35. Lastly there followeth, "and He builded like as of unicorns His sanctification" (ver. 70): or, as some interpreters have made thereof a new word, "His sanctifying." [3653] The unicorns are rightly understood to be those, whose firm hope is uplifted unto that one thing, concerning which another Psalm saith, "One thing I have sought of the Lord, this I will require." [3654] But the sanctifying of God, according to the Apostle Peter, is understood to be a holy people and a royal priesthood. [3655] But that which followeth, "in the land which He founded for everlasting:" which the Greek copies have eis ton aiona, whether it be called by us "for everlasting," or "for an age," is at the pleasure of the Latin translators; forasmuch as it doth signify either: and therefore the latter is found in some Latin copies, the former in others. Some also have it in the plural, that is, "for ages:" which in the Greek copies which we have had we have not found. But which of the faithful would doubt, that the Church, even though, some going, others coming, she doth pass out of this life in mortal manner, is yet founded for everlasting?
36. "And He chose David His servant" (ver. 71). The tribe, I say, of Judah, for the sake of David: but David for the sake of Christ: the tribe then of Judah for the sake of Christ. At whose passing by blind men cried out, "Have pity on us, Son of David:" [3656] and forthwith by His pity they received light, because true was the thing which they cried out. This then the Apostle doth not cursorily speak of, but doth heedfully notice, writing to Timothy, "Be thou mindful, that Christ Jesus hath risen from the dead, of the seed of David," etc. [3657] Therefore the Saviour Himself, made according to the flesh of the seed of David, is figured in this passage under the name of David, the Lord opening in parables His mouth. And let it not move us, that when he had said, "and He chose David," under which name he signified Christ, he hath added, "His servant," not His Son. Yea even hence we may perceive, that not the substance of the Only-Begotten coeternal with the Father, but the "form of a servant" was taken of the seed of David.
37. "And He took him from the flocks of sheep, from behind the teeming sheep He received him: to feed Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance" (ver. 72). This David indeed, of whose seed the flesh of Christ is, from the pastoral care of cattle was translated to the kingdom of men: but our David, Jesus Himself, from men to men, from Jews to Gentiles, was yet according to the parable from sheep to sheep taken away and translated. For there are not now in that land "Churches of Judæa in Christ," which belonged to them of the circumcision after the recent Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, of whom saith the Apostle, "But I was unknown by face to the Churches of Judæa, which are in Christ," etc. [3658] Already from hence those Churches of the circumcised people have passed away: and thus in Judæa, which now doth exist on the earth, there is not now Christ. [3659] He hath been removed thence, now He doth feed flocks of Gentiles. Truly from behind teeming sheep He hath been taken thence. For those former Churches were of such sort, as that of them it is said in the Song of Songs, "Thy teeth--are like a flock of shorn ewes going up from the washing, [3660] all of which do bear twins, and a barren one is not among them." [3661] For they then laid aside like as it were fleeces the burdens of the world, [3662] when before the feet of the Apostles they laid the prices of their sold goods, [3663] going up from that Laver, concerning which the apostle Peter doth admonish them, when they were troubled because they had shed the blood of Christ, and he saith, "Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins shall be forgiven you." [3664] But twins they begat, the works, to wit, of the two commandments of twin love, love of God, and love of one's neighbour: whence a barren one there was not among them. From behind these teeming sheep our David having been taken, doth now feed other flocks among the Gentiles, and those too "Jacob" and "Israel." For thus hath been said, "to feed Jacob His servant, and Israel His inheritance."...Unless perchance any one be willing to make such a distinction as this; viz. that in this time Jacob serveth; but he will be the eternal inheritance of God, at that time when he shall see God face to face, whence he hath received the name Israel. [3665]
38. "And He fed them," he saith, "in the innocence of His heart" (ver. 73). What can be more innocent than He, who not only had not any sin whereby to be conquered, but even not any to conquer? "And in the understanding of His hands He led them home:" or, as some copies have it, "in the understandings of His hands." Any other man might suppose that it would have been better had it been said thus, "in innocence of hands and understanding of heart;" but He who knew better than others what He spake, preferred to join with the heart innocence, and with the hands understanding. It is for this reason, as far as I judge; because many men think themselves innocent, who do not evil things because they fear lest they should suffer if they shall have done them; but they have the will to do them, if they could with impunity. Such men may seem to have innocence of hands, but yet not that of heart. And what, I pray, or of what sort is that innocence, if of heart it is not, where man was made after the image of God? [3666] But in this which he saith, "in understanding (or intelligence) of His hands He led them home," he seemeth to me to have spoken of that intelligence which He doth Himself make in believers: and so "of His hands:" for making doth belong to the hands, but in the sense wherein the hands of God may be understood; for even Christ was a Man in such sort, that He was also God....
[3520] Lat. LXXVII.
[3521] Dictated A.D. 415. See Ep. 169, to Evodius.--Ben.
[3522] [Intellectus, Vulg.; Eruditionis, Jerome; Sun?seos to'As?ph, Sept.--C.]
[3523] Ps. lxxvii. 2.
[3524] Isa. i. 3.
[3525] Sacramentum.
[3526] [Velabatur in Veteri, quod revelaretur in Novo.--C.]
[3527] 1 Cor. x. 4.
[3528] Specie.
[3529] 1 Cor. x. 5.
[3530] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[3531] So Oxf. mss.; Ben. "are regenerated," which makes scarcely an intelligible sense.
[3532] Prov. v. 1.
[3533] [He subjoins as follows: "For the word on the Title is put in the genitive case: hujus intellectûs, not hic intellectus."--C.]
[3534] He takes con-gregatio as the Latin for synagogue, and expressing merely bringing together, and convocatio as Latin for ecclesia, which expresses calling.
[3535] i.e., than for them.
[3536] Ps. cvi. 47.
[3537] John x. 16.
[3538] Matt. xv. 24.
[3539] Matt. xxv. 32.
[3540] Oxf. mss. add quam Judæis.
[3541] 1 Cor. x. 5. [He cites to verse 12, entire.--C.]
[3542] Ps. lxxviii. 6.
[3543] Gen. iii. 19.
[3544] Ps. lxxviii. 1.
[3545] 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
[3546] [Judg. xiii. 20. This mysterious subject may be illustrated from Holy Scripture so as to justify our author's very broad statement. It throws light on Gen. iii. 1-16, and also 2 Pet. ii. 16. Compare on verse 49 of this Psalm, infra.--C.]
[3547] Luke vii. 8.
[3548] Ps. lxxviii. 2.
[3549] Ps. cxi. 10.
[3550] Rom. x. 4.
[3551] Rom. v. 5.
[3552] 1 John iv. 18.
[3553] Rom. iii. 21.
[3554] Exod. xl. 2, 3; 2 Cor. iii. 13.
[3555] 2 Cor. iii. 16.
[3556] 2 Cor. i. 20.
[3557] Gen. xxv. 26.
[3558] Gen. xxxii. 28.
[3559] Rom. vii. 8, 9.
[3560] Rom. vii. 13.
[3561] 1 Tim. i. 9.
[3562] Ps. cxviii. 22; 1 Pet. ii. 8.
[3563] 1 Tim. i. 8.
[3564] Col. iii. 1.
[3565] Philip. ii. 13.
[3566] Rom. iv. 5.
[3567] Rom. ix. 31.
[3568] Rom. i. 17; Gal. v. 6; Phil. ii. 13.
[3569] Gen. xlviii. 14.
[3570] Matt. xx. 16.
[3571] John i. 27.
[3572] Gen. iv. 4, xxi. 12, xxxviii. 29.
[3573] 1 Sam. xvi. 12.
[3574] Gen. iv. 8.
[3575] Gen. xlviii. 14.
[3576] Exod. xix. 8.
[3577] 1 Cor. x. 13.
[3578] Ps. lxxviii. 8.
[3579] Ps. lxxviii. 8.
[3580] Luke xx. 38.
[3581] Numb. xi. 17.
[3582] 1 Cor. iv. 14.
[3583] Matt. xxiii. 9.
[3584] Ps. cxix. 133.
[3585] Prov. iv. 27, LXX.
[3586] These words are part of an addition in the Septuagint text.
[3587] John vii. 37.
[3588] John iv. 14.
[3589] John vii. 39.
[3590] John xvi. 9.
[3591] Ps. xvii. 2.
[3592] Jas. i. 5, 6.
[3593] John i. 44.
[3594] Ps. lxxiii. 7.
[3595] Ps. cii. 27.
[3596] Ps. xxvii. 4.
[3597] Exod. xvi. 3.
[3598] Ps. xvii. 15, Lat.
[3599] Matt. xx. 16.
[3600] Matt. v. 45.
[3601] Many mss. omit "not."
[3602] Exod. xxxii. 10.
[3603] Ps. lxxviii. 38.
[3604] Ps. lxxviii. 54, 55.
[3605] Or, "breath."
[3606] [Transient, and not returning.--C.]
[3607] Prov. ii. 19.
[3608] Ps. lxxviii. 2.
[3609] Exod. ix. 25.
[3610] [Obscenique canes. Virg. Georg. i. 470.--C.]
[3611] Gal. vi. 3.
[3612] Vid. Sermon on the Ten Plagues and Ten Commandments.
[3613] Oxf. mss. Taphnis.
[3614] 1 Kings xxii. 20.
[3615] [See p. 219, n. 8, supra.--C.]
[3616] Job i. 16.
[3617] Job i. 21.
[3618] Eph. ii. 2.
[3619] Exod. viii. 7.
[3620] Al. "ordinance."
[3621] Exod. viii. 18, 19.
[3622] Gen. xviii. 2 and xix. 1.
[3623] Exod. iv. 21.
[3624] Eph. ii. 2.
[3625] Ps. lxxviii. 2.
[3626] Rom. i. 24, 28.
[3627] 2 Cor. ii. 16.
[3628] Col. i. 13.
[3629] Col. iii. 3.
[3630] Rom. viii. 24.
[3631] Rom. viii. 31.
[3632] Isa. liii. 1.
[3633] Oxf. mss. add, "He did cast out nations."
[3634] 1 Cor. xii. 11.
[3635] Exod. xix. 8.
[3636] Exod. xx. 3.
[3637] 1 Sam. iv. 10, etc.
[3638] Jer. vii. 12.
[3639] 1 Sam. iv. 19.
[3640] Ps. xlii. 3.
[3641] Al. "require."
[3642] 1 Sam. v. 6.
[3643] Phil. iii. 8.
[3644] Isa. xl. 6, 7.
[3645] [Jeroboam represented the house of Joseph (1 Kings xi. 28), and was offended at the removal of the Tabernacle (1 Kings viii. 4) to Jerusalem. But God overruled his rebellion in such wise, that Ephraim (as the ten tribes were called from the pre-eminent one) carried away, and, not returning, did not, as tribes, share in the rejection of the Messiah, "the Shepherd and Stone of Israel;" thus indicated in the prophetic benediction of Jacob, Gen. xlix. 24.--C.]
[3646] Gen. xlix. 3.
[3647] Gen. xlix. 5.
[3648] Exod. ii. 1.
[3649] 1 Sam. ix. 1.
[3650] 1 Sam. xvi. 1.
[3651] Gen. xli. 40.
[3652] Gen. xlviii. 17, 19.
[3653] Sanctificium.
[3654] Ps. xxvii. 4.
[3655] 1 Pet. ii. 9.
[3656] Matt. xx. 30.
[3657] 2 Tim. ii. 8.
[3658] Gal. i. 22, 23.
[3659] [A noteworthy testimony.--C.]
[3660] Lavacro.
[3661] Song of Sol. iv. 2.
[3662] Acts ii. 45.
[3663] Acts iv. 34, 35.
[3664] Acts ii. 38.
[3665] Gen. xxxii. 28.
[3666] Gen. i. 27.
Psalm LXXIX. [3667]
1. Over the title of this Psalm, being so short and so simple, I think we need not tarry. But the prophecy which here we read sent before, we know to be evidently fulfilled. For when these things were being sung in the times of King David, nothing of such sort, by the hostility of the Gentiles, as yet had befallen the city Jerusalem, nor the Temple of God, which as yet was not even builded. For that after the death of David his son Salomon made a temple to God, who is ignorant? That is spoken of therefore as though past, which in the Spirit was seen to be future.
"O God, the Gentiles have come into Thine inheritance" (ver. 1). Under which form of expression other things which were to come to pass, are spoken of as having been done. Nor must this be wondered at, that these words are being spoken to God. For they are not being represented to Him not knowing, by whose revelation they are foreknown; but the soul is speaking with God with that affection of godliness, of which God knoweth. [3668] For even the things which Angels proclaim to men, they proclaim to them that know them not; but the things which they proclaim to God, they proclaim to Him knowing, when they offer our prayers, and in ineffable manner consult the eternal Truth respecting their actions, as an immutable law. And therefore this man of God is saying to God that which he is to learn of God, like a scholar to a master, not ignorant but judging; and so either approving what he hath taught, or censuring what he hath not taught: especially because under the appearance of one praying, the Prophet is transforming into himself those who should be at the time when these things were to come to pass. [3669] But in praying it is customary to declare those things to God which He hath done in taking vengeance, and for a petition to be added, that henceforth He should pity and spare. In this way here also by him the judgments are spoken of by whom they are foretold, as if they were being spoken of by those whom they befell, and the very lamentation and prayer is a prophecy.