Psalm 114 [MT 116:1‑9]

"I have loved, since the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer" [Psalm 116:1]. Let the soul that is sojourning in absence from the Lord sing thus, let that sheep which had strayed sing thus, let that son who had "died and returned to life," who had "been lost and was found;" [Luke 15:6, 24] let our soul sing thus, brethren, and most beloved sons. Let us be taught, and let us abide, and let us sing thus with the Saints: "I have loved: since the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer." Is this a reason for having loved, that the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer? And do we not rather love, because He has heard, or that He may hear? What then means, "I have loved, since the Lord will hear"? Does he, because hope is wont to inflame love, say that he has loved, since he has hoped that God will listen to the voice of his prayer?

"I have loved," the psalmist says, "because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer." It is not in the power of everyone to say "I have loved," but of him who is already perfect and beyond the fear of slavery and who has been formed in the spirit of adoption as children. He does not add to "I have loved" the word someone, but we supply in thought "the God of the universe." For, that which is properly beloved is God, since they define "beloved" as that at which all things aim. Now, God is a good and the first and most perfect of good things. Therefore, I have loved God, who is the highest of objects to be desired, and I have received with joy sufferings for his sake. What these things are, the psalmist goes through in detail a little later—the pangs of death, the dangers of hell, the affliction, the pain, all things whatsoever that are desirable to him because of the love of God—and he demonstrates the hope that was stored up for those who receive sufferings because of their devoutness. For I did not endure the contests, he says, contrary to my will or by force or constraint, but I accepted the sufferings with a certain love and affection, so that I was able to say, "Because for your sake we are killed all the day long." And these words seem to have equal weight with the words of the apostle and to be spoken by him with the same feeling: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger or the sword?" Therefore, I have loved all these things, knowing that I endure the dangers for the sake of piety under the hands of the Lord of the universe who sees and bestows the reward. "Because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer." So, each one of us is able to perform the difficult tasks enjoined by the commandments whenever he displays his conduct of life to the God of the universe as if to a spectator.

But whence hath he hoped for this? Since, he saith, "He hath inclined His ear unto me: and in my days I have called upon Him." I loved, therefore, because He will hear; He will hear, "because He hath inclined His ear unto me." But whence knowest thou, O human soul, that God hath inclined His ear unto thee, except thou sayest, "I have believed"? These three things, therefore, "abide, faith, hope, charity:" because thou hast believed, thou hast hoped; because thou hast hoped, thou hast loved. ...

"Because he has inclined his ear to me." "He inclined," he said, not that you might take some corporeal notion about God having ears and inclining them to a gentle voice, as we do, putting our ear close to those who speak low, so that by the nearness we may perceive what is said. But he said, "he inclined," in order that he might point out to us his own weakness. Because through kindness God came down to me while I was lying on the ground, as if, when some sick person is not able to speak clearly because of his great weakness, a kind physician, bringing his ear close, should learn through the nearness what was necessary for the sick person. Therefore, "He has inclined his ear to me." The divine ear, indeed, does not need a voice for perception; it knows how to recognize in the movements of the heart what is sought. Or, do you not hear how Moses, although he said nothing but met the Lord with his inexpressible groanings, was heard by the Lord, who said, "Why do you cry to me?" God knows how to hear even the blood of a just person, to which no tongue is attached and of which no voice pierces the air. The presence of good works is a loud voice before God."And in my days I will call on him." If we have prayed on one day, or if in one hour for a brief time we were saddened by our sins, we are carefree as if we had already made some compensation for our wickedness. However, the holy person says that he is disclosing his confession, which is measured by the whole time of his life, for he says, "In all my days I will call on him." Then, in order that you may not think that he called on God because he was fortunate in this life and because all his affairs were successful, he describes in detail the magnitude and difficulty of the circumstances in which, when he was involved, he did not forget the name of God.

Do you hear him [the psalmist] saying, "The sorrows of death have compassed me"? "Still, I have loved the Lord even in the sorrows of death. The perils of hell have found me, not fearing indeed, but loving, but hoping, because no distress, no persecution, no dangers, no sword shall separate me from Christ." Therefore, he accepted tribulation and sorrow willingly, knowing that "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." As a good athlete, he sought the contest that he might gain the crown, but he knew that this was given to him not through his own strength but by the aid of God. He could not have been victorious had he not called on him who helps contenders.

And what are your days, since you have said, "In my days I have called upon Him"? Are they those perchance, in which "the fullness of time came," and "God sent His Son," [Galatians 4:4] who had already said, "In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you"? [Isaiah 49:8] ...I may rather call my days the days of my misery, the days of my mortality, the days according to Adam, full of toil and sweat, the days according to the ancient corruption. "For I lying, stuck fast in the deep mire," in another Psalm also have cried out, "Behold, You have made my days old;" in these days of mine have I called upon You. For my days are different from the days of my Lord. I call those my days, which by my own daring I have made for myself, whereby I have forsaken Him: and, since He reigns everywhere, and is all-powerful, and holds all things, I have deserved prison; that is, I have received the darkness of ignorance, and the bonds of mortality....For in these days of mine, "The snares of death compassed me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me" [Psalm 116:3]: pains that would not have overtaken me, had I not wandered from You. But now they have overtaken me; but I found them not, while I was rejoicing in the prosperity of the world, in which the snares of hell deceive the more.

"The sorrows of death," he says, "have compassed me; and the perils of hell have found me." Properly the sorrows of death have been agreed on as the pains of childbirth, when the womb, distended with its burden, thrusts out the fetus; then, the generative parts, being compressed and stretched around the fetus by spasms and contractions of the muscles, produce in the mothers the sharpest pains and most bitter pangs. He transferred the name of these pains to those that besiege the animal in the division of soul and body at death. He says that he has suffered nothing moderately but that he has been tried even to the sorrows of death and has arrived at the peril of the descent into hell. Now, did he endure only these things for which he is exalted, or did he endure these things frequently and unwillingly? Nothing that is forced is praiseworthy. But, look at the nobility of nature of the athlete. When the sorrows of death compassed me and the perils of hell found me, I was so far from succumbing to these trials that I willingly proposed to myself even much greater trials than these. Trouble and sorrow, I, as it were, willingly devised for myself; I was not unwillingly seized by them.Indeed, in the preceding words we read, "The perils of hell have found me," but here, "I met with trouble and sorrow." For, since I was found to be unyielding there in regard to what was brought on by the tempter, in order that I might show the abundance of my love toward God, I added trouble to trouble and sorrow to sorrow, and I did not rise up against these sufferings by my own power, but I called upon the name of the Lord. Such is also the declaration of the apostle, who says, "But in all these things we overcome because of him who has loved us." For he conquers who does not yield to those who lead on by force, but he is more than conqueror, who voluntarily invites sorrows for a demonstration of his endurance. Let him who was in some sin to death say, "The sorrows of death have compassed me." "For everyone," he says, "who commits sin has been born of the devil." Now, when I, he says, committed sin and was pregnant by death, then also I was found by the perils of hell. How, then, did I cure myself? Because I devised trouble and sorrow through penance. I contrived for myself a suffering of penance proportionate to the greatness of the sin, and thus I dared to call on the name of the Lord. But, what was it that I said? "O Lord, deliver my soul." I am held in this captivity, so you give ransom for me and deliver my soul.

It seems quite clear that in most parts of the Old Testament there is little or no belief in a future life; certainly no belief that is of any religious importance. The word translated 'soul' in our version of the Psalms means simply 'life'; the word translated 'hell' means simply 'the land of the dead', the state of all the dead, good and bad alike, Sheol. [...] Elsewhere of course it sounds as if the poet were praying for the 'salvation of his soul' in the Christian sense. Almost certainly he is not. In 30:3, 'Thou hast brought my soul out of hell' means 'You have saved me from death.' 'The snares of death compassed me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me' (116:3) means 'Death was setting snares for me, I felt the anguish of a dying man'—as we should say, 'I was at death's door.'

But after "I too found trouble and heaviness, I called upon the Name of the Lord." For trouble and profitable sorrow I did not feel; trouble, wherein He giveth aid, unto whom it is said, "O be Thou our help in trouble: and vain is the help of man." For I thought I might rejoice and exult in the vain help of man; but when I had heard from my Lord, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted:" I did not wait until I should lose those temporal blessings in which I rejoiced, and should then mourn: but I gave heed to that very misery of mine which caused me to rejoice in such things, which I both feared to lose, and yet could not retain; I gave heed to it firmly and courageously, and I saw that I was not only agonized by the adversities of this world, but even bound by its good fortune; and thus "I found the trouble and heaviness" which had escaped me, "and called upon the Name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul." Let then the holy people of God say, "I called upon the Name of the Lord:" and let the remainder of the heathen hear, who do not as yet call upon the Name of the Lord; let them hear and seek, that they may discover trouble and heaviness, and may call upon the Name of the Lord, and be saved. ...

"Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful" [Psalm 116:5]. He is gracious, righteous, and merciful. Gracious in the first place, because He has inclined His ear unto me; and I knew not that the ear of God had approached my lips, till I was aroused by those beautiful feet, that I might call upon the Lord's Name: for who has called upon Him, save he whom He first called? Hence therefore He is in the first place "gracious;" but "righteous," because He scourges; and again, "merciful," because He receives; for "He scourges every son whom He receives;" nor ought it to be so bitter to me that He scourges, as sweet that He receives. For how should not "The Lord, who keeps little ones" [Psalm 116:6], scourge those whom, when of mature age, He seeks to be heirs; "for what son is he whom the father chastens not?" [Hebrews 12:6-7] "I was in misery, and He helped me." He helped me, because I was in misery; for the pain which the physician causes by his knife is not penal, but salutary.

"The Lord is merciful and just." Everywhere Scripture joins justice with the mercy of God, teaching us that neither the mercy of God is without judgment nor his judgment without mercy. Even while he pities, he measures out his mercies judiciously to the worthy; and while judging, he brings forth the judgment, having regard to our weakness, repaying us with kindness rather than with equal reciprocal measurement."And our God shows mercy." Mercy is an emotion experienced toward those who have been reduced beyond their desert and that arises in those sympathetically disposed. We pity the person who has fallen from great riches into the uttermost poverty, one who has been overthrown from the peak of vigor of body to extreme weakness, one who gloried in the beauty and grace of body and who has been destroyed by most shameful passions. Though we at one time were held in glory, living in paradise, yet we have become inglorious and humble because of our banishment; "our God shows mercy," seeing what sort of people we have become from what we were. For this reason he summoned Adam with a voice of mercy, saying, "Adam, where are you?" He who knows all things was not seeking to be informed, but he wished to perceive what sort Adam had become from what he had been. "Where are you?" instead of "to what sort of a ruin have you descended from so great a height?"

"The Lord is the keeper of little ones; I was humbled, and he delivered me." According to natural reason human nature would not stand unless the little ones and those still infants were kept by the Lord. For, unless it was preserved by the custody of God, how could the fetus in the mother be nourished or moved while it was in such narrow spaces, with no room for turning, and while it lived in dark and moist places, unable to take a breath or to live the life of people, but, on the contrary, was borne around in liquids like the fish? And how would it last even for a short time after it had come out into this unaccustomed place and, lacking the warmth within the mother, had become chilled all over by the air, unless it was preserved by God? Therefore, "the Lord is the keeper of little ones; I was humbled, and he delivered me." Or, you may understand these words thus. When I was turned and became as a little child and received the kingdom of heaven as a child and through innocence brought myself down to the humility of children, "the Lord, the keeper of little ones," since I was humbled, "delivered me."

Let us therefore despise whatever good we do; let no work of ours puff us up, let neither abundance of possessions nor glory exalt us. If we swell inwardly from any good things that abound to us, we are despised by God. On the contrary, the Psalmist says of the humble: "The Lord preserves the little ones." Because he calls the humble "little ones," after he brought forth this statement, he adds counsel; for as if we were asking what he himself would do about these things, he added: "I was humbled, and he delivered me." Think on these things, therefore, brothers; weigh them with your whole attention. Do not venerate the goods of this world in your neighbors. Honor in people that which was made in the image of God, for the sake of God. This you will truly preserve toward your neighbors if you first do not swell up in your own heart. For whoever still exalts himself on account of transitory things does not know how to venerate in his neighbor what endures. Therefore, do not consider in yourselves what you have, but what you are.

For it is clear that the soul does not die with the body, because it is not of the body. And that it is not of the body Scripture teaches us in many ways. For Adam received the breath of life from the Lord God "and became a living soul," and David says, "Turn, O my soul, into your rest, for the Lord has been good to me." And learn the nature of God's goodness: "For he has freed my feet from falling." You see that David rejoices in the remedy of such a death, because an end has been put to error, because guilt has perished but not nature. And so he says, as if liberated and free, "I shall please the Lord in the land of the living." For that22 is the land.… Further, he says that the land of the living is that resting place of souls, where sins do not enter in and where the glory of the virtues lives. Now that land is filled with the dead, because it is filled with sinners, and it was rightly said, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead." But likewise he also said above, "His soul shall dwell in good things, and his seed shall inherit the land"; that is, the soul of one who fears God will dwell in good things, so that it is always in them and in conformity with them. The passage can also be taken to refer to one who is in the body, so that he too, if he fears God, dwells in good things and is in heavenly things, for he possesses his body and enjoys mastery over it as if it had been reduced to slavery, and he possesses the inheritance of glory and of the heavenly promises.

Theodosius, now at peace, rejoices that he has been snatched away from the cares of this world, and he lifts up his soul and directs it to that great and eternal rest. He declares that he has been admirably cared for, "since God has snatched his soul from death," the death that he frequently withstood in the treacherous conditions of this world, when he was disturbed by the waves of sin. And God has snatched his eyes from tears, for sorrow and sadness and mourning shall flee away. And elsewhere we have, "He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain." If, then, death will be no more, he cannot suffer a fall when he is in that rest, "but he will please God in the land of the living." For while humankind is here enveloped in a mortal body subject to falls and transgressions, that will not be so there. Therefore, that is the land of the living where the soul is, for the soul has been made to the image and likeness of God; it is not flesh fashioned from earth. Hence, flesh returns to earth, but the soul hastens to celestial rest, and to it is said, "Turn, my soul, to your rest."

Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.

"Turn, O my soul, into your rest: for the Lord has been bountiful to you." The brave contestant applies to himself the consoling words, very much like Paul, when he says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. For the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice." These things the prophet also says to himself: Since you have fulfilled sufficiently the course of this life, turn henceforth into your rest, "for the Lord has been bountiful to you." For eternal rest lies before those who have struggled through the present life observant of the laws, a rest not given in payment for a debt owed for their works but provided as a grace of the munificent God for those who have hoped in him. Then, before he describes the good things there, telling in detail the escape from the troubles of the world, he gives thanks for them to the Liberator of souls, who has delivered him from the varied and inexorable slavery of the passions.

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

"For he has delivered my soul from death: my eyes from tears, my feet from falling." He describes the future rest by a comparison with things here. Here, he says, the sorrows of death have compassed me, but there he has delivered my soul from death. Here the eyes pour forth tears because of trouble, but there, no longer is there a tear to darken the eyes of those who are rejoicing in the contemplation of the beauty of the glory of God. "For God has wiped away every tear from every face." Here there is much danger of a fall; wherefore, even Paul said, "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." But there the steps are firm; life is immutable. No longer is there the danger of slipping into sin. For there is neither rebellion of the flesh nor cooperation of a woman in sin. Therefore, there is no male and female in the resurrection, but there is one certain life, and it is of one kind, since those dwelling in the country of the living are pleasing to their Lord. This world itself is mortal and is the place of mortals. Since the substance of visible things is composite and every composite thing is apt to be destroyed, we who are in the world, being part of the world, necessarily possess the nature of everything. Therefore, even before the soul is separated from the body by death, we people frequently die.

I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.