Psalms 120 · The Lantern

The `title of the hundrid and twentithe salm. The song of greces. I reiside myn iyen to the hillis; fro whannus help schal come to me.

Therefore it was none other than God whom David too implored for his deliverance: "When I was in trouble, I called on the Lord, and he heard me; deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue." To him also giving thanks he spoke the words of the song in the seventeenth psalm [LXX], in the day in which the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies…

Let us come to the psalm that was read after the hundred and eighteenth psalm. The hundred and eighteenth psalm, as we have often said, is a lettered one — that is, it is an alphabetic psalm: for it begins from aleph all the way to the last Hebrew letter, which in Hebrew is called THAU, and each set of verses begins with a single letter.

When therefore a man has commenced thus to order his ascent; to speak more plainly, when a Christian has begun to think of spiritual amendment, he begins to suffer the tongues of adversaries. Whoever has not yet suffered from them, has not yet made progress; whoever suffers them not, does not even endeavour to improve. Does he wish to know what we mean?

Myn help is of the Lord; that made heuene and erthe.

The Lord yyue not thi foot in to mouyng; nether he nappe, that kepith thee.

Lo! he schal not nappe, nether slepe; that kepith Israel.

The Lord kepith thee; the Lord is thi proteccioun aboue thi riythond.

The sunne schal not brenne thee bi dai; nether the moone bi nyyt.

With those who hated peace I was peaceable; when I spoke to them, they attacked me without cause. Unhappy we, we cannot restrain our tongue, we cannot help slandering the brethren. If someone offends us, we as it were present a peaceful face, but for the rest the heart has poison. We are called monks, and although we are not such as we ought to be, yet we are so called.

"My soul hath wandered much" [Psalm 120:6]. Lest thou shouldest understand bodily wandering, he hath said that the soul wandered. The body wandereth in places, the soul wandereth in its affections. If thou love the earth, thou wanderest from God: if thou lovest God, thou risest unto God.

Which peace our Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed and gave; of whose preaching our father Francis was a renewer, announcing peace at the beginning and end of every sermon, wishing peace in every greeting, sighing for ecstatic peace in every contemplation, like a citizen of that Jerusalem, of which that man of peace speaks, who was peaceable with those who hated peace: Pray for the t…

The Lord kepe thee fro al yuel; the Lord kepe thi soule.

The Lord kepe thi goyng in and thi goyng out; fro this tyme now and in to the world.

Psalms120