(Verse 8.) And therefore the righteous one said: And now, what is my expectation? Is it not the Lord? And my substance is before you. Our hope and patience is Christ: he himself has become our redemption, he himself is our expectation; so that we may each say: I have waited for the Lord with expectation, and he looked upon me (Psalm 39:2). Therefore, look upon us in your judgment. Let your mercy look upon us; so that we who despair of our own merit may be liberated through your mercy, in whose power is the substance of our souls and lives. And therefore we do not fear the death of the body; but rather him who has the power to either save or destroy our soul: whose substance is strength, which God has poured into human hearts to resemble his own.
(Verse 9.) Therefore, whoever possesses this substance of their soul, says: Deliver me from all my iniquities. He confesses not the falling of one sin, but prays to be absolved from all his iniquities. For he knows that unless the Lord forgives, no one can be saved, whoever is born under sin, whom the very inheritance of a guilty condition has bound to fault.
You have given me opprobrium, he says, to the foolish one. Who is foolish, if not he who commits sin and chooses evil over good? Therefore, the one who is the author of sins is even more foolish than his servant. When we sin, we are handed over to the reproach of the adversary, so that he may accuse and betray us as an enemy on the day of judgment. Therefore, let us embrace the reproach of the cross of Christ, which Moses embraced and preferred to the royal treasures of Egypt; and thus, it is not handed over to the foolish one in reproach. Others have books: Do not hand over disgrace to the foolish me. But David has that custom more, that he confesses more his own disgraces and sins, and does not blush at his own sins and disgraces, who knows in confession there is forgiveness, and in the condemnation of his sin there is justice.
(Verse 10.) Finally, from what follows, this meaning is made clear; because he adds: I was silent, and did not open my mouth; for you made me; that means, you made me a reproach to the foolish, therefore I was silent and did not open my mouth, lest I contract even greater sins. I recognized your will, that I should be ashamed for a time, and afterwards become saved by asking for forgiveness. Therefore, reproach is sometimes beneficial. For even the destruction of the flesh itself is beneficial; as the Apostle testifies, saying: I delivered him unto the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Cor. V, 5) Moreover, David himself testified that reproach is advantageous, saying to Abessam: Let Jeminaeus curse me, for the Lord has said to him: let him see my humility, and let the Lord repay me good for this curse. (II Reg. XVI, 11 and 12) And indeed the Lord saw his reproach, as he went weeping and barefoot, with his head covered; and he removed his reproach. It is clear, therefore, that when David was given into reproach, and he was humiliated, and he satisfied the Lord with bare feet, and he did not strike back at the one throwing stones, and he did not permit revenge on the one cursing, and after these things he was restored to his kingdom with full integrity; because both reproach is from the Lord, and it is more beneficial to endure reproach than to refute it. Finally, victory followed. Therefore, shame is beneficial. But what is it that he added: 'Because you made me?' Doesn't he say that he remained silent and did not open his mouth: because he knew the will of the Lord? Therefore, he patiently endured, in order to satisfy the Lord through shame for sin.
(Verse 11.) And hence he adds: Remove from me your plagues (Psalm 38:18). How does this fit together? In the previous psalm, he offered himself to the scourges, here he asks for the scourges to be removed from him; unless it is because he has already released his sins twice from the hand of the Lord, by blushing and enduring reproaches? The compunctions of his heart are both the whips of his thoughts and the rebukes. But let us see if he said this before God to be the substance of his soul; because the adversary would not attack it unless he had received power from the Lord; for what the Lord has done, he also protects. Finally, the angel is around the man, who pretends that no one can harm him. The angel does not leave unless ordered by the Lord to fight his champion. Therefore, as the substance of the Lord, he presumes that forgiveness for his own iniquities can be granted by his Creator; and therefore he asks, for he knows his Author is merciful. Then, because he has been given in disgrace, he does not resist; but he allows the sinner to oppose him, and the consciousness of his substance, which is good, remains silent, and he is able to restrain the ferocity of the body, so that virtue may succeed and guilt may be put aside. Finally, because he is made by the Lord, he confidently believes that he can be gifted with sin, he who could sustain the strength of the Lord's hand.
And this is certainly the nature of good substance, even if it says that it has failed from the strength of the hand of the Lord. The strong hand strikes like ill, but heals quickly: what is strong for the wound is also strong for the remedy. Therefore, Job himself says: I will strike, and I will heal (Deut. 32:39); so that he may not remember the wound, who has escaped being healed. In conclusion, the hand of the Lord took away all things from the holy Job, and represented them all; indeed, it increased everything in abundance, so that it multiplied what was lost. Do not be disturbed that he said he failed. He who fails, rises stronger; for the Lord supports all who fall, and corrects all who are cast down. For with strength rises whoever is corrected. Paul failed in the strength of this hand. The persecutor fell, and the preacher of the Gospel rose. This is what he says: \"I have failed in the strength of your hand.\
(Verse 12.) And he added: In rebukes you have instructed man in wickedness: and you have made his soul to waste away like a spider. The Greek [version] says 'ὑπὲρ ἀνομίας', which means 'for iniquity'; and it puts the whole verse as 'ἐν ἐλεγμοῖς ὑπὲρ ἀνομίας ἑπαίδευσας ἄνθρωπον', which means 'In rebukes for iniquity you have instructed man.' Therefore the wise man said: 'Who will give me the scourge of my thoughts...' (Sirach 23:2) and 'the seal of my lips' (Sirach 22:33)? In order to mortify his own heart with his own thoughts, and to seal his own lips; by which he might diminish his former sins, and not renew them by speaking; by which he might be instructed by his own reproaches, and put on exercises of virtue. But the soul wastes away when sin is diminished: or when the soul wastes away, guilt is laid aside: it becomes clogged, when sins are accumulated. Whence the Lord says concerning sinners: My Spirit shall not remain in these men forever; for they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). And elsewhere the Scripture says: 'The heart of this people has become dull' (Acts 28:27). Therefore, Jeremiah first saw a nut-bearing staff, then a boiling pot, so that the soul of the beginning prophet might waste away; in order that guilt might depart, grace might approach. But why first the staff, then the pot? Because the one who is not corrected by the staff is thrown into the pot, so that he may burn and waste away. And therefore it is said to the prophet Ezekiel: 'Take for yourself a frying pan.' . . : and you shall bear the iniquities of the house of Israel . . . . and you shall complete them, and they shall waste away, he says, in their iniquities (Ezek. 4:3 and following). And elsewhere in the same book, the Lord says: But I will make a great fire, and multiply the woods, and kindle the fire; so that the flesh melts, and the broth decreases (Ezek. 24:9 and 10). By these testimonies it is signified that the souls of the faithless may waste away with the fire being applied; so that they may cast off the thickness of a certain carnal moisture. Therefore, the frying pan and souls of sinners are sent; so that a certain flesh of sin, which had obscured the strength of the soul and mind, may flow down; and as if by a certain right, it had infused the soul with the enticements of desires. Therefore, certain frying pans await us; therefore, let us grind up straw here, so that it becomes fine, and deposits all the hardness and greasiness of a certain carnal ploughland: which those who have luxuriated in this life endure; and they believed more in the mockery of disgrace than in any works of virtues to be practiced by themselves in the Jewish manner. For Jacob has become fat, and has grown thick, and has risen to play: whom that play has led from the truth of faith into the error of betrayal. Therefore, rightly did Paul chastise his body, lest he feed the body of sin; for by indulging, we make the members of sin, but by sobriety, the members of righteousness. Therefore, it is not nature, but fault that commits the crime.
Nor let us pursue empty and futile things again, so that we may not be judged as weaving a spider's web, because sins can have no substance of perpetuity. Therefore, when you see some people striving to enlarge their possessions, to accumulate power, and to seek honors, you shall say what Isaiah said: 'They weave the spider's web in all the days of one; which cannot be long-lasting; but it is quickly torn apart, and all of its work is dissolved.' (Isaiah 59:5). For no solid foundation is placed above; but it is suspended in a vacuum. Nothing loose, nothing soft, befits a true soldier of Christ; for behold, those who are dressed in soft clothing are in the houses of kings. All cunning and industrious people seem greedy. What is more cunning, what is more diligent than a spider, which always focuses on its work day and night, and completes its attire without any expense or cost? But everything it has done is vain. Such is every man who does not establish his work on the foundation of Christ. He is vain both by night and by day, and he himself is troubled; often the very spiders in the midst of their wickedness, in the collapse of their work, throw him into confusion.
(Verse 13.) And therefore the wise person who recognizes the vanity of this world does not pray for the prolonged use of this life; but hastens to those eternal things and desires to be freed from the labor and pain of this body; as the Prophet is known to have desired, saying: Hear, O Lord, my prayer and my supplication; receive with your ears my tears. Do not ignore me, for I am a stranger and sojourner before you on earth, like all my fathers. One is a resident, another is a stranger, another is a neighbor. A resident is someone who is from a place and inhabits that place: a stranger is someone who comes from elsewhere: a neighbor is someone who temporarily dwells, and changes with the passing years. This is what David says: I am a stranger with you, while I am on earth: I am not now a resident of your paradise. From this he explains by adding: And a wanderer; like all my fathers. This was also revealed by the apostle Paul, asserting that when we are in this body, we are strangers to the Lord (II Cor. V, 7); for although faith is within us, yet we walk by faith, not by appearance, that is, not face to face, as if present; for we still walk in riddles, not in truth. Finally he added: We dare, therefore, to journey more in our body, and to draw near to the Lord. We dare because of presumption in God's faith, not because of audacity; and we agree, that is, we willingly acquiesce and desire, not depending primarily on the authority of our own judgment: we want what we desire to be true; so that we may draw near to the Lord, from whom it seems to us that the distance of the future and the present separates us. Therefore, we dare to be present; and therefore he says: We strive (Ibid., 9). You understand the word of one who is still trying to arrive, not of the one who has arrived. Therefore, in this discourse, the affect is shown, not the effect. Finally, question the witness of his own sermon; rather, hear him doubting when he says: Therefore, we strive, whether absent or present, to please him (Ibid.): absent still by faith, present by appearance. Hence it can be understood that both here and there it pleases our judge, and we also desire it to please our redeemer of our souls. For it is necessary for us to appear before him, so that each one may attain the deserved outcome of their deeds through the examination of fate: either the just in rest, or the wicked in torment. Therefore, shed tears; for when a stranger comes to the land, he is delayed and separated from his homeland through long exile. Now consider for me that Adam, expelled from paradise, was relegated to a castle, looking back at where he had fallen, weeping abundantly; for he remembers what he has lost and where he has fallen. And let us therefore give thanks to God, who has freed us from perpetual exile, opening the door through which we may return to our homeland. Hence the Apostle presumes to say: Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19).
(Verse 14.) Desiring to receive this, David said before Christ came to earth: Forgive me, so that I may be refreshed before I go, and I will not be anymore; that is, forgive me here, where I have sinned. Unless you forgive me here, I will not be able to find the rest of forgiveness there; for what remains bound on earth will remain bound in heaven, and what has been loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven. For the prophet and preacher foresaw, with an evangelical spirit, the indulgences of the Lord for the gathering of the Church; and the Lord revealed these things to be preached to the apostles. Indeed, this was an ancient sentiment, that whoever bound himself on earth would depart from the body as a captive. Therefore the Lord, because he was about to give judgment, granted to the apostles the power of remitting sins, to be exercised in righteousness; lest, if they were left unsolved, they should long remain secure. Finally, listen to Him saying: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19). He says to you, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, so that you may both loose and bind. Novatian did not hear this, but the Church of God heard it; therefore he is in a state of falling away, we are in a state of forgiveness; he is in impenitence, we are in grace. What is said to Peter, is said to the apostles. We do not exercise authority, but we serve under authority; so that when the Lord comes and finds those who should have been released still bound, he might be angered against the steward who kept bound the servants whom the Lord had ordered to be released, for he who knows his master's will and does not do it, will be beaten severely; but he who does not know and does things deserving punishment, will be beaten less severely (Luke 12:47).
Therefore, David rightly asks to be forgiven because he knew that he was not one of those who were given the priesthood according to Aaron, but it was reserved for the Gospel. Therefore, whoever is not forgiven is in exile, enduring the injustice of wandering. So forgiveness must be sought here. For it is said: Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh (Luke 6:21): this is the place where forgiveness must be sought. Let us therefore lament on earth, so that we may deserve indulgence. Unless sin is forgiven here, we will not have rest: if there is no rest, there will be no eternal life: if there is no eternal life, we will not exist. Therefore, he asks for forgiveness before he goes, so that he may be. For if forgiveness is not granted, he says, I will not be with those who deserve to ascend to paradise. But whoever is not, will be consumed with those descending into the abyss, who has been abandoned in chains and prison.
Therefore, he does not definitively say, 'I will not be'; because elsewhere he says, 'I will sing to you on the lyre, O holy God of Israel. My lips will rejoice when I sing to you, and my soul which you have redeemed' (Psalm 70:22-23). Therefore, he assumes redemption. And elsewhere, listen to him saying, 'I will please the Lord in the land of the living' (Psalm 114:9). Therefore, he assumes to please. It can also be understood in this way; because he said, 'I am a stranger with you on earth, and a sojourner, like all my fathers; and therefore forgive me, so that I may cease to be a stranger: forgive me the exile to which I have been banished.' If you forgive before I leave here, I will no longer be an exile and a stranger. For when you forgive, I will no longer be a stranger; but I will be a citizen of your holy ones. I will be with my fathers, who themselves were once strangers but are now citizens. I will be a member of God's household, so that I may not fear punishment and may deserve grace: through our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be praise, honor, glory, eternity, with the Holy Spirit from age to age, now and forever, and for all ages to come. Amen.
On Psalm 40, Commentary
In the earlier psalms, he preached repentance; then he spoke about his patience and the disturbance of man. But in the thirty-ninth psalm, he announces the new Testament; for the one who repents of his sins waits. But it is not enough to wait, but to have waited; for no one will be saved unless they persevere until the end.
(Vers. 2, 3.) Therefore, he added: I have waited with expectation for the Lord. Where is this spoken, if not in the Gospel? in which the one who was awaited has already come to us: in which the shadow of the Law no longer darkens us, but the truth shines forth; because Christ has shone, who has heard the prayers of his own, and has brought us out of the pit of misery and the mud of filth; where we were already sunk in the whirlpool of our sins, and our whole being was stuck, and our spirit could not free itself, overcome by the multitude of shameful stains. Therefore, thanks be to the Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, our redeemer, who came down from heaven to forgive us all our sins; that he might deliver us from the pit and mire of this world, and from a certain filthy swamp of the earth, and establish the inner footprints of our souls in his own flesh; that, strengthened in the word of God, and freed through the sufferings of the Lord's body on the cross, we may now walk not in the disgrace of shame, but in the forgiveness of sin. So, confirmed and rooted in Christ, he remembers the footsteps of his feet placed on the rock. From whence the Apostle says: 'And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ' (1 Corinthians 10:4). The rock, because it follows the thirsty, strengthens the faltering; lest water should fail to the thirsty, a support to the faltering.
(Verse 4.) Therefore, Lord Jesus, as I awaited, you finally came, you directed my steps in the Gospel, you put into my mouth a new song, which is the New Testament. Rejoicing, we now sing a hymn to our God, because we have come to know the precepts of new virtues; that we may leave all our own things behind, following Christ, and love our enemies. We have also adopted new customs; that for those who persecute us, we may offer prayer to the Lord. Behold, we bless those who curse us. We do not boast of our works or hide our sins. We also reject the customs of the angels regarding marriage.
(Verse 5.) What more can be said? The blessed man has been made out of that miserable sinner, no longer looking back at the various vanities of this world. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2), this whole world is. just as the wise Solomon said. For what is it but vain to follow things that cannot endure; and everything passes away like a shadow? False insanities, or the conflicts of wars, where so much blood is shed for temporary possession: or the dissensions of theatrical contentions: or the fervent studies of the Circus: or the deadly doctrine of heretics: or the pretended actions of heavenly oracles in the manner of pseudo-prophets, consisting of arranged words. For thus says the prophet: Blessed is the man whose name of the Lord is his hope: and who does not look towards vanities and false insanities.
So there are true insanities, and perhaps also of prophets who, in a state of mental excess, prophesied, filled with the Spirit of God, so that they seemed to be insane to some; while being forgetful of their own salvation, mostly naked and barefoot, like the holy Isaiah, they would run through the people, shouting not what they themselves wanted, but what they were commanded by the Lord. From these things, therefore, it is understood that the remedy of salvation has shone forth; for the one who was awaited is present.
Adam waited for him, having been cast out of paradise; that he may be freed from prolonged exile. Noah, the righteous one, waited for him, who was reserved for the future generations; that from him the seeds of righteousness may sprout in men. He himself thought him to be the author of the public salvation, who deserved to survive the flood. He himself, the prince of wisdom, who cultivated the vine and became intoxicated with its fruit. For what is the vine if not wisdom? As David, the heavenly interpreter of the oracle, revealed to us, saying: Your wife is like a flourishing vine in the sides of your house (Psalm 137:3). Therefore, because in him was the fullness of wisdom, which was expected in Christ, who, newly filled with the sacrament of wisdom, which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, hastened to bring to us an unheard-of mystery, so that he might lie naked and the cups of overflowing wisdom might pour forth: so that, having forgotten our former ways, we might rise to new customs and a new sobriety of life; whereby, through the foolishness of preaching, God might be recognized, whom this world did not know through wisdom. Finally, in that image of the sleeping and naked father, who laughed at foolishness, he is cursed: those who have worshipped have obtained the grace of blessing. And therefore, those who have believed that the death of the only-begotten Son of God, the Father and Creator of all, is to be presented as a stumbling block or reproach to our faith, are held bound by the chains of their sins to perpetual torment of curse; but those who accept it for the absolution of the whole human race are supported by the protection of eternal virtue. For the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, as the Apostle said (I Cor. I, 23 et seq.): but to us who believe in the Lord Jesus, it is the power of God and wisdom.
He was expected in Moses when he had dried up and crossed the waves of the sea, and opened a path in the waves of the sea that was impossible for human strength to open on land: the rock followed him and he plowed the waters, so that he could satisfy the innermost parts of the thirsty fathers in the middle of the desert.
He was awaited, and as Aaron, the high priest, stood in the midst of the living and the dead: and he established the serpent as the remedy for death; so that the destruction would not pass from the dead bodies to the living. For what is so fitting for Christ as to stand as an advocatebefore God the Father for the people, to offer his own death for all, to ward off death, and to restore life to those who are perishing?
He was expected both in Joshua the son of Nun, and he certainly came, who received both his power and his name, in order to lead the people into the land of promise, and to be truly called by the name of Jesus. He dried up the streams, turned a river into its source, set the sun still, until he might fully complete victory in power. But he was still a figure, not the reality. Finally, the true leader of the heavenly army shone forth for him, and Joshua the son of Nun worshiped him; although he had not yet stood in bodily form, but had still come in a figure.
So when did the true one arrive? Listen to what he says: I have announced and spoken: they have multiplied beyond number. You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you perfected a body for me. Then I said, behold, I come. In the head of the book it is written about me that I should do your will: my God, I have desired it. What is clearer than the fact that with the gift of his Gospel, the true Jesus has come to us? He himself spoke, and countless peoples of believers gathered, who scarcely believed individually before. He himself came in the flesh, and the sacrifice of the Jews ceased. The offering for sin ceased, because the one who forgives sins had come. There was no need for the remedy of the Law, where the Author of the Law was present.
In the head of the Book it is written about me. Surely it is written about Christ in the beginning of the Old Testament that He would come, in order to do the will of God the Father in the redemption of mankind; when it was written that He formed Eve in the likeness of the Church for the assistance of man. For what can be our protection in this weakness of the body and the disturbance of this world, except for the grace of the Church alone, by which we are redeemed, and our faith, by which we live? In the head of the Book it is written: 'Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.' Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh (Gen. II, 23, 24). Who is this who spoke, or about whom is this mystery? Listen to the one who says: 'This is a great mystery; but I speak in reference to Christ and the Church' (Ephes. V, 32). Therefore, he also warns that a man should love his wife in this way, just as Christ loves the Church; for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones (Ibid., 25). Therefore, what greater salvation is there than to be with Christ and to adhere to Him in a certain unity of the body, in which there is neither any stain nor the distortion of sin?
It is written in the Book that Abel's offering pleased God, while Cain's offering displeased Him (Gen. IV, 4 and 5). Did not the Lord Jesus clearly signify that He Himself would be offered for us, in order to consecrate the grace of the new sacrifice in His passion and to abolish the ritual of the murderous people? And what is more explicit than the fact that the son was offered by the holy Patriarch and a ram was sacrificed? Does it not clearly show that the flesh of man, which is common to all earthly animals, will not be subject to the sacred wound of the passion of the only-begotten Son of God?