Psalm 139 [MT 140]

"Deliver me, O Lord, from the wicked man" [Psalm 140:1]. Not from one only, but from the class; not from the vessels only, but from their prince himself, that is, the devil. Why "from man," if he meaneth from the devil? Because he too is called a man in a figure. ...Now then being made light, not in ourselves, but in the Lord, let us pray not only against darkness, that is, against sinners, whom still the devil possesseth, but also against their prince, the devil himself, who worketh in the children of disobedience. "Deliver me from the unrighteous man." The same as "from the wicked man." For he called him wicked because unrighteous, lest perchance thou shouldest think that any unrighteous man could be a good man. For many unrighteous men seem to be harmless; they are not fierce, are not savage, do not persecute nor oppress; yet are they unrighteous, because, following some other habit, they are luxurious, drunkards, given to pleasure. ...Wicked then is every unrighteous man, who must needs be harmful, whether he be gentle or fierce. Whoever falls in his way, whoever is taken by his snares, will find how harmful is that which he thought harmless. For, brethren, even thorns prick not with their roots. Pull up thorns from the ground, handle their roots, and see whether thou feelest pain. Yet that in the upgrowth which causeth thee pain, proceeded from that root. Let not then men please you who seem gentle and kind, yet are lovers of carnal pleasure, followers of polluted lusts, let them not please you. Though as yet they seem gentle, they are roots of thorns. ...And so, my brethren, body of Christ, members of Christ groaning among such wicked men, whomsoever ye find hurrying headlong into evil lusts and deadly pleasures, at once chide, at once punish, at once burn. Let the root be burnt, and there remaineth not whence the thorn may grow up. If ye cannot, be sure that ye will have them as enemies. They may be silent, they may hide their enmity, but they cannot love you. But since they cannot love you, and since they who hate you must needs seek your harm, let not your tongue and heart be slow to say to God, "Deliver me, O Lord, from the unrighteous man."

Indeed, from where comes evil for man, if not from man? Count how many things people suffer from externally. What does not seem to be done by human beings is very few. Evils abound for man from man. Theft by man, he suffered adultery in his wife by man, his servant was seduced by man, he was deceived by man, proscribed by man, attacked by man, led captive by man. Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man. Now you, whoever you are listening, think only of the enemy, whom you endure as a nearby evil, powerful, companion, citizen. Perhaps you think of the thief when you hear: Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man; and thus you pray, when you pray, that God may deliver you from an evil man, whether this or that enemy of yours. Do not be evil to yourself. Hear me: may God deliver you from yourself. For when God by His grace and mercy makes you good from evil; from what does He make you good, from what does He deliver you, if not from yourself, the evil man? Absolutely, my brothers, this is true, this is certain, this is fixed: if God has delivered you from yourself, the evil man, no other evil man will be able to harm you.

"Who have imagined unrighteousnesses in their heart" [Psalm 140:2]....From them free me, from them let Your hand be most powerful to deliver me. For easy is it to avoid open enmities, easy is it to turn aside from an enemy declared and manifest, while iniquity is in his lips as well as his heart; he is a troublesome enemy, he is secret, he is with difficulty avoided, who bears good things in his lips, while in his heart he conceals evil things. "All the day long did they make war." What is, "war"? They made for me what I was to fight against all the day. For from thence, from such hearts as these, arises all that the Christian fights against. Be it sedition, be it schism, be it heresy, be it turbulent opposition, it springs not save from these imaginings which were concealed, and while they spoke good words with their lips, "all the day long did they make war." You hear words of peace, yet making war departs not from their thoughts. For the words, "all the day long," signify without intermission, throughout the whole time.

"They have sharpened their tongues like serpents" [Psalm 140:3]. If still thou seekest to make out the man, behold a comparison. In the serpent above all beasts is there cunning and craft to hurt; for therefore does it creep. It hath not even feet, so that its footsteps when it cometh may be heard. In its progress it draweth itself, as it were, gently along, yet not straightly. Thus then do they creep and crawl to hurt, having poison hidden even under a gentle touch. And so it followeth, "the poison of asps is under their lips." Behold, it is "under" their lips, that we may perceive one thing under their lips, another in their lips. ...

Do you see how holy Scripture knows how to call human only the person practicing virtue and does not think the others are human, calling them instead flesh at one time and earth at another? Hence at this place, too, in promising to list the genealogy of the good person it says, "Noah was a human being." You see, he alone was a human being, whereas the others were not human beings; instead, while having the appearance of human beings they had forfeited the nobility of their kind by the evil of their intention, and instead of being human they reverted to the irrationality of wild animals. Sacred Scripture assigns the names of wild beasts to human beings, rational creatures that they should be, in the event of their lapsing into evil and falling prey to irrational passions. Listen, for example, to its words, "They turned into rutting horses." See how it gives them the animal's name on account of their unbridled lust. Elsewhere, on the other hand, it says, "Poison of serpents on their lips"; here it highlights their resemblance to the animal's trickery and duplicity. Again, it calls them "dumb dogs." And again, "Like a deaf adder that blocks its ears," referring to their stopping their ears against instruction in virtue. You would find many other names imposed by sacred Scripture on people seduced by their indifference into bestial passions.

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. [Psalms 140:3] Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

"Preserve me, O Lord, from the hand of the sinner, from unrighteous men deliver me" [Psalm 140:4]. Here they wear their real colours, they are known; here we have no need to understand, but to act: we have need to pray, not to ask who they are. But how you should pray against such men, he explains in what follows. For many pray unskilfully against wicked men. "Who have imagined," says he, "to trip up my steps." Thus far it may be understood carnally. Every one has enemies, who seek to cheat him in trade, to rob him of money, where they are engaged together in business; every one has some neighbour his enemy, who devises how to bring mischief upon his family, to injure in some way his property and surely he devises this by deceit, by fraud, by devilish devices he endeavours to accomplish this: no one can doubt it. Yet not for these reasons are they to be guarded against, but lest they lay in wait for you and draw you to themselves, that is, separate you from the Body of Christ, and make you of their body. For as Christ is the Head of the good, so is the devil their head. What is, "to trip up my steps"? Not as though you should be deceived in the business you have with him, or he cheat you in a case which you have with him in the law courts. He has "tripped up your steps," if he have hindered you in the way of God; so that what you directed aright may stumble, or fall from the way, or fall in the way, or draw back from the way, or stop on the way, or go back to the place from whence it had come. Whatsoever has done this to you, has tripped you up, has deceived you. Against such snares as these pray thou, lest you lose your heavenly inheritance, lest you lose Christ your Joint-heir, for you are destined to live for ever with Him, who has made you an heir. For you are made an heir, not by one whom you are to succeed after his death, but One together with whom you are to live for ever.

Does He distinguish and separate anyone out, calling one to Himself as foreknown while sending the other away as not predestined? Never! Therefore, "you should not make excuses for your sins" (Psalm 140:4, LXX), nor should you want to make the Apostle's words an occasion for your own destruction, but should run, all of you, to the Master Who calls you. For even if someone is a publican, or a fornicator, an adulterer, a murderer, or whatever else, the Master does not turn him away, but takes away the burden of his sins immediately and makes him free. And how does He take away the other's burden? Just as He once took away that of the paralytic when He said to the latter: "My son, your sins are forgiven" [Matthew 9:2], and the man was immediately relieved of his burden and, in addition, received the cure of his body. - "Second Ethical Discourse"

Now these demons, if they see all Christians—and especially monks—joyfully laboring and making progress, first attack by attempting to place stumbling blocks in their way. Their "stumbling blocks" are filthy thoughts. But there is no need for us to fear the things they throw at us; through prayer and fasting and faith in the Lord the demons immediately fall. Having fallen, however, they do not stop but advance once more with deceit and cunning. Since they have been unable to deceive the heart openly through filthy pleasure, they renew their attacks on it by other means. From this point on, fabricating apparitions, they pretend to frighten us by changing their shapes and taking on the appearance of women, wild beasts, reptiles and huge bodies and legions of soldiers.Nevertheless, we need have no fear at all of their apparitions, for they are nothing, and they disappear in a hurry, especially if each person protects himself with faith and the sign of the cross. But they are brazen and completely shameless, for even if they are defeated by these means they attack again by some other method. They act like soothsayers, saying they can predict the future, and they make themselves as tall as the roof and as wide as a house so that by illusions of this sort they can carry away those whom they have been unable to deceive by thoughts. But if they find that the soul has been secured with faith and hopeful resolve, then they bring in their leader. LIFE OF ST.

"The proud have hidden a trap for me" (ver. 5). He hath briefly described the whole body of the devil, when he saith, "the proud." Hence is it that for the most part they call themselves righteous when they are unrighteous. Hence is it that nothing is so grievous to them as to confess their sins. They are men who, being falsely righteous, must needs envy the truly righteous. For none envieth another in that which he wisheth not either to be or to seem. ...Hence come all allurings and trippings up of others. This the devil first wished, when falling himself he envied man who stood. ...But those "proud ones have hidden a trap for me;" they have sought to trip up my steps. And what have they done? "And have stretched out cords as traps." What cords? The word is well known in holy Scripture, and elsewhere we find what "cords" signify. For "each one is holden with the cords of his sins," saith Scripture. And Esaias saith openly, "Woe to them that draw sin like a long rope." And why is it called a "cord"? Because every sinner who persevereth in his sins, addeth sin to sin; and when he ought by accusing his sins to amend, by defending he doubleth what by confession he might have removed, and often seeketh to fortify himself by other sins, on account of the sins he hath already committed. ...But these their sins they "spread" for the righteous, when they persuade them to do the evils which they themselves do. Therefore he said, "they spread cords and traps;" that is, by their sins they desired to overthrow me. And where did they this? "Beside the paths have they laid a stumbling-block for me:" not in the paths, but, "beside the paths." Thy "paths" are the commandments of God. They have "laid stumbling-blocks beside the paths;" do not thou withdraw out of the paths, and thou wilt not rush upon stumbling-blocks. Yet will I not that thou shouldest say, "God should prevent them from laying stumbling-blocks beside my paths, and then they would not lay them." Nay, rather, God permitted them to "lay stumbling-blocks beside thy paths," that thou shouldest not leave the paths.

Divine readings uplift us, lest we be broken by despair; and again they terrify us, lest we be inflated by pride. To hold, however, the middle way, true and straight, as if between the left of despair and the right of presumption, would be very difficult for us, unless Christ said: I am the way. I am, he says, the way, the truth, and the life. As if he were saying: Which way do you want to go? I am the way. Where do you want to go? I am the truth. Where do you want to remain? I am the life. Therefore, let us walk securely in the way; but let us fear the pitfalls next to the way. The enemy does not dare ambush on the way, because Christ is the way; but next to the way, he plainly does not cease. Hence it is said in the Psalm: They have set snares for me alongside the path. Another Scripture says: Remember that you are walking amidst traps. These traps, among which we walk, are not on the way, but still they are next to the way. Why do you fear, why do you dread, if you walk on the way? Then you should fear if you leave the way. For this reason, the enemy is even allowed to set traps alongside the way, so that out of the exultation of security, the way is not abandoned, and one does not fall into the snares.

And what remains? What remedy amid such ills, in such temptations, such dangers? "I said unto the Lord, You are my God" [Psalm 140:6]. Loud is the voice of prayer, it excites confidence. Is He not the God of the others? Of whom is not He God, who is the true God? Yet is He specially theirs, who enjoy Him, who serve Him, who willingly submit to Him. For the wicked too, though unwillingly, are subject to Him...."Hear with Your ears the voice of my prayer." He did not say, "Hear with Your ears my prayer;" but, as though expressing more plainly the affection of his heart, " the voice of my prayer," the life of my prayer, the soul of my prayer, not that which sounds in my words, but that which gives life to my words. For all other noises without life may be called sounds, but not words. Words belong to those that have souls, to the living. But how many pray to God, yet have neither perception of God, nor right thoughts concerning God! These may have the sound of prayer, the voice they cannot, for there is no life in them. This was the voice of the prayer of one who was alive, forasmuch as he understood that God was his God, saw by Whom he was freed, perceived from whom he was freed.

Commending this to the ears of God, let him say, "Lord, Lord." Thou Lord-Lord, that is, most truly Lord, not like the lords-men, not like the lords who buy with money-bags, but the Lord who buys with His Blood. "Lord, Lord, Thou strength of my health" [Psalm 140:7], that is, who givest strength to my health. What is the meaning of "strength of my health"? He complained of the stumbling-blocks and snares of sinners, of wicked men, vessels of the devil, that barked around him and laid snares around him, of the proud that envy the righteous. But He immediately added a comfort, "He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." This he observed and feared, and, distressed at the abundance of iniquities, turned himself to hope. Verily I shall be saved, if I endure unto the end: but endurance, so as to win salvation, pertains unto strength; You are "the strength of my salvation;" You make me to endure, that I may attain salvation....Toiling then in this warfare, he looked back to the grace of God; and because already he had begun to be heated and parched, he found, as it were, a shade, whereunder to live. "You have overshadowed my head in the day of battle:" that is, in the heat, lest I be heated, lest I be parched.

"Deliver me not over, O Lord, by my own longing to the sinner" (ver. 8). Behold to what end Thy overshadowing shall avail for me, that I suffer not heat from myself. And what could that "sinner" do to me, rage as he would? For wicked men raged against the martyrs, dragged them away, bound them with chains, shut them up in prisons, slew them with the sword, exposed them to wild beasts, consumed them with fire: all this they did; yet did not God deliver them over to the sinners, because they were not delivered over by their own longing. This then pray with all thy might, that God "delivered thee not over by thine own longing to the sinner." For thou by thine own longing givest place to the devil. For lo, the devil hath set before thee gain, invited thee to dishonesty; thou canst not have the gain, unless thou commit the dishonesty: the gain is the bait, dishonesty the snare: do thou so look on the bait, that thou see the snare also; for thou canst not obtain the gain, unless thou commit the dishonesty; and if thou commit the dishonesty, thou wilt be caught. ...Hence is thine head overshadowed in the day of battle. For longing causeth heat, but the overshadowing of the Lord tempers longing, that we may be able to bridle that whereby we were being hurried away, that we be not so heated as to be drawn to the snare. "They have thought against me; leave me not, lest perchance they be exalted." Thou hast in another place, "They that oppress me will exult if I be moved." Such are they, because such is the devil also himself. ...

Who is so foolish that, when he hears what is sung in the psalm, "Do not give me up, O Lord, from my desire to the wicked," he says this person was praying that God should not be patient with him, as though, as you say, "God does not give a man up so that evils are done except to show his patient goodness"? Do we not ask daily, "Lead us not into temptation," lest we be given up to our lusts? "For everyone is tempted by being drawn away and enticed by his own concupiscence." Therefore, should we not ask for God's mercy instead of asking him to show us his patient goodness? What sane person understands this; indeed, what maniac says this? Therefore, God gives people up to shameful lusts that they may do what is not fitting; but he gives them up fittingly, and these acts not only are sins, as well as punishments for past sins, but also they demand future punishments, just as he gave Ahab up to the lie of the false prophets and gave Rehoboam up to false advice.

"The head of their going about, the toil of their own lips shall cover them" (ver. 9). Me, he saith, the shadow of Thy wings shall cover: for, "Thou hast covered me in the day of battle." Them what shall cover? "The head of their going about;" that is, pride. What is, "their going about"? How they go about and stand not, how they go in the circle of error, where is journeying without end. He who goeth in a straight line, beginneth from some point, endeth at some point: he who goeth in a circle, never endeth. That is the toil of the wicked, which is set forth yet more plainly in another Psalm, "The wicked walk in a circle." But "the head of their going about" is pride, for pride is the beginning of every sin. But whence is pride "the toil of their own lips"? Every proud man is false, and every false man is a liar. Men toil in speaking falsehood; for truth they could speak with entire facility. For he toileth, who maketh what he saith: he who wisheth to speak the truth, toileth not, for truth herself speaketh without toil. ...

"Coals of fire shall fall upon them upon earth, and Thou shalt cast them down" [Psalm 140:10]. What is, "upon earth"? Here, even in this life, here "coals of fire shall fall upon them." What are, "coals of fire"? We know these coals. Are they different from those of which we are about to speak? For these I see avail for punishment, those that I am about to speak of, for salvation. For we have spoken of certain coals, when man was seeking aid against a treacherous tongue. ...The examples of the "coals" are added to the wound of the arrows (for I need not fear to say "the wound," when the Spouse herself saith, "I am wounded with love" ), and then the hay is consumed, and so they are called "devouring coals." The hay is devoured, but the gold is purified, and the man exchanges death for life, and begins to be himself too a burning coal; such a coal as was the Apostle, "who before was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious," a coal black and extinguished; but when he had obtained mercy, he was set on fire from heaven, the voice of Christ set him on fire, all the blackness in him perished, he began to be fervent in spirit, to set others on fire with that wherewith he was set on fire himself. ...

"A man full of words shall not be guided upon earth" [Psalm 140:11]. "A man full of words" loves lies. For what pleasure has he, save in speaking? He cares not what he speaks, so long as he speaks. It cannot be that he will be guided. What then ought the servant of God to do, who is kindled with these "coals," and himself made a coal of salvation, what should he do? He should wish rather to hear than to speak; as it is written, "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." [James 1:19] And if it may be so, let him desire this, not to be obliged to speak and talk and teach....I can quickly tell you wherein each one may prove himself, not by never speaking, but by requiring a case where it is his duty to speak; let him be glad to be silent, in will, let him speak to teach, when he must. For when must thou needs speak and teach? When you meet with one ignorant, when you meet with one unlearned. If it delight you always to teach, you wish always to have some ignorant one to teach...."Evil shall hunt the unrighteous man to destruction." Evils come, and he stands not; therefore said he, "they shall hunt him to destruction." For many good men, many righteous men evils have befallen, evils have, as it were, found them. Therefore when the evil pursued the good, that is, our martyrs, when they seized them, they "hunted" them, but not "to destruction." For the flesh was pressed down, the spirit was crowned; the spirit was cast out from the body, yet was nought done to the flesh which might hinder it for the future. Let the flesh be burned, scourged, mangled; is it therefore withdrawn from its Creator, because it is given into the hands of its persecutor? Will not He who created it from nothing, remake it better than it was?

"I know that the Lord will maintain the right of the needy" [Psalm 140:12]. This "needy" one is not "full of words;" for he that is full of words, wisheth to abound, knoweth not to hunger. He is "needy" of whom it is said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." They groan among the stumbling-blocks of the wicked, they pray to their Head, to be delivered from the wicked man. "And the cause of the poor." These then are they whose cause the Lord will not neglect; although now they suffer hardships, their glory shall appear, when their Head appeareth. For to such while placed here it is said, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." So then we are poor, our life is hid; let us cry to Him that is our Bread. ...

"But the just shall confess to Your Name" [Psalm 140:13]. Both when You shall plead their cause, and when You shall maintain their right, they "shall confess to Your Name;" nought shall they attribute to their own merits, all they shall attribute to nought save to Your mercy....Therefore see what follows, see wherewith he concludes. "The upright shall dwell with Your Countenance." For ill was it with them in their own countenance; well will it be with them with Your Countenance. For when they loved their own countenance, "In the sweat of their countenance did they eat bread." [Genesis 3:19] Your Countenance shall come to them with abundance to satisfy them. Nought more shall they seek, for nought better have they; no more shall they abandon You, nor be abandoned by You. For after His Resurrection, what was said of the Lord? "You shall fill me with joy with Your Countenance." Without His Countenance He would not give us joy. For this do we cleanse our countenance, that we may rejoice in His Countenance. [1 John 3:2] ...Because too, "blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God;" [Matthew 5:8] He gave the Form of Man both to good and evil, the Form of God He preserved for the pure and good, that we may rejoice in Him, and it may be well with us for ever with His Countenance.