Exposition of Psalm 118

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1.1–2.2.2 · 2.3.1–2.29.3 · 2.30.1–3.23.2 · 3.24.1–4.8.2 · 4.9.1–5.11.2 · 5.12.1–5.40.2 · 5.41.1–6.26.1 · 6.27.1–7.19.1 · 7.20.1–8.11.2 · 8.12.1–8.38.3 · 8.39.1–8.61.2 · 9.1.1–10.6.2 · 10.7.1–10.33.1 · 10.34.1–11.12.3 · 11.13.1–12.11.1 · 12.12.1–12.38.1 · 12.39.1–13.15.3 · 13.16.1–14.14.5 · 14.15.1–14.39.3 · 14.40.1–15.24.1 · 15.25.1–16.14.3 · 16.15.1–17.1.1 · 17.2.1–18.1.1 · 18.2.1–18.31.2 · 18.32.1–19.18.2 · 19.19.1–20.6.3 · 20.7.1–20.40.3 · 20.41.1–21.14.1 · 21.15.1–22.21.2 · 22.22.1–22.45.1

1. 0.1.1Ambrose introduces Psalm 118 as the chief moral psalm of David, the great teacher of ethics.
2. 0.1.2Psalm 118 stands in the middle of the Psalter like the midday sun among the stars.
3. 0.1.3The psalm is arranged by the Hebrew alphabet so that we may learn the alphabet of living.
4. 0.2.1The eight verses to each letter point to unity and to the purification of the eighth day.
5. 0.2.2The eighth day is the day of resurrection, on which the believer, washed, offers a spiritual sacrifice.
6. 0.2.3Though baptism purifies at once, the newly baptized offer their gift only on the eighth day, after instruction in the sacraments.
7. 0.3.1The title Alleluia means praise of God; Psalms 110 and 111 (Greek numbering) are also alphabetic.
8. 1.1.1Aleph means teaching, so the first eight verses are full of teaching.
9. 1.2.1The psalm puts a good life before knowledge, as Hosea and Psalm 1 also do.
10. 1.3.1Solomon’s three books follow the order moral, natural, mystical, though each contains the others.
11. 1.3.2Proverbs contains mystical sayings, and the Song both mystical and moral ones.
12. 1.4.1Ambrose pictures a long-betrothed virgin who at the bridegroom’s coming at once asks for his kiss.
13. 1.4.2The church, long betrothed, greets Christ’s coming with the bride’s words in the Song.
14. 1.5.1Morally, the bride is human flesh, once vain and corrupt, now longing modestly for Christ’s coming.
15. 1.5.2The flesh longs to be joined to Christ as one spirit and prefers his precepts to every pleasure.
16. 1.5.3From the moral sense of the kiss the bride moves to the mystical sense of the king’s chamber.
17. 1.6.1Christ’s word about cleansing the inside of the cup shows that teaching without a pure life is worthless.
18. 1.6.2God rebukes the sinner who teaches his righteousness.
19. 1.7.1The first verse of the psalm is moral, the second mystical, and both follow a psalm of the passion.
20. 1.7.2Having foreseen the passion and resurrection, the prophet calls blessed those made undefiled in Christ.
21. 1.8.1The undefiled is the one who walks in Christ, the way, and in the law without turning aside.
22. 1.8.2One must walk the way to its end, Christ; Jews stop short and Manichees reject the law, but the true faith goes on.
23. 1.9.1If shame before a human witness can stop a sinner, how much more the thought that angels are everywhere present.
24. 1.9.2All share one nature; keeping God’s commandments, not circumcision, makes the difference.
25. 1.10.1Whoever believed that God and his angels witness every thought would fear to sin even in secret.
26. 1.10.2The secret sinner is like a blind man who thinks he is alone; his own conscience accuses him.
27. 1.11.1Like Elisha’s servant, the reader of the prophets has his eyes opened to see the angels around him.
28. 1.11.2Whoever will not read or hear the prophets shuts his own eyes to the God who knocks at his heart.
29. 1.11.3Those who come to church but ignore the readings blind themselves willingly.
30. 1.12.1The fornicator is never alone: the Father, the Son, and the angels are present.
31. 1.12.2Christ sees the adulterer, who has entered the brothel already in his thoughts.
32. 1.12.3By adultery in the heart, Christ says, a man makes himself a brothel.
33. 1.13.1Even if Christ and the angels looked away, the devil, who led the sinner in, would see and accuse him.
34. 1.13.2The devil who drives men to sin will be blamed by them at the judgment, but, as with Eve, that will not acquit them.
35. 1.14.1Ambrose quotes the next verses: God commands that his commandments be kept exceedingly.
36. 1.14.2Adam fell because he did not keep the commandment exceedingly; so God has since warned us to keep it fully.
37. 1.14.3Not one stroke of the commandments may be neglected; pray that the Lord direct your steps.
38. 1.15.1Since Adam was put to shame by sin, we must keep all the commandments, for breaking one is enough to condemn.
39. 1.16.1In verses 7–8 the psalmist asks to learn God’s judgments, that is, the mysteries.
40. 1.16.2The kiss signifies the Spirit’s coming, and the king’s chamber the passion, by which the church is wedded to Christ.
41. 1.16.3Brought into the chamber, Christ’s body, the church receives the keys to the mysteries.
42. 1.17.1The righteous acts the bride learns are the sacraments of baptism, by which Christ fulfilled all righteousness.
43. 1.17.2Those baptized by John justified God, while the Pharisees rejected God’s counsel.
44. 1.17.3We follow God’s counsel in baptism and, fearing him, shall not be put to shame.
45. 1.18.1God may leave a man for a time to test him, but the psalmist prays not to be utterly forsaken, as Judas was.
46. 1.18.2Job was left only to be tested; Judas was utterly forsaken, but the troubled apostles were comforted.
47. 1.18.3Christ did not forsake the fearful Peter, either at the supper or on the sea.
48. 1.19.1Even the Son said he was forsaken, though the Father was always with him.
49. 1.19.2The Father seemed to forsake the Son by handing him over to death, but did not leave him in hell.
50. 2.1.1Ambrose turns to the second letter, Beth, which he takes to mean confusion.
51. 2.1.2The young man who corrects his way has first erred and now, confused, weighs how to amend his life.
52. 2.1.3The prophet deliberates with the young man and states the question precisely.
53. 2.2.1The answer, keeping God’s words, comes from God; it straightens our crooked paths.
54. 2.2.2Herod, the crooked fox, and those lamented by Jeremiah did not take up the yoke in youth.
55. 2.3.1It is better to take up the yoke in youth than to repent of youth’s sins later.
56. 2.3.2One who takes up the yoke late must long struggle against old habits.
57. 2.4.1He who takes up the yoke in youth sits alone in silence, open to divine revelation, like David and Elijah.
58. 2.5.1The young man sits alone by avoiding bad company and listening to his elders, the prophets, and the apostles.
59. 2.5.2Pythagoras’ five years of silence imitated the prophet’s counsel of silence, for David came earlier.
60. 2.5.3Isaiah too waited to hear what to cry before speaking.
61. 2.6.1Both kinds of young man are praiseworthy; the second gathers in youth what will profit him in old age.
62. 2.6.2Like Mary and John, the young man listens and stores up wisdom.
63. 2.7.1John, called from his nets, is the young man who corrected his way by keeping Christ’s words.
64. 2.7.2Drinking the wine of Christ’s grace, John saw the straight path that alone leads to Christ.
65. 2.8.1John leaning on Jesus’ breast at the supper shows the mysteries of the Song.
66. 2.8.2John’s soul and flesh say “I am dark and beautiful”: dark by sin, beautiful by grace and baptism.
67. 2.9.1The synagogue too says “I am dark and beautiful,” consoled that Christ and the apostles came from her.
68. 2.9.2The synagogue is dark because the sun of righteousness has left her, but hopes he will look on her again.
69. 2.9.3The sun that now shines on the Gentiles can forgive and enlighten the synagogue too.
70. 2.9.4Christ will be reconciled to the synagogue when she repents and opens her windows to his light.
71. 2.10.1The synagogue, made keeper of the vineyard, did not keep her own, which bore thorns.
72. 2.10.2The apostles and prophets opposed the synagogue, which lost Christ, unlike the bride who held him fast.
73. 2.11.1The synagogue asks where Christ feeds because she lost the one she once loved.
74. 2.11.2The synagogue asks Christ, who has gone to the Gentiles, where he dwells at midday, that is, in the church.
75. 2.11.3The synagogue rejected the cross, so Christ is midday only for those who received him as Savior.
76. 2.12.1The synagogue, once first and rich, now must seek Christ as a stranger and proselyte.
77. 2.13.1To know oneself is to know that man is made in God’s image, a rational being who must govern himself.
78. 2.13.2Moses’ “attend to yourself” is older than the Delphic “know yourself.”
79. 2.14.1To know oneself is to confess one’s sins quickly before death leaves no remedy.
80. 2.14.2Descent from Abraham profits nothing without self-knowledge and repentance.
81. 2.14.3Being a daughter of Abraham helps only if faith and conduct match the race.
82. 2.15.1The sinful soul must go out to feed kids by the shepherds’ tents, that is, among the Gentiles.
83. 2.15.2The synagogue will be saved when she joins the church scattered among the nations.
84. 2.16.1Ambrose raises the objection from Proverbs that the ways of a young man cannot be known.
85. 2.16.2Only sinful youthful ways are unknowable; the Lord knows his own and wants each to know himself.
86. 2.17.1The young man who corrects his way is young in years but old in understanding, like Jeremiah.
87. 2.17.2Daniel as a boy had the wisdom of age and convicted the elders.
88. 2.18.1It is possible for the young man to correct his way, but only by keeping God’s words.
89. 2.18.2Keeping God’s words, not age, makes a man fit to be chosen as an elder, as Joshua and Caleb show.
90. 2.19.1Jacob, who took up the yoke in youth, was fed by God with spiritual food.
91. 2.20.1The younger man can also be the Gentile people, who kept God’s words when Israel did not.
92. 2.21.1On verse 10: God drives away only those who deserve it, like the fox in the gospel.
93. 2.21.2God gives to those who seek him wholeheartedly, like Solomon, but the negligent worker is cursed and rightly driven away.
94. 2.22.1Removing a negligent physician is more merciful than keeping him.
95. 2.22.2A good overseer dismisses careless builders and weavers.
96. 2.23.1Those who build, weave, and heal spiritually do a good work.
97. 2.23.2A slack bishop, presbyter, or minister of the altar would do better not to take an office he cannot fulfill.
98. 2.24.1Those driven from God’s commandments are like the slain cast out into tombs.
99. 2.24.2No one is snatched from God’s hand; Jerusalem was cast off, yet God shut all in unbelief to have mercy on all.
100. 2.25.1Some are driven away for a time out of mercy; the lukewarm are judged more severely than the ignorant.
101. 2.25.2Those who read the prophets and did not believe sin more than Gentiles who never heard.
102. 2.25.3Christ warns the lukewarm before he casts them out, so that they may turn.
103. 2.26.1On verse 11: God’s words are to be hidden in the heart, and mysteries not betrayed to the unworthy.
104. 2.26.2Mysteries are betrayed through flattery, greed, boasting, or careless talk.
105. 2.26.3Paul fitted his teaching to his hearers, and Solomon teaches that there is a time to speak.
106. 2.27.1The kingdom of heaven is like hidden treasure.
107. 2.27.2The hidden treasure is the word of Scripture; whoever betrays it, like Hezekiah to the Babylonians, loses his spiritual offspring.
108. 2.28.1Do not reveal the treasures of faith to the faithless; do not throw pearls to swine.
109. 2.28.2Like David and Mary, we should keep God’s word hidden in our hearts.
110. 2.29.1On verse 12: blessing God must be joined to doing his will.
111. 2.29.2The psalmist asks God himself to teach him the hidden meaning of the law’s statutes.
112. 2.29.3The king’s chamber is the secret place of Christ’s knowledge and of the praying soul.
113. 2.30.1On verse 13: how can the psalmist declare God’s judgments when they are unsearchable?
114. 2.30.2Perhaps God’s judgments differ from the judgments of his mouth, or perhaps Christ, one with the Father, speaks here.
115. 2.31.1Scripture does not contradict itself: the unsearchable judgments are not called the judgments of his mouth.
116. 2.31.2God’s hidden judgments are unsearchable; the judgments of his mouth are those spoken by the prophets, though only Christ opens them.
117. 2.32.1On verse 14: the spiritual man delights in God’s testimonies as in all riches.
118. 2.32.2The riches of the Corinthians and David are the threefold wisdom of contemplation, practice, and reason.
119. 2.33.1Bodily delights serve as images of spiritual ones, as in the Song’s likeness of the bride to Pharaoh’s horses.
120. 2.33.2The single mare stands for Pharaoh’s whole cavalry, his mightiest force.
121. 2.33.3Like horses yoked to a chariot, the nations took up Christ’s yoke and bear the church to her bridegroom.
122. 2.34.1The church has many chariots, which the Lord guides with spiritual reins.
123. 2.34.2Aminadab means father of good pleasure; his son Naasson, “serpentine”, points to Christ lifted up like the serpent.
124. 2.35.1The soul and the church are God’s chariots, steered by Christ, the serpent-rod that conquers.
125. 2.36.1On verse 15: exercising oneself in the commandments leads to Christ, the way.
126. 2.37.1On verse 16: we must meditate on God’s righteous acts by doing them.
127. 3.1.1Gimel means retribution, as the first verse shows.
128. 3.2.1On verse 17: one who earlier asked not to be repaid for sins now asks for reward; the psalm may be spoken in Christ’s person.
129. 3.3.1It is not arrogant to ask God for reward; faith may claim it, as Peter’s rebuke for doubting shows.
130. 3.3.2As Paul moved from unworthiness to confidence in his crown, David now asks for the reward of his labors; hope spurs work.
131. 3.4.1Like an athlete seeking the crown, the righteous may ask confidently for their reward.
132. 3.5.1The word “servant” makes the petition humble; the Lord’s servant, bought with his blood, may hope for reward.
133. 3.6.1Christ’s service is freedom; his yoke is an ornament for the neck, not a burden.
134. 3.6.2Christ’s light yoke lifts up the neck it rests on.
135. 3.7.1The gold and silver ornaments of the Song signify the church, tested and proved among the nations.
136. 3.7.2Persecution refines the church like gold until Christ rests his head on her faith.
137. 3.8.1The cluster of the Song is Christ, who bound himself by love to our body, its passions, and the cross.
138. 3.8.2The balsam tree of Engaddi, which gives its fragrance when pierced, figures Christ on the cross.
139. 3.8.3From Christ’s pierced side flowed blood and water, the fragrance of forgiveness and redemption.
140. 3.8.4In a series of paradoxes Ambrose sets the humility of the cross beside Christ’s divine power.
141. 3.9.1Christ calls the church good and beautiful, which means that her sins are forgiven.
142. 3.10.1Whoever confesses his sins to God is justified and need not fear repayment.
143. 3.11.1He says “I shall live” because this present life is full of death.
144. 3.11.2Living among the dead, we are defiled and need cleansing, as the law and the gospel teach.
145. 3.12.1Even the Nazirite who touches the dead must be purified, so we must be too.
146. 3.13.1No one is pure in heart; even one who does not sin in speech is troubled by thoughts the devil sends.
147. 3.13.2Like Isaiah among a people of unclean lips, even the watchful need cleansing.
148. 3.14.1Besides the church’s baptism by water and the Spirit, there is another baptism, of which Christ spoke.
149. 3.14.2There is also the baptism of martyrdom and a baptism of fire at the gate of paradise, the fiery sword set after the fall.
150. 3.15.1Christ alone baptizes with this fire, as John the Baptist foretold.
151. 3.15.2The baptism of fire comes at the end of the age, and even saints like Peter and John pass through it.
152. 3.15.3Christ, the great Baptist, will wave the fiery sword before paradise and bid those without grave sins enter.
153. 3.16.1Ambrose prays that the fire may purify us both now and at the gate of paradise, so that we enter God’s rest.
154. 3.17.1The purifying fire for lesser sins differs from the eternal fire prepared for the devil, in which the rich man burned.
155. 3.18.1This life is a shadow of true life; whoever lives in Christ’s shadow lives in the shadow of life.
156. 3.18.2Even the saints see only in part in this life, as Paul says.
157. 3.18.3This world is the region of the dead; even one without sin needs purification from it.
158. 3.19.1Under the law we kept new moons and sabbaths as shadows; even under the gospel we follow a shadow of God’s words.
159. 3.19.2Through the incarnation and the cross Christ overshadows us; the Word came veiled in the form of a servant.
160. 3.19.3As the Word took a lowly form, so God’s words appear to us now as in a mirror, until perfect truth comes.
161. 3.20.1The many words are one Word, Christ, in whom all things were created and who works in each.
162. 3.20.2The one Word is shared out in many words of virtue according to each one’s capacity.
163. 3.21.1As the one Spirit gives many gifts, so the one Word is shared among many.
164. 3.21.2One Spirit inspired prophets, apostles, and even the craftsmen of the tabernacle.
165. 3.21.3Seeing the one Word now only in a mirror, we shall keep his words fully when we see his glory face to face.
166. 3.22.1On verse 18: asking God to open his eyes, the psalmist turns to the heavenly physician.
167. 3.22.2The soul’s eyes are clouded by the old leaven, which we failed to put off when we came to the church.
168. 3.22.3Only Christ removes the veil that hinders the reading of Scripture; when one turns to the Lord it is taken away.
169. 3.23.1Paul’s healing at Ananias’s blessing shows how turning to the Lord removes the veil.
170. 3.23.2Only Jesus opens our eyes, as at Emmaus and on the mountain of the Transfiguration.
171. 3.24.1Moses’ rod turned serpent and back again prefigured Christ’s cross and resurrection, a mystery Moses did not grasp.
172. 3.24.2Taking hold of the serpent, Moses had his mouth opened to speak of Christ.
173. 3.25.1David, raised under the law, longed to see the good things the law only foreshadowed.
174. 3.25.2Only with God’s guidance can one rise from the law’s shadow to the truth of heavenly worship.
175. 3.26.1David longed for the heavenly altar and temple, not the earthly ones.
176. 3.26.2Only one whose eyes are opened can see in the law’s offerings the true forgiveness given in the gospel.
177. 3.26.3Christ is the true temple, altar, priest, and Levite, whose sacrifice takes away the world’s sins.
178. 3.27.1The law of the Hebrew slave freed in the seventh year has a hidden meaning.
179. 3.27.2Isaac’s blessing of Esau foretold the loosing of the yoke in the seventh year of release.
180. 3.27.3Joseph and the apostles are types of the true Hebrew, freed from servitude.
181. 3.28.1The true rest, foreshadowed in the law, is revealed in Christ’s promise that his own will be with him.
182. 3.29.1Ambrose turns to the gospel just read, the cleansing of the leper.
183. 3.29.2Christ wills the cleansing of all, but only the faithful are cleansed; he touches those whose faith touches him.
184. 3.30.1Sent to the priest, the healed man is directed to Christ, the true priest for ever.
185. 3.30.2Only one who first sees himself honestly can show himself to Christ, the true priest.
186. 3.31.1On verse 19: only one who has renounced worldly desire is truly a stranger on earth.
187. 3.31.2The true pilgrim longs to be with Christ, lays up heavenly treasure, and does not return to Egypt.
188. 3.32.1On verse 20: to long for God’s judgments one must be free from worldly bonds, including marriage.
189. 3.32.2Marriage is no sin but binds mind and body; nothing may be preferred to God, so he asks to know God’s commandments.
190. 3.33.1“Longing to desire” shows that desire for God’s judgments is God’s gift, increased in those who delight in it.
191. 3.33.2As the healthy do not fear the physician, a good conscience desires God’s judgments, as Christ desired the Passover.
192. 3.34.1On verse 21: pride, whose author is the devil, is opposed to Christ’s obedience.
193. 3.34.2The devil wished to be like God; his disciple, the man of iniquity, will exalt himself above God.
194. 3.34.3Christ gave his disciples power to do greater works, so as to triumph over the devil in them.
195. 3.35.1The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows that pride offends more than the lack of virtues.
196. 3.35.2The devil let the Pharisee rise in virtue so that pride might bring him down the harder.
197. 3.36.1The devil tried to make Paul proud too, but God used the angel of Satan to keep him humble.
198. 3.36.2Though truthful, the Pharisee was condemned, for pride is worse than adultery.
199. 3.37.1God resists the proud, above all those who despise their poor brothers.
200. 3.38.1Those who turn aside from the straight commandment are cursed.
201. 3.39.1If God’s commandment is bright, how can it be hidden? Perhaps one is bright and the many are hidden.
202. 3.40.1The order of verses shows the guilt of those who turn from commandments they were given.
203. 3.41.1On verse 22: what the world despises, such as humility, is precious to God.
204. 3.41.2God esteems the holy and brings the wicked to nothing; to be a reproach to Christ is grievous.
205. 3.41.3Reproach for Christ’s name is glorious.
206. 3.42.1On verse 23: this is the voice of a martyr standing before persecuting judges.
207. 3.42.2It is also Christ’s voice before the council and the governor.
208. 3.42.3Christ stood before the rulers for our salvation, so his disciples need not be ashamed to stand before them for his name.
209. 3.43.1Peter before the council counted the injury of accusation as glory.
210. 3.43.2The apostles rejoiced to suffer for Christ’s name.
211. 3.44.1Rulers sat against Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah, and Susanna.
212. 3.45.1The spiritual powers of evil are the princes who watch for the righteous.
213. 3.45.2The evil powers plot against the righteous and ask leave to tempt them.
214. 3.45.3The evil spirit stirred up Saul, Doeg, and Amnon against David.
215. 3.45.4David overcame the devil’s darts by commanding that Absalom be spared.
216. 3.46.1Against Ahithophel and Absalom’s princes, David’s weapon was meditation on God’s statutes.
217. 3.46.2David fought the unseen enemy with prayer and God’s statutes, not with the arts of war.
218. 3.46.3The righteous man speaks always to God or of God’s works, never of earthly things.
219. 3.47.1On verse 24: he who does God’s commandments justifies God, unlike the Pharisees who refused John’s baptism.
220. 3.47.2Doing God’s commandments justifies God; human counsels should follow his certain counsel.
221. 4.1.1Daleth means fear or birth, and earthly birth is itself a cause of fear.
222. 4.2.1On verse 25: the soul that cleaves to the pavement is bound to earthly things, like the sinner Adam.
223. 4.2.2Adam, cast out of paradise, laments that his soul cleaves to the earth.
224. 4.2.3The verse is the penitent Adam’s, spoken by the prophetic Spirit or by the Lord who took on his weakness.
225. 4.3.1Fallen Adam clings to the earth like a fox; only Christ’s cross raises him, and his followers cleave to God.
226. 4.4.1Cleaving to the harlot of earthly pleasure makes us one body with her; cleaving to the Lord makes us one spirit.
227. 4.5.1The neck raised to God and fit for Christ’s yoke is like the tower of David.
228. 4.5.2The tower, armed with the doctrines of the Word and the prophets’ darts, defends and adorns the soul.
229. 4.6.1The soul, joined to an earthly body, tends to cleave to the ground, but must not let itself sink into death.
230. 4.7.1Whoever lives by the body becomes flesh, like those of the flood; whoever obeys God may be called soul, like Jacob’s family.
231. 4.7.2Scripture counts Jacob’s descendants as “souls.”
232. 4.8.1The “angels of God” of Genesis 6 were men living like angels who fell for women’s beauty and became flesh.
233. 4.8.2Those free of lust are like angels; those ruled by lust are flesh and even neighing horses.
234. 4.9.1The soul is given life when it walks in Christ’s ways, dead to sin and alive to God.
235. 4.10.1On verse 26: confessing one’s own ways comes first; the way of the Lord is Christ, who did the Father’s will.
236. 4.10.2To walk God’s ways, as Deuteronomy teaches, one must first abandon the ways of the flesh.
237. 4.11.1By confessing his sins first, the righteous man silences the devil, his accuser.
238. 4.11.2Confession makes the sinner begin to be righteous, but he must also ask God to teach him.
239. 4.12.1On verse 27: after learning God’s statutes we must learn their order.
240. 4.12.2Doing the right thing in the wrong order is imperfect, as confession after denial shows.
241. 4.13.1Ambrose explains the Greek word behind “I will be exercised”, which usually means to ramble or talk at length.
242. 4.13.2The word means long meditation, a lengthy exercise of the mind in Scripture.
243. 4.14.1Isaac meditating in the field as Rebecca approached is the model for the psalmist’s meditation.
244. 4.15.1On verse 28: Ambrose discusses the variant “slumbered” and “dripped”, and says the perfect man never slumbers.
245. 4.15.2God’s word drives out weariness and spiritual sleep.
246. 4.16.1Following Origen, Ambrose prefers “dripped”: the well-built soul, like a sound roof, does not leak.
247. 4.17.1We must not let our soul leak away like a badly built house.
248. 4.17.2The talkative man leaks away what he received; Mary kept every word in her heart.
249. 4.18.1The church, sheltered and silent, welcomes Christ as the Song’s bride.
250. 4.18.2Christ rests not with the talkative but with the serious man who keeps the mysteries in silence.
251. 4.19.1The shady couch is the shelter of the Most High over the church.
252. 4.19.2The cross refreshes those scorched by sin; Christ’s flesh is the church’s resting place.
253. 4.20.1The cedar beams are the incorruptible glory of the righteous forefathers.
254. 4.21.1The evergreen cypress figures the unfailing grace of the apostles.
255. 4.21.2The soul built firmly in the virtues does not leak away; rooted in God, it stands unmoved.
256. 4.22.1On verse 29: the way of iniquity is within us, and must be removed from us.
257. 4.22.2Inherited iniquity clings to us, and only God’s grace in Christ removes it; it is a worn path, not our nature.
258. 4.23.1An old and deep wound needs thorough healing by God’s mercy according to law.
259. 4.23.2Mercy according to law must be wise and just, unlike Saul’s mercy to Agag, which was itself a sin.
260. 4.24.1Unjust leniency makes sinners worse; God hands those who choose iniquity over to a reprobate mind.
261. 4.25.1On verse 30: heretics and the greedy cannot claim to have chosen the way of truth.
262. 4.25.2The way of truth means walking by faith, as pilgrims from the world rather than from God.
263. 4.26.1On verse 31: whoever cleaves to God’s testimonies renounces the world and is not put to shame.
264. 4.26.2Forgiveness must remove not only sins but the inclination to sin, with Christ dwelling in the soul.
265. 4.27.1On verse 32: a heart enlarged by God can run the narrow way and receive the Trinity.
266. 4.27.2Wisdom sings in the broad places of the heart; there we must run to win the prize, like Paul.
267. 4.28.1Christ’s horses are the apostles, who stirred the nations to faith.
268. 4.28.2The twelve apostles, a team of horses driven by the Word, carried the fourfold gospel to the whole world.
269. 4.28.3Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel is the New Testament within the Old, carried by the apostles to the four quarters.
270. 4.29.1Jesus guides our souls; we must ride our bodies watchfully, lest we sink like the Egyptians.
271. 5.1.1He means “is” or “I live”; Christ, who always is, lives and gives life to the dead.
272. 5.1.2Christ is the way and the life; whoever dies in him lives.
273. 5.2.1On verse 33: like a soldier following his commander’s itinerary, the believer follows the way God sets.
274. 5.2.2The soldier who keeps to the route receives provisions and does not fail.
275. 5.2.3The commander arranges marches and halts until the army reaches the royal city.
276. 5.3.1Israel’s journey from Egypt, with its stations, was arranged by the Lord.
277. 5.3.2The pillars of cloud and fire guided Israel’s marches and halts.
278. 5.3.3The pillar of cloud figured Christ coming on a light cloud, that is, born of the Virgin Mary.
279. 5.4.1The light cloud is Christ’s sinless flesh; he bore our sins as the filthy garments of Zechariah’s vision.
280. 5.4.2Christ took our weakness and died for us, so that our death might become precious.
281. 5.5.1Spiritually, the believer’s journey from Egypt begins at Succoth, “tent”.
282. 5.5.2The stations Marah, Elim, Rephidim, and Sinai mark the changing stages of the spiritual journey.
283. 5.5.3God, the good commander, sustained Israel with manna, water, law, and victories.
284. 5.6.1Israel’s journey was a type; Jesus, who led through Joshua, now guides ours.
285. 5.6.2Moses’ hundred and twenty years point to the fullness of time when Jesus took the lead.
286. 5.7.1The church, the flower of the field, has spread through the whole earth.
287. 5.7.2The church is a lily shining among the thorns of opponents and worldly cares.
288. 5.8.1The lily is white outside and red within.
289. 5.8.2Christ is white in his divinity and red in his sinless flesh.
290. 5.9.1Christ on the cross is the fragrant apple hanging on the tree.
291. 5.9.2Christ, like the apple, is both fragrant and sweet food.
292. 5.10.1The law with its festivals, new moons, and sabbaths is the shadow of Christ in which the church rested.
293. 5.10.2The sabbatical year and its releases also belong to the law’s shadow.
294. 5.11.1The jubilee, the Passover feasts, Pentecost, and the sabbath are all shadows.
295. 5.11.2The feasts of the seventh month, trumpets, atonement, and booths, are shadows too.
296. 5.12.1Jewish believers who came to the gospel speak as the church tasting Christ’s fruit, his passion.
297. 5.12.2The sweet fruit is Christ, the fruit of Mary’s womb, and the forgiveness he brings.
298. 5.13.1Having tasted Christ’s fruit, the bride asks to be brought into the house of wine.
299. 5.13.2Christ, our commander, makes each station of the journey bearable.
300. 5.14.1If earthly kings provide for their armies, how much more does God for those who love him.
301. 5.14.2God himself went before Israel in the pillars of cloud and fire.
302. 5.15.1Following the pillar of cloud, the church is refreshed in its shade and fed by the Lord.
303. 5.15.2The bride moves on to the house of wine and the station of love.
304. 5.16.1The cross and burial of Christ are stations where the church is wounded with love.
305. 5.16.2Preaching the crucified Christ wounds the church with love; the Manichee denies the cross, the Christian confesses it.
306. 5.17.1Christ is the chosen arrow; to be wounded by him is a great advance.
307. 5.17.2The apostles, Paul, and the martyrs, wounded for Christ, loved him the more.
308. 5.18.1The church, offering her martyrs, invites all to taste that the Lord is sweet.
309. 5.18.2The great cluster of Eshcol, carried by two, is a mystery the church tasted in Joshua and Caleb.
310. 5.19.1The bride’s rest in the bridegroom’s embrace is a further station on the royal road.
311. 5.19.2There are many mansions with the Father, on the royal road of wisdom.
312. 5.19.3Israel passed by Edom’s “earthly” stations to reach wisdom’s right hand of life and left hand of riches.
313. 5.19.4Christ guides the church through the ways of wisdom, which are peace.
314. 5.20.1Love, the fulfillment of the law, is roused in the Old Testament and roused again in the New.
315. 5.20.2Christ, who is love, was raised from the dead by his own and the Father’s power.
316. 5.20.3Love is roused by preachers of the resurrection; Christ sleeps in the negligent and wakes in the saints.
317. 5.21.1God sets his law firmly in the saint’s heart, so that he becomes a law to himself.
318. 5.22.1The way of God must be sought always and in all things.
319. 5.23.1On verse 34: understanding is needed to search out and keep the law.
320. 5.23.2Scripture speaks of the ways of the law, of righteous ordinances, of testimonies, and of commandments.
321. 5.23.3Christ is the end of all the ways, of the law, of righteousness, and of the testimonies.
322. 5.24.1Christ is reached only through the law; heretics who reject the Old Testament cannot hold Christ.
323. 5.24.2Following the law, testimonies, and precepts leads to Christ, the great testimony and the precept of precepts.
324. 5.25.1True circumcision is of the heart, done by Christ, the rock, and the sword of his word.
325. 5.25.2Keeping the law only with the lips leaves the heart far from God.
326. 5.26.1On verse 35: whoever follows Christ, carrying the cross, is led in the path of the commandments.
327. 5.26.2Wisdom’s words “the Lord created me” refer to Christ’s incarnation, not to his divine nature.
328. 5.26.3Christ became a creature to redeem creatures and to show the way back to God.
329. 5.26.4Christ went first in fasting, suffering, and death, and Peter followed him to the end.
330. 5.27.1On verse 36: Ambrose notes the variant reading “profit” for “greed.”
331. 5.27.2The profit he shuns is money, which the saint counts as loss for Christ.
332. 5.27.3Prayer against greed is heard only if the heart agrees with the words.
333. 5.28.1On verse 37: because the eyes awaken covetousness, he asks God to turn them from vanities.
334. 5.28.2The shows of the circus and theater are vanities from which the eyes must be turned.
335. 5.28.3Athletes and chariots run in vain; true wrestlers fight worldly enticements.
336. 5.29.1Fix your eyes on Christ, the prize, and turn them from worldly spectacles.
337. 5.29.2Instead of shows, contemplate the beauty of God’s creation.
338. 5.30.1Lust and covetousness let death in through the windows of the eyes.
339. 5.30.2Shut the windows of the eyes against another’s wife and against the harlot.
340. 5.30.3Death enters also through the window of seductive words; guard yourself from another man’s wife.
341. 5.30.4Death enters by kisses, by speech and by silence, and through the ears.
342. 5.31.1Mystically, the eyes of the soul must turn from the vanity of mind that Paul ascribes to the Gentiles.
343. 5.31.2Christ came to enlighten the mind, so that Christians may understand the commandments, the soul, and the life to come.
344. 5.32.1Made in God’s image, we should seek things above, not gold and silver.
345. 5.32.2Greed snares rich and poor; delight should be in God’s precepts, not passing successes.
346. 5.33.1We must ask the Lord himself to turn our eyes away from vanities.
347. 5.33.2It is God’s gift to turn the soul’s eyes from worldly vanities, which drive men mad.
348. 5.34.1We instinctively turn from bilge and stench.
349. 5.34.2Yet in the ship of the body we do not turn the soul’s eyes and nostrils from the stench of vice.
350. 5.34.3The bride’s nostrils, filled with Christ’s fragrance, distinguish the sweetness of the saints from the stench of sin.
351. 5.35.1The face of Damascus is the unveiled faith of the Gentiles.
352. 5.35.2The church’s sacrifice, the forgiveness of sins, is a sweet fragrance.
353. 5.36.1God works with the soul that asks him, bending it from vice toward eternal life.
354. 5.36.2This life is a shadow; hasten to Christ, the sun, lest we be found cold and idle at the end.
355. 5.37.1On verse 38: God establishes his word in fear, which is the beginning of wisdom.
356. 5.37.2Fear of God must be according to knowledge; Ambrose says the Jews keep circumcision and sabbath literally without grasping their spiritual sense.
357. 5.38.1Some Christians too fear God without knowledge, imposing precepts too harsh for human nature.
358. 5.38.2Holy fear is the base on which God’s word stands firm, lest the birds snatch it away.
359. 5.38.3Fear and the word strengthen each other: fear is the word’s place, the word fear’s discipline.
360. 5.39.1The golden bases of the Song are holy fear, on which the apostles stand as columns.
361. 5.39.2Isaiah lists the gifts of the Spirit, placing fear beneath them all as their base.
362. 5.39.3Fear of the Lord is shaped by the other gifts; without it there is only irrational fear.
363. 5.40.1Proverbs teaches that the fear of the Lord is understood when wisdom is sought.
364. 5.40.2The psalmist’s prayer teaches us how to pray.
365. 5.41.1On verse 39: like Paul, the psalmist suspects hidden sin; only Jesus is wholly without sin.
366. 5.41.2The psalmist asks God, who knows hidden sins, to remove his reproach; Christ’s reproach is God’s glory.
367. 5.42.1Christ’s reproach is power and wisdom, preferred by Moses to Egypt’s treasures.
368. 5.42.2Christ’s sufferings, foretold by Isaiah, are the reproach that saves all.
369. 5.42.3We do not want to be rid of Christ’s reproach, for by it he took away our reproaches.
370. 5.43.1In baptism Christ washed away every sin and its reproach.
371. 5.43.2Sins after baptism require penance; only the penitent can rightly ask God to remove his reproach.
372. 5.44.1We need not fear to confess our sins to Christ, whose judgments are sweet.
373. 5.44.2God’s judgments are sweet to those who confess and repent.
374. 5.45.1Believers, even if sinners, rise in the judgment with hope of pardon, for whoever believes is not judged.
375. 5.45.2Unbelievers are condemned by their own ungodliness, not by Christ; his judgment, preceded by mercy, is sweet.
376. 5.46.1On verse 40: knowing God’s judgments are sweet, the psalmist longs for his commandments.
377. 5.46.2The psalmist longs for God’s commandments with holy love, as a friend of God.
378. 5.47.1True life is life by God’s righteousness; some living men are dead and some dead men live.
379. 6.1.1Ambrose gives the meanings of the letter Vau.
380. 6.2.1On verse 41: the mercy and salvation the psalmist asks for is Christ, who blessed the flesh cursed in Adam.
381. 6.3.1Ambrose quotes Psalm 85, which asks God to show his mercy and salvation.
382. 6.3.2Psalm 85 speaks of Jesus, God’s mercy, whom the prophet longed to see in the flesh.
383. 6.3.3Christ is God’s salvation, who came near; fearing him is devotion, not weakness.
384. 6.3.4Christ is the Father’s glory; whoever makes him unequal to the Father dishonors the Father.
385. 6.4.1The letter’s meaning points to the Son, Jesus the Savior, who comes when called.
386. 6.5.1The church hears Christ’s voice as he comes leaping on the mountains.
387. 6.5.2The bride joyfully recognizes the voice of the bridegroom whom she had asked others to rouse.
388. 6.6.1Christ comes to the soul even before she finishes seeking him, bringing more grace than she asked.
389. 6.6.2Christ’s leaps run from heaven to the Virgin, the manger, the Jordan, the cross, the tomb, and back to heaven.
390. 6.6.3As Psalm 19 says, Christ runs his course like a giant from heaven to the saints throughout the world.
391. 6.7.1Christ leaps upon the mountains, the prophets and apostles; we should be at least hills for him to pass over.
392. 6.8.1The soul that prays constantly suddenly perceives the presence of the Word, her bridegroom.
393. 6.9.1The Word comes suddenly to enlighten the mind of one puzzling over Scripture.
394. 6.9.2The Word comes and goes in the reader’s heart, returning to those who seek him.
395. 6.10.1Christ’s hunters seek God’s people on the mountains of the apostles’ teaching.
396. 6.10.2Through the apostles’ works and words Christ himself enlightens.
397. 6.11.1We should stand on the mountains of Scripture, ready to be gathered by the Lord’s fishers, hunters, and reapers.
398. 6.12.1Christ is like a roe leaping on the mountains of Bethel, the church.
399. 6.12.2The sharp-sighted roe figures Christ, who alone sees the Father; the young stag drives out the serpent, as in the gospel exorcism.
400. 6.13.1On verse 42: like a stag that fears no serpent, David answered his slanderers with God’s word.
401. 6.13.2David, like the stag, fed on the slanders of his enemies and answered them with prayer.
402. 6.13.3David answered curses with blessing and with God’s word, which is food.
403. 6.14.1Bearing abuse without returning it wins God’s protection.
404. 6.15.1Christ is the good serpent, lifted up like Moses’ bronze serpent.
405. 6.15.2The bride speaks of her beloved looking through the windows and calling her, for winter has passed.
406. 6.15.3Christ is both stag and serpent: the stag’s two horns are the two Testaments.
407. 6.15.4The good serpent neither bites nor wounds, came to protect the law, and kindles the heart of the beloved.
408. 6.16.1Preaching on a martyrs’ feast, Ambrose likens the martyrs to serpents that shed their skins, sent as lambs among wolves.
409. 6.17.1Christ changed Paul, the ravening wolf of Benjamin, into a shepherd; wolves and lambs now feed together.
410. 6.18.1On verse 43: the bride rejoices in the bridegroom’s love, who comes and goes to deepen her longing.
411. 6.19.1If the soul is built on the apostles and prophets, the Word stands at its wall and looks in.
412. 6.20.1The eyes are windows by which lust and greed bring in death.
413. 6.20.2Life enters by the same windows when we honor a consecrated virgin or protect an orphan’s property.
414. 6.21.1Christ alone stands above the nets of sin; the Father sent him in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin.
415. 6.21.2Christ fought sin in our flesh, so that our members became weapons of virtue.
416. 6.22.1The world is full of snares of sin; no one could free another until Jesus came.
417. 6.22.2Only Jesus, free of sin, could take our flesh without being captured, and teach the church freedom.
418. 6.22.3Christ died for us yet remained free among the dead, with power to raise himself.
419. 6.23.1Christ calls the soul to rise from death and sin because he has risen and loosed its bonds.
420. 6.23.2Born of a virgin, Christ is free of inherited sin; he breaks down the dividing wall and calls the soul to see him face to face.
421. 6.24.1Mystically, the bride sits within the house walled by the law and the prophets, marveling at its treasures.
422. 6.24.2Christ, the interpreter, stands behind the wall of the Old Testament and looks through the law and the prophets.
423. 6.24.3From the spiritual sense of Scripture Christ calls the church beyond a literal reading.
424. 6.25.1Before Christ it was winter; by his passion he brought the spring and summer of grace.
425. 6.25.2Those who do not take up the cross flee in winter; the apostles are the spring flowers.
426. 6.26.1The time of harvest and fruitfulness has come: the barren fig and the vine of Israel now bear fruit.
427. 6.27.1Having gathered the fruits of God’s word, David prays not to lose it; so we must not neglect our grace.
428. 6.27.2The word is taken from the mouth of one whose deeds contradict it, as the birds snatch the seed.
429. 6.28.1Can the word be taken even from the heart? God rebukes the sinner’s mouth, not his heart.
430. 6.28.2God silences the unworthy speaker but leaves room for repentance; yet the heart too must be guarded.
431. 6.28.3No one may presume the gift of teaching is his own; whoever fears God’s judgment keeps the word of truth.
432. 6.29.1On verse 44: the law is kept here in shadow and hereafter in the full face of truth.
433. 6.30.1“Always” also means “through all things”: keeping Christ’s law, and keeping the discipline proper to each age.
434. 6.30.2The soul too has its ages, through all of which the law must be kept.
435. 6.31.1On verse 45: whoever walks the narrow way of the commandments walks in a broad place.
436. 6.31.2Paul, afflicted but never straitened, shows what it is to walk in a broad place.
437. 6.32.1The greedy man, however much land he adds, is cramped by his own greed; the seeker of God’s testimonies walks in a broad place.
438. 6.33.1On verse 46: this is the voice of the martyr who gloried in the cross before kings.
439. 6.33.2Christ calls the martyr, sheltered in the rock of the gospel, to show her face and confess with her voice.
440. 6.33.3The martyr shows the sign of the cross and preaches, sheltered by Christ’s body.
441. 6.34.1The kings may also be Christians, a royal priesthood, who preach without shame.
442. 6.34.2A true king is grounded in life and word; even the perfect prophet kept meditating on God’s precepts.
443. 6.35.1On verses 47–48: first meditation on the commandments we love, then action.
444. 6.35.2Meditation on God’s precepts aims at doing them, which requires loving them exceedingly.
445. 6.36.1After meditation we lift our deeds to God’s precepts, gladly and not by compulsion.
446. 6.36.2As friends, not slaves, we should do God’s commandments willingly and dwell on his statutes.
447. 7.1.1Zain means “lead yourself” or “hither”; as the seventh letter it suggests rest in God’s word.
448. 7.2.1On verse 49: God’s word calls us from present things to eternity; let us follow Jesus who calls.
449. 7.3.1Called by God’s promises through Nathan, David appeals to God to remember his word.
450. 7.3.2God forgets the sins of the repentant but keeps his promises, so the faithful may claim their reward.
451. 7.3.3Reminding God of his promise is faith, not arrogance.
452. 7.4.1David, as servant, soldier, and invited guest, modestly asks God for the reward he promised.
453. 7.5.1The verse can also apply to the Levites and to the church, heir of the promises to Joseph.
454. 7.6.1On verse 50: hope from God’s word comforts us in present troubles, as Paul says.
455. 7.6.2Hope of glory makes every adversity bearable.
456. 7.7.1Hope consoles in the time of humiliation, which is the time of temptation.
457. 7.7.2God’s word is the life of the soul; as the word grows in it, so does its life.
458. 7.7.3We must gather God’s words into our mind and actions so that we may live by them.
459. 7.8.1On verse 51: pride is the greatest sin; by it Adam fell and passed guilt to us.
460. 7.8.2The devil fell through pride and sought man as partner in his guilt.
461. 7.9.1God himself fights against pride, as against his own adversary.
462. 7.9.2Paul says that pride, as in the heretic, is the source of many sins.
463. 7.9.3Pride breeds many sins; David kept clear of the proud and their excessive wickedness.
464. 7.10.1God’s law is the remedy for the poison of pride.
465. 7.10.2Many are tempted by the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the righteous, forgetting that reward lies in the world to come.
466. 7.11.1David himself was once tempted by the prosperity of sinners.
467. 7.11.2The temptation is overcome only by looking to what is to come.
468. 7.12.1David understood only in God’s sanctuary that the proud would come to ruin.
469. 7.12.2The prosperity of the wicked is a dream that vanishes on waking.
470. 7.12.3Worldly men, awake to the world but asleep to God, are scattered like chaff, as Job says.
471. 7.12.4The righteous rejoice at life’s end and look for the crown of righteousness.
472. 7.13.1God’s law forbids even hidden doubts about his justice, which conscience will expose at the judgment.
473. 7.14.1The holy man remembers God’s promises and takes comfort from Scripture in adversity.
474. 7.14.2The holy man stays on the path of the law and shuns the proud, who are unclean.
475. 7.15.1On verse 52: remembering God’s past judgments keeps one faithful to the law.
476. 7.15.2The history of Adam, Cain, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, David, and Elijah shows God’s judgments to be true.
477. 7.16.1God’s judgments are true and sweeter than honey.
478. 7.16.2God’s judgments are sweet to those who keep them and bitter to the negligent.
479. 7.17.1As the innocent welcome a trial and the guilty dread it, so the righteous gladly await God’s judgment.
480. 7.18.1On verse 53: the psalmist grieved not at his own injuries but at sinners forsaking God’s law.
481. 7.18.2The strong grieve for others’ sins, as Paul wept over the Corinthians.
482. 7.18.3Paul wanted the fallen to grieve only as far as repentance.
483. 7.18.4Paul’s severity aimed at repentance and restoration, as the psalm teaches.
484. 7.19.1Like a father or physician with a raving patient, the good man grieves for the sinner and keeps trying to heal him.
485. 7.20.1The righteous man treats his injurer as one sick with madness and pities him.
486. 7.20.2The righteous man grieves for the harm to the church and that he has been an occasion of another’s sin.
487. 7.21.1David grieves as a member of one body; the righteous man may even accuse himself for another’s sake.
488. 7.22.1David accused himself, unprompted, for numbering the people.
489. 7.22.2Though Scripture might excuse him, David offered himself to the destroying angel in place of the people.
490. 7.22.3By confessing his sins, over the census and over Uriah, David was justified and forgiven.
491. 7.23.1David bore Shimei’s curses patiently and restrained Abishai.
492. 7.23.2David excused Shimei, blamed himself, and judged the curse useful to him.
493. 7.23.3David reasoned that a stranger’s curse was nothing beside his son’s attempt on his life, and hoped for God’s reward.
494. 7.23.4The highest purpose of the righteous is to pray for persecutors, as Christ did on the cross.
495. 7.24.1Joseph, though not yet told the truth, would not expose Mary: the righteous prefer not to accuse.
496. 7.24.2The righteous man prefers leniency to accusation; he rejoices at his own escape, not at others’ punishment.
497. 7.25.1On verse 54: God’s statutes were songs to the psalmist in his exile.
498. 7.25.2What is sung clings to memory; like clean animals chewing the cud, we should ruminate on Scripture.
499. 7.25.3God’s statutes should be our hymns, sung with spirit and mind, lest we forget them.
500. 7.26.1Christ, the true Solomon, gave his church singers whose psalms drive away evil spirits, as David’s did for Saul.
501. 7.26.2Holy music invites the Spirit, as with the prophets and in the house of the prodigal’s father.
502. 7.26.3Christ sang forgiveness in the gospel, but the Jews did not respond.
503. 7.27.1David danced before the ark, and Michal mocked him.
504. 7.27.2David answered that he would gladly be humbled before the Lord.
505. 7.27.3David was justified and Michal punished with barrenness.
506. 7.28.1God’s statutes are songs only to those who are pilgrims in this world, like the three young men in the furnace.
507. 7.29.1Singing frees the mind from cares, as David sang free of bodily passions.
508. 7.29.2For the saints even the law’s precepts are songs, as Moses sang after crossing the sea.
509. 7.30.1On verse 55: the righteous remember God by night and prove it by keeping his law.
510. 7.31.1David wept and prayed at night; we should not give the whole night to sleep.
511. 7.31.2Night, when sin seems hidden, is the time to pray, for God sees all.
512. 7.31.3Night incites sin; it was night when Judas betrayed and Peter denied.
513. 7.32.1At night we should recall God’s precepts on chastity to quench lust.
514. 7.32.2The penitent washes his bed with tears; we should give most of the night to reading and prayer.
515. 7.33.1The church sought Christ in the night of the prophets and believed.
516. 7.33.2Night is any time of persecution or insecurity; our works must shine in God’s light.
517. 7.34.1The test is to remember God in the night of bereavement, exile, or persecution.
518. 7.34.2In poverty too we must seek God in the night, so as to be heard.
519. 7.35.1The bride did not find her beloved on her bed, but sought him in the city and marketplace.
520. 7.35.2After searching the spiritual marketplace and streets, the bride met the watchmen and then found her beloved.
521. 7.35.3Ambrose asks why the watchmen took the bride’s cloak only in the later passage.
522. 7.36.1Christ is found by those who seek him earnestly and hold him by faith; beyond the angels one finds the Word.
523. 7.36.2The removal of the cloak may mean putting off the old self or worldly wisdom to come to Christ.
524. 7.37.1On verse 56: by seeking God’s statutes the psalmist remembers his name even by night; Ambrose ends the sermon with a doxology.
525. 8.1.1Heth means dread, which in the saints is holy reverence, the beginning of wisdom.
526. 8.1.2Those who fear God are wise and blessed.
527. 8.2.1On verse 57: Ambrose explains that this verse begins Heth, though many manuscripts put it at the end of Zain.
528. 8.3.1Only one free of every worldly desire, a true minister of the altar, can say that the Lord is his portion.
529. 8.4.1Ambrose gives the meanings of the name Levi.
530. 8.4.2Levi is “for me”: offering and interceding for the people, and belonging to God alone.
531. 8.4.3God claims the Levite himself as his possession, taken up by grace.
532. 8.4.4The Levites received no land, for the Lord was their portion.
533. 8.5.1The Levite, possessing nothing, is richer than landowners, for his portion is God, possessor of all.
534. 8.5.2The one whose portion is God is God’s temple and glories only in the cross; the devil finds nothing in him.
535. 8.6.1Christ taught us to have God as portion, and Peter, without silver or gold, healed in his name.
536. 8.6.2Peter, rich in Christ his portion, restored the lame man.
537. 8.7.1Peter left everything for Christ; what he has is Christ himself.
538. 8.7.2Christ is Peter’s portion, which no weather can destroy.
539. 8.7.3No earthly share equals having God dwell and walk in us.
540. 8.7.4God, who holds the earth in his hand, finds a broad house in the faithful; the martyr says “my portion is the Lord.”
541. 8.7.5Paul’s sufferings show that he had no portion in this world.
542. 8.8.1Paul is “refuse” only in the eyes of worldly men who honor wealth.
543. 8.8.2Paul counted all worldly gains as loss for Christ.
544. 8.8.3The poor are despised, but their portion and treasure are in heaven.
545. 8.9.1The rich, deafened by money, do not hear; so it was with the rich young man.
546. 8.9.2The rich man asks how to gain eternal life, and Jesus points him to the commandments.
547. 8.9.3Jesus told the rich man to sell everything so that God might be his portion.
548. 8.9.4The rich man went away sad; what is impossible to human greed is possible by God’s grace.
549. 8.10.1An objection: if the Lord repays a hundredfold in this age, then the rich enter the kingdom after all.
550. 8.11.1God himself, not worldly wealth, is the hundredfold reward of those who give up everything.
551. 8.11.2God gives himself at once as reward, as Christ promised the thief paradise “today.”
552. 8.12.1Christ promises paradise to all who confess him, but “today” to the martyr.
553. 8.12.2When the believer is freed from this body of death, Christ will say to him too, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
554. 8.13.1Of all portions, God offers himself; choosing him means sharing Christ’s sufferings, as Paul, Jeremiah, and David show.
555. 8.14.1Solomon confesses in Wisdom that a king is born mortal like everyone else.
556. 8.14.2Solomon chose God as his portion, while the luxurious choose pleasure as theirs.
557. 8.16.1Moses, who could have been king, chose Christ’s reproach over Egypt’s treasures.
558. 8.16.2Moses, fleeing power, was made a god to Pharaoh; whoever prefers Christ’s reproach to wealth gains the power of holiness.
559. 8.16.3Pharaoh chose the devil’s portion; David, God’s portion, keeps the law in its spiritual sense.
560. 8.17.1On verse 58: like Moses, the psalmist seeks God’s face; mystically Moses stands for the law.
561. 8.17.2The law showed Christ only in figures; the gospel shows him face to face, and in baptism we die to the law to belong to the risen Christ.
562. 8.18.1Morally, Moses, knowing God is invisible, still longed in devotion to see him.
563. 8.18.2Moses’ longing to see God was no fault; he had already seen the angel in the burning bush.
564. 8.18.3If the angel in the bush so moved Moses, how much more he longed for God’s face; God’s majesty is beyond comprehension.
565. 8.19.1Moses’ request failed, but his longing was good, and he knew of a future glory after death.
566. 8.19.2Knowing the glory of the resurrection, Moses rightly longed to see God, whom he would see after death.
567. 8.19.3Moses, like Paul caught up to the third heaven, forgot the body in his longing.
568. 8.19.4The saints, though in the body, live in the Spirit with their citizenship in heaven.
569. 8.20.1People long to see the great and the emperor; how much more God.
570. 8.20.2If an emperor’s face is so desired, how much more God’s; the innocent gladly meet the emperor.
571. 8.20.3The guilty are kept from the emperor’s sight, while the innocent come forward freely.
572. 8.21.1Moses and David, with clear consciences, wished to be fully known and tested by God.
573. 8.21.2Moses was not yet perfect, still wearing the sandal of Egypt, and so could not yet see God’s face.
574. 8.22.1Moses was told “no man shall see my face” while still a man; he was to grow toward being called a god.
575. 8.22.2Whoever serves God like an angel and is pure in heart will see God.
576. 8.22.3To see God, cleanse the heart; God shows himself to the pure when they have put off the body.
577. 8.23.1Mercy to the poor is justice, for God gave the earth in common; greed made it private property.
578. 8.24.1Forgiving sin is both mercy and justice, as the blessed wood of the cross shows.
579. 8.24.2The justice of the cross is that Christ nailed our debt to it and washed away the world’s sin.
580. 8.24.3God, knowing man was made from earth and frail in body, justly forgives the sins of weak nature.
581. 8.25.1Adam was condemned because he transgressed a clear command, not merely because he was weak.
582. 8.25.2God justly condemned Adam but justly pardons us, his heirs, bound by inherited weakness.
583. 8.26.1There is unjust mercy, like Saul’s sparing of Agag or acquitting an unrepentant robber.
584. 8.26.2Mercy that endangers others or perverts judgment is not just mercy.
585. 8.27.1In the church’s penance, excommunicated sinners must not be readmitted too easily, for easy pardon invites sin.
586. 8.27.2Mercy must follow reason, like a physician who must cut despite the patient’s tears.
587. 8.27.3The bishop must cut off the infected member to protect the whole church.
588. 8.28.1Paul’s “goodness and severity of God” shows both the separation of the unbelieving and the welcome of the Gentiles.
589. 8.28.2The Gentiles keep God’s favor only while they remain in his goodness; God is both light and fire.
590. 8.28.3God is light to guide and fire to burn away worthless works, saving us by loss.
591. 8.29.1Why does the psalmist ask for mercy according to God’s word, which is justice?
592. 8.29.2Mercy is for the needy; so whoever needs mercy is a sinner.
593. 8.30.1Angels and men need mercy differently: angels to be kept from falling, men because of past sins.
594. 8.30.2Faults are weighed by the nature and age of the one who sins.
595. 8.31.1The psalmist asks mercy as a sinner and justice as one who has repented, for God’s word promises pardon to the converted.
596. 8.32.1On verse 59: thinking on his past sinful ways, the psalmist turns his feet to God’s testimonies.
597. 8.32.2As travelers do best to keep to the highway, so we should keep to God’s commandments.
598. 8.33.1Alternatively: think ahead before acting or speaking, as in Christ’s order for correcting a brother.
599. 8.33.2As a traveler stops to choose his road at a crossroads, so much more must we choose the way to the heavenly Jerusalem.
600. 8.34.1Some roads that seem right end in death; the way to God is narrow, so we must choose carefully.
601. 8.35.1The man who looks at a woman to lust has already sinned; another falls by a sudden glance for lack of forethought.
602. 8.35.2Forethought guards against lust; even after a sudden glance, turning to God’s testimonies frees one from captivity.
603. 8.35.3One gripped by love for a woman should consider Christ and dash his desires against the rock of Christ.
604. 8.36.1Forethought must also govern speech, as the psalmist prays for a guard on his mouth.
605. 8.36.2Forethought restrains tongue and hand; the foot turned to God’s testimonies is the step of faith.
606. 8.37.1On verse 60: whoever thinks ahead is ready and untroubled by ambition, injustice, or temptation.
607. 8.37.2Forethought prepares one for persecution and slander, for the disciple is not above his master.
608. 8.37.3A prepared mind can say with Paul that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ.
609. 8.38.1Paul’s “height and depth” are grave temptations, as Isaiah’s sign to Ahaz shows.
610. 8.38.2The sign given to Ahaz is the virgin birth; Christ, equal with God, humbled himself.
611. 8.38.3Christ, neither exalted by power nor shaken by death, is the remedy for the temptations of height and depth.
612. 8.39.1Solomon prayed to be spared both riches and poverty, the two greatest temptations.
613. 8.39.2Even Solomon feared riches and poverty; few, like Job, remain unshaken through loss.
614. 8.39.3Christ’s word “let not your heart be troubled” prepares us against greed, terror, and persecution.
615. 8.39.4In every storm Christ says “It is I”; before any trial we should say “I am ready and not troubled.”
616. 8.40.1We must be prepared also against the unseen war within ourselves.
617. 8.40.2The skilled helmsman is proved in the storm, not in calm.
618. 8.40.3The soul that steers itself through prosperity and adversity is ready for battle with spiritual evil.
619. 8.41.1On verse 61: the cords of sinners entangle, unlike the measuring cords of the inheritance.
620. 8.41.2Sins are drawn like a long rope, as an untamed heifer drags its strap.
621. 8.41.3The sinner who thinks himself free is entangled in his own sins like the heifer in its strap.
622. 8.41.4Christ, who frees prisoners and saved the thief in a moment, can free the worst sinner.
623. 8.42.1The bonds of sin, though invisible, must be broken.
624. 8.42.2Almsgiving and intercession for the condemned loose our own bonds of sin.
625. 8.43.1Greed, drunkenness, lust, and pride bind us, and the devil binds too.
626. 8.43.2The devil binds us with fornication, adultery, unbelief, envy, and cruelty, until Christ frees us as he freed the bent woman.
627. 8.43.3The hunters Nimrod and Esau figure the devil and his ministers; no hunter in Scripture is righteous.
628. 8.44.1Christ’s bonds of love and faith lead to freedom; we must flee the hunters’ snares.
629. 8.44.2The devil’s hunters set their snares especially when we grow careless in prosperity.
630. 8.45.1Avoid pride and worldliness, for God rains snares on sinners; remembering his law protects us.
631. 8.45.2As a prisoner pleads by the law, so the sinner should remember Christ, who blots out sins.
632. 8.46.1On verse 62: we should rise at midnight to pray, as Christ spent nights in prayer.
633. 8.46.2Christ prayed for our pardon; the psalmist teaches rising at night and especially at midnight.
634. 8.46.3Midnight is the time to confess and guard against temptation.
635. 8.47.1At night the body is heavy and the tempter lays his nets.
636. 8.47.2At night evil spirits tempt with the example of saints who sinned and were forgiven.
637. 8.47.3The tempter promises future pardon to urge present sin, then suggests God does not see.
638. 8.48.1Midnight is also the time of punishment, when the firstborn of Egypt died.
639. 8.48.2Moses had the lamb eaten in the evening so that Israel would be protected at midnight.
640. 8.49.1Like Israel, we should forestall the tempter by first sharing the heavenly banquet.
641. 8.49.2On fast days one should wait for the sacrament rather than eat; at the midday service one receives the body of the Lord Jesus.
642. 8.49.3Where Christ’s body is received, Christ is present, and the adversary finds no room.
643. 8.49.4Christ received in the evening sacrament guards the night and rouses us to pray at midnight.
644. 8.50.1Paul and Silas prayed at midnight in prison and were freed.
645. 8.50.2Midnight is the hour of temptation and of heavenly help, so we must rise and pray.
646. 8.51.1As the adversary works at midnight, God’s light works at midday.
647. 8.51.2At midday Abraham received the Lord with two angels.
648. 8.51.3Joseph’s midday feast for his brothers shows the light of grace in his heart.
649. 8.52.1We have a midday within when the sun of righteousness shines on us through faith and innocence.
650. 8.52.2In the spiritual midday we feast with Christ; in the night of temptation we must rise, pray, and sing psalms until he dawns.
651. 8.53.1Rise and keep watch, for Christ calms the storm in the watchful heart and the bridegroom comes at midnight.
652. 8.53.2We must rise to thank God and ascribe every good to his justice and mercy, always.
653. 8.54.1On verse 63: Christ has companions in the flesh and in prophecy, being the prophet foretold by Moses.
654. 8.54.2Christ is the true prophet who spoke through the prophets; the law is his.
655. 8.54.3Christ shares with us baptism, righteousness, truth, resurrection, and a spotless life.
656. 8.54.4We share Christ’s tribulations and, through baptism, his burial.
657. 8.55.1Whoever comforts mourners and serves prisoners, the sick, the naked, and the hungry is Christ’s companion.
658. 8.55.2Whoever is joined in love to all who fear God, despising none, shares in Christ’s body, the church.
659. 8.55.3Only one who honors and suffers with the weak members of the church can truly say “I am a companion of all who fear you.”
660. 8.56.1Humbly, the psalmist calls himself a companion of those who fear God; holy fear is itself a virtue.
661. 8.57.1He adds “and keep your commandments” to show that his fear is holy, not cowardly or idle.
662. 8.57.2Ambrose confesses that he falls short; only one who helps the God-fearing in need can claim to be their companion.
663. 8.58.1On verse 64: the earth is full of God’s mercy through Christ’s passion, which the prophet speaks of as already done.
664. 8.58.2Christ, the sun of righteousness, rose and suffered for all; unbelievers shut themselves off from his light.
665. 8.58.3God’s mercy, like rain, is for all; through the church it has spread to all nations.
666. 8.59.1The verse speaks of the earth, for it is earthly, fleshly beings who most need God’s mercy.
667. 8.59.2The heaven of heaven is pure; the lower, airy heaven between sky and earth holds the evil spirits.
668. 8.59.3No temptation works in the true heaven; the devil and his angels are held by earthly enticements.
669. 8.59.4Earth, unlike heaven, is full of injustice and idolatry, so it most needs God’s mercy.
670. 8.60.1The psalmist asks God himself to teach him, for only God is the true teacher.
671. 8.60.2There is one master; God teaches whoever opens his heart and seeks.
672. 8.60.3Only Christ, the Lamb who opens the sealed book, opens the obscure Scriptures to those who knock.
673. 8.61.1Those who deny Christ, the author of knowledge, cannot have the key to the Scriptures.
674. 8.61.2David turns to Christ, righteousness, wisdom, and the door, who alone opens heart and Scripture.
675. 9.1.1Teth means exclusion, but not the exclusion of the foolish virgins, since the next verse speaks of God’s kindness.
676. 9.1.2The psalmist who loves God’s law cannot be meant as excluded from the kingdom.
677. 9.2.1Exclusion can also be good.
678. 9.2.2Love shuts out fear, as in the soldier, the servant, the parent, and above all the martyrs.
679. 9.3.1Jeremiah’s verses under the same letter show this good exclusion: patient hope shuts out impatience.
680. 9.3.2Waiting, bearing the yoke, and sitting alone shut out impatience, pleasure, and fear.
681. 9.4.1Exclusion from the church for penance, as with the Corinthian sinner, is exclusion for good.
682. 9.5.1Humbled Jerusalem is told that her iniquity has ended, as it is for every penitent.
683. 9.5.2Jeremiah’s word about the pierced points to compunction in penance.
684. 9.5.3Compunction shuts out love of sin and shame; David confessed and was forgiven.
685. 9.6.1On verse 65: true gladness comes from God; worldly pleasures turn bitter.
686. 9.6.2Worldly goods are left at death; true gladness is in virtue according to God’s word.
687. 9.7.1David waited for God rather than kill Saul; God’s goodness is toward all, his severity toward few.
688. 9.7.2God remains good even in severity, which aims to bring the sinner back.
689. 9.7.3God can graft the fallen in again; his chastisement, like a physician’s or teacher’s, is an act of love.
690. 9.8.1David understood that God’s chastisement had done him good by turning him from vice.
691. 9.8.2God chastises those he receives, not to death; he is good to all, but the crooked heart turns from his grace.
692. 9.9.1On verse 66: the Greek word means both “good” and “sweet.”
693. 9.9.2God’s goodness is no excuse for sin; it looks for growth in discipline.
694. 9.10.1Discipline, though sad for a time, later becomes pleasant; correction may be gentle or severe.
695. 9.10.2David and Jeremiah ask to be corrected gently; all discipline later yields peaceful fruit.
696. 9.11.1Knowledge, given by God, makes discipline bearable.
697. 9.12.1Believing in God’s commandments means living in them; faith leads to knowledge, knowledge to discipline.
698. 9.13.1On verse 67: Ambrose rejects a variant reading taken by some to mean the soul existed before entering the body, and follows the Septuagint.
699. 9.13.2He was humbled through sin; humiliation often means adversity.
700. 9.13.3Humiliation following guilt, like the Corinthian sinner’s, leads to reconciliation.
701. 9.14.1Humiliation accepted as due to one’s sins becomes a remedy and makes one righteous.
702. 9.14.2Humbled because of sin, we should keep God’s word more carefully and not despair.
703. 9.14.3He sinned by neglecting God’s word and was amended by submitting to it.
704. 9.15.1On verse 68: as Paul praised Agrippa before his defense, the psalmist begins by praising God.
705. 9.15.2If praise softens human judges, how much more fitting to praise God, without whose goodness none could stand.
706. 9.15.3God is good by nature, like the good tree whose fruits are angels, holy men, and virtues.
707. 9.16.1Though God’s bitter remedies help, the psalmist asks to be taught gently, like a patient asking a physician for mildness.
708. 9.16.2The weak patient asks the good physician to treat him gently.
709. 9.16.3The gospel teaches God’s statutes more gently than the law; the Pharisees refused the repentance of John’s baptism.
710. 9.17.1On verse 69: the more one serves God, the more adversaries rise against him.
711. 9.17.2The psalmist was peaceful, but his enemies attacked him without cause.
712. 9.17.3When the righteous suffer loss, the proud mock their righteousness.
713. 9.17.4Job’s friends, who came to comfort him, insulted him instead.
714. 9.18.1Like Job, the righteous bless God in loss, and God can restore better things.
715. 9.18.2Even loss may be God’s provision: children spared from future wickedness, the soul from the dangers of wealth.
716. 9.19.1On verse 70: the hearts of the proud curdle like spoiled milk.
717. 9.19.2Envy and pride curdle the heart; the righteous man is humbled by meditating on the law.
718. 9.20.1On verse 71: like Paul content in weakness, the psalmist is glad to be humbled by trials; Symmachus’s version makes the sense plain.
719. 9.20.2The humbled should grow through humility, as Christ, enduring insults, healed us by his wounds.
720. 9.21.1On verse 72: few truly prefer God’s law to gold and silver.
721. 9.21.2Peter, without silver or gold, truly preferred God’s law; the greedy and legacy-hunters do not.
722. 9.22.1“The law of your mouth” may mean the Word, as Peter confessed, or Moses, through whom God gave the law.
723. 10.1.1Iod means confession or desolation; the desolate are quicker to confess and seek God’s help.
724. 10.2.1Jeremiah’s lament under the same letter shows that Jerusalem’s desolation came first so that confession might follow.
725. 10.2.2Proud Jerusalem was chastised like a severe wound, but God’s chastisement heals.
726. 10.3.1Jeremiah’s words about offering the cheek anticipate Christ’s teaching on patience.
727. 10.3.2Patience under blows is a sign of humility, as desolate Jerusalem must learn.
728. 10.3.3Jerusalem will be freed from captivity only by taking up the gospel and Christ’s yoke.
729. 10.4.1To be filled with reproaches moves God’s mercy more than a single insult.
730. 10.4.2David, cursed by Shimei, stayed silent and humble rather than avenge himself.
731. 10.4.3David told Abishai to let Shimei curse, trusting God to repay him with good.
732. 10.4.4When humiliation is complete, sin is loosed; desolation leads through humility and patience to hope and the Spirit’s comfort.
733. 10.5.1Putting the mouth in the dust means a silence of patience that no injury can break.
734. 10.6.1On verse 73: the psalmist appeals to God as his maker.
735. 10.6.2Though made from clay, man is God’s most precious work, upright and free, looking to heaven.
736. 10.7.1Man’s true beauty lies in what is unseen, the eternal soul joined to God.
737. 10.7.2Man is great when he knows himself, imitates God, and uses creation gratefully.
738. 10.8.1God made man last, in his image and likeness, above all creatures.
739. 10.8.2God made man with special care; so we must not neglect the care of our own souls.
740. 10.9.1The psalmist appeals to God not to abandon the work of his hands.
741. 10.9.2God made the animals by a word but formed man with his own hands.
742. 10.10.1To be prepared by God is to be arranged by his wisdom.
743. 10.10.2The soul, breathed into man by God, should know its dignity and hasten to its maker.
744. 10.10.3Man is precious by virtue, faith, and the image of God that should shine in his heart.
745. 10.10.4Humility and mercy are precious; what we give to others returns to us.
746. 10.11.1Scripture calls man only the one who keeps God’s image; the sinner it calls by the names of beasts.
747. 10.11.2Sinners are called horse, fox, and vipers; we must not lose the great gift of God’s image.
748. 10.11.3God does not punish his own image but the sin by which a man has lost it.
749. 10.11.4If God’s image is kept, it is crowned; the sinner is condemned for what he has become.
750. 10.12.1Some manuscripts read “fashioned me,” as in Job; the psalmist asks God to remember our weakness.
751. 10.13.1One hand of God made the heavens, but both his hands formed man, made in his image.
752. 10.14.1Man has something angels may not: Christ born for us of a virgin.
753. 10.14.2In Christ’s flesh humanity is seated with God, an honor not given to angels.
754. 10.14.3The Son of Man sits at God’s right hand, praised by angels, having made men like angels.
755. 10.15.1As the heavens were made by God’s breath, man’s life began with the divine breath.
756. 10.15.2Scripture speaks twice of man’s creation: once as made in God’s image.
757. 10.15.3Man’s body was fashioned from dust, but the image of God is in the rational soul.
758. 10.16.1Christ is the image of God; man is made according to that image.
759. 10.16.2Christ, the Image, comes to restore the image lost in us.
760. 10.16.3The risen Christ breathed the Spirit on his disciples to restore the lost seal.
761. 10.17.1The hands of God made the new man in Christ, renewed after the image of the Creator.
762. 10.17.2Having put on Christ, we receive the Spirit, who forgives sins and makes priests to forgive others; the Spirit is God’s hand.
763. 10.17.3Christ and the Spirit are the hands that made man; Christ made both soul and body and saves the whole man.
764. 10.17.4Both soul and flesh are saved: the soul by knowing God, the flesh by resurrection.
765. 10.18.1Man is twofold: the body from clay, which will rise, and the soul from God’s Spirit, which rules creation.
766. 10.18.2To rule, man must serve God; serving Christ means loving truth, righteousness, chastity, and light.
767. 10.19.1Understanding is a gift of the Spirit, asked for so that we may learn God’s commandments.
768. 10.19.2Understanding comes before learning; reading without understanding profits nothing.
769. 10.20.1If the prophet asks for understanding, no one may claim it as his own; the philosophers search the skies but do not know themselves.
770. 10.20.2Understanding a parable or the literal sense should not make us proud.
771. 10.20.3Even David, anointed with the Spirit, asked God for understanding, as the apostles asked Jesus to explain the parables.
772. 10.21.1The wise man both hears and does Christ’s words.
773. 10.22.1On verse 74: the righteous gladden the God-fearing, though many cannot bear to see them, as some rejected Jesus.
774. 10.22.2The God-fearing rejoice to see the righteous, for they too wish to be righteous.
775. 10.22.3The good love their own virtues in others; the sight of the righteous corrects some and gladdens others.
776. 10.23.1Paul went to Jerusalem to see Peter and was welcomed by the church.
777. 10.23.2If the sight of an animal can cure jaundice, as is said, the sight of a righteous man surely heals.
778. 10.23.3The righteous man confers healing on those who look to him with faith.
779. 10.24.1The wicked are tormented by the mere presence of the righteous.
780. 10.24.2The wolf and the basilisk are said to harm by seeing first.
781. 10.24.3If eyes can kill, the gaze of the righteous, like Christ’s, can heal through faith.
782. 10.25.1To see the righteous truly is to see his mind and hear his wisdom.
783. 10.25.2Like the woman who anointed Jesus, we should hasten to see the righteous.
784. 10.25.3In the poor we honor the one in whose image they are made, Christ himself.
785. 10.25.4As honor to an emperor’s statue honors him, so honor to man honors God’s invisible image.
786. 10.26.1We walk among Christ’s images; to harm the poor is to insult their maker.
787. 10.26.2Christ will judge us not only for neglecting the poor but for injuring them, for what is done to the least is done to him.
788. 10.27.1The God-fearing see the inner hope of the righteous and rejoice; the ungodly avoid the learned.
789. 10.28.1On verse 75: all things, health and sickness, wealth and poverty, happen by God’s just judgment.
790. 10.28.2Job’s losses came by God’s permission to test him.
791. 10.28.3God tests those he knows, as with Abraham and the disciples, for his judgments are righteousness itself.
792. 10.29.1Having asked for understanding, he came to know God’s judgments; knowledge goes beyond faith.
793. 10.30.1God’s judgments are just because the crown comes through trials, as silver is tested by fire.
794. 10.30.2Humiliation opens the eyes to truth and leads to salvation.
795. 10.31.1Knowledge of the truth comes from remaining in Christ’s word.
796. 10.31.2Faith and knowledge are distinct gifts; knowledge includes faith but not the reverse.
797. 10.32.1David knew that both adversity and prosperity are tests, and stayed humble in both.
798. 10.33.1To praise God’s judgments in adversity is the true test; the church’s souls rejoice always in them.
799. 10.34.1On verse 76: God’s mercy not only forgives but exhorts those who strive; the psalmist asks for strength, not relief.
800. 10.34.2Like a strong athlete, the psalmist asks not to be spared trials but to be strengthened in them.
801. 10.35.1God’s mercy, as Paul says, is not of him who wills or runs; yet God deserts the negligent.
802. 10.35.2Perseverance is God’s gift; trials are his mercy, as Lazarus and Job show, while the rich man’s comfort here led to loss.
803. 10.36.1The greater the trial, the greater the consolation; we should ask for God’s exhortation, as Paul did.
804. 10.36.2Consolation is given to those proved in tribulation, and only suffering for Christ merits Christ’s consolation.
805. 10.37.1Christ promised to give words to those handed over for his name; we should pray for his exhortation.
806. 10.38.1The variant “console” is close to “exhort”, for encouragement comforts the contender.
807. 10.39.1On verse 77: God’s mercies are at hand for those who meditate on his law.
808. 10.39.2Whoever meditates on the law is taught by God; the righteous speak wisdom with the word near in mouth and heart.
809. 10.39.3Bishops above all must meditate on Scripture to teach and refute, as Paul told Titus and Timothy.
810. 10.40.1The true life he asks for is the future life in the land of the living.
811. 10.41.1On verse 78: the psalmist does not curse his enemies but, like a physician, wishes them to blush and be healed.
812. 10.41.2Shame often corrects; the psalmist wants his enemies to recognize their sin.
813. 10.41.3Some sinners even boast of fornication and oppression, glorying in their shame.
814. 10.41.4When such men come to the church and believe, they begin at last to see and be ashamed of their sins.
815. 10.42.1Being exercised in God’s precepts means helping even an enemy; vengeance permitted by the law is not allowed by the gospel.
816. 10.43.1Paul calls us to be justly sober: sober not only from wine but from injustice.
817. 10.43.2Sobriety must be joined to sinlessness; bad company makes one drunk with error.
818. 10.43.3True sobriety is knowledge of God joined to good works.
819. 10.44.1On verse 79: those who fear God should turn to the prophet’s teaching and put off their sins.
820. 10.44.2Or: let those who have renounced sin turn to the righteous prophet, so that both may grow.
821. 10.45.1On verse 80: so great a prophet humbly asks for a spotless heart.
822. 10.45.2He asks God to create his heart anew, a heart great enough to receive God himself.
823. 10.46.1Unclean thoughts stain the heart, which, like Pilate’s, cannot be washed by washing hands.
824. 10.46.2Christ teaches that evil comes from the heart; we must cleanse the inside first.
825. 10.46.3The heart is the spring of thoughts; cleanse the spring and the stream runs clean.
826. 10.47.1The heart is cleansed by confession of sins, as the tax collector was justified.
827. 10.47.2Our nature’s water is good; what defiles is the foreign water of sin.
828. 10.47.3No one may boast of a pure heart; God makes it spotless, and confession forestalls shame.
829. 11.1.1Caph means “bowed down”; the penitent must bow not only his neck but his heart.
830. 11.2.1Jeremiah’s verses under the same letter show that God has mercy on those he humbles.
831. 11.2.2The groaning people of Lamentations show that humility leads to God’s mercy.
832. 11.3.1On verse 81: the soul fainting for God’s salvation means intense longing, not bodily weakness.
833. 11.3.2To faint for something means to be wholly consumed by longing for it.
834. 11.3.3Delayed desire increases rather than ends love.
835. 11.3.4The farther the beloved, the more the lover faints with longing.
836. 11.3.5As Tobit’s wife fainted waiting for her son, love grows the more it longs.
837. 11.4.1The soul cleaving to God passes beyond itself and becomes one spirit with him.
838. 11.4.2The saint desires only Christ, God’s salvation, and faints the more with longing.
839. 11.4.3Fainting for God weakens frailty but brings strength; God’s right hand makes the soul live by Christ.
840. 11.4.4Fainting comes from intense longing, like the psalmist’s for God’s courts and Jeremiah’s burning fire.
841. 11.5.1He hoped in the Word, Christ, or in the prophetic word announcing his coming.
842. 11.5.2Absent from Christ while in the body, the prophet longed for him and denied himself to cleave to Christ.
843. 11.6.1We should long for God’s salvation, not money, another’s wife, ambition, or fraud.
844. 11.6.2Failing in ourselves, we cleave to Jesus, “the Lord’s salvation,” and gain what is eternal.
845. 11.7.1On verse 82: the eyes that fail for God’s word are the eyes of the inner man, in contemplation.
846. 11.7.2The church sees Christ with the inner eye of faith; of her two eyes, the mystical is keener and the moral sweeter.
847. 11.8.1Paul, blinded on the road, began to see Christ with the inner eyes.
848. 11.8.2Paul saw Christ in prayer; with such inner eyes the prophets were called seers.
849. 11.9.1Eyes fail from long watching, as Tobit’s wife watched for her son and David for news of Absalom.
850. 11.9.2A young wife watches the sea for her husband, longing to be first to see him.
851. 11.9.3Like a wife watching for her husband, the prophet strained his inner eyes for God’s word.
852. 11.9.4The prophet disciplined his body and thirsted for God like a stag for water.
853. 11.9.5We should strain toward Scripture’s meaning, like watching a ship approach until we reach the harbor of truth.
854. 11.10.1The eyes say “comfort me” in the singular because flesh and mind, united in one desire, become one eye.
855. 11.11.1Studying the word is not idleness; wisdom is a work like the other cardinal virtues.
856. 11.11.2Christ, the Word, works and through him all things were made.
857. 11.11.3Mary, listening to the word, chose the better part over Martha’s serving.
858. 11.12.1Paul’s “not in word but in power” refers to empty, puffed-up speech.
859. 11.12.2Paul’s preaching rested not on eloquence but on the Spirit’s power.
860. 11.12.3The holy word of the saints, the preaching of the gospel, has power.
861. 11.13.1On verse 83: the righteous man is like a wineskin, made from dead skin: he has died to sin to live to God.
862. 11.13.2Filled with the Spirit, we become new wineskins that keep the new wine of grace.
863. 11.13.3Keep the wineskin sound and cool, lest the new wine of grace be lost.
864. 11.13.4The cooling snow of God’s word, continence, and fasting quench the heat of lust.
865. 11.13.5Christ’s snow-white garments signify the resurrection life, in which there is no marrying.
866. 11.14.1The body is a wineskin: Adam and Eve were clothed in skins after the fall.
867. 11.14.2Dead to sin like a dead skin, the prophet did not feel the cold of sin.
868. 11.14.3The good wineskin chastises the body and is filled not with wine but with the Spirit.
869. 11.15.1Sin, like frost, is useless; the soul soaked in God’s statutes is cooled from desire.
870. 11.15.2The wineskin must be full of the Spirit; living to the flesh is death and enmity with God.
871. 11.16.1On verse 84: life is short, yet beset by persecutors; the psalmist asks for God’s judgment.
872. 11.16.2The persecutors’ time is short; he counts life in days, made bright by virtue.
873. 11.16.3He asks God to judge for him against his persecutors, who will not stand in the judgment.
874. 11.17.1Judgment on persecutors already happens: unbelievers are judged, and Christ gave his servants power over the enemy.
875. 11.18.1The prophet asks that the devil, not a man, be subjected to him.
876. 11.18.2He longs for Satan to be crushed under the feet of faith, freeing the reformed man.
877. 11.18.3Christ has subjected the hostile powers to us; if we do not crush the devil, it is our own fault.
878. 11.18.4By chastity, continence, and righteousness we tread on the serpent and scorpion.
879. 11.19.1On verse 85: the unrighteous tell idle tales, like chattering swallows, unlike God’s law.
880. 11.20.1The heretic’s talk is idle; one grounded in the law can tell heresy from the gospel.
881. 11.20.2Christ, the truth, is not in the arguments of unbelievers, whose mouths are full of deceit.
882. 11.20.3Heretics steal God’s word and twist it for fraud.
883. 11.20.4Heretics adulterate God’s word like dishonest tavern-keepers watering wine.
884. 11.21.1On verse 86: like a good soldier, the psalmist does not flee persecution but asks God’s help.
885. 11.21.2All who would live godly in Christ face persecution from many enemies, seen and unseen.
886. 11.21.3If we suffer no persecution, we should fear that we are not truly living godly in Christ.
887. 11.21.4David, as though Christ’s disciple, heard in the Spirit that the faithful will be persecuted, and did not shrink from it.
888. 11.21.5Trials strengthen faith; idle peace exposes it to corruption.
889. 11.22.1In times of persecution, the soul clung to God and prayed with its whole heart.
890. 11.22.2Persecution trained Christians to despise death; the leisure of peace now brings subtler dangers, such as flattery.
891. 11.22.3The persecuted apostles rejoiced to suffer for Christ and counted the most beaten as the most honored.
892. 11.23.1David welcomes contests, knowing persecution helps virtue grow.
893. 11.23.2Only one persecuted for faith, righteousness, or chastity can say he is persecuted unjustly.
894. 11.24.1On verse 87: the psalmist, nearly destroyed by spiritual and bodily foes, held fast by faith to God’s commandments.
895. 11.24.2Our own body, swept by every passion, is the enemy within the house.
896. 11.24.3Even the righteous can barely withstand so many passions, each of which can overcome us alone.
897. 11.25.1On this earth Adam fell and Cain, consumed by envy, killed his brother.
898. 11.25.2Noah, watchful through the flood, fell into drunkenness in idle security.
899. 11.25.3Lot, untouched by Sodom’s fire, was burned by the incest of his daughters.
900. 11.26.1David nearly slipped when he envied the prosperity of sinners.
901. 11.26.2Chastised, David learned that virtue, not riches, counts, and held fast to God’s commandments, his only protection.
902. 11.27.1On verse 88: the psalmist asks for eternal life, which cannot be found in this body.
903. 11.27.2God’s mercy must give life daily, so that we die to sin and live to God, keeping his precepts.
904. 11.28.1Only grace-given life keeps God’s commandments; the psalmist longs for Christ’s coming, which fulfills the law by forbidding even adulterous desire.
905. 11.28.2Christ, the Father’s mouth, forbade even adultery in the heart, advancing chastity.
906. 11.29.1The persecutors are foxes like Herod, lurking in the lairs of earthly passions.
907. 11.29.2Samson’s foxes with torches signify deceitful men and heretics, whose end is burning.
908. 11.29.3The three hundred foxes (the number of the cross) figure heretics who preach the cross falsely.
909. 11.29.4The little foxes of the Song are heretics, who can harm the young in faith but not the mature.
910. 12.1.1Ambrose introduces the letter Lamed, interpreted as “heart” or “I keep.”
911. 12.1.2A clean and wise heart understands Scripture and keeps God’s commandments, as Mary kept Christ’s words in her heart.
912. 12.2.1Scripture must be read spiritually, without mixing earthly notions into God’s pure words.
913. 12.2.2Like good money-changers we must test Scripture’s silver and store up heavenly treasure.
914. 12.3.1Christ is our treasure; though a man, he forgave sins by divine power as God in a body.
915. 12.4.1Understanding is our treasure; Christ, in whom wisdom is hidden, opens the closed meaning of Scripture.
916. 12.5.1God’s word abides in heaven and should abide in us, kept and meditated on.
917. 12.5.2Meditation on the law lets us bear humiliation, which God intends for correction, not despair.
918. 12.6.1Lamentations shows that humiliation from the Lord is just, for no evil comes from his mouth.
919. 12.7.1Ambrose notes that the Greek phrase in Ps 119:89 is translated both “for ever” and “for the age.”
920. 12.7.2Ambrose weighs the readings “for the age” and “for ever” against Christ’s saying that his words will not pass away.
921. 12.7.3The Word cannot abide in a heaven that passes away; it neither begins nor ends as heaven does.
922. 12.8.1Taking the moral sense first, Ambrose urges imitation of heaven’s steady order.
923. 12.8.2Heaven’s seasons give a pattern for life: always sow seed for future fruit.
924. 12.8.3Heavenly seeds must be tended patiently, not allowed to run riot, until their fruit ripens.
925. 12.9.1As the sky changes its seasons, youthful wantonness should give way to sober maturity.
926. 12.9.2Sun, moon and year keep their appointed courses without transgression.
927. 12.9.3The heavenly bodies obey one law, keeping their courses in harmony.
928. 12.10.1Satan fell from heaven to earth, which is why vices abound here.
929. 12.10.2The word does not abide on earth, where the devil has laid snares; he fell for not holding to it.
930. 12.11.1Heaven passes away so that a new heaven and earth may come and we may see God face to face.
931. 12.12.1The “heaven” where the word abides is better taken as the holy heavenly powers than as the element.
932. 12.12.2Saints on earth who bear the heavenly image and live as citizens of heaven are “heavens.”
933. 12.12.3Whoever lives the angelic life in integrity and self-control is called “heaven,” as the fallen one is called “earth.”
934. 12.12.4The righteous soul is God’s heaven and throne, into which Christ and the Father enter when the door is opened.
935. 12.13.1Christ knocks and wants to enter; we must open our hearts to the true light.
936. 12.13.2Christ does not force his way in; the Sun of righteousness never sets for those who receive him.
937. 12.14.1Faith is the door at which Christ knocks, as in the Song of Songs.
938. 12.14.2Christ knocks most when his body, the church, suffers; we must watch so as not to shut him out.
939. 12.14.3The soul has a door and gates through which the King of glory enters.
940. 12.14.4Faith and righteousness have gates through which Christ enters.
941. 12.15.1Sloth and drowsiness bolt the door against Christ, who seeks a watchful bride.
942. 12.16.1Christ sometimes puts his hand through the window, as in Song 5:4–5.
943. 12.16.2Christ is first recognized as God through his works; then love grows and the soul conceives the Word.
944. 12.17.1As the soul opens to the Word, the bridegroom passes by, wishing always to be sought.
945. 12.17.2Christ withdraws and returns; “passed through” may also mean he pierces the soul, as Simeon told Mary.
946. 12.18.1Another reading: the word abides in heaven among the angels, whose feelings do not change as men’s do.
947. 12.18.2The word does not abide where anger and heavy sorrow are; the Spirit remained on Christ alone.
948. 12.18.3The prophets prophesied only when the Spirit gave it; David did not know what Nathan would announce.
949. 12.18.4Some take “heaven” as the heavenly powers, others as the unchangeable Trinity: the Word abides in the Father.
950. 12.19.1Truth was first in Israel, which had God’s oracles, and is now in the church.
951. 12.19.2Truth passed from the later Jews, who rejected Christ, to the church; heretics do not hold it.
952. 12.19.3The two generations of the verse are the people of the law and the Christian people of grace.
953. 12.20.1God founded the earth by wisdom; the saints do not busy themselves with cosmology but with what profits salvation.
954. 12.21.1Ecclesiastes shows the passage is spiritual: one generation goes as the rich become poor.
955. 12.21.2The nations, once poor, are now enriched through faith in Christ with spiritual riches.
956. 12.21.3Spiritual riches make the soul a fruitful earth that stands firm.
957. 12.22.1The Sun of righteousness circles the earth, as Ecclesiastes describes the sun.
958. 12.22.2The sun sets on vice and rises on grace; in Christ we died to sin to live to God.
959. 12.22.3The sun “draws to its place” as Christ, lifted on the cross, draws all to himself.
960. 12.23.1Christ the Rising One went first to the Hebrews (the south), then turned to the nations (the north).
961. 12.23.2The heavy northern nations have become light through faith and now belong to the eternal King.
962. 12.24.1On Song 4:16: the north wind of faithlessness is driven out, the mild south wind invited.
963. 12.24.2Or “Arise, north wind” calls the sleeping nations to wake; Jews first, then gentiles, are invited to the church.
964. 12.25.1Christ came first to earthly Jerusalem, which refused him.
965. 12.25.2Christ turned to the nations so that God may be all in all; the church is called both heaven and world.
966. 12.25.3The church, as the world, says she is dark because the Sun long passed over the frozen nations.
967. 12.25.4Once God was known only in Judah; now in the church Christ is all in all and the light shines for every people.
968. 12.26.1The day that abides is Christ, the light of the saints, for whom the sun never sets.
969. 12.27.1The abiding day points to the future when God himself will be the light and night will be no more.
970. 12.27.2At the end, when the kingdom is handed over to the Father, all will serve God.
971. 12.27.3Now many serve sin, but when all believe, all will serve God; the prophet speaks of the future as present.
972. 12.28.1The prophet’s meditation on the law was the oil of his light.
973. 12.28.2Humiliation can be affliction, not virtue; meditation on the law prepares us for it.
974. 12.28.3Like athletes we must train daily in the Scriptures to be ready for the adversary.
975. 12.28.4We fight best by turning the other cheek, leaving vengeance to God, and disciplining ourselves.
976. 12.28.5Trained by meditation, the believer can endure every kind of adversity and repeat the psalm’s words.
977. 12.29.1Job, formed by the law of God, did not perish under his losses, sickness, his wife’s advice and his friends’ speeches.
978. 12.30.1The martyr endures torture because meditation on the law teaches that future punishments are worse.
979. 12.31.1Joseph endured his brothers’ hatred, slavery and exile.
980. 12.31.2Joseph served Potiphar faithfully, but the devil set a woman’s snare for him.
981. 12.31.3Potiphar’s wife tempted Joseph to adultery and had him imprisoned; then prosperity tempted him.
982. 12.31.4Joseph is raised to power, and his brothers who sold him come before him.
983. 12.31.5Joseph forgave his brothers and could rightly say the psalm’s words.
984. 12.32.1A tradition tells that Isaiah, tempted by the devil to recant, chose death for the truth.
985. 12.33.1Daily reading of Scripture is the soul’s training and food against temptation.
986. 12.34.1The law is a tutor giving life to those who keep it until faith matures.
987. 12.34.2The law justifies only in appearance, yet the prophet keeps gratitude to it as to a useful tutor.
988. 12.35.1Israel kept the Passover in Egypt and again in the promised land, the first to admonish, the second to remember.
989. 12.35.2Passover recalls slavery and liberty; one only grasps what one has received by remembering what one was.
990. 12.36.1Christ, the Lamb of God, has freed us from the bonds of sin.
991. 12.36.2We must remember our slavery to the devil so as to thank Christ, who made him captive.
992. 12.37.1Few can truly say to God “I am yours”: only those wholly given to him.
993. 12.37.2The greedy do not find God enough; only those content with God can say “I am yours.”
994. 12.37.3The rich young man found God not enough; the apostles, who left everything, could say “I am yours.”
995. 12.38.1Judas said “I am yours” with his lips, but Satan entered him and claimed him.
996. 12.39.1The worldly man is claimed by many masters: lust, avarice, luxury.
997. 12.39.2Luxury and ambition each claim the worldly man as their slave.
998. 12.39.3Ambition enslaves those it makes rulers, as the devil offered Christ the kingdoms for worship.
999. 12.40.1Christ answers that only one whose life matches his words, who denies himself, is truly his.
1000. 12.40.2Christ disowns the lustful, the grasping, the angry and the drunken, whom the devil claims as his own.
1001. 12.41.1Only one free of sin and constant is Christ’s; changeable passions each claim the soul.
1002. 12.41.2Only one with a clear conscience, like Paul, belongs wholly to Christ; Ambrose confesses he is divided.
1003. 12.41.3Paul, having one God and one Lord, belonged wholly to the Word.
1004. 12.41.4Paul, who truly belonged to Christ, was called a chosen vessel and won the crown of righteousness.
1005. 12.42.1David could say “I am yours” because he sought only God’s statutes.
1006. 12.42.2While others heap up property, the prophet’s whole inheritance is God’s statutes and Christ.
1007. 12.43.1The seventh verse can be the martyr’s word: persecutors tried every torment but could not move him.
1008. 12.43.2The martyr’s faith triumphs over persecutors and death.
1009. 12.43.3The dying martyr sees the angels and Christ waiting to escort and crown him.
1010. 12.44.1Alternatively, sinners tried to lure the prophet into sin, but understanding God’s testimonies saved him.
1011. 12.44.2True understanding shows itself in deeds, such as feeding the poor.
1012. 12.45.1On the eighth verse, Ambrose distinguishes Greek words for “end” and “consummation.”
1013. 12.45.2Christ is the end of all things; “consummation” has several senses.
1014. 12.46.1According to Paul the end follows the consummation of the age and the resurrection.
1015. 12.47.1The world had brought its wickedness to its full measure, as Saul had.
1016. 12.47.2The prophet saw Christ, the end of all consummation, forgiving every full-grown sin by his cross.
1017. 12.48.1Christ is the end and goal of all the virtues.
1018. 12.50.1How can the commandment be broad when the way to life is narrow?
1019. 12.50.2The narrow way needs a broad commandment, which enlarges the heart in tribulation.
1020. 12.51.1The breadth of God’s commandments enlarged the hearts of the prophet and of Paul.
1021. 12.51.2Christ’s commandment is broad so that travelers on the narrow way are comforted and not crushed.
1022. 12.52.1God’s commandment is Wisdom’s, who speaks boldly in the broad places.
1023. 12.52.2The commandment of love, which includes enemies, is the broadest of all.
1024. 12.52.3Christians, unlike others, must be at peace with all and love even enemies.
1025. 12.52.4The broad commandment is to bless persecutors, as David prayed for those who slandered him.
1026. 13.1.1The letter Mem is interpreted “from within” or “fire from the depths,” matching the love expressed in its first verse.
1027. 13.2.1Lamentations’ mem verse speaks of fire sent into the bones; Christ came to cast this fire on earth.
1028. 13.2.2God is a fire that consumes sin and kindles love of knowledge when we read Scripture.
1029. 13.2.3This fire burned in Cleopas’s heart when Christ opened the Scriptures; Ezekiel speaks of it melting base metals.
1030. 13.2.4Ambrose prays that the Word may come as a consuming fire to purge the church.
1031. 13.2.5The fire of love builds up the church; one who loves God keeps his law in deed.
1032. 13.3.1The prophet’s love for God’s commandment is a model of the greatest commandment.
1033. 13.3.2Love calls God to witness, as Peter did; whoever loves the Lord loves and does his will.
1034. 13.3.3Christ entrusted his flock to Peter for love; God prefers willing service to forced.
1035. 13.4.1Neither the Marcionite nor the Jew can truly love the law; only the Christian, who reads it spiritually, can.
1036. 13.5.1Who are the prophet’s enemies, since he must love his people and invite the nations?
1037. 13.5.2There must be a just reason for the prophet’s enemies, as he hated God’s enemies.
1038. 13.5.3His enemies are God’s enemies, not the gentiles, whom he foresaw coming to faith.
1039. 13.6.1The enemies are heretics and the Jews, who keep the letter of the law but miss its mystery in Christ.
1040. 13.6.2Christians consecrate themselves by the sign of the cross and the confession of Christ’s death.
1041. 13.6.3The piercing of the ear and circumcision are signs; the spiritual meaning is purification of the heart.
1042. 13.6.4The spiritual meaning of unleavened bread is purging the old man; the Christian heard what the Jew could not.
1043. 13.6.5Rejecting the fullness of time in Christ, the Jew remains a slave.
1044. 13.6.6The wound can be healed only by the two-edged sword of God’s word, which distinguishes shadow from truth.
1045. 13.7.1Meditate on the law with the care one uses in buying property, for you are acquiring yourself.
1046. 13.7.2Take Moses, the prophets, the apostles and Christ the great Counselor as advisers.
1047. 13.7.3David gave all his time to meditation on the law, not to worldly gain.
1048. 13.8.1The blessed man meditates day and night, for the day is too short for the law.
1049. 13.8.2For one who meditates in the law it is always day.
1050. 13.9.1Those who reject the New Testament read in the dark; Christ bids us walk in the day.
1051. 13.10.1The gentile church understands above the Jewish scribes, who claim to teach.
1052. 13.10.2The church has learned Christ’s testimonies of the cross and love of enemies, as Paul showed.
1053. 13.11.1It might seem presumptuous to claim understanding above Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Samuel.
1054. 13.11.2The prophet rightly understood above all because God himself taught him.
1055. 13.12.1Many self-appointed teachers do not understand; one taught by God surpasses even true teachers.
1056. 13.13.1One taught by God has the true old age of a spotless life, as Jeremiah was told not to plead youth.
1057. 13.14.1The prophet sets himself above elders grown old in sin, not above wise elders.
1058. 13.14.2These elders handed Jesus to Pilate and opposed the apostles.
1059. 13.14.3The old people, unteachable from youth, failed to recognize Christ; true old age is understanding.
1060. 13.15.1Jacob, the younger, understood above his elder brother Esau.
1061. 13.15.2Jacob’s taking of Esau’s garments figures the gentiles receiving the robe of the law and prophets.
1062. 13.15.3The gentile people receives the blessing; the elder brother finds nothing left.
1063. 13.16.1The prophet teaches how to keep one’s feet from the slippery way of sin.
1064. 13.16.2The evil way is the world’s vanity; resist desires that ravage the soul’s field.
1065. 13.17.1The feet kept back are not the body’s but the soul’s.
1066. 13.17.2There are feet of pride, of iniquity and of weakness, which must be kept back.
1067. 13.17.3Whoever stands must beware of falling; standing with God one is kept from falling.
1068. 13.17.4God keeps from falling those who keep their own feet back; Christ is the way.
1069. 13.18.1Not turning from God’s judgments means walking firmly in the old law and the new.
1070. 13.19.1Ps 9 foretells a lawgiver for the nations: the Gospel and the calling of the gentiles.
1071. 13.19.2Ps 9 speaks of sinners turned back to hell, the nations that forget God.
1072. 13.20.1The prophet prays that the nations, fearing judgment, may learn they are mortal men.
1073. 13.20.2The prophet prays that God not stay far from the nations, so that those far off may come near.
1074. 13.20.3Being “men” signifies both mortal weakness and the dignity of God’s image, which Christ shared.
1075. 13.21.1Christ himself gave the nations a law, the Gospel.
1076. 13.22.1The Gospel’s words of forgiveness and resurrection are sweeter than honey.
1077. 13.23.1The church’s honeycomb is the good words gathered by the prophets.
1078. 13.23.2Scripture’s mystical sense is strong bread; its moral sense is sweet honey that comforts the penitent.
1079. 13.24.1The word is also like wine and milk; spiritual drunkenness gladdens the soul.
1080. 13.24.2The cup that inebriates and the drenched earth show the fruitfulness of spiritual drunkenness.
1081. 13.24.3God’s word, like rain, makes the soul fruitful; Christ visited the earth by taking a body.
1082. 13.25.1From the mouth of the righteous flow wisdom and sweetness, without guile.
1083. 13.25.2The church delights in the righteous preacher’s words, sweeter than honey that fades.
1084. 13.25.3Moral teaching may sting but does not harm; it should not be offered to fools.
1085. 13.26.1The eighth verse: understanding comes from the commandments, and only one who understands can keep them.
1086. 13.26.2Reciting the law without understanding is like a tree all leaves and no fruit, or a careless shepherd.
1087. 13.26.3Reading Scripture without its spiritual sense leaves the reader ignorant of its pasture and dangers.
1088. 13.27.1Claiming to keep the commandments while breaking them is ignorance, not understanding.
1089. 13.27.2God’s words cannot be sweet to a deceitful tongue; Peter bids us put away guile.
1090. 13.27.3Honey under the tongue means blessing those who curse and hating only iniquity.
1091. 13.28.1We rightly love God’s servants and our enemies, and rightly hate God’s enemies and sin.
1092. 13.28.2Hatred of worldly things guards against lust and pride; Christ became poor and sought no praise.
1093. 13.28.3Man, made from earth and dust, should not boast of nobility or wealth.
1094. 14.1.1The letter Nun means “only one,” and this section prophesies of the only Son, the Word who is a lamp.
1095. 14.2.1Christ and the sacraments are the pastures of the faithful.
1096. 14.2.2The pastures yield the flowers of resurrection and the Lord’s blood, and the food of daily Scripture reading.
1097. 14.3.1Christ feeds among the lilies and on the “mountains of the valleys,” the humble saints.
1098. 14.3.2Saints are above the world; the world is a valley of tears in which we should weep for our sins.
1099. 14.4.1David the shepherd figures Christ, who humbled himself and fed the Father’s sheep.
1100. 14.5.1God’s word feeds the mouth and lights the inner eye in the world’s night.
1101. 14.5.2How can the Word, the true and great light, be called a lamp?
1102. 14.6.1The Word is a lamp to us but a great light to angels, and to Peter and Paul at their visions.
1103. 14.7.1Christ is a lamp in our earthen vessels, fed by the oil of heavenly mercy and grace.
1104. 14.7.2The oil is humility and mercy, as the Samaritan poured oil on the wounded man.
1105. 14.7.3The wise virgins with oil entered the wedding; those without faith were shut out.
1106. 14.7.4Without the oil of faith, prudence and mercy one is a foolish virgin, shut out in darkness.
1107. 14.7.5Keep the lamp anointed; conscience is the eye and lamp of the body.
1108. 14.7.6A clean conscience makes the whole person bright; a dark one darkens the body.
1109. 14.8.1John the Baptist was a lamp and the apostles the light of the world; how much more the Word.
1110. 14.9.1Where there is no darkness the Word is light, not a lamp: a lamp in the law, a great light in the Gospel.
1111. 14.9.2For the Jews the law is a hidden lamp; for the nations Christ is a risen light.
1112. 14.9.3Our words should not be idle; God sets our lamp on the lampstand of the mind.
1113. 14.9.4The mouth is a lampstand and speech a lamp that should always shine.
1114. 14.10.1The light of the righteous is never quenched; the wise man is the lamp and eye of the church.
1115. 14.10.2Paul and David, living in heaven in mind, still followed the lamp of the word and show us how to follow it.
1116. 14.10.3We must follow the lamp so as not to stumble, as Peter strayed in ignorance of Christ’s death.
1117. 14.10.4Christ showed Peter the lamp to follow; on the water Peter faltered when he did not follow it.
1118. 14.11.1Follow the word as a lamp through the dark dangers of this world.
1119. 14.11.2Let faith and Scripture guide each step, and light your own lamp from the word.
1120. 14.11.3Our many lamps must burn; the law’s lamps signify virtues, not the lamps the Jews light by the letter.
1121. 14.11.4Our body is the tabernacle of witness, cleansed by Christ’s blood, in which virtues shine.
1122. 14.11.5Virtues are lamps burning in the temple of the body unless sin puts them out.
1123. 14.12.1The lamp must always shine; rejoicing in the light only for an hour is not enough.
1124. 14.12.2One who forgets the word after church walks in darkness and does the works of darkness.
1125. 14.12.3As the body needs light to work, the soul needs the light of the word in every word and deed.
1126. 14.13.1The same Word is lamp and light, as Christ is both advocate of sinners and rewarder of the strong.
1127. 14.14.1Walking in the light, David could say with authority, “I have sworn and determined.”
1128. 14.14.2One swears rightly only when one knows what one swears and is firm in mind.
1129. 14.14.3An oath should be preceded by knowledge of the truth.
1130. 14.14.4Christ forbade oaths because he spoke to the weak, so that they would not swear falsely.
1131. 14.14.5God may swear because his oath cannot fail; man should not presume to imitate it.
1132. 14.15.1Many are troubled when the righteous suffer loss; David, perfected, was not.
1133. 14.15.2God chastens those he loves, as a father his son; such discipline is just.
1134. 14.16.1God allowed Job’s trials to prove his righteousness and enlarge his crown.
1135. 14.16.2Job’s losses were God’s anointing of his athlete for the contest.
1136. 14.16.3Job’s sores and losses were the exercise of faith by which he overcame the devil.
1137. 14.16.4What is just is not hard; Job blessed God in suffering.
1138. 14.17.1Without persecution there would be no martyrs; those who suffered are more blessed.
1139. 14.18.1The righteous, rooted in heart, does not fear temptation.
1140. 14.18.2The righteous asks to be proved and accepts humiliation for Christ.
1141. 14.19.1David rejoices in being humbled; humility, praised even in Christ, is better than power.
1142. 14.19.2Christ glories in his humility; David humbled himself to share Christ’s sufferings.
1143. 14.20.1Christ himself may speak the verse, he who said, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble.”
1144. 14.20.2Only Christ can teach humility; it is hard to keep it in every respect.
1145. 14.20.3Pride brought man’s fall; Christ humbled himself to the cross and was exalted.
1146. 14.20.4Christ won our worship and gathered the church through his humility on the cross.
1147. 14.21.1David stayed humble; Hezekiah fell through pride; Joseph suffered for being preferred.
1148. 14.21.2Joseph’s humility won over strangers; the psalm’s “I was humbled and he saved me” fits him and David.
1149. 14.22.1When Saul sought to kill David, David’s humility won Jonathan, who defended him.
1150. 14.22.2David’s humility saved him from Saul and, after Bathsheba, brought forgiveness.
1151. 14.22.3After the census David chose to fall into God’s hands rather than men’s.
1152. 14.22.4David’s humble confession during the plague saved king and people.
1153. 14.23.1Asking for life according to the word means doing everything with reason, as all was made through the Word.
1154. 14.23.2We imitate God by doing everything through the word and with reason.
1155. 14.24.1Service done willingly earns a reward; forced service is a mere duty.
1156. 14.24.2Paul served willingly, making himself the slave of all.
1157. 14.24.3Paul became all things to all by will, as his letter to Philemon shows.
1158. 14.24.4Paul’s appeal for Onesimus shows his wish that good be done freely.
1159. 14.24.5David offers God the voluntary sacrifice of his mouth, like the bee of Proverbs; it is the sacrifice of praise.
1160. 14.25.1God asked “Whom shall I send?” so that Isaiah might volunteer.
1161. 14.25.2Isaiah offered himself, and Christ filled him as a willing instrument.
1162. 14.26.1Jeremiah excused himself as too young, but God sent him.
1163. 14.26.2God judged Jeremiah by maturity of character, not years.
1164. 14.26.3God moves the reluctant to serve willingly; Caiaphas’s prophecy was not a willing offering.
1165. 14.27.1David’s willing offerings of the mouth are his psalms of devotion, including “I have prepared a lamp for my anointed.”
1166. 14.27.2Those whose works shine in Christ’s light, like Peter, the martyrs and David, are lamps for Christ.
1167. 14.27.3David prepared his mind for Christ by sparing Saul, the Lord’s anointed.
1168. 14.27.4David asked his men to spare Absalom, who had sinned against him.
1169. 14.27.5David’s lament for Absalom prophesied the grace of Christ.
1170. 14.28.1God’s deep judgments are learned from Christ: repay injury with kindness.
1171. 14.28.2Christ did not return evil for evil but prayed for his persecutors.
1172. 14.29.1Only one whose soul is always in God’s hands learns his judgments; some read “in my hands.”
1173. 14.29.2The righteous in daily danger keeps God’s law; most manuscripts read “in your hands.”
1174. 14.30.1Whoever rules himself is a king whose heart is in God’s hand, and no one snatches him from it.
1175. 14.31.1The hands of God are Wisdom’s: the left gives present riches and glory, the right eternal life.
1176. 14.32.1Jacob’s right hand on Ephraim, the younger, shows the greater blessing.
1177. 14.32.2Ephraim figures the believing nations; Manasseh, “forgetfulness,” the people who denied Christ.
1178. 14.33.1The left hand supports present rest; the right, above, embraces the whole soul.
1179. 14.33.2Christ sought no worldly glory; Wisdom’s right hand gives eternal length of life.
1180. 14.34.1Eternal life is the bride’s mantle, which the watchmen tried to take and which the faithful soul keeps by love.
1181. 14.34.2The soul that keeps the law and uses wealth for the poor ascends white, and the heavenly powers marvel.
1182. 14.34.3The heavenly powers marvel at a soul ascending unstained from the desert of this life.
1183. 14.35.1The verse fits the martyr who escapes the snares of torment and bribes.
1184. 14.35.2Martyrs escape the snares of confiscation, torture and the bribes of tyrants and gain heaven.
1185. 14.36.1Riches are the devil’s snare, which Christ, owning nothing of the devil’s, broke.
1186. 14.36.2The snare of money strangled Judas, who hanged himself instead of repenting.
1187. 14.36.8Those caught in the devil’s snare can break free through repentance.
1188. 14.37.1Avarice and luxury are the bait of the devil’s snare.
1189. 14.37.2Those risen with Christ should seek the things above, not earthly pleasures.
1190. 14.37.3Dead to the world and alive in Christ, the saint flees the city’s snares of usury and deceit.
1191. 14.38.1In Enoch, Elijah, Paul, David and Christ we have been given wings to rise from the earth.
1192. 14.38.2David asked who would give him wings like a dove.
1193. 14.38.3The dove’s silvered wings are given even in sleep to the soul whose heart keeps watch.
1194. 14.38.4A pure soul is a dove; even as a sparrow it can escape the fowler’s snare.
1195. 14.39.1Man, renewed like the eagle, is a bird for which nets are spread.
1196. 14.39.2Christ has bought us, yet the devil still lays snares, like the one he set in Judas’s heart.
1197. 14.39.3May God spare us the snares he rains on sinners and bind us with the bonds of love.
1198. 14.40.1The martyrs inherit God’s testimonies, which were given with heaven and earth as witnesses.
1199. 14.40.2God calls creation, men and conscience as witnesses to his commandments.
1200. 14.40.3Conscience will force confession before Christ, who knows all.
1201. 14.41.1We were heirs of the sinner and are now heirs of Christ.
1202. 14.41.2Christ’s testament makes all heirs of the whole, freeing what Eve’s inheritance devoured.
1203. 14.41.3Christ’s inheritance is whole to each and grows the more heirs it has.
1204. 14.41.4Human inheritances shrink when divided; Christ’s kingdom reaches each in full.
1205. 14.42.1Forgiveness of sins, Christ’s inheritance, profits each and the whole body.
1206. 14.42.2The resurrection, Christ’s inheritance, is the remaking of the whole human race.
1207. 14.42.3The Spirit witnesses to the new testament: God writes his laws on hearts and forgets sins.
1208. 14.42.4God writes his law on our hearts, forgets our sins, and gives us memory of his precepts.
1209. 14.43.1Do not replace God’s law in the heart with the law of sin; God has painted the soul’s walls in his image.
1210. 14.43.2Keep Christ’s testimonies, in which is the joy of the kingdom where tears and death end.
1211. 14.43.3Christ’s silent passion foreshadows the blessedness without tears.
1212. 14.44.1The heir of God’s testimonies inherits God, Christ, the Spirit and the angels, and rejoices even in suffering.
1213. 14.45.1Hoping for God’s reward, one inclines the heart to Christ’s righteousness.
1214. 14.45.2To incline the heart is to humble the self-exalting flesh under God’s law.
1215. 14.46.1Christ humbled himself in the incarnation and calls us to learn humility from him.
1216. 14.46.2Christ teaches humility, which we can imitate, and its reward is the kingdom and paradise.
1217. 15.1.1Samech means “hear” or “firmament”; true hearing is with the understanding.
1218. 15.2.1Hearing must be spiritual, for the law is spiritual.
1219. 15.2.2Hearing means understanding; the careless hearer is like Malchus whose ear Peter cut off.
1220. 15.3.1“Hear” and “firmament” agree: one is made firm by hearing.
1221. 15.4.1Lamentations’ samech verse speaks of the Lord treading the winepress of Judah.
1222. 15.4.2The verse is fulfilled when Judea rejected Christ, whose cross is ruin to unbelievers and life to believers.
1223. 15.5.1Lamentations’ other samech verse describes passers-by mocking Jerusalem.
1224. 15.5.2Lam 4:20 names Christ the Lord, his seizure, and his grace to the nations.
1225. 15.6.1Lamentations foretells the mockers who wagged their heads at the cross.
1226. 15.6.2The mockers passed by instead of standing; the righteous stand in Jerusalem’s courts.
1227. 15.6.3“Passing by” is often bad, as with despoilers of the vine, but sometimes good, as with Moses at the bush.
1228. 15.7.1“Passing” alone is good; “passing the way” means leaving the good, safe road.
1229. 15.7.2Moses stood in the way, which is Christ, and passed from temporal to eternal things.
1230. 15.7.3The bride passes through the world to Christ.
1231. 15.8.1The law was the head of the people as a husband; when it died, the people married the risen Christ.
1232. 15.8.2Some read this as a levirate marriage: the people married the Gospel, the brother of the dead law.
1233. 15.8.3The “moving of the head” is the passage from law to Gospel, foretold in Pss 44 and 22.
1234. 15.9.1The Pharisees moved their head, Christ, rejecting him, and would not move their own burdens.
1235. 15.9.2The finger means the Spirit; they refused the spiritual sense and Christ’s light yoke.
1236. 15.10.1Like Caiaphas, the mockers unwittingly signified that Christ came to move men from the letter to the mystery.
1237. 15.10.2The scattering of the Jews serves the salvation of a remnant and warns others against unbelief.
1238. 15.10.3Jerusalem, mocked for rejecting her Redeemer, may yet be called a crown of glory if she believes.
1239. 15.11.1The crown of glory is the church, which crowns Christ, as in the Song.
1240. 15.11.2The souls are called to go out from the body’s confines to see Christ crowned.
1241. 15.11.3Christ’s glory is seen only by those who go out beyond the frail body.
1242. 15.11.4The saints have crowns of single virtues; Christ alone has the crown of glory, which includes all.
1243. 15.12.1Christ’s golden head and black locks in the Song signify the wisdom and depth of the saints and teachers.
1244. 15.12.2The church’s locks are its deep teachers, whom God feeds like the young ravens.
1245. 15.13.1The doves’ eyes are spiritual men keen to see the mysteries of Scripture, pure and without guile.
1246. 15.14.1Teeth, cheeks and lips signify the various virtues and teachers of the church.
1247. 15.14.2Rejecting its head, the synagogue lost its counselors, head and tail.
1248. 15.15.1David, who never persecuted his own enemies, yet hated transgressors of God’s law.
1249. 15.15.2David anticipated the Gospel: love personal enemies, but hate God’s enemies even among one’s kin.
1250. 15.16.1An objector asks how Christ can command hatred of parents when the law commands honoring them.
1251. 15.16.2The objector protests that hating children, wife and brothers contradicts nature and law.
1252. 15.17.1Christ answers by citing Ecclesiastes: there is a time to love and a time to hate.
1253. 15.17.2Christ did not teach children to hate parents or husbands to disdain wives.
1254. 15.17.3Love of children, wife and brothers is the law of nature and of God; marriage makes one flesh.
1255. 15.18.1Christ warns against the allurement of kin, as the serpent used a woman to overthrow Adam.
1256. 15.18.2Eve led Adam astray through food and love.
1257. 15.18.3Love of wife and children has turned many from martyrdom; Samson and Solomon fell through women.
1258. 15.19.1David’s house shows the dangers among brothers: Amnon’s incest and Absalom’s fratricide.
1259. 15.20.1The time to hate is martyrdom, when God must come before kin; Christ means loving him more than parents.
1260. 15.20.2Christ, the author of parents themselves, must be loved more than parents.
1261. 15.21.1The Greek calls them “lawless” (paranomoi): those outside the law, whom the lover of the law hates.
1262. 15.21.2Doers, not hearers, of the law are justified; yet David spared Absalom and avenged Saul.
1263. 15.22.1David hated lawlessness, not the lawless persons, in keeping with the Gospel command to love enemies.
1264. 15.22.2Or David hated the lawless as one hates even father or self for Christ’s sake.
1265. 15.23.1God helps through the law and supports through the Gospel; the Greek means “I have hoped still more.”
1266. 15.24.1Hope rests on Christ’s coming, the good shepherd who carries the lost sheep.
1267. 15.25.1Where there is malice, God’s commandments cannot be kept; Christ loves a pure mind.
1268. 15.25.2Christ drives away the malicious but calls the weak who labor under inherited sin.
1269. 15.25.3The psalmist rejects evil works, not claiming purity like the Pharisee, but praying for a clean heart.
1270. 15.26.1The one taken up by Christ lives for ever, even more than Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom.
1271. 15.26.2We dare ask God to take us up because of his promise, who cancelled our bond of death.
1272. 15.27.1Hope does not shame; affliction produces patience and proof, which strengthen hope.
1273. 15.27.2Without hope patience fails; hope keeps outward struggles and inward fears from harming.
1274. 15.28.1One who trusts in Christ will not be ashamed; our expectation is eternal life and the kingdom.
1275. 15.28.2Keep hoping in adversity; Christ cares for the weak lest they faint.
1276. 15.28.3The apostles’ teaching prepares us for the Eucharist, the cup that gladdens and consecrates.
1277. 15.29.1He asks for continual help; true salvation is in paradise among the angels.
1278. 15.30.1Meditating on God’s statutes means always confessing our sins; the Pharisees refused this.
1279. 15.30.2The penitent justifies God by confessing, like the tax collector.
1280. 15.30.3Always ascribe glory to God’s mercy, for all good is received from Christ.
1281. 15.31.1God spurns the proud who depart from his statutes.
1282. 15.31.2God repels no one; sinners depart by refusing to confess, as the prodigal son did until he repented.
1283. 15.31.3One departs from God not by place but by sin, as Adam hid.
1284. 15.31.4Isaiah and Paul were present with God while in the body; Cain went out from God by refusing penance.
1285. 15.32.1God brings to nothing not all sinners but transgressors, whatever their wealth or power.
1286. 15.33.1A transgressor is one who departs from God, in Greek an “apostate.”
1287. 15.33.2The transgressor crosses over from God’s law; we must cleave to God with undivided affection.
1288. 15.33.3Every sinner is a transgressor, though offenses differ in gravity.
1289. 15.34.1There are sinners against heaven, who abandon heavenly grace, and sinners of the earth.
1290. 15.35.1Killing the sinners of the earth in the morning means slaying the kindlings of sin when Christ’s light rises.
1291. 15.35.2Ambrose prays to purge the church, the city of God and body of Christ, by the sword of the word.
1292. 15.36.1Adam became earthly by sin; we must bear the image of the heavenly man in our conduct.
1293. 15.37.1Whoever loves God’s testimonies nails his flesh with fear, crucifying the old man.
1294. 15.37.2A spiritual nail fixes the flesh, including fleshly thoughts, to Christ’s cross.
1295. 15.37.3Unless the flesh is nailed by fear of God, his Spirit will not remain.
1296. 15.38.1Fear goads us awake and nails us to death to sin.
1297. 15.38.2Paul was goaded to heaven; Thomas was pierced by the nails of a faith seeking growth.
1298. 15.39.1Those who die with Christ and bear his dying are pierced with these nails and set his seal on their hearts.
1299. 15.39.2The seal of the Crucified is fixed by the nails of fear and of love, which is strong as death.
1300. 15.39.3Love, which is God and his word, puts sin to death and is as hard as hell.
1301. 15.39.4Love wounds the soul with a blessed wound, better than an enemy’s kisses.
1302. 15.40.1Those who die by love’s wounds do not taste death.
1303. 15.40.2Taking up the cross with fear leads to love buried and risen with Christ.
1304. 16.1.1Ain means “eye” or “spring,” and Ambrose lists several senses of the “eye.”
1305. 16.2.1Aenon, where John baptized, means “eye of punishments”: the baptism of those who foresee punishment.
1306. 16.3.1The eye tempts, but Christ places the sin of adultery in the heart, not the eye.
1307. 16.4.1The kid’s eye on the left sees no right things; the saints look to the right, as Peter cast his nets.
1308. 16.5.1The heifer’s eye signifies sinners dragging their sins like an untamed heifer drags its straps.
1309. 16.6.1The eye is a spring of generation, producing good or evil from what it sees.
1310. 16.6.2Marrying for beauty rather than wealth, or revering a consecrated virgin, makes the eye a source of good.
1311. 16.6.3Seeing orphans’ property in order to protect it makes the eye a spring of good.
1312. 16.6.4Defending a widow, so that she need not remarry for protection, makes the eye a spring of justice.
1313. 16.6.5Burying the poor dead makes the eye a source of redemption.
1314. 16.7.1Coveting and seizing an orphan’s field makes the eye a source of eternal death.
1315. 16.7.2Wronging a widow or scorning the poor makes the eye a source of sin.
1316. 16.8.1Our eyes should be like the bride’s pools in Heshbon, full of rational thought.
1317. 16.8.2The church breathes Christ’s fragrance; her eye should foresee coming evils and soften them with tears.
1318. 16.9.1Jeremiah, under this letter, wept over the coming captivity.
1319. 16.9.2Jeremiah grieved that the people would abandon Christ; another ain verse speaks of God fulfilling his word.
1320. 16.9.3The verse announces Christ’s judgment; the eye should foresee it and avert it by tears and correction.
1321. 16.10.1David, foreseeing Christ’s judgment, appeals to his good conscience, not boasting.
1322. 16.10.2David’s words are a defense of his innocence, not arrogance.
1323. 16.10.3Like Peter’s question, David’s claim is a defense; claiming not to deserve injury differs from claiming reward.
1324. 16.11.1Unlike Socrates, who demanded honor, David humbly feared being handed to the devil.
1325. 16.11.2Mindful of the falls of Noah, Lot, Aaron, Miriam and Moses, David humbly asks for God’s help.
1326. 16.12.1The devil is the author of all sins: anger, lust, avarice.
1327. 16.12.2Envy led Cain from sacrifice to fratricide; the devil is the author of incontinence.
1328. 16.12.3Scripture shows the devil instigates incontinence and avarice.
1329. 16.13.1Sinners belong to the devil; the chaste and merciful are Christ’s, whom the devil cannot claim unless they fall.
1330. 16.13.2Only those who do the devil’s works are handed to Satan, like the incestuous man at Corinth.
1331. 16.13.3David did Christ’s works: just judgment for orphan, widow and poor.
1332. 16.14.1Judgment and justice are public virtues; virginity and frugality profit chiefly oneself.
1333. 16.14.2Justice alone serves others at all times, at its own cost.
1334. 16.14.3Having put off sin, the just man asks not to be handed over to sinners, as in the Song.
1335. 16.15.1The Lord’s servant asks protection from slanderers who hate truth.
1336. 16.15.2The proud slanderer is the devil, who exalted himself against God.
1337. 16.15.3The devil, who ravaged the world, slanders individuals too.
1338. 16.16.1The devil sets his throne above the stars when he deceives the righteous, as he did Judas.
1339. 16.16.2The devil slanders those he cannot seduce; God’s hand protects those who flee him.
1340. 16.16.3As God freed Israel from proud Pharaoh, he takes up for good those who flee evil.
1341. 16.17.1The eyes of the soul fail with longing for Christ, fixed wholly on him.
1342. 16.17.2Only one who turns his eyes from vanity can say his inner eyes fail for God’s word.
1343. 16.18.1God’s word is a word of righteousness, though some sayings seem troubling.
1344. 16.18.2The “precepts not good” were imperfect precepts suited to the weak; the perfect ones came in the Gospel.
1345. 16.18.3The “evils” God creates are corrective punishments; the law restrains the guilty.
1346. 16.19.1The eye of punishments, foreseeing judgment, calls to repentance, as John the Baptist did.
1347. 16.19.2John’s baptism is for those who fear punishment; Christ’s for those who see grace.
1348. 16.19.3Each soul has the left eye of punishments and the right eye of grace, advancing from one to the other.
1349. 16.19.4After repentance the soul receives Christ’s baptism; the bride’s one eye is the eye of grace.
1350. 16.20.1Others take the two eyes as the church’s mystical and moral vision, knowing when to speak and be silent.
1351. 16.21.1Christ’s dove-like eyes washed in milk signify baptism in sincerity.
1352. 16.21.2The bride, baptized in milk, ascends white to Christ, where the soul’s thirst is quenched.
1353. 16.21.3Christ sits on the fullness; John’s baptism near Salim also belongs to the church.
1354. 16.22.1The twelve springs are the patriarchs and apostles, flowing through the world.
1355. 16.22.2Salim means “ascending”; the shorn flock coming up from the washing is the church after baptism.
1356. 16.23.1The goats feed safely on the heights where others find danger.
1357. 16.23.2The goats, safe from wolves and caring for their young, are an image of the church.
1358. 16.24.1The shorn flock is the church’s righteous souls, made wise by faith and cleansed of superfluity.
1359. 16.25.1Gilead means “migration of testimony,” from synagogue to church; it bears the spices of the Ishmaelites.
1360. 16.25.2As goats rise clean from the river, the righteous rise from the spiritual washing of baptism.
1361. 16.26.1The twin-bearing ewes are souls fruitful in virtue, with twofold knowledge.
1362. 16.27.1Like travelers pausing at a lovely spot, Ambrose lingers on the teeth.
1363. 16.27.2Scripture praises the teeth of the righteous, as in Jacob’s blessing of Judah, read of Christ.
1364. 16.28.1Spiritual teeth break up the hard letter of Scripture so that it nourishes rather than chokes.
1365. 16.28.2Chew the word carefully and take in only the living word.
1366. 16.29.1The fathers in the desert were cleansed by the sea, Marah, the twelve springs and the rock that was Christ.
1367. 16.29.2Manna, the bread of angels, prefigures the spiritual food that cleanses the baptized.
1368. 16.30.1David, purified within, speaks with bright teeth and a clean eye.
1369. 16.30.2The eye of righteousness fails into Christ; Balaam wished his soul to fail among the righteous.
1370. 16.31.1David asks for mercy, fleeing not from judgment but from the slander of the faithless.
1371. 16.31.2Job was handed to Satan only in body; David asks that his soul not be handed over.
1372. 16.32.1Conscious of sin, we should seek God’s mercy rather than his strict judgment.
1373. 16.32.2No one, not even a king, can contend with God; all must confess sin.
1374. 16.33.1A servant owes more than any single good deed, as in the parable of the plowing servant.
1375. 16.33.2No service can repay God’s gifts; so we ask mercy, since no one is justified before him.
1376. 16.34.1Understanding is God’s gift and must be asked of him.
1377. 16.34.2The Lord’s servant asks for more understanding so as to avoid sin.
1378. 16.35.1Only good, spiritual understanding, given by God, knows his secrets.
1379. 16.36.1“Time to act” means the time of Christ’s coming, the end of the law, who forgives all sins.
1380. 16.36.2Like one running for a doctor, the prophet urges Christ to come and heal the people’s sins.
1381. 16.36.3The prophet asks Christ to act by the cross, since the law’s precepts could not save.
1382. 16.37.1The world was blind and lame; like the woman with the issue of blood, the nations found no human cure.
1383. 16.37.2Not an envoy but the Lord himself had to come and act to save his people.
1384. 16.38.1Christ, asked, may come before the time, as at Cana at his mother’s request.
1385. 16.38.2At Cana Jesus did what he had deferred, for God makes all things in their time.
1386. 16.38.3Christ came early to the Jews, opportunely to the gentiles; every time is fit for salvation.
1387. 16.39.1God’s commandments, more precious than gold, foretell Christ; the Levite not to be forsaken is Christ.
1388. 16.39.2The commandments, like the Passover, bear signs of redemption and resurrection, more precious than gold.
1389. 16.40.1Christ’s obedient passion is loved above all creation, for redemption gives more than creation.
1390. 16.40.2Only one free of avarice, like Peter, can truly love God’s commandments above gold.
1391. 16.41.1Ambrose reports Xenocrates’ account that the topaz is named after its place of origin.
1392. 16.41.2Others say Topazion is an island where Troglodytes were stranded.
1393. 16.41.3The stone reached Queen Berenice through Philo, and her admiration made it widely used.
1394. 16.42.1Ambrose describes the topaz’s blend of green and gold colors.
1395. 16.42.2The topaz is large, rich, finely marked, hard to polish, and rare.
1396. 16.43.1Ambrose returns from the topaz to the cross of Christ, more precious than any jewel.
1397. 16.43.2The promise of forgiveness of all past sins draws the despairing to conversion.
1398. 16.44.1The psalmist was corrected because he loved; love covers sins, as Paul describes it.
1399. 16.44.2Love is greatest because it contains faith and hope; the law converts the soul.
1400. 16.44.3Love fulfills the law, which makes one blameless; so love covers many sins.
1401. 16.45.1Whoever hates every way of iniquity is corrected in all God’s precepts.
1402. 16.45.2One may avoid one vice but fall into another; youth is especially prone to lust.
1403. 16.45.3Avoiding one sin often leads into another, as frugality can turn to avarice.
1404. 16.45.4Avarice, ambition, and clinging to ancestral error are other wrong ways; changing for the better is virtue.
1405. 16.45.5Shows or country leisure keep people from church; one who hates every evil way is wholly corrected.
1406. 17.1.1Phe means “I have erred” or “I opened my mouth”; its verses are a tearful prayer for Christ’s coming.
1407. 17.2.1Lamentations’ phe verse: Zion, who refused Christ’s outstretched hands, finds no comforter.
1408. 17.2.2Jeremiah foresaw a deeper captivity of error under the spiritual Babylonian.
1409. 17.2.3Faith is the true homeland, which makes strangers citizens of heaven.
1410. 17.3.1Lam 2:16 tells of enemies opening their mouths, as the people did against Christ.
1411. 17.3.2Having opened their mouths against Christ, the people fell to the devil, with no shepherd to rescue them.
1412. 17.4.1Lam 4:16: they did not honor the saints; mercy is owed especially to the fallen noble.
1413. 17.5.1Jeremiah wept for those lost; David grieved moderately, hoping for correction.
1414. 17.6.1Ashamed of his error, David appeals to the testimonies of God’s mercy.
1415. 17.6.2God’s mercies to Abraham and Israel give hope of pardon.
1416. 17.6.3Israel’s history shows God forgiving and delivering whenever the people turned back to him.
1417. 17.6.4David himself was pardoned on confession; the soul that believes God’s testimonies advances.
1418. 17.7.1Christ’s miracles manifested what Isaiah’s words foretold.
1419. 17.7.2Christ spoke through the prophets and fulfilled their word in the Gospel.
1420. 17.8.1Christ’s miracles and resurrection gave understanding even to the untaught nations.
1421. 17.8.2God revealed his mysteries to little ones rather than to the wise and rich.
1422. 17.9.1Christ opened his mouth to give the Spirit; David opened his to receive it.
1423. 17.9.2Christ, the fullness, fills the open mouth with his Spirit.
1424. 17.9.3The heart cries silently to God, as Moses and Hannah did, with the Spirit crying “Abba, Father.”
1425. 17.10.1The soul’s mouth should be opened to Christ and to his apostle.
1426. 17.10.2Read prophet and apostle first, then the Gospel with its stronger precepts, such as love of enemies.
1427. 17.11.1David and the bride opened their mouths to Christ and found his words sweeter than honey.
1428. 17.11.2The house is moral teaching, the chamber the higher mysteries; forgiveness is sweeter than honey.
1429. 17.12.1God’s look can be in anger, as on Egypt and Sodom, so David asks to be looked on with mercy.
1430. 17.13.1God’s merciful look means he does not despise the prayers of the poor.
1431. 17.14.1“Steps” in Scripture mean the soul’s progress.
1432. 17.14.2David meant the course of his life, as when his steps nearly slipped through envy of sinners.
1433. 17.14.3Sinners only seem at peace; a guilty conscience has no quiet.
1434. 17.14.4True peace is Christ’s gift, not the world’s; David’s slipping was of the soul.
1435. 17.15.1Steps mean spiritual progress, as with Moses and the bride’s beautiful steps.
1436. 17.15.2The soul crosses the slippery torrents of this world with steady steps.
1437. 17.16.1The sandal is the flesh, which the beautiful soul wears without being hindered.
1438. 17.16.2The soul keeps its sandal of flesh clean by chastising the body.
1439. 17.16.3Modesty is the soul’s sandal and wisdom its mantle; the body should serve, not rule.
1440. 17.17.1Moses and Joshua were told to remove their sandals, but not Christ.
1441. 17.17.2Christ, sinless, did not remove his sandals but loosed others from sin; the church imitates him.
1442. 17.18.1The church is beautiful even in its humble members; often the people kept the faith when clergy and bishop erred.
1443. 17.18.2The apostles went barefoot so their teaching would shine; the church, “daughter of the willing one,” is beautiful.
1444. 17.19.1The thigh signifies generation: the church’s offspring, and Christ born of a virgin.
1445. 17.19.2The necklaces signify the church’s growth, crowning the faithful with spiritual honors.
1446. 17.20.1The bride’s navel and belly signify the church’s fullness of teaching, mystical and moral.
1447. 17.21.1The church is crowned with Christ’s blood, the purple that makes the saints kings.
1448. 17.22.1The church, made beautiful by Christ’s blood, is called “love,” for God is love.
1449. 17.23.1David, like Abraham, came through temptations by directing his steps by God, loving even the parricide Absalom.
1450. 17.24.1David called Absalom “young man” while he rebelled, and “son” once he was dead.
1451. 17.25.1Slander is heavier than temptation; Christ answered slander with triumphant silence.
1452. 17.25.2Joseph was both tempted to adultery and falsely accused of it.
1453. 17.25.3David, who saved Israel from Goliath, suffered Saul’s slanders.
1454. 17.25.4David’s glory provoked envy; Susanna, falsely accused by elders, was saved by God.
1455. 17.26.1Slander makes it hard to keep God’s commandments, so the prophet asks to be freed from it.
1456. 17.27.1God shines in the hearts of the righteous; the wise man bears his glory.
1457. 17.27.2Moses’ shining face and veil signify that the law’s brightness is veiled from the Jews.
1458. 17.27.3Joshua spoke unveiled, figuring the true Jesus, who removes the veil from the heart.
1459. 17.28.1The Jews veiled themselves; God has enlightened the nations in the face of Christ.
1460. 17.29.1David longed to see Christ’s face, as prophets desired to see his coming.
1461. 17.29.2David sought Christ’s face to be enlightened; or the Father’s face is the Son.
1462. 17.30.1God’s face enlightens the righteous on whom his eyes rest.
1463. 17.30.2Natural examples show Moses’ face could truly shine bodily.
1464. 17.30.3If gems pass on their radiance, God’s glory could surely shine on Moses and the righteous.
1465. 17.32.1The psalmist’s eyes “go down in streams” in the tears of repentance.
1466. 17.33.1The rush of tears recalls the rush of water from Lebanon in the Song.
1467. 17.33.2The Spirit’s grace is spring, well, sealed fountain or rushing stream according to each one’s capacity.
1468. 17.33.3The rush from Lebanon came at Pentecost, when the Spirit filled the apostles.
1469. 17.34.1Tears of repentance, like the sinful woman’s, win the outpouring of grace.
1470. 17.35.1David’s tears filled the channels of waters and won him grace.
1471. 17.35.2“Went down” expresses the force of a descending flood better than “stepped over.”
1472. 17.35.3David’s weeping grows across the psalms, culminating in “streams of waters.”
1473. 17.36.1Jeremiah too speaks of eyes failing and darkened with tears.
1474. 17.36.2Like Jerusalem in Lamentations, eyes can make torrents overflow with tears.
1475. 17.37.1Ambrose notes a Greek variant, “brought down” versus “went down,” differing by two letters.
1476. 17.38.1David wept not for his misfortunes but for his sin, as when Nathan rebuked him.
1477. 17.38.2David fasted and wept for his sin when his son was sick and after the census.
1478. 17.38.3David wept for his pride in the census and offered himself for the suffering people.
1479. 18.1.1Sade means “consolation,” which follows rightly after the tears of repentance.
1480. 18.2.1Scripture teaches consolation in grief, as Jerusalem consoles her exiled children in Baruch.
1481. 18.2.2A second consolation is for those who have paid their penalty, as in Isaiah 40.
1482. 18.2.3Where faith failed, punishment has made satisfaction.
1483. 18.2.4A third consolation is for those who wash away sin with tears.
1484. 18.3.1God does not forget mercy; after punishment comes pardon.
1485. 18.3.2Philosophers borrowed from Scripture the idea that punishment corrects and death ends sin.
1486. 18.3.3Ecclesiastes prefers the dead, who have ceased to sin, and the unborn, who never sinned.
1487. 18.4.1Those who have paid their penalty no longer owe it in full.
1488. 18.4.2Ambrose claims Plato learned this idea in Egypt from Moses and the prophets.
1489. 18.4.3Plato put it in a dialogue; Christ declared it more fully in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
1490. 18.5.1The righteous man in affliction confesses that God is righteous.
1491. 18.5.2The righteous accuse themselves and praise God’s justice, which punishes but also moderates and rewards.
1492. 18.5.3God lets us be tempted so as to crown those who strive.
1493. 18.6.1Most sufferers do not praise God’s justice; Jeremiah did even in the muddy pit.
1494. 18.6.2Jeremiah in captivity and the three youths in the furnace confessed God’s justice.
1495. 18.6.3Daniel in the lions’ den and Jonah in the whale confessed God’s justice.
1496. 18.6.4David in flight and in the plague confessed God’s justice and took the blame.
1497. 18.6.5Abraham offering Isaac and Job in his losses confessed God’s justice.
1498. 18.7.1All should confess God’s justice in loss, for we lose nothing that was ours.
1499. 18.7.2God is just in punishing, for one person’s punishment corrects many, as with Ananias.
1500. 18.7.3Ananias’s death and Pharaoh’s drowning served as warnings to all.
1501. 18.7.4God raised up Pharaoh so that his punishment would correct others.
1502. 18.8.1Nothing befalls us without God’s judgment, which is the consolation of the righteous.
1503. 18.9.1God commanded his testimonies exceedingly, often reminding the weak.
1504. 18.10.1Good zeal keeps God’s commandments, as Phinehas did and received a covenant of peace.
1505. 18.10.2Phinehas’s zeal in killing the two offenders ended the plague.
1506. 18.11.1The Midianite woman stands for heresy seducing God’s people.
1507. 18.11.2Ambrose calls for a new Phinehas to slay heresy with the sword of the word.
1508. 18.11.3A bishop needs zeal to keep the church pure; Christ, the chief priest, was consumed by zeal.
1509. 18.12.1God’s zeal is grace and life, devouring man to give him life in Christ.
1510. 18.12.2Elijah, Mattathias and an apostle called the Zealot show holy zeal.
1511. 18.13.1Zeal passed from the learned but cold Jewish people to the untaught gentiles.
1512. 18.13.2Zeal is love, strong as death, by which we die to sin and live to God.
1513. 18.14.1Even angels need zeal, as Christ’s rebuke of lukewarm Laodicea shows.
1514. 18.14.2God’s zeal is the fire of faith; blessed is the one whom wisdom and forgiveness swallow up.
1515. 18.15.1God himself is zealous; Christ’s zeal cleansed the temple turned into a den of robbers.
1516. 18.16.1Our inner temple must not become a house of trade or a den of robbers through greed.
1517. 18.17.1Zeal can be sinful, as envy or jealousy; it needs discipline.
1518. 18.18.1Who were David’s enemies who forgot God’s words?
1519. 18.18.2David’s enemies are Christ’s enemies, those who would not receive him.
1520. 18.18.3Forgetting God’s precepts cost Adam paradise and the Jewish people their election.
1521. 18.19.1The fire Christ cast on earth is not destructive like Sodom’s.
1522. 18.19.2Christ’s fire kindles knowledge and devotion, as in Jeremiah and the disciples at Emmaus.
1523. 18.20.1Christ’s word is a fire that tests good works and burns away sin.
1524. 18.20.2The word cleanses; the fire of devotion must burn before the Lord.
1525. 18.20.3The word’s fire corrects without destroying, like the burning bush and the furnace.
1526. 18.21.1God’s fiery word cleanses, kindles and enlightens; in Jerusalem none responded.
1527. 18.22.1The bride loves Christ’s scarlet lips, which speak of his passion.
1528. 18.22.2Scarlet in Exodus stands for fire, the element that holds the world together.
1529. 18.22.3The thread and scarlet signify persuasion and the passion; myrrh, the passion and resurrection.
1530. 18.23.1“Young and despised” fits saints trained by hardship from youth.
1531. 18.23.2Joseph, young and despised, rose to power and kept God’s statutes by forgiving his brothers.
1532. 18.24.1David, the despised youngest son, was anointed king and volunteered to fight Goliath.
1533. 18.24.2Saul doubted the boy David until David told of killing the lion.
1534. 18.24.3The despised David defeated Goliath in the Lord’s name and was celebrated in song.
1535. 18.25.1David prefigured Christ, who alone freed the world by the cross.
1536. 18.25.2Christ slew the true Goliath, the devil; the redeemed souls sing.
1537. 18.25.3Christ, like David, redeemed the whole world; he says “I am young and despised.”
1538. 18.26.1The gentile people, once despised and now renewed by baptism, is preferred.
1539. 18.26.2The gentile church feeds daily on Christ, the flesh and blood of God, its unfailing food.
1540. 18.26.8Christ is the food that satisfies, unlike the quails and manna.
1541. 18.27.1The manna was a shadow; the true bread from heaven came down for the church.
1542. 18.27.2Those who ate manna died; the Jews did not receive the true bread.
1543. 18.28.1The bread of life is offered to all; whoever approaches it lives.
1544. 18.28.2Christ is bread, spring, light, liberty and forgiveness; all are called to believe and live.
1545. 18.29.1At the Red Sea Moses prayed but Christ acted.
1546. 18.29.2Christ, not Moses, defeated the true Pharaoh and saves us daily from the world’s waves.
1547. 18.29.3The Exodus generation died, but from Christ’s body flows an eternal spring.
1548. 18.30.1The baptized justify God by confessing their sins, as David did.
1549. 18.30.2One must not only justify God in baptism but preserve its grace.
1550. 18.31.1Humility is no wonder in the old; it is admirable in the young.
1551. 18.31.2Youth is prone to pride, so humility in the young needs great maturity.
1552. 18.32.1Humility and obedience, lost in paradise, came down with Christ, who emptied himself.
1553. 18.32.2“As a man” means a true man, as “as of the only-begotten” means truly the only-begotten.
1554. 18.33.1As the church says “black and comely,” the believer says “young and despised,” stressing humility.
1555. 18.33.2The word “and” distinguishes, as “Ambrosius and Bassus” names two people.
1556. 18.34.1God honors the despised: Lazarus, Moses and Jeremiah.
1557. 18.34.2Jeremiah and the tax collector, though despised, were chosen and heard.
1558. 18.35.1Human righteousness does not last for ever as God’s does.
1559. 18.35.2Human good works are rare, partial, or a mere show of righteousness.
1560. 18.35.3Only God’s righteousness is eternal; true righteousness extends even to enemies.
1561. 18.36.1God’s law is truth: either all he decrees is true, or truth is his law because he does not lie.
1562. 18.36.2The law read spiritually is true; the killing letter without the Spirit is false.
1563. 18.37.1The Mosaic law is a copy; the true law and its fulfillment are in Christ, the true sacrifice.
1564. 18.37.2Christ entered heaven itself and gave a new law written on hearts, with full forgiveness.
1565. 18.37.3The true law is written on hearts; it grows old in the Jews and is renewed in the church.
1566. 18.38.1The law’s sacrifices could not remove sin; grace and truth came through Christ.
1567. 18.39.1Christ is the truth and so the true law.
1568. 18.40.1Tribulation, which works patience, finds those worthy of a crown.
1569. 18.41.1The evil do not find Wisdom, but Simeon and Andrew found Christ.
1570. 18.41.2Christ is found by coming with the mind and seeing with inward eyes.
1571. 18.41.3Christ is eternal, above time; he died to sin once and lives to God.
1572. 18.42.1Christ died once; the baptized must not sin again; the Father made him sin for us.
1573. 18.42.2Buried and raised with Christ in baptism, the believer must not die again by sin.
1574. 18.42.3Christ submitted to death’s dominion to free us for eternal life.
1575. 18.43.1Whoever seeks Christ accepts tribulation, which makes us worthy to be heard by God.
1576. 18.44.1Like a trained athlete, David was always ready for tribulation.
1577. 18.45.1Understanding must be asked of God; godliness, the beginning of understanding, is the foundation of all virtues.
1578. 18.46.1The truly understanding are godly: they pardon, give to the poor as a debt, and help the afflicted.
1579. 18.47.1Solomon asked God for understanding to judge his people.
1580. 18.47.2Solomon asked for wisdom, not riches, and did not grasp at knowledge as Adam did.
1581. 18.47.3Adam grasped at knowledge instead of asking for understanding, and so died.
1582. 18.48.1Understanding is the Spirit’s gift and must be put into practice.
1583. 19.1.1Coph means “enclosure” or “look”; one enclosed in danger must look about.
1584. 19.1.2Enclosure is like bodily constriction; distress of mind is worse than of body.
1585. 19.2.1The soul enclosed by sin should know itself and seek Christ the doctor through prayer.
1586. 19.2.2Christ heals by his word; look to the Lord for help as David did.
1587. 19.3.1Lamentations’ qoph verse calls Jerusalem to pour out her heart to the Lord.
1588. 19.3.2Another qoph verse describes the end drawing near and swift persecutors.
1589. 19.4.1Lamentations points to Christ the Lord as the only remedy.
1590. 19.4.2Lamentations foretells Christ’s coming, passion, forgiveness, and the gathering of the nations.
1591. 19.5.1If Christ’s shadow healed, how much more his full brightness.
1592. 19.5.2Christ’s flesh was a healing shadow; even Peter’s shadow healed.
1593. 19.6.1Christ’s flesh was a shadow protecting those scorched by sin.
1594. 19.6.2We now see Christ in the shadow of his body, the church; God enclosed all in unbelief to show mercy.
1595. 19.7.1David cried out to God when pressed by visible persecutors and invisible ones.
1596. 19.7.2Against spiritual powers one cries with the heart, not the voice.
1597. 19.8.1The heart has a voice, like Abel’s blood; faith cries “Abba, Father” by the Spirit.
1598. 19.8.2The righteous cry out even in death; Moses, though weak-voiced, is heard everywhere except by the Jews.
1599. 19.9.1Hannah spoke to God for a private good; Moses cried for the whole people.
1600. 19.10.1At the Red Sea Israel, trapped between Pharaoh and the sea, complained bitterly.
1601. 19.10.2Moses, though silent, was heard by God; the complaining people were not.
1602. 19.10.3Only Moses truly cried to God, hoping in him.
1603. 19.11.1The wise cry in their hearts; Wisdom and Christ call to the drink of life; pray for eternal things.
1604. 19.11.2Pray not for money or property but for heavenly things; God hears devout prayer.
1605. 19.12.1Prayer must come from the whole heart, not just the lips.
1606. 19.13.1Seeking God’s statutes means seeing his providence in creatures, like the chaste turtledove.
1607. 19.13.2The widowed turtledove does not mate again, and many animals abstain once they have conceived.
1608. 19.13.3The phoenix rises from its ashes; the eagle tests its young against the sun.
1609. 19.14.1God feeds the birds who keep his order; he would feed men if they kept his justice.
1610. 19.15.1The prophet cries to God and promises to keep his testimonies, witnessed by heaven and earth.
1611. 19.16.1The Greek “untimely” means prayer is not tied to set times; Christ should always be in heart and mouth.
1612. 19.17.1Against the Arians: Christ’s generation from the Father is above time; only his passion and birth fall in time.
1613. 19.18.1Christ prayed all night to give us an example; we should always be ready to pray.
1614. 19.18.2Rise to pray at midnight; the soul that thinks of Christ is always in light.
1615. 19.19.1To “anticipate” is to be mature in youth; late devotion in old age earns little praise.
1616. 19.19.2The crown belongs to those who master their flesh in a hard contest.
1617. 19.19.3The young who bear the yoke from youth sit in quiet, as Lamentations says.
1618. 19.19.4One who took the yoke young has peace from passions and sits in quiet.
1619. 19.19.5Christ’s silence shows mastery over all passions; he did not fear death.
1620. 19.20.1The righteous add hope to hope in adversity; fullness of punishment brings release from sin.
1621. 19.21.1Job kept hoping; the light of the ungodly goes out, but the righteous always have light.
1622. 19.21.2Isaiah calls the weaned to hope upon hope; Isaac, weaned with a great feast, prefigures Christ.
1623. 19.22.1Pray at midnight and before sunrise; it is shameful for the sun to find you in bed.
1624. 19.22.2We owe God the firstfruits of each day; meet the sunrise prepared in prayer.
1625. 19.23.1The church sought Christ by night and found him; she invites him to the field.
1626. 19.23.2The bride invites the Word to come and take away the world’s sins; the field and village are the fallen world.
1627. 19.23.3Christ freed Adam’s exiled race; the world became fruitful with the eternal vine.
1628. 19.24.1The fragrant mandrakes signify the nations bearing good fruit after believing.
1629. 19.24.2Rachel received Leah’s mandrakes in exchange for a night with Jacob.
1630. 19.24.3Leah figures the synagogue, which yielded its fruits to the church; yet a remnant was saved.
1631. 19.25.1The church keeps new and old things for Christ and longs to bring him home.
1632. 19.25.2Instructed in both Testaments, the church holds Christ in prayer and kisses him in psalmody.
1633. 19.26.1The church rouses Christ with the praise of the congregations.
1634. 19.27.1The heavenly powers marvel at the church, now shining with night vigils.
1635. 19.28.1Christ, delighted by the church’s psalmody, asks to be set as a seal on her heart.
1636. 19.28.2The church can bear Christ’s seal, whom the Father sealed.
1637. 19.28.3Those sealed with Christ’s image must seal truth in word and deed by works of mercy.
1638. 19.28.4Nothing can separate those sealed by love from Christ.
1639. 19.29.1Love has dove’s wings for flight and wings of fire that inflame, like God’s fiery ministers.
1640. 19.29.2Love has heights like the temple’s pinnacle, and no worldly flood can quench it.
1641. 19.30.1Christ, the Sun of righteousness, waits to be met in repentance and prayer.
1642. 19.30.2Rise before the sun to pray, and Christ will shine in your heart.
1643. 19.30.3Meditating on God’s words by night brings the light of grace and joy in prayer.
1644. 19.31.1The Jews recite Scripture night and day; Christians, taught by Christ, are shamed by their sloth.
1645. 19.32.1Give the night to prayer and the morning first to church, then go to work.
1646. 19.32.2Begin the day with hymns and the Beatitudes.
1647. 19.33.1Even the righteous must pray to be heard by God’s mercy, not their merits.
1648. 19.34.1Persecutors draw near but move away from God’s law of love; the brother is bought by Christ’s blood.
1649. 19.35.1The persecutor cuts himself off from the law and so from eternal life.
1650. 19.35.2The persecutor is separated from Christ, who is life; he can harm the body but not the soul.
1651. 19.36.1God is near to all and present everywhere.
1652. 19.36.2God, whose Spirit fills the world, is everywhere present.
1653. 19.37.1Ps 139 shows that God and his Spirit are present everywhere.
1654. 19.37.2Ps 139 expresses the Trinity: Christ descended and ascended, and is present wherever Father and Spirit are.
1655. 19.38.1If the sun shines everywhere, how much more Christ, the brightness of God’s glory.
1656. 19.38.2The Word penetrates the hidden mind like a sword, as Simeon told Mary.
1657. 19.39.1Christ, eternal light, shines on all, but warms only those who draw near.
1658. 19.39.2Open the soul’s windows and keep its eye clean to see the Sun of righteousness.
1659. 19.40.1As the sun is not to blame for a shut house, so Christ is not to blame for those who shut him out.
1660. 19.40.2If Christ does not enter, the fault is ours for not opening.
1661. 19.41.1God is everywhere, yet does not dwell in a soul corrupted by sin.
1662. 19.41.2Christ is near to all, but sin separates many from him.
1663. 19.41.3God is near to all, but nearest to the contrite.
1664. 19.42.1As Moses alone climbed Sinai, the soul that rises above temptation in contrition draws near to God.
1665. 19.43.1Only one near to God can say his precepts are truth; truth came through Christ.
1666. 19.44.1God’s testimonies are founded for ever; had Adam and Eve heeded them, they would have kept paradise.
1667. 19.44.2Build on God’s eternal testimonies so that our work survives the fire like gold.
1668. 20.1.1Resh means “head” or “primacy”; the head directs and gives life to the body.
1669. 20.1.2Beheading strips criminals of the human form they betrayed.
1670. 20.2.1Like the snake guarding its head, guard Christ, the head of the church.
1671. 20.2.2Whatever the body suffers, if Christ the head is kept, salvation is safe.
1672. 20.3.1The head is the sum of our effort: humility and truth, holding to Christ.
1673. 20.3.2Judea lost its head by rejecting Christ; the church has Christ as beginning and end.
1674. 20.3.3Christ is beginning and end; his humility, the head of all virtues, was despised by unbelief.
1675. 20.4.1Humility commends the lowly; pride debases even the noble and gifted.
1676. 20.4.2The Pharisee lost his virtues through pride; the humble tax collector was justified.
1677. 20.5.1Lamentations confirms that the head is Christ the Lord.
1678. 20.6.1Primacy recalls the birthright Esau yielded to Jacob.
1679. 20.6.2The twins in Rebecca’s womb signify the elder Jewish people and the younger Christian people.
1680. 20.6.3The church, by self-control, seized the birthright, that is, Christ and the kingdom.
1681. 20.7.1The psalmist glories only in humility, as Paul gloried in weakness.
1682. 20.7.2The psalmist does not boast but asks God’s grace, as in Ps 25.
1683. 20.8.1The verse fits a bishop, a father or a wife praying and fasting in distress for a loved one.
1684. 20.9.1The weary athlete of Christ, fighting spiritual powers, prays “See my humiliation.”
1685. 20.10.1The tortured martyr prays the verse; Greek tapeinōsis means both humility and affliction.
1686. 20.11.1Egypt was an iron furnace of affliction from which God brought Israel.
1687. 20.11.2The three youths’ furnace was golden; the same trial is iron to the weak, gold to the faithful.
1688. 20.12.1All who return to paradise must pass the fiery sword, even John the beloved disciple.
1689. 20.12.2Even Peter and John pass through the fire, though love has already purified John.
1690. 20.13.1Love’s fire here frees from the fire hereafter; Peter will be tried as silver, Ambrose as lead.
1691. 20.13.2Ambrose fears the fire, hoping only in Christ’s mercy and the grace given through his ministry.
1692. 20.14.1Only sinless Christ passed untouched by the fire; the gates opened for the King of glory.
1693. 20.14.2Christ’s death opened the way to martyrdom and paradise; all must hope only in his mercy at judgment.
1694. 20.15.1Even those who think themselves gold will be tested in the fire; let them be humble.
1695. 20.15.2Keep humility now so as to pray at the judgment, “See my humiliation and deliver me.”
1696. 20.16.1There is also a humility of virtue, kept by the righteous even in prosperity.
1697. 20.16.2Paul, the chosen vessel, called himself the least of the apostles.
1698. 20.17.1Abraham called himself dust; Christ called himself a worm, seeking others’ good.
1699. 20.17.2Imitate Christ, who emptied himself; despise no one for lowly station.
1700. 20.17.3Christ’s obedience to death undid Adam’s disobedience, and God exalted him.
1701. 20.18.1Paul’s point is the power of humility, which even exalted Christ.
1702. 20.18.2Christ’s humility served our salvation; if it exalted him, it will exalt us.
1703. 20.18.3Christ’s humiliations took nothing from his divinity but advanced his saving work.
1704. 20.18.4Humility costs nothing; Christ, emptied, is in glory, and Ambrose now worships him.
1705. 20.19.1Ambrose thanks Christ for creation and for becoming our brother by taking a body.
1706. 20.19.2Christ redeemed us by his death and raised all in the temple of his body.
1707. 20.19.3Christ makes the risen like angels and seats humanity at God’s right hand.
1708. 20.20.1God, rich in mercy, calls us to be rich in love.
1709. 20.20.2We were made alive and seated with Christ; he who sits at God’s right hand was humbled for us.
1710. 20.20.3Christ taught humility by word and deed; the believer can say, “See my humiliation.”
1711. 20.21.1Like an athlete showing his limbs, show your humility, and the judge will award the crown.
1712. 20.22.1The innocent hasten to judgment; the righteous do not fear God’s merciful judgment.
1713. 20.22.2God judges his saints first and apart from the devil’s companions.
1714. 20.22.3Judgment begins with God’s house so that the punished may be quickly acquitted.
1715. 20.23.1Prisoners, innocent or guilty, wish their cases quickly settled.
1716. 20.23.2If human justice gives hope, how much more Christ’s; the devil’s judgment is deferred to his torment.
1717. 20.23.3The rich man in Hades suffers; the devil awaits judgment in perpetual fear.
1718. 20.24.1The ungodly do not come to judgment but are condemned already, like enemy barbarians.
1719. 20.24.2Christ chastens his own and condemns strangers; yet all may hope for mercy through his word.
1720. 20.25.1The psalmist asks life for God’s word, as Simeon lived only to see Christ.
1721. 20.26.1Judging others is graver than erring, for our judgment returns upon us.
1722. 20.27.1Salvation is far from sinners by their own choice, as those who rejected Jesus, who is salvation.
1723. 20.28.1Those who seek God’s statutes are brought near by Christ’s blood, which is righteousness.
1724. 20.29.1Let no one despair: God’s mercies are many and extend to all flesh.
1725. 20.30.1God’s judgment of our frailty is joined with mercy.
1726. 20.31.1Judging others is grave, as Christ warned.
1727. 20.31.2Only one free of the same sins and of passion should judge; Christ said he does nothing of himself.
1728. 20.32.1Heretics used “I can do nothing of myself” to argue the Son is inferior.
1729. 20.32.2The Son does nothing of himself because Father and Son work as one.
1730. 20.32.3Scripture shows the Son as Wisdom, maker of all and sharer in the Father’s work.
1731. 20.33.1In the Gospel Christ takes on various roles to teach us, such as the good shepherd.
1732. 20.34.1Christ as advocate prayed all night to show how a bishop should intercede.
1733. 20.34.2Christ needs no help in prayer, as his raising of Lazarus showed.
1734. 20.35.1Christ as defendant kept silent, teaching that innocence rests on a pure conscience.
1735. 20.35.2Struck before the high priest, Christ answered with humility, not vengeance.
1736. 20.36.1As a good judge Christ does nothing by private will but judges by law and evidence.
1737. 20.37.1Christ’s “I cannot” comes from integrity, not weakness; judges should learn from him.
1738. 20.37.2Christ judges as he hears, by equity rather than will.
1739. 20.38.1Pilate claimed power Christ himself declined to claim, and so condemned himself.
1740. 20.38.2Pilate used power, not justice; even that power was given from above.
1741. 20.39.1A judge follows the law, not his will, as a magistrate follows imperial decrees.
1742. 20.39.2Christ teaches judges to prefer truth to human will, which is swayed by passions.
1743. 20.40.1God’s judgment is just and always joined with mercy.
1744. 20.40.2God weighs each person’s works and gives grace and mercy by measure.
1745. 20.40.3Paul says some sins and good deeds are evident now, others later.
1746. 20.41.1God does all things by measure and weight, even punishment.
1747. 20.41.2God’s cup of judgment is poured with measure, as the psalm and Jeremiah show.
1748. 20.41.3God tilts the cup of punishment but does not empty it, in mercy.
1749. 20.42.1No one merits heaven; God’s decrees toward us proceed from mercy, not merit.
1750. 20.43.1Fidelity is no great thing in prosperity; it is proved under persecution.
1751. 20.43.2Job was proved when he kept faith after losing everything.
1752. 20.43.3Many persecutions mean many crowns.
1753. 20.44.1Sebastian of Milan went to Rome, where persecution raged, and was crowned a martyr.
1754. 20.45.1The devil sends invisible persecutors who attack souls from within.
1755. 20.45.2All the godly suffer persecution from vices, each an evil spirit.
1756. 20.46.1Inner persecutors that tempt are worse than open tyrants; many martyrs fell to them.
1757. 20.46.2The inner war against desire is grievous; Paul was freed only by Christ’s grace.
1758. 20.47.1Every victory over temptation makes one a martyr, a witness of Christ.
1759. 20.47.2Defending the orphan and widow, or choosing humility, makes one Christ’s witness.
1760. 20.47.3True witness to Christ is given by deeds, not words alone.
1761. 20.48.1Many are hidden martyrs; others confess outwardly and deny inwardly, like those who feign faith to marry a Christian.
1762. 20.48.2God punished Israel at Baal-Peor because unions with foreign women led them to deny him.
1763. 20.49.1Some feign piety to win honor under Christian emperors; God sees their denial.
1764. 20.49.2Perfect confession requires both heart and voice.
1765. 20.50.1Inner persecutions have their own kings and judges, as in Christ’s temptation.
1766. 20.50.2Each vice is a tyrant in the mind, but confessing Christ dethrones it.
1767. 20.51.1Christ is persecuted in us; to flee the struggle is to reject him.
1768. 20.51.2Where the devil attacks, Christ defends; if God is for us, who is against us?
1769. 20.52.1Blessed is one who pines for love of God, not from sinful passions.
1770. 20.52.2Unlike those wasted by lust, greed or ambition, David pined with longing for God and prayed before dawn.
1771. 20.53.1The peaceable man grieves when others break covenants and peace, despising Christ’s commands.
1772. 20.54.1The psalmist invites God to see his love, as the law bids each appear before the Lord.
1773. 20.54.2The saint appears daily before God not empty, filled from the fullness of the Word and the Spirit.
1774. 20.54.3Zechariah, Paul and the Corinthians were filled, not empty.
1775. 20.55.1Offer yourself to God in secret, and the Father will reward you.
1776. 20.55.2Loving God’s precepts is more than keeping them; some manuscripts call the transgressors “the foolish.”
1777. 20.55.3Love surpasses duty; yet the lover still begs for mercy rather than demanding reward.
1778. 20.56.1Truth, the beginning of God’s words, is the foundation of faith.
1779. 20.56.2As fear leads to love, so truth leads to knowledge of God’s righteousness.
1780. 20.57.1Believe in one God, and distinguish the one Father and one Lord Jesus.
1781. 20.57.2Faith is the Christian’s beginning, righteousness and martyrdom its fullness.
1782. 20.58.1All will stand before Christ’s judgment seat to receive for their deeds.
1783. 20.58.2Do not bring wood and stubble to judgment; such work burns, though the person may be saved through fire.
1784. 20.58.3Let us examine all our works so that, when weighed, guilt does not prevail.
1785. 21.1.1Sin is interpreted “upon the wound,” that is, the remedy applied to it.
1786. 21.1.2A wound that can be treated is better than a hidden, total corruption, as Isaiah describes.
1787. 21.2.1The soul’s wounds are healed by the remedies of God’s word and law.
1788. 21.3.1Persecution is the wound; joy in God’s words is the remedy.
1789. 21.4.1Lamentations’ shin verses show the wound of reproach and the remedy of God’s vindication.
1790. 21.4.2The cup offered to Edom is the Lord’s cup of forgiveness, which made the nations forget their error.
1791. 21.4.3The cup of salvation gives a good, spiritual drunkenness that removes sorrow.
1792. 21.5.1Christ is the doctor who treated the wounds of Adam, the man fallen among robbers.
1793. 21.5.2The fallen should run to Christ the Samaritan, whose call to repentance binds the soul’s wounds.
1794. 21.6.1The first verse: princes persecuted David without cause.
1795. 21.6.2Spiritual princes persecute within, offering worldly rewards.
1796. 21.6.3They persecute without cause the one who has nothing of theirs; over their own they rule by right.
1797. 21.7.1The innocent martyr is persecuted without cause, accused of what he is not.
1798. 21.8.1Trembling at God’s words is a holy fear, which makes one blessed.
1799. 21.8.2The martyr amid tortures trembles more at the thought of eternal punishment.
1800. 21.8.3Holy trembling and confident hope lead to the same steadfastness.
1801. 21.9.1Ambrose prays that in persecution he may fear Christ’s rejection more than torture.
1802. 21.10.1Fear of God shuts out fear of men and turns to joy in his words.
1803. 21.11.1As David beheaded Goliath with his own sword, Christ defeated the devil through the faith of the nations.
1804. 21.11.2Christ bound the strong man and made sinful flesh a chosen vessel.
1805. 21.11.3Isaiah’s child named “Swift spoil” is Christ, who plundered the devil.
1806. 21.11.4Christ reclaimed the nations, led captivity captive, and became their head.
1807. 21.12.1Christ took the kingdom and its gifts from the Jews and gave them to the church.
1808. 21.12.2The church has found the spoils of the Old Testament books, Christ and Paul.
1809. 21.12.3The law is spiritual; without Christ the books lack their sense.
1810. 21.12.4As Israel despoiled Egypt, the church has received the spiritual riches of Scripture and Christ.
1811. 21.13.1The law calls the dead unclean, but in truth only the unjust are dead.
1812. 21.13.2Iniquity, not a corpse, is true uncleanness; a sinful life defiles, not death.
1813. 21.13.3Flee injustice, which makes the living dead.
1814. 21.14.1The spiritual law points to the heavenly altar, Jerusalem, and Christ the high priest; the saint hates injustice, not the unjust.
1815. 21.15.1Praise seven times a day signifies pure prayer, free of anger and sinful desire.
1816. 21.15.2Pray for nothing harmful, praise God with an undivided mind.
1817. 21.16.1Those who love God have deep peace that no passion can overturn.
1818. 21.16.2Love carried Moses through the sea, while those without love drowned.
1819. 21.16.3Elijah and Elisha crossed the Jordan by love; God is with the righteous who pass through trials in faith.
1820. 21.17.1Keep much peace within; even persecutors’ seeming victory works for you.
1821. 21.17.2Let the peace that surpasses understanding rule over every passion.
1822. 21.17.3Peace of mind is the goal of wisdom, righteousness and even courage.
1823. 21.18.1Even household opposition cannot separate the righteous from Christ’s love.
1824. 21.18.2The righteous who give all away are often despised, even in church.
1825. 21.18.3The generous should not be troubled by contempt; reward here diminishes the eternal reward.
1826. 21.18.4Store your reward for the future; let neither adversity nor prosperity move you.
1827. 21.19.1Those with great peace do not stumble; causing the weak to stumble is grave.
1828. 21.20.1The prosperity of the wicked tempts many; only Lot in Sodom resisted, and his wife did not.
1829. 21.20.2Of the Exodus generation only Joshua and Caleb, untempted, entered the land; Moses figures the law.
1830. 21.20.3The law could not give peace; Joshua, figure of Jesus, brought it, as Christ gives his peace.
1831. 21.21.1The cross is a stumbling block to unbelief, as the mockers at the cross showed.
1832. 21.21.2Where there is peace, the cross is salvation; Peter gloried in it.
1833. 21.21.3Peter was crucified upside down; to the faithful the cross is grace, redemption and resurrection.
1834. 21.22.1Hope precedes salvation; those who do Christ’s precepts are his friends.
1835. 21.23.1Loving God’s testimonies surpasses keeping them; blessed is one who hides nothing from God, unlike Adam, Eve and Cain.
1836. 21.23.2Though God sees all, it is good to open one’s soul to him, as the church does in the Song.
1837. 21.23.3Only a way lit by Christ, the way and the truth, can be good.
1838. 22.1.1Tau, the last letter, means “he erred” or “he completed”; the psalm traces man’s progress to maturity.
1839. 22.1.2“He erred” in the past tense signifies one who has ceased to err.
1840. 22.2.1Paul speaks of having erred, meaning he has left error behind.
1841. 22.2.2Through the washing of regeneration error is abolished; renouncing it is progress.
1842. 22.3.1Christ’s parable of the lost sheep speaks of the one that strayed.
1843. 22.3.2Returning from vice is greater than never having known it; only God forgives the past.
1844. 22.3.3The shoulders bearing the sheep signify the cross, where Christ bore our weakness; the angels rejoice.
1845. 22.4.1Tau also means “completion”; Lamentations’ tau verse says Zion’s iniquity has ended.
1846. 22.4.2Iniquity ends only by God’s visitation; the church, having put off the old man in baptism, cannot put it on again.
1847. 22.4.3Completed amendment returns the soul to a spiritual childhood that forgets how to sin.
1848. 22.5.1A good life and the Spirit give prayer wings; the completed man prays with confidence.
1849. 22.5.2Prayer rises on righteousness and purity; sin weighs it down.
1850. 22.5.3The cry of the Hebrews in Egypt ascended because they hated their muddy labor.
1851. 22.6.1Prayer draws near God not bodily, for God fills all things.
1852. 22.6.2Moses drew near himself; David modestly asked only that his prayer draw near.
1853. 22.7.1Drawing near is like a disciple coming close to his teacher.
1854. 22.7.2We draw near to Christ by imitating him, and through him to the Father.
1855. 22.8.1Prayer rises with our deeds; asking for worldly or shameful things turns prayer into sin.
1856. 22.9.1He asks for understanding according to God’s word, not worldly prudence.
1857. 22.9.2Worldly prudence and philosophy seek gain and cosmology but ignore God.
1858. 22.10.1Become a fool to the world; have nothing to do with philosophy that leads faith astray.
1859. 22.10.2The Arians, following Aristotle’s dialectic rather than Paul, fell into error about Christ’s generation.
1860. 22.11.1Ambrose admires the holy fool who despises wealth, honors and philosophy.
1861. 22.11.2Such a man asks understanding according to God’s word, the foundation on which to build gold and silver.
1862. 22.12.1The prayer progresses: drawing near, asking understanding, then entering.
1863. 22.12.2As with a great man’s house, we approach, learn and then beg to enter God’s palace by prayer.
1864. 22.12.3Knock with voice or finger, like Thomas; Christ is the door.
1865. 22.13.1As at court, we must ask God that our prayer may enter the door of his mercy.
1866. 22.14.1The Greek reads “my dignity”; the Christian has dignity as a soldier of Christ.
1867. 22.15.1There are dignities of office in the church and dignities of virtue for all.
1868. 22.15.2Prayer for the needy and prayer of the whole church has dignity and enters God’s house.
1869. 22.16.1Weary of life’s long warfare, he asks deliverance.
1870. 22.17.1One who has tasted God’s sweet precepts pours forth hymns.
1871. 22.17.2Scripture is a feast, stronger in law and Gospel, sweeter in Psalms and Song.
1872. 22.18.1Only one taught by God, the one teacher, can sing his hymn.
1873. 22.18.2One cannot sing God’s song in fear of punishment or in sin’s captivity.
1874. 22.19.1Feed daily on Scripture so as to overflow with praise.
1875. 22.20.1Whoever speaks God’s word does not speak idle words about human affairs.
1876. 22.20.2We will give account for idle words; it is dangerous to talk of worldly things when Scripture offers so much.
1877. 22.20.3Hedge your ears and tongue against worldly talk and slander.
1878. 22.20.4Bind your tongue with silence; the thorns are contrition and fear of judgment.
1879. 22.21.1All God’s commandments are righteousness, summed up in love.
1880. 22.21.2Murder, adultery, theft, covetousness and contempt are all failures of love.
1881. 22.22.1God’s hand is Christ; “right hand” for exaltation in power, “hand” for salvation in humility.
1882. 22.22.2God’s hand may also mean his host of angels sent to aid the heirs of salvation.
1883. 22.23.1Some long for long life or bodily health, unlike Paul, who was strong in weakness.
1884. 22.23.2Those who seek bodily health obey doctors rather than Scripture.
1885. 22.23.3Doctors forbid fasting and vigils; whoever seeks God’s salvation follows Christ and meditates on the law day and night.
1886. 22.24.1He means the future life; this life is the dust of death.
1887. 22.24.2Paul longed to depart and be with Christ; life under death’s shadow is not true life.
1888. 22.24.3Our life is now hidden; it will be free in the land of the living.
1889. 22.25.1Full praise belongs to the life to come, when we are conformed to Christ’s glorious body.
1890. 22.26.1God’s judgments help the saints by reward and help sinners differently.
1891. 22.26.2Judgment proves saints and purifies sinners; faith wins pardon.
1892. 22.27.1The Greek reads “seek your servant,” fitting the lost sheep sought by the shepherd.
1893. 22.27.2Confess your sins; all sin, and whoever acknowledges his straying is not lost.
1894. 22.28.1Ambrose prays Christ the shepherd to come himself and seek his lost sheep.
1895. 22.29.1The ninety-nine on the heights are safe; Christ should come to the one harassed by wolves.
1896. 22.29.2Ambrose begs Christ to seek, find and carry him, cast out of paradise by the serpent.
1897. 22.29.3Christ alone can bring the stray back, bringing salvation on earth and joy in heaven.
1898. 22.30.1Christ is asked to take up humanity in flesh born of the sinless Virgin Mary and carry it on the cross.
1899. 22.31.1“Give life” fits too, for one carried by Christ cannot die.
1900. 22.32.1The church, like the stray sheep, seeks Christ, who wishes to be found after long seeking.
1901. 22.32.2Christ wakes the sleeping church and wants to be sought persistently.
1902. 22.33.1Embracing Christ, the church offers him new and old fruits.
1903. 22.33.2Only the church holds both Testaments, unlike the synagogue and the Manichees.
1904. 22.34.1The bridegroom asks the church to bear his seal, for she is in his image.
1905. 22.34.2Bear Christ’s image in deeds: turn the other cheek, love enemies, take up the cross.
1906. 22.35.1The daughters of Jerusalem think the church too young for marriage to the Word.
1907. 22.35.2Ambrose explains the custom of delaying a girl’s marriage until she matures.
1908. 22.36.1The daughters ask what to do on the day of betrothal.
1909. 22.36.2The union of Christ and the church is blessed; the delay is so that the church may grow more perfect.
1910. 22.37.1The wall is the saint’s soul; the church calls herself a fortified city.
1911. 22.37.2The church’s wall has twelve apostolic gates and silver battlements of God’s word.
1912. 22.38.1The church is a door; cedar panels of faith protect her from the moths of heresy.
1913. 22.38.2Cedar is used for roofs and writing tablets, fitting for the church’s teaching.
1914. 22.39.1The church, eager for union, replies that she is a wall and her breasts towers.
1915. 22.39.2The church’s breasts are her senses of wisdom, full of abundance.
1916. 22.40.1The church found God’s peace, and the spiritual marriage was celebrated by mutual consent.
1917. 22.41.1The vineyard of Solomon is the church planted among the nations on the eternal vine.
1918. 22.41.2Baal-hamon means “multitude”; the vineyard passed to new tenants; the lost sheep became the whole church.
1919. 22.42.1The vineyard gives a thousand to Christ and two hundred to its keepers.
1920. 22.42.2Like Benjamin’s fivefold portion, the fullness belongs to Christ, who grants it to those he loves.
1921. 22.43.1The church longs to hear Christ’s voice in the garden; we must be gardens of virtue to hear him.
1922. 22.44.1Foreseeing persecution, the church bids Christ flee to the mountains of spices.
1923. 22.44.2Christ flees for the weak and goes to the saints, the mountains of spices, who bear martyrdom.
1924. 22.44.3Paul and David are mountains of spices, fragrant to God.
1925. 22.45.1Symmachus and Aquila read it as Christ addressing the church in the garden, where he suffered.