your law had been my meditation, I would perhaps have perished in my humiliation." This law is that of the faith which works through love; persevering in meditation on it, he earns the help of grace, so as not to perish in the humiliation of tribulations. (v. 93) "I will never forget your ordinances, for in them you have given me life." See from what it came about that he did not perish in his humiliation: from that by which he was justified, by that he was given life. (v. 94) "I am yours; save me, O Lord, for I have sought out your ordinances." I have not sought out my own wills, by which I was my own, but your ordinances, so that I might now be yours. (v. 95) "Sinners have waited for me to destroy me; I have understood your testimonies." He did not here fear to perish by the death of the body, which was to be undergone for the truth. The sinners, then, waited for him to consent to them in evil, for then they would destroy him. But they did not prevail, because he understood God's testimonies; that is, because, confessing the truth, even if he met death, he would not perish. (v. 96) "Of all consummation I have seen the end; your commandment is exceedingly broad." He who understood the testimonies and knew that he must contend for the truth even to death was not ignorant of the blessed end that awaits every departure of the godly. And the exceedingly broad commandment of God is to be understood as love, by which God and neighbour are commanded to be loved: what can be broader than this, since on it hang the whole law and the prophets?

(v. 97) "How I have loved your law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day." I have so loved, he says, the law of faith which works through love that it is my meditation all the day, that is, at all times. (v. 98) "By your commandment you have made me wiser than my enemies, for it is mine for ever." "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes," so that he may be justified freely by his grace; in him this man's enemies did not believe. But he who sought not his own righteousness but that which is from God, whom God made wiser than his enemies, found the commandment itself to be his for ever, because he did not covet temporal rewards for keeping it. For the reward of the one who loves is the beloved himself. (v. 99) "I have understood more than all my teachers." He understood more than all teachers whom the Father taught. This is hard to understand in the person of the Word, unless one can somehow grasp that for the Son to have been taught by the Father is the same as to have been begotten. For from whom he has his being, from him he has also, at once, his having been taught. But in the person of the man, where he took the form of a servant, it is more easily understood that he learned from the Father what he said. In this form men of greater age thought the boy needed to be taught. But he whom the Father taught was of deeper understanding than those who taught. "For your testimonies are my meditation." He understood more than all who taught him because he meditated on God's testimonies, which foretold him; he himself knew them better and fulfilled them. (v. 100) "I have understood more than the elders, for I have sought out your commandments." Your commandments, not the commandments of men; your commandments, not the commandments of the elders, who, wishing to be teachers of the law, understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions. (v. 101) "I have held back my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your words." This is the voice of the members, not of the head; for the Saviour of our body himself was not struck by any desires, so that he would need to hold back his feet from the way of wicked desire. It is our movements, then, our appetites that he restrains, so that we may not be drawn into crooked paths by harmful desires. (v. 102) "I have not turned aside from your judgments, for you have set a law for me." I have believed your judgments perseveringly, he says, because you have set a law for me in my heart, as though writing with your finger; so that I might not fear it as a slave without love, but love it as a son with chaste fear. (v. 103) "How sweet are your sayings to my throat, above honey and the honeycomb to my mouth!" This is that sweetness which the Lord gives, so that our earth may yield its fruit, and that we may do good well, that is, not from fear of carnal evil but from delight in spiritual good. (v. 104) "From your commandments I have understood." This is the voice of the spiritual members of Christ. For the body of Christ rightly says this in those to whom, as they keep the commandments, a richer teaching of wisdom is given because of that very keeping of the commandments. "Therefore I have hated every way of iniquity." For the love of righteousness, which is increased and inflamed, must hate all iniquity; and so it obeys God and understands from his commandments.

(v. 105) "Your word is a lamp to my feet, O Lord, and a light to my paths." "Word" is to be understood here not as that Word which is equal to the one who begets him, and which is the true light that enlightens every man, but the word that came to the prophets or was preached through the apostles: the word of Christ, namely, of which it is written, "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." For the apostle Peter too, comparing the prophetic word to a lamp, says, "We have the more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp in a dark place." So what he says here, "Your word is a lamp to my feet, O Lord, and a light to my paths," is the word contained in all the holy Scriptures. It is not, then, the Word that is God, but the word of God. (v. 106) "I have sworn and determined to keep all the judgments of your righteousness." He called by the name of an oath what he determined without a sworn rite: because the mind ought to be so fixed on keeping the judgments of God's righteousness that what it has determined is wholly as good as an oath. (v. 107) "I have been humbled exceedingly, O Lord; give me life according to your word." Because he swore and determined to keep the judgments of God's righteousness, he suffered the greatest persecution; and lest he fail in so great a humiliation, he asks to be given life according to the word of promise; for in the night of tribulations the promise itself is a lamp to the feet and a light to the paths. (v. 108) "Make the freewill offerings of my mouth well pleasing, O Lord, and teach me your judgments." The freewill offerings of the mouth which he asks to be approved are sacrifices of praise, offered by the confession of love, not by the fear of necessity. And he desires to be taught God's judgments not because he does not know them but so as to make progress. (v. 109) "My soul is in your hands always, and I have not forgotten your law." It is said as though, so that God's law may not be forgotten, his memory is helped by God's hands. (v. 110) "Sinners have set a snare for me, and I have not strayed from your commandments." From where comes this, but that his soul is always in God's hands? (v. 111) "I have acquired your testimonies as an inheritance for ever, for they are the exultation of my heart." That I should desire to be your witness, he says, you have granted; and that I should not fear to die for the truth belongs to your inheritance, to your grace: a gift that is mine for ever, because there is no temporal glory in it. For this reason, though I am afflicted in body, I am glad in heart. (v. 112) "I have inclined my heart to do your ordinances for ever, for the sake of the reward." He who says, "I have inclined my heart," had already said, "Incline my heart to your testimonies," so that we may understand that this is at the same time both a divine gift and one's own will. And let him do this for the sake of the reward: so that, since he pursues God's ordinances with love, he may deserve to have for ever what he loves.

(v. 113) "I have hated the wicked, and I have loved your law." He who loves the law of God proves that he hates in wicked men what is against the law, not the men. (v. 114) "You are my helper and my supporter, and in your word I have hoped exceedingly." Helper and supporter for escaping evils. (v. 115) "Depart from me, you evildoers, and I will search the commandments of my God." Only a quiet mind can search God's commandments. So that this pursuit may be practised, the pursuits of the evil must be driven away. (v. 116) "Uphold me according to your saying, and I shall live; and do not put me to shame in my expectation." He who hopes intently asks to be upheld by the Lord more and more, knowing that only when he has obtained those things will he live; for present things are more like death than life. (v. 117) "Help me, and I shall be saved, and I will meditate on your ordinances always." That I may live, that I may not be put to shame, that I may always be exercised in your ordinances, help me, he says, and I shall be saved; for one does not come to your promises except by your help. (v. 118) "You have brought to nothing all who depart from your ordinances, for their thought is unjust." All works, whether good or evil, proceed from thought. So he who is wicked in heart, who departs from God's ordinances by unjust thought, is brought to nothing. (v. 119) "I have counted all the sinners of the earth as transgressors; therefore I have loved your testimonies." Since no one can be called a transgressor except one who transgresses the commandments of a law, it is asked how all the sinners of the earth should be counted transgressors, many of whom, it is agreed, are sinners without the law. And it is found that all the nations except the people of Israel were indeed outside the law; but every man is bound by the law of nature, so that he knows that what he does not wish to suffer must not be done to another. Although, then, he is much more a transgressor who transgresses not only the natural but also the divine law, yet no one is a sinner except by transgression; for even one whom the letter does not condemn, conscience convicts. Among these the little ones too are fittingly counted, because of the bonds of original sin. For they too are shown to belong to that transgression, the first committed in paradise, after the likeness of the transgression of Adam. Since, then, all had sinned and lacked the glory of God, and there was salvation for no one in his own righteousness, it remained that the justification of faith, given by God through the grace of the Saviour, should come to their aid. Hence the apostle says, "Through the law comes the knowledge of sin": knowledge, not abolition. "But now," he says, "apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." Rightly, then, he added, "therefore I have loved your testimonies"; as if he said, "Since the law, whether given in paradise, or implanted by nature, or promulgated in letters, has made all the sinners of the earth transgressors, therefore I have loved your testimonies, which are in your law concerning your grace." (v. 120) "Pierce my flesh with nails from your fear." What does he wish to be understood in these words but what the apostle says, "But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world"? And again, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." "For I have feared your judgments." If he already feared, or was fearing, why did he still pray that God would crucify his flesh from his fear, unless because he wished fear to be added to him, enough to put to death the desires and carnal affections? It is also understood in another way: "Pierce my flesh with nails from your fear, for I have feared your judgments"; that is, from your chaste fear, which endures for ever and ever, let carnal desires be pressed down in me, from which dread of your judgments has restrained me. Since, then, I desire to do your will and to live rightly not from fear of punishment but from love of righteousness, give me this chaste and free fear, to ask for which that fear by which I have feared your judgments has led me, like the tutor of the law.

(v. 121) "I have done judgment and righteousness; do not hand me over to those who harm me." Whoever has his flesh crucified by the chaste fear of God, and, corrupted by no carnal enticement, does judgment and the work of righteousness, ought to pray not to be handed over to his adversaries; that is, that he may not, through fear of suffering evils, yield to his persecutors in doing evils. For from him from whom he receives the victory, so as not to be overcome by the pleasure of desire, he also receives the strength of patience, so as not to be broken by pain. For of him of whom it is said, "The Lord has given sweetness," it is also said, "From him is my patience." (v. 122) "Uphold your servant for good, that the proud may not slander me." That is, lest they drive me to fall into evil, uphold me for good. They slander in pride: defend me in humility, so that the slanders of the proud may not harm me. (v. 123) "My eyes have fainted for your salvation and for the saying of your righteousness." He says that the eyes of his heart have fainted for the saying of God's righteousness, that is, for the promise of Christ: not because the intention of his longing mind was overcome and gave way, but because it passed with all the ardour of the mind into the expectation of God's grace. And the righteousness of God is Christ, who makes men righteous. (v. 124) "Deal with your servant according to your mercy": not, certainly, according to my righteousness. "Teach me your ordinances": those, without doubt, by which he makes men righteous, not they themselves. (v. 125) "I am your servant." For it did not go well with me when I wished to be my own free man and not your servant. "Give me understanding, that I may learn your testimonies." No one is so intelligent, no one so learned, as not to need this request. For no increases of these gifts are so sufficient that there does not always remain something that one desires both to understand and to know. (v. 126) "It is time to act, O Lord; the proud have scattered your law." What is "they have scattered your law" but that by the iniquity of transgression they did not keep it whole? The law having been scattered, then, it was time for mercy to be sent through the only-begotten Son of God. For "the law came in, that the offence might abound"; by this offence the law was scattered; and at the fitting time Christ came, so that where the offence abounded grace might superabound. (v. 127) "Therefore I have loved your commandments above gold and topaz." Grace brings it about that God's commandments are fulfilled by love, which could not be fulfilled by fear. And they are loved above gold and topaz, that is, above the things that are held precious on earth, when in observing the commandments no temporal reward is sought, but righteousness itself; for nothing is better than that good by which man himself is made good. (v. 128) "Therefore I was directed to all your commandments": because I clung to them, as upright, with love, so that I too might be upright. "I have hated every way of iniquity." For how could it be that one who loves the right should not hate the wicked way?

(v. 129) "Wonderful are your testimonies; therefore my soul has searched them." All the works of God are indeed testimonies of his majesty and goodness, and there is none of them that is not to be marvelled at and wondered at. But many wonderful things are the testimonies of the law itself, whose usefulness and justice lie hidden very deep, when it is asked why the law was given, which could not give life and by which no flesh would be justified before God. Rightly, then, did he search this depth, who understood that through the difficulties of the law God's mercy brought it about that those who could not fulfil the law should turn to grace, and lay hold by divine help of what they were not able to attain by their own strength. (v. 130) "The unfolding of your words gives light and gives understanding to the little ones." By searching, this little one understood what the apostle Paul also understood, that the law which could not give life was given for this reason: because "Scripture has shut up all things under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." The unfolding of this mystery, then, gives light and gives understanding to the little ones. For this secret of grace is disclosed only to the humble and weak, who, fleeing to God's help, confess that they cannot be justified by their own strength. (v. 131) "I opened my mouth and drew in breath, for I longed for your commandments." He longed for the divine commandments in order to do them. But the weak had no means of doing strong things, the little one great things. He opened his mouth, confessing that he could not do it by himself. (v. 132) "Look upon me and have mercy on me, according to the judgment of those who love your name." That is, according to the judgment you have made on those who love your name: for, that they might love you, you first loved them. (v. 133) "Direct my steps according to your saying, and let no iniquity have dominion over me." What does he pray for but that God, by helping, may make to be fulfilled the precepts which he imposes by commanding? (v. 134) "Redeem me from the slanders of men, and I will keep your commandments." Act, he says, by pouring in your Spirit, lest the slanders of men overcome me by terrors and draw me away from your commandments to their own evil deeds. For if you redeem me in this way, giving me constancy and patience amid the persecutions of the slanderers, I will keep your commandments. (v. 135) "Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your ordinances." Show your presence, he says, by coming to my aid and helping me; and so teach me your ordinances that for me to have learned them is to have done them. (v. 136) "My eyes have gone down in streams of water, because they did not keep your law." The going down of the eyes in the pouring out of tears shows the humility of the penitent. And why is it so wept that the law was not kept, if not so that grace might be fulfilled, which helps the will of one who confesses his iniquity and believes?

(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.

(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.

(v. 1) "O Lord, my heart has not been exalted, nor have my eyes been lifted up; nor have I walked among great things, nor among wonders above me." The truth of holy humility is commended in the higher part of every spiritual Israelite, in whom the whole body of Christ is shown. And all the sons of the church recognize this voice of the psalm as theirs: their temperance covets nothing of human glory, nor does it wish to glory over wonderful works so as to gain the price of praise by displaying virtues. For all the grace of God which he deigns to work in any of the faithful cannot be separated from any member of Christ's body, and each makes his own the good that he rejoices to see done through another. (v. 2) "If I was not humbly minded, but exalted my soul: as a child weaned from its mother, so let my soul be repaid." The mind of perfect humility takes delight in binding itself fearlessly by this law, to make itself liable to a kind of curse if it should wish to set its mind on high things and grow proud over any wonders. As, then, it goes badly with an infant not yet fit for the perfection of more solid food if it is taken from its mother's breasts, since the substance of its nourishment is in its mother; so, he says, let it be repaid to my soul, that, since I cannot eat the bread of angels, I should lose the drink of my mother's milk, and, since I cannot grasp the things that are above me, I should be deprived of the good of humility, in which it is more wholesome to advance than to swell. (v. 3) "Let Israel hope in the Lord, from this time forth and for evermore." Let the true Israel, then, looking ahead to what has been prepared for it in the Lord, establish its whole hope in the Lord, and set its mind on the things that are above, not on the things on earth; let it not seek temporal glory but eternal, lest, while it loves bubble-like deceits, it fail to lay hold of true things.

(v. 1) "Remember, O Lord, David and all his meekness." It suits the person of the blessed David to wish the memory of his meekness to be kept before the Lord; he was most observant of it, and the record of his deeds, according to the history, bears witness to it. But the prophetic word is to be taken in a higher sense, so that these words are referred to that man who in head and body, that is, in Christ and the church, is one man; these words are fully used by the whole city of God and the whole framework of the saints, by the meekness of the mighty and the humility of the lofty, offering to God the vow of this purpose, that they may be made his tabernacle and temple; and every faithful soul professes and ratifies this by a kind of indissoluble oath, desiring to be possessed by the Lord for ever and to be the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. (vv. 2–5) "How he swore to the Lord, he vowed a vow to the God of Jacob: If I enter the tabernacle of my house, if I go up to the bed where I lie, if I give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids or rest to my temples, until I find a place for the Lord, a tabernacle for the God of Jacob." In all these the perseverance of the vow and the fervour of faith are shown. For in order to be a place for the Lord and a tabernacle for the God of Jacob, one must pass over from one's own advantage to the common good, not rest in oneself or slumber in one's own delights. That is what those do who seek their own things, not those of Jesus Christ; and the things that are Jesus Christ's are the goods not of individual members but of the whole body, and there is no one who does not have them and no one who does not rejoice in them. He becomes, then, a place of the Lord and a tabernacle of the God of Jacob who is fitted into the church, who is united to the body of Christ through the spirit of love, and desires to be blessed nowhere else but in that house of which it is said, "Blessed are all who dwell in your house; for ever and ever they will praise you." (v. 6) "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of the forest." The Hebrew name Ephrathah is interpreted in Latin "mirror," in which the image of prophetic meaning went before. For through the mirror of prophecy this seat or dwelling of God was announced, of which it is said, "Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah," that is, in the sayings of the prophets. "We found it in the fields of the forest": that is, in the depth of the nations, among whom were the briars of idolatry, the thickets of errors, and the wild savagery of uncultivated minds. What we heard from the books of the Jews, then, is made manifest in the faith of the gentiles. (v. 7) "We will enter into his tabernacles; we will worship in the place where his feet stood." Those who enter in order to dwell are the very ones who are entered in order to be dwelt in; and those are in the house of God who are the house of God, so that they are truly in the kingdom of God to whom it can be said, "The kingdom of God is within you." So these worship in the place where the feet stood, either of the house itself, remaining in the Lord, or of the Lord himself, who is the dweller in the house that perseveres. And just as there is no place of worship except in the catholic church, so "no one can say Lord Jesus except in the Holy Spirit." (v. 8) "Arise, O Lord, into your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification." The church, that is, the body of Christ, says to its head: You have slept through the disturbance of the cross; rise into the rest of eternity, you and the ark of your sanctification; so that the glory of the resurrection may be fulfilled not only in the head of the members but also in the members of the head. These members are an ark of sanctification for God, whether through the truth of the incarnation or through the election of grace; so that in the person of the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, may be understood both the altar of propitiation and the ark of sacrifice and the ark of teaching. (v. 9) "Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints rejoice." When you rise from the dead, he says, and go to the Father, let that royal priesthood be clothed with faith, because the righteous lives by faith; and, having received the pledge of the Holy Spirit, let the members rejoice in the hope of the resurrection which went before in the head. (v. 10) "For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your Christ." This was said to God the Father by the church, praying that he would remember his promises to the house of David: lest the whole race of Israel perish because of the crime of the ungodly; who, though they have received and receive what they deserve, yet many thousands of them have been justified by faith, and from them came apostles, from them teachers, from them so many martyrs and the firstborn of the whole adoption, chosen so that the grain might be distinguished from the chaff and a remnant be saved. For them the Lord too prayed on the cross, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (v. 11) "The Lord has sworn truth to David, and he will not repent." As by the name of an oath in God the decree of unchangeable truth is signified, so by the name of repentance a change of sentence is shown. Hence the Lord is said not to repent because he has determined never to change; and by this what else is shown but the eternity of his gifts and judgments? "Of the fruit of your womb I will set upon your throne." David, in whom is the person of the head and the body, that is, of Christ and the church, receives this promise, that the fruit of his womb would be set upon his throne, whose kingdom remains for ever. He is called the fruit of the womb because the Saviour according to the flesh is the son of a virgin mother, conceived not by the intercourse of a man but by the Holy Spirit. (v. 12) "If your sons keep my covenant and these my testimonies which I will teach them, their sons also will sit upon your throne for ever." To the keepers of the covenant are promised the inheritance of the promises and the blessedness of the eternal kingdom, with which not only the sons of David but also his sons' sons will be enriched. But this glory is attained by the seed of faith, not by the offspring of the flesh; and those throughout the whole world who are in the faith of the holy fathers are counted in the honour of heirs. (v. 13) "For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has chosen it beforehand as a dwelling for himself." Zion is the church itself, and it is the heavenly Jerusalem, to whose peace those run who are still on pilgrimage even now. It is the city of God, which in its better part has always remained with its founder, and waits for the part which by God's grace is daily called back from exile, so that the whole may together be the building of its dweller. (v. 14) "This is my rest for ever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have chosen it beforehand." It appears with what ineffable love God loves his church, when he calls his own the rest by which he makes it rest, though no disturbance of labour could ever weary the unchangeable tranquillity of the Godhead. And what the principal cause of so great a gift is, is shown most fully when he says, "for I have chosen it beforehand"; in accordance with what the Lord says in the gospel, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." (v. 15) "Blessing, I will bless her widow; I will satisfy her poor with bread." The whole church of God, hoping in the Lord and advancing in humility, bears the form of a widow, who, since she has not the consolation of this world, persists in prayer night and day and trusts in divine help alone. The poor too are signified here, of whom it is said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied": with the food of grace, certainly, and the bread of righteousness, so that they may eat him who says, "I am the bread who came down from heaven." So widowhood and poverty are to be understood not only in women deprived of the companionship of husbands, nor only in those who labour under want, but in all the members of Christ's body; for it is one thing that the labour of necessity endures, another that the love of religion chooses. (v. 16) "I will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints will exult with exultation." The saving one, that is, the one who brings salvation, is Christ, whom everyone who is regenerated puts on, as the apostle says, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." And the whole church attains this under the name of priests, because the whole Christian people is priestly. But the rulers of the people themselves receive this more fully, who more specially bear the person of the high priest and mediator. (v. 17) "There I will make the horn of David spring forth." By the horn is signified the height of those who glory not in themselves but in the Lord, because the height of the horns surpasses the measure of the whole flesh. "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ": that is, I have sent prophecy before him, whose light those who were set in the darkness of ignorance might use. Hence the blessed apostle Peter too says, "We have the more certain prophetic word, to which you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place." And the Lord himself says of John the Baptist, "He was a burning and shining lamp." Rightly, then, will the saints exult with exultation, because they are glorified not in themselves but in the Lord. (v. 18) "His enemies I will clothe with confusion, but upon him my sanctification will flourish." It is plainly signified what is owed to the enemies of Christ's grace, and what glory is prepared for the saints in him, when Christ will shine in his whole body, and the Lord will be all in all.

(v. 1) "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity." Good and pleasant is the dwelling that brings about unity among the sons of adoption, and, beyond bodily and local dwelling, binds brotherly minds together in the peace of faith; and this is truly fulfilled when all the members of the faithful run together into the one head of the whole body of Christ. (v. 2) "Like ointment on the head, which ran down upon the beard, the beard of Aaron." By Aaron the priest that priest is indicated who alone fulfilled the sacrament of the true high priest, not in the sacrifice of another kind but in the offering of his own body and blood: himself the priest, himself the victim, propitiator and propitiation, and the accomplisher of all the mysteries by which he was announced; who, having died, been buried, and been raised, ascended into heaven, exalting human nature above every name and sending the Holy Spirit, whose anointing would penetrate the whole church. For the blessing flowing from the head, that is, from Christ, descends not only to the beard but also to the hem of his garment, that is, to the lowest members. In the beard, which first received the ointment flowing from the head, are signified the apostles and martyrs, in whom the power of the head stands out both by sacrament and by example. (vv. 2–3) "Which ran down to the hem of his garment; like the dew of Hermon, which comes down upon Mount Zion." The coming down of the dew signifies heavenly grace, which is the origin of the saints' merits. And Hermon is said to be interpreted "exalted river," which is understood as Jesus Christ, who, "ascending on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men." For from him the rain of spiritual gifts comes into Zion, that is, into the church; and from the whole framework arises the fruit of blessings and the strength of virtues. "For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, and life for evermore." The grace of the dew of Hermon comes down there where the sharing of blessing is had through the unity of love. For those dwell in unity who live in harmony in Christ, and who, in loving not only their brothers but also their enemies, keep the precept by which they are commanded to pray for their persecutors; since the Lord died for his enemies, who makes partakers of eternity those whom he has had as imitators of his love.

(v. 1) "Behold, now bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God." Now, he says, that is, in this time of tribulations and distresses, in the time of persecutions and tears, bless the Lord, all you who with one heart and one spirit remain in the confession and praise of the Lord; standing, that is, persevering in the breadth of faith, hope, and love. (v. 2) "In the nights lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord." In the adversities, he says, which darken the day of this life, do not lose heart, but lift up your hands in the work of holiness, so that the blessings which are uttered with the voice may be seen in the devoutness of your way of life. (v. 3) "May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth." He exhorted many to bless the Lord, and he himself blesses one, because out of many he has made one: so that the whole church, whose body is one and soul one, may receive the blessing as one man.

(vv. 1–2) "Praise the name of the Lord; praise the Lord, you servants, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God." A good and useful exhortation, by which the Lord's servants are roused to his praise; though God certainly does not need this, whose glory can be neither less nor greater than itself. But since those who praise make progress by such a duty, and learn to fear and love him whom they praise, let faithful devotion persist in confessing the divine powers, so that the observance of custom may become a sacrifice of the will. What the preachers of God ought to be is shown next, when it is said, "who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God"; that is, you who remain untiring in God's precepts, by the very fact that you stand in the Lord's house, give thanks to him who loosed the fettered, enlightened the blind, raised up the crushed, and gave you the spirit of understanding to kindle you to love and praise him. (v. 3) "Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing psalms to his name, for it is sweet." The praise of the Lord can be signified neither more richly nor more fully than when he is called good. But this is to be understood not along with other good things, which exist only through him, but singularly above all things; for it is one thing to be the good that makes all good things and has no author of itself, another to be that which could not be unless it were made. Hence it is said, "No one is good but God alone." Nor is there any creature comparable to the Creator; if it has anything good, it is not its own but received. So this supreme and unchangeable good imparts to those who praise him a share in his sweetness, by the fact that the Son of God, equal to the Father, became the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For he, insofar as the Word became flesh, is the bread of men; who by coming down to us, through us, made for us an ascent to himself through himself, and by drinking the cup of our weakness made us taste the cup of his power, so that we might acknowledge and confess that the Lord is sweet. (v. 4) "For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own possession." The whole sweetness of God's goodness is shown in his grace, because the Lord chose Jacob for himself and made Israel his possession, taking out for himself that house which he would more specially choose and adorn. For although he founded all nations, he did not entrust this one to angels like another, but assigned it properly to his own name, so arranging the sacrament of his calling that the election of Israel should pertain to the salvation of all nations, to the sons of the promise, who would come into the eternal inheritance not by descent of the flesh but by the adoption of regeneration. (v. 5) "For I have known that the Lord is great, and our God is above all gods." Prophetic contemplation sees the higher secrets of God's works. I, he says, have known how great God is, and that his purpose and counsel are unfolded by no speech. But since the Almighty excels above every power, and there is no nature above which its Creator does not stand out, let some of the things made be mentioned, through which the wonders of the Maker may be understood. (v. 6) "All things whatever the Lord willed he has done, in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in all the depths." Whatever creatures there are in heaven and on earth, in the sea and in the depths, God made; nor is there any nature or substance that did not come to be by his command. And in creating the universe of things and forms there was no working of labour, but the reason of his will, which no time went before and no effect was delayed. Let man, recognizing this power by considering the whole world, confess that when anything good springs up in the field of his heart, it comes from the work and gift of the heavenly farmer, who deigns to restore by grace what he established by nature and what was corrupted by disobedience. (v. 7) "Raising clouds from the end of the earth, he makes lightnings for the rain; who brings forth the winds from his treasuries." All these things are done in the whole body of the world by God's nod and God's will; they are certainly to be praised with much wonder, and in them we must understand what God works in men themselves, whom he made and remade in his image and likeness. (v. 8) "Who struck the firstborn of Egypt, from man to beast." The firstborn of men are the beginnings of a good and approved life, which takes its start from faith. When, then, some Christians stir up schisms or heresies and attack the church of God with whatever afflictions they can, they become Egyptians, whose name is interpreted "affliction" of God's people; and they are struck in their firstborn, that is, in their faith, which is extinguished when it falls away from the love of the church. This most grievous plague falls on men. The beasts too are struck: that is, both those who bear the appearance of wise and learned men, and those who for their foolishness and ignorance can be compared to beasts. (v. 9) "He sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, upon Pharaoh and all his servants." The names of those on whom the Lord pours out his anger have no good meaning. For Pharaoh signifies "scattering," and Egypt "affliction." Affliction has scattering as its king, because those who afflict the church afflict it scattered, and serve their king first by their own overthrow. (vv. 10–11) "Who struck many nations and killed mighty kings: Sihon king of the Amorites, and Og king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan." The killings of the kings and nations that opposed God's people were indeed fulfilled as they are told. But since the text of the history is prophetic, the qualities of the names written are not without figures, so that the church may learn through the meaning of their interpretations by the slaughter of which enemies above all it is saved. For Sihon is interpreted "temptation of the eyes," and the Amorites "those who embitter." Since, then, temptation of the eyes is nothing but falsehood, which, to creep in more easily, takes on the colour of truth, what wonder if those who embitter are led by the pretence of a lying king? For the devil himself, the father of lies, transforms himself into an angel of light, and the temptation of the eyes makes those whom it deceives opposed to the truth. But these men are spiritually killed when they die to the devil so as to live to God, and those who had believed a lie believe the truth instead. And the hand of God, because it brings about both cuttings down and givings of life, destroys Og the king and Bashan his people. For Og is interpreted "shutting in," and Bashan "confusion." Such a shutting in closes the way that leads to the Lord and leads those cut off to confusion; and it now shuts in the wicked, so that they do not believe in Christ; when Christ appears, they will be confounded, unless they are changed now by converting grace. And Canaan is interpreted "prepared for humiliation." This humiliation is to be understood as the penal one prepared for the proud, who are now set not in humility but in exaltation, and are destined beforehand for what must be repaid to vanity. (v. 12) "And he gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to Israel his people." This happens daily: for what some lose by their own deserts, others acquire by the gift of grace. "For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his possession"; and it is said to the one who has, "Hold fast what you have, so that no one may take your crown." (v. 13) "O Lord, your name is for ever, and your memorial from generation to generation." That is, the wonders of your powers will not cease, and what you have done by signifying you will do unceasingly by fulfilling. And the memorial of the Lord is understood in this, that he does not forget his promises but accomplishes entirely what he has pledged; and this happens from generation to generation, because one generation of men is that by which they are born to the world, another that by which they are reborn to God. But in both, under the most high judgment of God, the work both of nature and of grace is fulfilled. (v. 14) "For the Lord will judge his people, and he will be entreated in his servants." Apart from the future judgment, the people of the Jews has already been judged. What is "judged"? The righteous were separated from it, and the unrighteous remained. Hear the Lord saying, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." For the proud were blinded, the humble enlightened; and in this one people, which is called generally both Jacob and Israel (for the house of Jacob and the house of Israel are one person, one nation, one people), he invites this part and dismisses that, separating the meek from the fierce, believers from unbelievers. So the Lord will be entreated in his servants, that is, called upon or prevailed upon; and in all nations there will be men of Israelite dignity, while the Jews in the greatest part of themselves will be ungodly and enemies of the truth. But since the spiritual Jacob is taken from every nation, the blindness of unbelief is laid as a reproach on the worshippers of idols. (v. 15) "The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of men's hands." All, of whatever nation, who do not know the true God and resist the gospel of Christ are worshippers of idols; and when they fabricate doctrines of falsehoods in their hearts, what they have fashioned is an idol; and if they have fortified anything by reasoning, it seems to be of silver or gold, being so coloured by the arguments and eloquence of human wisdom that it wins reverence for itself by the art of its lies. In such figments, then, are the works of men's hands, which human error has devised, not the teaching of truth established. (vv. 16–18) "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 work; they have feet and will not walk. They will not cry out in their throat, for there is no breath in their mouth. Let those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them." Properly these things seem to be said of the pagans; but they also include the heretics, who, clinging to falsehoods and following the ungodly inventions of men, have lost all the functions of rational life. For what is it to have eyes and not see, but to live in the night of errors? To have ears, and to disobey the divine teaching? To have nostrils, and not take in the good fragrance of Christ? To have feet, and not follow the grace that calls? To have a tongue, and not speak the truth? To have hands, and be without the work of righteousness? For "everything that is not from faith is sin." The liars, then, will be conformed to the lie, and will be confounded with the master in whom they trust. And yet from among them people are daily changed by God's miracles: daily the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf are opened, the nostrils of the senseless are breathed into, the mouths of the dumb are loosed, the hands of the paralysed become working hands, the feet of the lame are made straight, sons of Abraham are raised up from stones; to all of whom together let it be said: (vv. 19–20) "House of Israel, bless the Lord; house of Aaron, bless the Lord; house of Levi, bless the Lord": for all these ranks which one nation had, the whole world has come to hold through the same faith by which that nation was justified, and Abraham, the father of believers, is now found in all nations. (vv. 20–21) "You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord from Zion, who dwells in Jerusalem." God's dwelling is not that Jerusalem which fell; it is in the hearts of the faithful and the saints, from whom God's eternal temple is built, together with the angels, who have never departed from the Lord. So the church blesses the Lord from Zion, that is, from the watchtower, from which it looks ahead to God's promises that are to come in Jerusalem, that is, in the vision of peace, where there will be no more danger of weakness and no adversity from the tempter.

(v. 1) "Confess to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy is for ever." This psalm contains the praise of God, and it ends in the same way in all its verses, so that whatever works of God it runs through are understood to have been done in order that the eternity of his goodness and mercy might be made manifest. For although after the judgment, in which at the end of the age the living and the dead are to be judged, the righteous being sent into eternal life and the ungodly into eternal burning, there will be no more who are to be saved by the dispensation of divine grace, yet his mercy can rightly be understood to be for ever, which he bestows on his saints and faithful; for the blessedness which they will obtain by God's mercy will be struck by no temptation, but will remain unchangeable in eternal peace and glory. Since this work of ineffable kindness was in God's everlasting purpose and counsel, that eternal things should be prepared beforehand through temporal ones, the making of the whole world and of the elements is wonderfully said to have been established for the sake of this mercy, so that the order of all things might serve for its accomplishment. (vv. 2–3) "Confess to the God of gods, for his mercy is for ever. Confess to the Lord of lords, for his mercy is for ever." When the name "gods" is found used in a good sense, it is to be understood according to grace, not according to nature, as the apostle says, "For although there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we through him." Those, then, who are sons of God and through the sacrament of adoption are partakers of the divine nature have the gift of this name, because they serve the one God and minister to the one Lord in willing subjection. But the gods of the nations are demons; and since they rejoice to be worshipped by those who err, they will be condemned to the eternal fire with their worshippers. (v. 4) "Who alone does great wonders, for his mercy is for ever." Those wonders can be taken as done by God alone which were accomplished neither through angels nor through men, but by God's power working alone. For although he himself works all things in all, yet he alone established the natures of all creatures, heaven and the heavenly things, earth and sea, with all that is in them. Not that the Father did anything without his Son the Word or the Holy Spirit, but because the Trinity is one God, who made creatures not through a creature but by the power of the Godhead alone. And what is said second, "for his mercy is for ever," is to be referred to the restoration of the human race, which the mercy of God restores to eternal life through the sacrament of regeneration. (v. 5) "Who made the heavens in understanding, for his mercy is for ever." The heavens were made in understanding, to instruct that creature which was destined beforehand to know its author. For, as the apostle says, "the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are understood and seen through the things that are made, his eternal power also and divinity"; and this same prophet says, "The heavens tell the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands": because the beauty of the invisible majesty, the incorporeal Creator, is recognized even through the bodily creation. (v. 6) "Who made the earth firm upon the waters, for his mercy is for ever." It is well understood that the earth is founded upon the waters, in that it rises above the waters that flow around it, and the nature of moisture is so found even in the lowest parts that a solid element is set beneath it. But according to the sacrament of the church, which is celebrated through the whole world in the washing of regeneration, this is more sacredly taken as said of the preparation of baptism, upon which the earth of human nature is founded, so that the whole structure of the eternal temple may rise from the waters. (v. 7) "Who alone made great lights, for his mercy is for ever." He added "alone" here because the other wonders he is going to tell he did through men or through angels. (vv. 8–9) "The sun to rule the day, the moon and stars to rule the night." The brightness of the sun is powerful by day, that of the moon and stars by night. But besides the usefulness they provide to the world by their alternations, and besides the beauty by which the adornment of the whole world is increased, they give a meaning of spiritual graces. For the chief light of faithful hearts is wisdom, coming from the very sun of righteousness; the second light is knowledge, which gives a kind of lunar comfort in the darkness of the road of this age; and then the gifts of many spiritual graces are rightly compared to the fires of the stars, so that heavenly help may never be lacking to those who walk on a difficult road. (v. 10) "Who struck Egypt with their firstborn." There is no part of the world which the sword of truth does not strike, so that all the chief things may be subjected to Christ. (v. 11) "Who brought Israel out of their midst." Daily the saints are rescued from the wicked and from adverse tribulations. (v. 12) "With a mighty hand and an uplifted arm." What is mightier than he of whom it was said, "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" (v. 13) "Who divided the Red Sea into parts." By the dividing of the Red Sea is signified the baptism of Christ, in which divisions are made, so that one and the same thing is for some unto life, for others unto death: unto life for the faithful, unto death for the persecutors. (v. 14) "And brought Israel out through its midst." And the Lord brings out his people renewed through the washing of regeneration. (v. 15) "And shook off Pharaoh and his host into the Red Sea." The king of sin perishes in the waters, and guilt is shaken off from the baptized. (v. 16) "Who led his people through the desert." He leads us too through the dryness and barrenness of this world, so that we may not perish in it. (vv. 17–18) "Who struck great kings and killed mighty kings." He strikes and kills, even through us, the devilish and harmful powers, as often as he gives the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (v. 19) "Sihon king of the Amorites." A useless seed, which is what Sihon is interpreted, and the king of the Amorites, which is interpreted "those who embitter," the Lord strikes through his church. (v. 20) "And Og," the one heaping up, "of Bashan," that is, of confusion: for what does the devil heap up but confusion? (vv. 21–22) "And he gave their land as an inheritance, an inheritance to Israel his people." He gives also those whom the devil possessed as an inheritance to the seed of Abraham, which is Christ. (vv. 23–24) "For in our humiliation he remembered us, and redeemed us from our enemies." He redeemed us with the blood of his only-begotten. (v. 25) "Who gives food to all flesh." This is the food of which the Lord says, "My flesh is true food," which is given to all nations; for none of the reborn faithful is excluded from eating it. (vv. 26–27) "Confess to the Lord of heaven; confess to the Lord of lords, for his mercy is for ever." What he says here, "to the Lord of heaven," he seems to have said above, "to the God of gods"; and what he added there he also joined here, "Confess to the Lord of lords": so that, if there are so-called gods and lords, whether in heaven or on earth, yet for us there may be one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him, to whom we confess, for his mercy is for ever.

(v. 1) "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion." The prophecy of the psalm announces not only what properly pertained to the people of Israel according to the order of events, but also what is done and fulfilled in the whole church of God, which is in the whole world. For all the faithful who are citizens of Jerusalem and are on pilgrimage in this age fittingly and suitably use these words, so as to say what the words of the psalm pronounce. For those who have been justified by faith and saved in hope long for the heavenly and angelic homeland, remembering God's promise; they weep and groan over their earthly dwelling, which in every part of it is Babylon; and its rivers are all the temporal enticements, whether in conduct or in opinions, which each has chosen for himself, in which nothing is stable, nothing firm, but all is fluid and leads into the depths of the sea. But those who set their mind on the things above, not on the things on earth, sit indeed by its rivers and torrents, yet they are not swept along by the course of the gliding waters, nor mixed with the confusion that Babylon is interpreted to mean; but remembering Zion, which is rendered "watchtower," they look toward what God has promised and advance from temporal things to eternal ones. (v. 2) "On the willows in its midst we hung our instruments." The citizens of Jerusalem have their instruments: the Scriptures of God, his precepts and promises, and a kind of meditation on the age to come; but when they are in the midst of Babylon, they hang their instruments on its willows. The trees of Babylon, watered by its rivers and bearing no fruit, bear the likeness of barren men who feed on worldly enticements and are fruitful in no virtue: no seeds of the divine Scriptures can be planted in them, because they are not capable of God's precepts; and rightly what they cannot hear because of their folly is hung up in them by being deferred. (v. 3) "For there those who led us captive asked us for the words of songs; and those who carried us off said, Sing us a hymn from the songs of Zion." All of us men were taken captive by the devil through the first transgression, for "everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin"; but from this captivity Jesus Christ redeemed us by his blood. That part, then, which willingly serves its captors and delights in what pleases the enemies, offers itself as a servant for attacking the redeemed; and through it the devil carries out whatever he dares against the saints, so that he is rightly said to do what he does through men subject to him. So pagans, and the ungodly followers of whatever doctrines, ask Christians what is the reason of our religion, what the use of faith in Christ, or what its fruit; and their questioning does not wish to learn the truth but to disturb the hearts of believers. Hence from the ears of such people the instruments are to be hung up, and the sacraments of our songs and hymns are not to be laid open, lest what is holy be given to dogs and pearls be thrown before swine. So to those who wish to build their slanders out of the confession of our faith, the answer is what the psalm says: (v. 4) "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" A man given over to the flesh, given over to the world, serving vanities, full of errors, is a foreign land, in which the sacred seeds, which are the divine words of the song, cannot be sown; for the divine praise is not fittingly celebrated except in Zion, that is, in the church. So, lest through the contagion of foreigners some forgetfulness of the heavenly homeland creep in, faith must be confirmed by a kind of oath, and one must say: (v. 5) "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget me." Our right hand is eternal life, the left is temporal life: the one full of the hope of blessedness, the other full of the danger of perdition. Whatever is done for the sake of eternal life, the right hand works; but whatever is fitted or done for the sake of passing joys is of the left; and the right hand comes into forgetfulness of the left when love and habit of virtue have prevailed. To those, then, who depart from the love of Jerusalem it happens that their right hand forgets them. For eternal life remains in itself; but they remain in deadly delight, embracing evil for good, false for true, left for right. (v. 6) "Let my tongue cleave to my throat if I do not remember you, and if I do not set Jerusalem at the beginning of my joy." Let me be struck dumb, he says, if I do not remember. For what does he speak, or what does he sound, who does not sound the songs of Zion in praise? The speech of our tongue is the song of Jerusalem. But a mouth that speaks carnal things and sings worldly things is dumb and stopped up, because it delights in that by which it is confounded. So the true lover and citizen of Jerusalem binds himself by this law, to undergo the condemnation of this penalty if he does not set the love of the heavenly homeland before all pleasures. (v. 7) "Remember, O Lord, the sons of Edom in the day of Jerusalem." The Israelite, set among foreigners, prays the Lord to remember that there can be no concord between the sons of Edom, that is, of Esau, and the sons of Jacob; and that those enmities remain which the struggle of the unborn twins in their mother's womb already signified, and which the foreknowledge of the Creator afterward so distinguished as to say, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Hence all the sons of the promise bear the person of Jacob, while by the name of Esau the whole part of the unbelievers is figured. He asks, then, that God remember how Esau rose up against Jacob; and remember also the day of Jerusalem's labours, in which it bears the pride of the ungodly; or the day of its happiness, in which it is daily rescued from the slavery of captivity and led to the true goods of the eternal homeland. "Who said, Empty it, empty it, even to its foundation." No devastation of any kind satisfies the persecutors of God's people unless they overthrow, by savage emptying, even the faith which is the foundation of the holy building. (v. 8) "Wretched daughter of Babylon." She is the same as Babylon, which in its offspring is both mother and daughter: mother by begetting, daughter by succeeding. Unhappy indeed and wretched, which is both begotten and begets for perdition. (vv. 8–9) "Blessed is he who will repay you the repayment which you repaid us. Blessed is he who will take and dash your little ones against the rock." We were all begotten in Babylon by our first birth, and from that very carnal beginning worldly confusion received us as little ones; and this age did nothing else with us than entangle us in various errors through diverse opinions and devilish arts. But from this general evil the grace of God rescues countless people, and while they still linger among the delights of Babylon it already counts them among the citizens of Jerusalem. He who is blessed and makes blessed rescues them from darkness and from the power of darkness, so that they may be sons of light and of the kingdom; dashed against the rock, Christ, so that by dying to the world they may live to God: cast down and raised up, destroyed and built up, ground to dust, and made firm on the rock, the rock restoring them.

(v. 1) "I will confess to you, O Lord, with my whole heart, for you have heard all the words of my mouth." The psalm's title, under the name of David, signifies him who is of the seed of David according to the flesh, to whom the prophetic confession is directed, a confession of divine praise, not of human iniquity. For the word "confession" usually indicates the confession of a penitent; but here the rejoicing of one who praises is shown, which is brought forth with the whole heart because no other affection is joined to it; and therefore the words of his mouth were heard. Of what mouth, but that of the heart, from which the words themselves take their beginning? There the voice of the mind is heard by the ears of God. (vv. 1–2) "In the sight of the angels I will sing psalms to you. I will worship toward your holy temple, and I will confess to your name, for your mercy and your truth." If we sing psalms to God spiritually in true exultation of heart, we sing before the angels, because we set our minds not on earthly but on heavenly things, the duty of devotion in which the blessedness of the angels excels. For carnal desires sing psalms only before men, whose minds do not rise above earthly things and who cannot share in the joys of the saints; for they do not worship toward God's holy temple, which is Jerusalem, at once both mother and daughter: mother in the angels, daughter in men, to whom it is said, "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." And religious confession proclaims God's truth and mercy: truth in judging, mercy in helping. For there are no other ways by which he comes to us, or others by which he carries us to himself. "For you have magnified your holy name above us." The Lord has magnified his holy name over all: over Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, over the twelve tribes of Israel, whom he rescued from the yoke of slavery and brought into the land of promise; and over all the nations, from which, as from stones, he daily raises up sons of Abraham, so that at the name of the Lord Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. (v. 3) "On whatever day I call upon you, hear me quickly." Why quickly? Because you yourself have said, "While you are still speaking, I will say, Here I am." Why quickly? Because I do not reach toward different things, nor covet superfluous things; but I desire to be granted what you have taught me to ask. "You will multiply me in my soul in much power." The wish is expressed according to desire and cleansed of every carnal greed. If he had said only, "You will multiply me," it could have seemed some earthly conception; but since he added "in power" [or "in righteousness"], nothing can be asked more fully and perfectly, because the supreme good is signified by the name of virtue. (v. 4) "Let all the kings of the earth confess to you, O Lord, for they have heard all the words of your mouth." Everywhere the gospel will be preached, everywhere the apostolic teaching will be learned. For their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. Let all the kings of the earth confess to you, then, O Lord; and since they have no need to desire anything higher, let them praise you for the eminence you have given them, because it can no longer be hidden from them that their sceptres are your gifts. (v. 5) "And let them sing in the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord." In what ways, but those of which it is said, "All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth"? So that, since all God's works are accomplished in these, no one may glory except in his glory. (v. 6) "For the Lord is high, and he looks upon lowly things, and the lofty he knows from afar." Both the humble and the proud are under the Lord's eyes. But the humble he sees close at hand, because he pleases him; the proud he recognizes from afar, because he displeases him; and although he is near to those who are troubled in heart, yet salvation is far from sinners. (v. 7) "If I walk in the midst of tribulation, you will give me life." If, he says, I do not love present things, and if, heading toward your promises, I do not cling to earthly enticements, you will give me life and hear me quickly; for temporal things will bring tribulation to me, whom eternal hope invites. "Over the anger of my enemies you have stretched out your hand, and your right hand has saved me." The protection of your arm, he says, has defended me from my enemies; and your right hand, which has freed me from all things on the left, has brought it about that I am not overcome by adversities. (v. 8) "O Lord, repay for me." I, he says, am a debtor, and by the condition of my own debt I cannot be free; you, Lord, who owe nothing, will repay for me; you who by dying kill death, paying what is mine so that I may follow what is yours. "O Lord, your mercy is for ever; do not despise the works of your hands." I seek, he says, that mercy by which you rescue from temporal things and lead to eternal ones, O Lord. "Do not despise the works of your hands": for whether in that we are men, or in that we have been changed from our ungodliness and justified, we are the works of your hands, by which you both create and renew us.

(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.

(v. 2) "With my voice I have cried to the Lord; with my voice I have made supplication to the Lord." What he said, "I have cried," he explained by saying, "I have made supplication with my voice," that is, with inner affection, with the voice not of the body but of the mind. (v. 3) "I pour out my prayer in his sight": that is, in the secret of the heart, which God alone hears and sees, in which chamber, with the door shut, we are commanded to pray, so that our inner recesses may not lie open to the tempter. For there are two things by which a man's inner parts are chiefly struck, namely love and fear; by these twin movements the mind is either opened or shut. But when what it desires or fears is earthly, it offers the devil an entrance; but when it sets its mind on the things above, not on the things on earth, God is received and the tempter shut out. "I declare my tribulation before him." What was said, "in his sight," is the same as "before him"; but the repetition shows how unceasingly he does this, and how he does nothing without God, who professes that he always has him both as helper and as witness. (v. 4) "When my spirit fails within me." It is the confession of humility, by which he becomes strong who does not fail in tribulation. For he would be overcome who did not confess that his spirit was weak; for he is led by the Spirit of God who is not puffed up by his own spirit. "And you have known my paths." Where my desire is heading, he says, and to what end all my actions hasten, does not escape your knowledge, because you know that my paths are your mercies. And God's knowing is the salvation of the one known; for he does not know the one in whom he does not find his works and gifts. "In this way in which I was walking they have hidden snares for me." The way of all the saints is Christ, in whom those who wish to live devoutly suffer persecution. For the cross of Christ is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the gentiles folly. Those, then, who oppose Christ think that they are putting a stumbling block in the way when they reproach Christians with the name of the Crucified. But since they do not frighten the steps of the faithful away from his gospel, they can place no snares in the way; for falsehood does not lie hidden in truth, nor can darkness hide in light. It is said, then, according to the mind of those who lie in wait, that they hid snares in the way; besetting everything near it with their frauds, they could harm no one walking along the way. (v. 5) "I looked to the right and saw, and there was no one who knew me." The things on the right are those that are God's and lead to God's promises, from which the mind of one who endures persecution is not turned away. Looking at these things that are on the right, then, he sees and receives the rewards promised to those who persevere: he attains perseverance in endurance and the love of God, so as not to be overcome. Yet no one knows this intention, because it is impossible for man to look into the recesses of another's heart; hence he had rightly said to God, "You have known my paths." "Flight has perished from me, and there is no one who seeks after my soul." Shut in by persecutors, he lost the freedom of flight, which he could have used without sin, if, his faith remaining, he had withdrawn his limbs from punishments; but since it is in the purpose of his mind to fear falling more than punishment, flight has perished from him who prefers to endure every savagery rather than give way. And with respect to the multitude of persecutors he said there was no one who seeks after his soul, because, apart from the gift of God, no human consolation can confer on anyone this protection, that his faith may remain unharmed amid pressing evils. (v. 6) "I cried to you, O Lord; I said, You are my hope, my portion in the land of the living." He shows how he endured the greatness of tribulations: namely, that both here God is his whole hope, and in the future God is his whole reward, who will be all in all. (v. 7) "Attend to my supplication, for I have been humbled exceedingly. Rescue me from those who persecute me." Exceeding humiliation, exceeding persecution, whose force only the protection of God overcomes. He can indeed grant the saints that their adversaries have no power over them, but more wonderfully he grants that they overcome every suffering. And in the persecutors we must beware not only of human hatreds but much more of the enmities of evil spirits, who secretly attack God's righteous through the work of their ministers; of whom the apostle says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of this world, of this darkness." And what ruler have the wicked but the devil, as the faithful have none but Christ? "How they have grown strong over me!" It is the voice of the church complaining that the number of the ungodly has grown greatly, that iniquity abounds and the love of many grows cold. (v. 8) "Bring my soul out of prison, to confess your name." All straits and enclosures of troubles make a prison, because they confine the soul and take away its freedom; but the very dwelling in the body can be understood as a prison: not because what God made is evil, for he made all things good; but the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul. He wishes his soul to be brought out not from the body but from the corruption of the body, so that no necessity of mortality may hinder the confession of God's praise. "The righteous wait for me, until you repay me." The whole psalm is concluded with the voice of the head himself, to whom is also attributed what his members suffer, and in whom the whole church will be glorified, which waits for the author of the blessed repayments, who says to the Father, "I will that where I am they also may be with me."

(v. 1) "O Lord, hear my prayer; give ear to my supplication in your truth; hear me in your righteousness." The title of the psalm indicates the passion of Christ; for he is the true David, who in himself and in his own endures persecution from false brothers and false sons. So the head cries to God in the body and the body in the head, that is, the church in Christ and Christ in the church; and when, praying, he asks to be heard in God's righteousness, he expresses the grace of God by a wonderful confession, so that no one may think that his prayer is received in his own righteousness; since if he deserves anything good, it is from God, and the sinner cannot do good unless justified by him who justifies no man except in the forgiveness of sins. (v. 2) "And do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living will be justified in your sight." He quickly showed why he did not wish to compare himself with divine righteousness, and feared to be judged with God: "For no one living will be justified in your sight." How shall I presume on innocence, when I am to be convicted of injustice by you? Or what good of my own shall I claim, who have nothing that you have not given? So I dread to be examined, I fear to be judged; for no one living in this mortal flesh can truly say that he has no contagion of sin, since even the chief rams of Christ's sheep are commanded to pray thus, saying, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." (v. 3) "For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has brought my life low to the earth. They have set me in dark places, like the dead of the world." This is fittingly taken both as said by the body and as said by the head: for both the devil persecuted the soul of Christ, and Judas the soul of his master. And the same devil remains to persecute the body of Christ, nor is Judas lacking, succeeding himself in false brothers. For what does any adversary do with us but try to make us abandon heavenly hope and collapse onto the earth? But we must watch against these, so that we may be able to say, "But our citizenship is in heaven." As for what was said, "They have set me in darkness, like the dead of the world," in whom is this better understood than in the Lord, who alone was free among the dead and was counted with the wicked? since he was the one who could properly and singularly say, "No iniquity has been found in me." (v. 4) "My spirit is in anguish within me." The Lord is recognized, saying, "My soul is sorrowful even to death"; in him we too certainly were, because that sorrow was of our nature, and our old man was crucified together with him. "My heart is troubled within me." This trouble was voluntary, and in him alone the counsel of his mercy remained: for the others withdrew, not understanding the sacrament of great kindness, nor believing that he would rise again who was being subjected to suffering and death. (v. 5) "I remembered the days of old, and I had the eternal years in mind, and I meditated on all your works." This commemoration of the days of old, and recollection of all times, and contemplation of the divine works in them, comes not from the mind of the head but from that of the body. For to the author of all things what was ever not in view, with whom both past things are present and future things are already done? So by the voice of the members the grace of God is proclaimed, and the tongue of the church confesses the works of God's mercy; going over the series of the whole age, it finds nothing that does not subsist by God's providence and goodness, and that all things which were founded by him have been renewed in him and through him, for the old things have passed away; behold, all things have been made new. "I meditated on the works of your hands. And I stretched out my hands to you." My meditation, he says, in which I saw that every good flows from your goodness, and that whatever in us can please your righteousness is your work, has confirmed me in this, that I should set all my hope in you and ask through prayer for the nourishment of your dew. (vv. 6–7) "My soul is to you like land without water. Hear me quickly, O Lord; my spirit has failed." The dryness of my soul, he says, thirsts for you, because it desires to be watered by you; and you have kindled the heat of my heart, so that I ask to be heard quickly. For my spirit has failed, so that your Spirit may fill me; and you have made me poor in spirit, so that you may give me what you have promised to the humble, to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven. "Do not turn your face away from me, or I shall be like those who go down into the pit." When your countenance was turned away from me, I was troubled and became land without water. Since, then, you have aroused desire, give back your sight, lest, your face being turned away from me, I become like those who go down into the pit. And who are these but those of whom it is said, "The sinner, when he has come into the depth of evils, despises," that is, is not converted? Going down into that depth, they fall into the pit of eternal misery, because through stubborn pride they have lost the remedies of confession and repentance. (v. 8) "Make me hear your mercy in the morning, for I have hoped in you." Let the light of your mercy rise in me, he says, and let what I have believed come to pass, so that the hope which was conceived by hearing may be fulfilled. "Make known to me, O Lord, the way in which I should walk." Let your truth be my guide, and let my steps be directed by your grace. "For to you I have lifted up my soul": for I do not presume on myself, but ask you to help me. (v. 9) "Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I have fled to you." He desires to be rescued from those enemies through whom even human hatreds are stirred up, that is, from the devil and his angels, who are the rulers of darkness and the instigators of the ungodly; fleeing from them he takes refuge in the Lord, so as not to follow the example of the old man, who, troubled by a bad conscience, hid himself from the face of the Lord. (v. 10) "Teach me to do your will, for you are my God." Fill me, he says, with the affection of your grace, so that I may both will what I know you will, and there may be nothing in my work other than what is in your will. And I ask this because you are my God, who work all things in all. (vv. 10–11) "Your good Spirit will lead me into the right land. For your name's sake, O Lord, you will give me life in your righteousness." Your good Spirit will rescue me from all error and lead me into the right land, which is the region of the living: not because of my merit but because of your name, for the cause of every gift to me is your mercy. (vv. 11–12) "You will bring my soul out of tribulation, and in your mercy you will destroy my enemies. And you will destroy all who afflict my soul, for I am your servant." How great a dignity and how great a blessedness it is to be God's servant, to whom, with no preceding merit, such great things are granted!

The title of the psalm touches the history of the event in which Goliath, the mighty warrior, is known to have been overcome by the boy David in single combat. But Goliath signifies the devil, and David indicates Christ, who is also understood in his body, that is, the church, because in nothing are the members separated from the head. So the psalm is to be taken in such a way that we know the historical actions to be forms of spiritual things, and refer David's victory, by which he struck down Goliath, to the Lord himself, who is of the seed of David, and to all his members. (v. 1) "Blessed be the Lord my God, who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war." It is the voice of the members of Christ's body, who always need divine help to overcome Goliath, so that, whether in battle or in war, both the hands and the fingers may be trained. For in the hands is signified the fullness of all work; in the fingers a certain division of labours: so that the whole strength pertains to waging the wars, and the various kinds of battles to the parts of the virtues of the mind. Hence the apostle shows with what arms and defences the soldiers of Christ are equipped, saying, "To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing in the one Spirit, to another kinds of tongues, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits. But all these the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each as he wills." With these fingers, then, whether in war or in battle, the body of Christ fights, and lays low every enemy, visible or invisible, by the throwing of the stone, that is, by the solidity of Christ. (v. 2) "My mercy and my refuge, my upholder and my deliverer." Rightly and truly do we say to the Lord, "My mercy," because he not only has mercy on us but also makes us merciful, lest there be judgment without mercy for him who has shown no mercy. And he is a refuge from whom weakness takes restoration and confidence. He is an upholder who grants the fighter not to fall. He is a deliverer who grants that the one fighting is not wounded; therefore he adds and says, "My protector, and in him I have hoped, who subjects my people under me." In the voice of the head it seems to be said, "who subjects my people under me," that is, you subject the church to me through faith. But in the voice of the body it can be understood of any spiritual warrior, who confesses that the rebellious people of desires and the movement of carnal longings has been subjected to the law of his mind by the help of grace. (v. 3) "O Lord, what is man, that you have become known to him; or the son of man, that you value him?" Great is the dignity of man, who was so created by God as to know his author, and was valued so highly that the only-begotten of God spent his blood for his redemption. (v. 4) "Man has become like vanity; his days pass like a shadow." Man, forgetful of his nature, was changed into the likeness of vanity by voluntary transgression: so that he who had been made in eternal things should be in vain things, that is, in things that set and do not remain, and his days should run past like a shadow. For in comparison with eternal things temporal things are vain, and those things are not true which either cease to be or lose what they are. Wonderful, then, is God's goodness and love toward men, that he calls such a one even to know him, and thinks him worthy to redeem at so great a price and lead out of the shadow of vanity. "For he who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also with him give us all things?" (vv. 5–7) "O Lord, bow your heavens and come down; touch the mountains, and they will smoke. Flash forth lightnings and scatter them; send out your arrows and you will throw them into confusion. Send forth your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from many waters." The heavens are the preachers of the truth, telling the glory of God; by their bowing down and their endurance of sufferings the flashing of the gospel becomes known to the world, and the lightnings of miracles illuminate the hearts of believers. The mountains, that is, all the lofty and swollen, when the grace of God touches them, will smoke and will send forth the vapour of a kindled heart with the tears of confession. And God's arrows are God's words, by which the counsel of the proud is scattered, and the unsound are struck so that, well wounded, they may be healed; and this is done by the hand of God sent forth from on high, since the arm of God, which is Christ, became man, and does not abandon the members of his body, and rescues his church from many waters, that is, from unbelieving peoples, whether attacking from outside or lying in wait within. (vv. 7–8) "From the hand of strangers' sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." From what waters does the Lord rescue the lowliness of David, that is, the lowliness of Christ's body, but from the hand of strangers' sons? For all unbelievers are foreigners, and are not counted in the adoption of God's sons; and their mouth speaks vanity, whose tongue is estranged from confessing the truth; and iniquity is their right hand, because they rejoice in what is unjust and delight in crooked things as though they were right. (v. 9) "O God, I will sing a new song to you; on a ten-stringed psaltery I will play to you." The new song is the song of grace, and of the new man, and of the New Testament, which is sung on the ten-stringed instrument, that is, in the ten precepts of the law; for the singing is perfect in love, and love is the fullness of the law. (v. 10) "Who give salvation to kings": that is, because you touch the mountains and they smoke, and, humbled, they submit to you with a confession of amends. "Who redeem David your servant." He does not lack the name of David who is the body of Christ, and who has the contest against Goliath. (v. 11) "Rescue me from the malignant sword." It was not enough for him to say "from the sword" without adding "malignant," because there is without doubt also a benign one, of which the Lord says, "I came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword." That one is malignant, then, which separates from Christ; that one benign which cuts off from the world. "And rescue me from the hand of strangers' sons," who, namely, use the malignant sword. For "the sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." The strangers' sons, then, are themselves the malignant sword, they are the many waters; and so he adds the same words he had said before, to show more openly of whom he is speaking, saying: "whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." What vanity, then, the strangers' sons speak, and what their right hand of iniquity is, what follows shows. (vv. 12–14) "Whose sons are like new plants, made firm from their youth; their daughters adorned and decked like the likeness of a temple; their storehouses full, overflowing from this to that; their sheep fruitful, abounding in their goings out; their oxen fat. There is no ruin of the wall, nor going out, nor outcry in their streets." This abundance and prosperity is common to the wicked and the good; but by the wicked it is held as the right hand, while by the good it is counted as the left: not because these too are not gifts of God, but because heavenly and eternal things surpass earthly and temporal ones; and as the saints use present things as though not using them, and are having as though not having, so the strangers' sons, who set their right hand in passing goods and slippery happiness, are not reproved for their wealth but blamed for their perverse love of things that can be lost. The vanity and iniquity of their judgment is this, that neither by faith nor by hope nor by love do they set their minds on the things above, but love the lowest and perishable rewards, which they leave and by which they are left. (v. 15) "They have called the people blessed that has these things." Full of vanity, empty of faith, armed with iniquity, and strangers to the lot of the eternal inheritance, they burst out into saying that the people is blessed that has these things. But let the sons of the promise say: "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord."

(v. 1) "I will exalt you, my God, the King, and I will bless your name for ever and for ever and ever." The whole psalm is woven of the praise of God; and since the title of the psalm is headed "A praise of David," he is clearly shown to be proclaimed who according to the Godhead is the Lord and creator of David, and insofar as the Word became flesh is the son of David; and he is not a double person but one Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. His praise, then, which will remain in eternity, must be continued in the present time too; he who in this age is a stranger to this duty will not enter the future joys of God's praise. (v. 2) "Every day I will bless you, and I will praise your name for ever and for ever and ever." There is no doubt that God's praise pertains to the present life as well, since the blessing of God is appointed to be celebrated every day, the variety of changeable things not standing in the way; for whether the day is spent glad over prosperity or sad over adversity, one must never cease from God's praise. For he who is never tempted is never proved; and it is better to be exercised with tribulation than punished with prosperity. (v. 3) "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and of his greatness there is no end." His praise is closed by no end whose greatness has no limit, and in proclaiming whom whatever the one praising can think is not enough. He, then, who is always greater than all praise, let him be praised without end. From this very thing let man receive the hope of his own eternity, for he who does not cease to praise the Lord will never not be. (v. 4) "Generation and generation will praise your works, and they will proclaim your power." The repeated "generation" signifies the whole human race, which from its beginning to its end understands by reason the author of the universe through considering creatures; so that from the things it is possible to see, in which there is such great matter for wonder, the things that cannot be seen may be inferred, and he may surpass every gaze of the mind, of whom he thinks too little worthily who thinks that what he understands is enough. But by one generation the first life of mortals can be signified, and by the other generation the resurrection can be taken, because it too is called regeneration, according to what was said, "In the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits in his majesty." He is praised, then, in this age, and much more will he be praised in the future one. For if the fettered do this now, how will the crowned not do it more? (vv. 5–7) "They will speak the magnificence of the glory of your holiness, and they will tell your wonders. And they will speak of the power of your terrible acts, and they will tell your greatness. They will pour forth the memory of the abundance of your sweetness, and they will exult in your righteousness." The true praisers of God praise all his works and judgments; and they so marvel at all that is made that he who made it is more marvellous, because whatever praiseworthy is found in the creature runs back to the glory of him who works all things in all. Hence his terrible acts too are full of the honour of praise: for he does not only coax, he also threatens. If he did not threaten, there would be no correction. So the ministers of God's sayings will proclaim both his mercy and his justice; and as they will not keep silent about the eternal kingdom, so they will not about the perpetual fire: so that those set on the road that leads to repayment may know what they ought to choose and what to avoid. And how will they tell the greatness of God, which has no end, except because they will always proclaim this, that its end cannot be found? For no one is a more eloquent narrator of things unspeakable than he who confesses that what he speaks of cannot be unfolded. These narrators of your greatness, then, he says, will pour forth the memory of the abundance of your sweetness, because you have not forgotten us and you make us remember you. So sound doctrine pours forth this about the abundance of the divine sweetness, and makes others pour it forth: that all the good may know that they are ruled by God's grace, kept by God's grace, and granted through it the very ability to rejoice in it. (vv. 8–9) "The Lord is merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and of great mercy. The Lord is sweet to all, and his compassions are over all his works." God's mercy and grace, goodness and patience are declared through all things; and let no one despair, let no one presume. For as he is sweet in gentleness, so he is just in punishment; and nothing is lost to his long-suffering, whom the converted experiences as kind and the hardened as severe. For his compassions are over all his works, because in those who will be saved he condemned what was foreign to them. (v. 10) "Let all your works confess you, O Lord, and let your saints bless you." Whatever things are in the universe, from the highest to the lowest, are certainly the works of God. And although only rational and intellectual creatures are moved by the affection of divine praise, yet not in vain are all his works roused to confess God, because nothing is so small and so far removed from sense that the Creator is not wonderful in it: while angels and men confess and praise him, the infinite parts of the world themselves, and the kinds and natures, always speak of their author, and by their usefulness and beauty give boundless matter to those who praise him; and things that are praiseworthy seem to praise, since what they cannot speak they cause not to be kept silent. (vv. 11–12) "They will speak of the glory of your kingdom, and they will tell of your power, to make known to the sons of men your power and the glory of the magnificence of your kingdom." Every form and power and beauty of creation is God's kingdom, because he is the author and Lord of all these different things. But from the things that are seen are distinguished also those that have not yet become known; and it is understood from the beauty of visible things how much those things excel, and in what glory they stand out, which are more specially named the kingdom of God. Hence we say daily, "Your kingdom come"; whose greatness, glory, and beauty no hearts can conceive; but since it is believed as it is promised, it is sought with most certain desire until it comes. (v. 13) "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages, and your dominion in every generation and offspring." The repetition of "generation" indicates both the present age and the future, because the resurrection too is called a generation, which creates the saints into the incorruption of blessed eternity. "The Lord is faithful in his words, and holy in all his works." The Lord has promised many and great things, and has fulfilled some that were believed, and has kept others to be kept: so that the expectation might be secure, to which so many things already fulfilled give strength. (v. 14) "The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are crushed." "The righteous falls seven times and rises again; but the ungodly will be weakened in evils." The saints fall in one way, the unbelievers in another; and mention is now made of those, none of whom is not upheld by the Lord. For they seem in a way to have fallen when they lack all temporal things, and, without honour and poor, are despised by the powerful of the world and counted among all that is cast off. But "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (v. 15) "The eyes of all hope in you, and you give them food in due season." As a good physician knows with what food and at what time a sick man is to be fed, so the Lord restores his servants opportunely with wholesome foods, and discerns with the kindness of ineffable knowledge what suits each: so that the submission of the faithful may profit from all that he has judged must be applied to it, whether harsh or gentle; so that the sick may murmur at nothing, but receive any kind of cure with equanimity from the author of their salvation, saying what the Saviour himself deigned to say for the instruction of our patience: "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. Father, your will be done." (v. 16) "You open your hand and fill every soul with blessing." Whatever of blessing anyone attains comes from God's generosity, because no one would desire it unless he opened the hand of his goodness to arouse the desire itself. (v. 17) "The Lord is just in all his ways, and holy in all his works." "All the ways of the Lord," he says, "are mercy and truth," whether he is more severe with us or milder; for he who even plans scourges chastises in order to spare. (v. 18) "The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth." Many call upon the Lord not in truth, desiring something from him other than himself; from them he is far, because what they desire is different from and remote from his will. But if they desire what the just and good one commands, he is altogether near to those whom he has inspired with these affections; and he does the will of those who fear him, because what was the Lord's will has begun to be the servant's too. (vv. 19–20) "He will do the will of those who fear him, and he will hear their prayers and save them. The Lord guards all who love him, and he will destroy all sinners." What "all sinners" but those who persevere in sins and daily argue against God? But the right-hand part, which has no fellowship with the left, because all God's judgments have always pleased it, professes what it will do for ever, and says, (v. 21) "My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and for ever and ever."

(v. 2) "Praise the Lord, O my soul; I will praise the Lord in my life; I will sing psalms to my God as long as I am." The holy and spiritual soul exhorts itself to praise the Lord: by the more excellent part of itself it rouses the lesser parts within it. For it is not one thing that speaks and another to which it speaks; nor is this the voice of the flesh, which receives both life and sense from the soul, and without the soul can neither will nor not will anything. But since the soul's actions are twofold, and by one duty it is raised to the Lord, by another it bends toward the flesh, if it serves the spirit well, it presides well over the flesh; and through that part of it which clings to God it invites even that which clings to the body to higher affections: so that by rational rule it grants its subjects as much as is enough for health, lest, if it is not subject to God, it be diminished. So the mind, a kind of highest part of the soul, rousing itself in all its efforts, says, "Praise the Lord, O my soul": not because it does not do this as far as it can, but because what it can do in the weakness of the corruptible body is little, it desires to advance to that perfect and eternal praise; and mindful of its present condition, in which it does not find the strength of its desire, it answers how much it will do this by itself, saying, "I will praise the Lord in my life; I will sing psalms to my God as long as I am." For now, although we are strengthened by faith, hope, and love, we are not without tribulations, stumbling blocks, and sorrows; and amid the countless obstacles of mortality we are not filled with the duties of eternal life. For "the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and the earthly dwelling presses down the mind that ponders many things." So in my life, which no sickness weakens and no want makes restless, I will praise the Lord with all my freedom and strength; and "I will sing psalms to my God as long as I am," because, as being will be eternal for me, so my praise in the Lord will be eternal. (v. 3) "Do not trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, in whom there is no salvation." Those who glory in the defence of princes and the protection of men trust in vanity. For God alone is the one from whom salvation is to be hoped; and it is well awaited from him who has no need of anything. For what a son of man is, is briefly shown in what follows. (v. 4) "His spirit will go forth, and he will return to his earth; on that day all their thoughts will perish." Everything, then, that is done in this world is temporal and passing; and no one truly promises another what he cannot provide for himself, for he is mortal: when his spirit has been sent forth and his earthly flesh returns to its earth, whatever he arranged, whatever he thought, perishes. (vv. 5–6) "Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them." Blessed, he says, is the man whose helper is God: not the one whom human ignorance fashions for itself, but the God of Jacob, who made that Jacob Israel, so that by faith and understanding he might see the author of the universe. (v. 6–7) "Who keeps truth for ever, who executes judgment for those who suffer wrong." He has commended God both as to be feared and as to be loved: to be feared, because he has condemned those who do wicked things by his truth; to be loved, because he has crowned by his mercy those who labour for righteousness. (vv. 7–9) "He gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets free the fettered. The Lord makes the blind wise. The Lord raises up the crushed; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord guards the strangers." God's providence indeed establishes and provides nourishment for all living things; but to men it gives not only earthly but also spiritual food, which those receive who desire it, to whom it is said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Such too is the release of the fettered, who will escape the fetters of mortality through the eternity of adoption. Such also is the enlightenment of the blind, who become wise from foolish. Such too is the raising up of the crushed, who, laid low by voluntary humility, are carried up to the height of heavenly things. For the Lord loves the righteous, since he himself is their righteousness; and he guards the strangers, he who makes all nations one in Christ and turns stony hearts into sons of Abraham. (vv. 9–10) "He will take up the orphan and the widow, and he will destroy the way of sinners. The Lord will reign for ever, your God, O Zion, from generation to generation." God indeed helps those orphans who are left undefended when their fathers die, and God protects all widows; but here we better understand those orphans and those widows who have no protection and no consolation in this age, but whose hope is in the Lord their God. The soul, then, which does not trust in temporal goods but is a stranger to this world, longing for the Father above and the mother above, is rightly called an orphan and a widow; for until it sees both its Father and its bridegroom, it now seems far off. And the way of sinners will be destroyed when the doings of all iniquities have failed, and the vanity of those who walk in the broad way is plunged into eternal punishments. And when the wicked rush to this end, what will the city of Zion hear, what will the city of God attain? "Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." For you, O Zion, in the church, will be the eternal kingdom of the Lord your God, and with him reigning you will reign without end.

(v. 1) "Praise the Lord, for a psalm is good; to our God let there be pleasant praise." It is good to praise the Lord, to sing psalms to the glory of God: not only with the voice, which cannot sing unceasingly, but much more with the melody of a rational life, which is to be left off at no time; for in the way of life of God's spiritual servants, whatever is done at home and abroad is his praise, by whose teaching and gift one so lives that no action is not worthy of God's praise, as the apostle says, "Whether you eat or drink or do anything else, do all to the glory of God." Those who do this are never silent from God's praises, and from their good works there is always pleasant praise to God. (v. 2) "The Lord builds up Jerusalem, and he will gather the dispersed of Israel." The construction of Jerusalem, which is built as a city, rises by peace: peace gathers all Israel into the solidity of unity. So the voice ought not to be out of tune with the works, nor the works with the voice; and the praise that is uttered by the voice should be brought forth from a good conscience: for the framework is not firm if, in the duty of praise, the sound of heart and voice is not one. (v. 3) "Who heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds." See how the dispersed of Israel are gathered, so that they may be healed with contrite heart; for God will not despise a contrite and humbled heart; so that humility may heal what pride wounded. And by the binding up of wounds is signified the variety of remedies which the supreme physician applies with mercy and knowledge; for there is not one cure for many bruises. (v. 4) "Who counts the multitude of the stars and calls them all by name." It is not a great thing in God's praises to have the stars of heaven counted, for him by whom the hairs of the head are counted. This is more worthily understood, then, of those stars who in the church of God shine with the example of good conduct and the light of heavenly teaching, to comfort the night of the present time; to whom the apostle says, "In this crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding the word of life." These stars, then, God counts, chosen beforehand for eternal glory and called by name from all nations. For "the Lord knows those who are his"; with them will not be counted those to whom it is said, "Depart from me, workers of iniquity; I do not know you." (v. 5) "Great is the Lord, and great his power, and of his wisdom there is no number." Many things in nature are great, and great is the power of many natures. But in comparison with God nothing is truly called great, nothing truly called mighty; and in him is true greatness and great power. All excellences have their limits, and each nature subsists within the measure set for it; but God by the greatness of his glory exceeds all things, and the almightiness of his wisdom is comprehended by no number. "For from him and through him and in him are all things." (v. 6) "The Lord takes up the meek, but humbles sinners to the ground." None come to the knowledge of God but the humble and meek, who believe even what they do not yet understand and wait for the revelation of hidden things. These the Lord takes up to be taught and makes capable of his teaching, whose desires he has exercised and kindled by enlarging them. But sinners he humbles to the ground: those sinners, namely, who lack meekness for deserving the understanding of the Scriptures and despise as superfluous and vain what they cannot see into. Their stubbornness God sinks into earthly things, when he hands them over to folly, so that those who spurned the grace of illumination may undergo the punishment of blindness. (v. 7) "Sing first to the Lord in confession; sing psalms to our God on the harp." Those who desire understanding of the sacraments must begin from confession, so that, accusing themselves and ascribing their darkness and slowness to themselves, they may receive a ray of the light from above. And let their confession not be idle, but let them sing to God on the harp, that is, in a certain consciousness of good actions: so that the mercy they seek by confessing they may deserve by doing, and what they rightly offer they may rightly divide. (v. 8) "Who covers the heaven with clouds," and comes down to the thirsty earth with the rain of graces. For God obscured the prophetic sayings for this purpose, that the overshadowing might prepare the rain, and the rain both bring forth fruit and cover the clear sky. "Who brings forth grass on the mountains, and herbage for the service of men." The usefulness of the spiritual rain makes fruitful not only the valleys but also the minds. The mountains are understood as all the loftier men of the world, who are often so enriched from above that the heights of the mountains too become fertile from the same source from which the valleys are fruitful. So God's grace brings forth grass on the mountains: and the powerful and rich, having received the seed of love, provide what will benefit the poor, and minister herbage to the service of men, who pay the service of their devotion to God and the church. (v. 9) "He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young of ravens that call upon him." By the name of beasts and cattle is signified the multitude of the people, which is not cheated of necessary food; and while it is a partaker of spiritual things, it becomes a minister of carnal things, so that the apostle's word is fulfilled, "Who tends a flock and does not get some of the milk of the flock?" The dispensation of God's mercy, then, pertains not only to the race of Israel but also to the offspring of all nations. For the fathers who venerated idols bore the figure of ravens, pursuing dead and unclean things; and their young, that is, their sons, call upon the true God and are fed with the nourishment of the Holy Spirit; for, while the parents did not call upon God but remained in their hardness, the descendants believed what antiquity did not know. (vv. 10–11) "He will not take delight in the strength of the horse, nor is the tents of a man his good pleasure. The Lord's good pleasure is upon those who fear him, and in those who hope in his mercy." In the might of the horse is indicated the elation of pride, which is always hateful to God. Lofty and magnificent tents too show the swelling of riches, in which God approves nothing, who resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. For none please him but the meek and the poor in spirit, fearing the Lord in such a way as to hope in his mercy. For that fear is useful which is raised by hope, not that which is sunk by despair.

(v. 12) "Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion." Since the names of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah are set at the head of the psalm's title, who without doubt were taken captive in Babylon with their people, and foresaw the restoration of that city Jerusalem and announced it as it came to pass, the exhortation of the psalm is understood to pertain to the whole church: so that all the citizens and sons of Jerusalem may recognize that in the present life they are bound in a kind of captivity, and may receive consolation from the hope of future freedom. For none of the saints can spend the present time without labours and troubles; and they feel themselves to be in a kind of captivity when, as stumbling blocks arise and discords remain between the spirit and the flesh, they do not do everything they wish and suffer many adversities. Rightly, then, does the prophetic voice exhort Jerusalem itself, in the hope of future goods, to the praise and glory of God, that it may exult in the joys of eternal peace with the holy angels, whose undivided fellowship it attains. (v. 13) "For he has strengthened the bars of your gates." The enclosing of Jerusalem and the strengthening of its bars indicates the security of unchangeable joys, because there will be no entrance for any evil to the good things, nor will any of the righteous fear to be shut out from there. "He has blessed your sons within you." Outside Jerusalem there is no blessing, because no one is sanctified unless he is united to the church, which is the body of Christ. (v. 14) "Who has made your borders peace, and fills you with the fat of wheat." No wars trouble that city, which is fenced by the boundaries of peace; nor does it suffer anything restless, in which nothing is at variance with God's will. And lest the tranquillity of that peace be disturbed by any necessity of want, the fat of unfailing bread is supplied to it, so that the food of righteousness may be in the banquet which was in the desires. "For blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (v. 15) "Who sends forth his word to the earth; his speech runs swiftly." The sending of the Word is the incarnation of Christ; as his gospel runs through all the earth, the calling of all nations takes place, the grace of God going before the faith of believers. Nothing is swifter than the knowledge and works of God, who has both known and made the things that are to be, and with whom things not yet done are already arranged. (v. 16) "Who gives snow like wool; he scatters mist like ashes." These indeed serve to enrich the earth, according to the surface of the letter, since falling snows have the appearance of fleeces, and the dew of mists is scattered just like ash, and the earth grows fat from it. But in these the works of God's grace are perceived more loftily: by the fleeces of snow is figured the calling of the gentiles, which flows together into one to make the garment of Christ, which is the church, and is woven wholly into the selfsame, having neither spot nor wrinkle, but remaining in that purity which shines with eternal glorification, and is in that framework of which it is said, "The Lord clothed with light as with a garment." To signify this belongs the fact that we read that the garment of Christ, transfigured on the mountain, shone like snow. And by the mist is indicated the darkness of ignorance, which takes refuge in the ashes of repentance. For no one can be called righteous before his calling, since the Son of Man did not come to choose the righteous, but to save sinners and the ungodly. (v. 17) "Who sends his crystal like morsels of bread; who will stand before the face of his cold?" Snows long hardened turn into crystal: by this are signified the stony hearts of unbelievers, which, bound by the frost of excessive age, have received no warmth of the Holy Spirit. But the grace of God is so powerful that it makes such aged ice boil with fire from above, and by its breath makes those who had been hardened with crystalline cold grow warm; so that even those who did not know the food of life begin to minister the bread of the word: as was done in the blessed Paul, who, when he was a persecutor of believers, was made a preacher of the gospel. And who will be able to stand whom Christ has not freed from this cold, who came to send fire on the earth and to rouse to the fervour of faith what had grown numb with the frost of unbelief? (v. 18) "He will send forth his word and melt them; his Spirit will blow, and the waters will flow." By the word of gospel preaching the hardness of unbelievers is dissolved, so that what is said elsewhere comes to pass: "He broke open the rock, and waters flowed." And when the Spirit blows, the warmth of love is sent forth, so that rivers water the thirsty land and a spring of water welling up to eternal life arises in dry hearts. (v. 19) "Declaring his word to Jacob, his righteousness and judgments to Israel": giving, namely, understanding to the called and justified; for all the chosen from any nations are called Jacob and Israel; and they learn that all God's judgments are just, and that nothing is done by him for which human ignorance could blame him; for causes for punishment would abound even in the case of the righteous, if he did not temper his justice with mercy. (v. 20) "He has not done so for every nation, and he has not shown them his judgments." God willed that the depth of the riches of his wisdom should be clear to no nation, nor have the secrets of his judgments lain open to any people. But out of all nations there is one nation, one people, which understands that it is freed from eternal perdition not by its own merits but by God's grace; and each of the faithful is a minister of God's mercy, so that what has been done in them may be done also in others, and the whole dispersion may flow together into unity.

(v. 1) "Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights." The people of God, whose citizenship is in heaven and whose hope is in the Lord its God, belonging to the Jerusalem above and already rejoicing in the eternal fellowship of the holy angels, exults in the Spirit of God and kindles the whole creation to the praise of the Creator: not because all things without reason and lacking sense can praise God by their own confession, but because there is nothing in the universe of things, from the highest to the lowest, that does not testify by the fitness of its nature to the power of its author. This whole praise belongs properly to two creatures, namely the angelic and the human, which conceive this affection from considering the whole world, so that the very matter of praise is said to praise God along with those who praise him. Since, then, in this duty the heavenly things hold the first place, rightly it is said first to them that they should glory in the Lord over the excellence of their dignity and beauty. (vv. 2–5) "Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts. Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all stars and light. Praise him, heavens of heavens; and let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord." There is nothing in the heavenly height that is not beautiful and wonderful; and since all things sing together in the praise of their Creator, it is not said by those below to those as if they were idle, that they should rise up in the confession of divine praise; but so that man, inspired, may show that what they do pleases him, and that he delights by the hope of faith in that to which he too is being carried by the exhortations of God's promises. And since the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word of God, he is in no way distinguished from the praise of the Father, the psalm saying, "For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created." For what God says, he says by the Word; and the Word through whom all things were made carries out the command of the one who speaks. (v. 6) "He established them for ever and for ever and ever; he set a precept, and it will not pass away." All things that were created for heavenly blessedness have received this fullness of their office, that they remain in the praise of God; to this work human nature too is joined, for which reason the apostle says, "Set your minds on the things above, not on the things on earth. Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." Well, then, does every spiritual man join himself to the devotion of the heavenly beings and praise the craftsman in considering the whole creation, so that according to his small measure he may already do what he will do without end. (vv. 7–8) "Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all depths; fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, which do his word." By the name of earth are called the things near the earth; and whatever in this cloudy air appears either moist in dew or rain, or icy in snow and hail, or turbulent in storms, or fiery in lightnings, is touched upon by the name of earth and depths. None of these is subject to chance movements, and each serves the laws of him who, as he wills, works from all things and in all things according to the causes of hidden reason. (vv. 9–10) "Mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle, serpents and winged birds." None of these was not made in great wisdom; and so some are touched on, so that the Creator of the universe may be proclaimed in all things. (vv. 11–12) "Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth; young men and maidens, old men with younger ones, let them praise the name of the Lord." In the multitude of men there is diversity of ranks, difference of sexes, and unlikeness of merits; but in God's praises there is one matter for every order and age. For the whole church in Christ is one body, and what any portion does rightly, the whole fullness rightly claims for itself. (vv. 13–14) "For his name alone is exalted. His confession is above heaven and earth, and he has exalted the horn of his people." For he is above all things and the maker of all; and whatever is praiseworthy in the universe is the praise of the one author, which the very beauty of things confesses with its manifold adornment. From him, then, is the honour of his saints, and he exalts them, the horn of his people; for he who conferred great things through nature himself gives greater things through grace. "A hymn for all his saints, for the sons of Israel, a people drawing near to him." A hymn is a song by which God is praised, which all his saints and all the sons of Israel use: not those who glory in vain in their carnal descent, but those who, born through that faith by which Abraham pleased God, are true sons of Israel, drawing near to God through him who is the way, the truth, and the life.

(v. 1) "Sing to the Lord a new song; his praise is in the church of the saints." Those who praise the Lord well sing a new song, living not in the oldness of the flesh but in the newness of the spirit: so that God's praise may be celebrated in the church of the saints, which agrees with itself in faith, conduct, and love; for without this evenness there is no sweetness in the singers, nor is the melody harmonious where faith and life disagree. (v. 2) "Let Israel rejoice in him who made it, and let the sons of Zion exult in their king." Those who are true Israelites are the sons of Zion, or of Jerusalem: for both names belong to one city, which consists of angels and men, tending from a far pilgrimage to the same fellowship through faith, hope, and love. Let him, then, who believes in hope rejoice in hope, because God is the creator, redeemer, and ruler of the new people. (v. 3) "Let them praise his name in the dance; let them sing psalms to him with timbrel and psaltery." By the name of "dance" (chorus) is signified the concord of those who praise, whose voices cannot please unless they are in harmony. So let the rational singing, whose whole melody is in faith and love, disagree neither in conduct nor in confession; but let it make good use of the psaltery and the timbrel, loving God, loving one's neighbour; and on the timbrel and psaltery let the hand sing with the voice, and let what is sung with the mouth be fulfilled in deed. And in the stretching of the timbrel and the strings the crucifying of the flesh is understood, because the more the strings are stretched, the higher they sound. (v. 4) "For the Lord takes pleasure in his people, and he has exalted the meek to salvation." What is so kind as the Lord toward his people, whom he deigns to convert when it has turned away, to take up when it is corrected, to help when it fights, and to crown when it conquers? For he will give exultation to the humble, and the meek are raised by the same thing by which the proud are pressed down. (v. 5) "The saints will exult in glory; they will rejoice on their beds." The exultation of the saints is not in riches, not in honours, nor in any earthly prosperity, but on their beds, that is, in a good conscience, which yet they ascribe not to themselves but to the grace of God; so that they may not be among men pleased with themselves, but among those who glory in Christ. (v. 6) "The exaltations of God in their throats, and two-edged swords in their hands." Giving thanks to God for all their progress, they exalt him and refer to him what they know pleases him, having in their hands the words of God, which is a twice-sharpened sword, effective both to divide carnal affections and to cut away sins. (v. 7) "To execute vengeance on the nations, rebukes on the peoples." The power of the word, by which the hearts of unbelievers are struck, has been given not only to those who preside but to all the disciples of the truth, who can reprove those who err and call back the straying by their rebuke. (v. 8) "To bind their kings in fetters, and their nobles in chains of iron." The mighty of the world, kings and nobles, unless they fear God, whom will they fear? But the gospel of Christ is preached to them, and they are struck with the twice-sharpened sword; judgment is announced to them, and when they hear of the eternal punishments of those on the left they are bound, and from the beginning of love they receive the fetters of wisdom, so that hard precepts may soften the will, and what seemed harsh to those turned away becomes pleasant to the obedient. (v. 9) "To execute on them the judgment that is written: this glory is for all his saints." This is the glory of all the saints: that the whole world be subjected to God and that the divine laws, whose justice is written uniformly everywhere, be served with like observance. For to this end they use the power of the Spirit among all nations, that the new song may be sung everywhere and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father.

(vv. 1–2) "Praise the Lord in his saints." It belongs to the confession of grace to praise the Lord in his saints, by whose sanctification they have it that they are saints. Hence it is said in another psalm, "God is wonderful in his saints," so that whatever virtues and merits are in them may be wholly referred to God's glory. "Praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him in his mighty acts; praise him according to the abundance of his greatness." All these instruments of God's praises are the saints themselves, through whom the manifold sound of a harmonious confession is sent forth to God; and so God is praised in all their duties, because every movement of the singers is animated by his Spirit, whom it proclaims. (v. 3) "Let them praise him, then, with the sound of the trumpet": because of the most excellent declaration of the gospel in Christ. For their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. "Let them praise him with psaltery and harp": from the higher things, namely, and from the lower, as the one who made heaven and earth; so that by the psaltery heavenly things, and by the harp earthly things, may be praised: for that hollow wood over which the stretched strings resound is above in the psaltery and below in the harp. (v. 4) "Let them praise him with timbrel and dance": when, like the timbrel, which is made of dry and stretched hide, the senses of the dumb flesh are fitted to the confession of God, and, like a dance, the fellowship of the singers agrees in every melody, so that nothing different is thought about the one to whom they sing. "Praise him with strings and organ": that is, with any musical instrument that can sound by striking or by blowing. (v. 5) "Let them praise him with well-sounding cymbals": when each is honoured by his neighbour, not by himself. And when it is said, "Praise him with cymbals of jubilation," it is clearly shown that by all the musical works are meant not bodily sounds but the affections of the soul; since no reason would allow that there could be jubilation in cymbals unless the cymbals themselves are transferred to the movements of the soul. For when the mind cannot unfold in words the praises of God it has begun, its wonder becomes like jubilation, which marvels in a sound that is comprehended by no articulation of syllables. Let nothing, then, be thought of outside the saints themselves, to whom the praise of God is enjoined, nor anything base be imagined in spiritual duties. And since to be minded according to the flesh is death, let every spirit praise the Lord. Alleluia.