Psalm 144 [MT 145]

"Blessed be the Lord my God, who teaches my hands for battle, my fingers for war" [Psalm 144:1]. These are our words, if we be the Body of Christ. It seems a repetition of sentiment; "our hands for battle," and "our fingers for war," are the same. Or is there some difference between "hands" and "fingers"? Certainly both hands and fingers work. Not then without reason do we take "fingers" as put for "hands." But still in the "fingers" we recognise the division of operation, yet still a sort of unity. Behold that grace! The Apostle says, To one, this; to another, that; "there are diversities of operations; all these works one and the self-same Spirit;" there is the root of unity. With these "fingers" then the Body of Christ fights, going forth to "war," going forth to "battle."...By works of Mercy our enemy is conquered, and we could not have works of mercy unless we had charity, and charity we could have none unless we received it by the Holy Ghost; He then "teaches our hands for battle, and our fingers for war:" to Him rightfully do we say, "My Mercy," from whom we have also that we are merciful: "for he shall have judgment without mercy, that has showed no mercy." [James 2:13]

Exposition on Psalm 144

But because you turn a blind eye to the interior battle and take pleasure in exterior battles, it means you do not want to belong to the new song, in which it says “who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war.” There is a war a person wages with himself, engaging evil desire, curbing greed, crushing pride, stifling ambition, slaughtering lust. You fight these battles in secret, and you do not lose them in public! It is for this that your hands are trained for battle and your fingers for war. You do not get this in your amphitheater show. In those shows the hunter is not the same as the guitarist; the hunter does one thing, the guitarist another. In God’s circus show they are one and the same. Touch these same ten strings, and you will be killing wild beasts. You do each simultaneously. You touch the first string by which the one God is worshiped, and the beast of superstition falls dead. You touch the second by which you do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, and at your feet is fallen the beast of the error of impious heresies that thought to do just that. You touch the third string, where whatever you do, you do in hope of resting in peace in the age to come, and something more cruel than the other beasts is slain, love of this world. It is for love of this world, after all, that people slave away at all their affairs. But as for you, make sure you slave away at all your good works, not for love of this world but for the sake of the eternal rest that God promises you. Notice how you do each thing simultaneously. You touch the strings, and you kill the beasts. That is, you are both a guitarist and a hunter. Are you not delighted with such performances, where it is not the attention of the presidential box we attract but the attention and favor of the redeemer?

Sermon 9:13

My Mercy and my Refuge, my Upholder and my Deliverer [Psalm 144:2]. Much toils this combatant, having his flesh lusting against his spirit. Keep what you have. Then shall you have in full what you wish, when "death shall have been swallowed up in victory;" [1 Corinthians 15:54] when this mortal body has been raised, and is changed into the condition of the angels, and rises aloft to a heavenly quality....There is life, there are good days, where nought lusts against the spirit, where it is not said, "Fight," but "Rejoice." But who is he that lusts for these days? Every man certainly says, "I do." Hear what follows. I see that you are toiling, I see that you are engaged in battle, and in danger; hear what follows:..."Depart from evil, and do good:" let not the poor first weep under you, that the poor may rejoice through you. For what reward, since now you are fighting? "Seek peace, and ensue it." Learn and say, "My Mercy and my Refuge, mine Upholder and my Deliverer, my Protector:" "mine Upholder," lest I fall; "my Deliverer," lest I stick; "my Protector," lest I be stricken. In all these things, in all my toil, in all my battles, in all my difficulties, in Him have I hoped, "who subdues my people under me." Behold, our Head speaks together with us.

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Lord, what is man, that You have become known unto him?" [Psalm 144:3]. All is included in "that You have become known unto him." "Or the son of man, that Thou valuest him?" Thou valuest him, that is, You make him of such importance, You count him of such price, You know under what Thou placest him, over what Thou placest him. For valuing is considering the price of a thing. How greatly did He value man, who for him shed the blood of His only-begotten Son! For God values not man in the same way as one man values another: he, when he finds a slave for sale, gives a higher price for a horse than for a man. Consider how greatly He valued you, that you may be able to say, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" And how greatly did He value you, "who spared not His own Son"? "How shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?" [Romans 8:31-32] He who gives this food to the combatant, what keeps He in store for the conqueror?...

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Man is made like vanity: his days pass away like a shadow" [Psalm 144:4]. What vanity? Time, which passes on, and flows by. For this "vanity" is said in comparison of the Truth, which ever abides, and never fails: for it too is a work of His Hand, in its degree. "For," as it is written, "God filled the earth with His good things." [Sirach 16:29] What is "His"? That accord with Him. But all these things, being earthly, fleeting, transitory, if they be compared to that Truth, where it is said, "I Am That I Am," [Exodus 3:14] all this which passes away is called "vanity." For through time it vanishes, like stroke into the air. And why should I say more than that which the Apostle James said, willing to bring down proud men to humility, "What is," says he, "your life? It is even a vapour, which appears for a little time, and then vanishes away." [James 4:14] ...Work then, though it be in the night, with your hands, that is, by good works seek God, before the day come which shall gladden you, lest the day come which shall sadden you. For see how safely you work, who art not left by Him whom you seek, "that your Father which sees in secret may reward you openly." [Matthew 6:4] ...

Exposition on Psalm 144

But if this anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which, as the sacred Psalmist says, “Man is like to vanity, his days as a shadow that passeth away,”—so uniform that none but wicked men won the transitory prosperity of earth, while only the good suffered its ills,—this could be referred to the just and even benign judgment of God. We might suppose that they who were not destined to obtain those everlasting benefits which constitute human blessedness were either deluded by transitory blessings as the just reward of their wickedness, or were, in God’s mercy, consoled by them, and that they who were not destined to suffer eternal torments were afflicted with temporal chastisement for their sins, or were stimulated to greater attainment in virtue. But now, as it is, since we not only see good men involved in the ills of life, and bad men enjoying the good of it, which seems unjust, but also that evil often overtakes evil men, and good surprises the good, the rather on this account are God’s judgments unsearchable, and his ways past finding out.

City of God 20.2

I consider this to be connected with my present subject. For in his wonder at the knowledge of God the Word coming to people, the psalmist is astonished beyond measure at the love by which he descends from his divinity, and lessens his natural majesty and reckons the human race worthy of bearing him. So here he prays, saying, “Lord, bow the heavens and descend.” While in the seventeenth psalm [LXX] it is written, “And he bowed the heavens and descended, and it was dark under his feet. And he rode on cherubim and flew, he flew on the wings of the winds,” wherein there is a prophecy of his ascension from earth to heaven. And when there is a fit opportunity I will show that we must understand the descent and ascension of God the Word not as of one moving locally, but in the metaphorical sense that Scripture intends in the use of such conventional terms.

Proof of the Gospel 6:9

"Lord, bow Your heavens, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke" [Psalm 144:5]. The Body of Christ, the humble David, full of grace, relying on God, fighting in this world, calls for the help of God. What are "heavens bowed down"? Apostles humbled. For those "heavens declare the glory of God;" and of these heavens declaring the glory of God it is presently said, "There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard among them," etc. When then these heavens sent forth their voices through all lands, and did wonderful things, while the Lord flashed and thundered from them by miracles and commandments, the gods were thought to have come down from heaven to men. For certain of the Gentiles, thinking this, desired even to sacrifice to them....But they commended to these the Lord Jesus Christ, humbling themselves, that God might be praised; because "the heavens" were "bowed," that "God" might "come down."..."Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke." So long as they are not touched, they seem to themselves great: they are now about to say, "Great are You, O Lord:" the mountains also are about to say, "Thou only art the Most Highest over all the earth."

Exposition on Psalm 144

The psalmist is a witness of this matter when he says, “All have gone astray together; they have become worthless.” And Christ’s prophets, praying for help, said, “Lord, bow down your heavens and descend”; not that he might change the places in which all things are now located but that he might take on the flesh of human weakness for our salvation. Paul says the same thing: “How, being rich, he became poor for our sakes, that by his poverty we might become rich.” And he came to the earth and proceeded as a man from the virgin’s womb, which he sanctified. Confirming by this process the interpretation of his name, Emmanuel, that is, “God with us,” he began in a marvelous way to be what we are and did not cease to be what he was. He assumed our nature in such a way as not to lose what he himself was.

Testimonia 19

"Flash Your lightning, and You shall scatter them; send forth Your arrows, and You shall confound them" [Psalm 144:6]. But there are some that conspire, that "gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Christ." They have come together, they have conspired. "Flash forth Your lightnings, and You shall scatter them." Abound with Your miracles, and their conspiracy shall be broken...."Send forth Your arrows, and You shall confound them." Let the unsound be wounded, that, being well wounded, they may be made sound; and let them say, being set now in the Church, in the Body of Christ, let them say with the Church, "I am wounded with Love."

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Send forth Your Hand from on high." What afterward? What in the end? How conquers the Body of Christ? By heavenly aid. "For the Lord Himself shall come with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God shall He descend from heaven," [1 Thessalonians 4:16] Himself the Saviour of the body, the Hand of God. What is, "Out of many waters"? From many peoples. What peoples? Aliens, unbelievers, whether assailing us from without, or laying snares within. Take me out of many waters, in which You disciplined me, in which You rolled me, to free me from my filth. This is the "water of contradiction." [Numbers 20:13]

Exposition on Psalm 144

"But you sent down your help from above" and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness because my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her faith and in the spirit that she had from you she looked on me as dead. You heard her and did not despise the tears that streamed down and watered the earth in every place where she bowed her head in prayer.

Confessions 3.11

"From the hand of strange children." Hear, brethren, among whom we are, among whom we live, from whom we long to be delivered. "Whose mouth has spoken vanity" [Psalm 144:8]. All of you today, if you had not gathered yourselves together to these divine shows of the word of God, and were not at this hour engaged in them, how great vanities would ye be hearing! "whose mouth has spoken vanity:" when, in short, would they, speaking vanity, hear you speaking vanity? "And their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." What doest thou among them with your pastoral scrip with five stones in it? Say it to me in another form: that same law which you have signified by five stones, signify in some other way also.

Exposition on Psalm 144

As it is written, “O God, I will sing you a new song, on a harp of ten strings I will play to you,” we take the harp of ten strings to be the Ten Commandments of the law. Now to sing and play is usually the occupation of lovers. The old person, you see, is in fear; the young is in love. In this way also we distinguish the two testaments or covenants, the old and the new, that the apostle says are allegorically represented by the sons of Abraham, one born of the slave woman, the other of the free; “which,” he says, “are two covenants.” Slavery, surely, goes with fear, freedom with love, seeing that the apostle says, “You have not received the spirit of slavery again in fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship by adoption, in which we cry out, Abba, Father.” And John says, “There is no fear in charity, but perfect charity throws out fear.” So it is charity that sings the new song.True, that slavish fear embodied in the old person can indeed have the harp of ten strings, because that law of the Ten Commandments was also given to the Jews according to the flesh, but it cannot sing to its accompaniment the new song. It is under the law and cannot fulfill the law. It carries the instrument but does not manage to play it; it is burdened, not embellished, with the harp. But any under grace, not under law, they are the ones who fulfill the law, because for them it is not a weight to shoulder but an honor to wear; it is not a rack for their fears but a frame for their love. Fired by the spirit of love, they are already singing the new song on the harp of ten strings.

Sermon 33:1

"I will sing a new song unto You, O God" [Psalm 144:9]. "A new song" is of grace; "a new song" is of the new man; "a new song" is of the New Testament. But lest you should think that grace departs from the law, whereas rather by grace the law is fulfilled, "upon a psaltery of ten strings will I sing unto You." Upon the law of ten commandments: therein may I sing to You; therein may I rejoice to You; therein may "I sing to You a new song;" for, "Love is the fulfilling of the law." [Romans 13:10] But they who have not love may carry the psaltery, sing they cannot. Contradiction cannot make my psaltery to be silent.

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Who gives salvation to kings, who redeems David His servant" [Psalm 144:10]. You know who David is; be yourselves David. Whence "redeems He David His servant"? Whence redeems He Christ? Whence redeems He the Body of Christ? "From the sword of ill intent deliver me." "From the sword" is not sufficient; he adds, "of ill intent." Without doubt there is a sword of good intent. What is the sword of good intent? That whereof the Lord says, "I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword." [Matthew 10:34] For He was about to separate believers from unbelievers, sons from parents, and to sever all other ties, while the sword cut off what was diseased, but healed the members of Christ. Of good intent then is the sword twice sharpened, powerful with both edges, the Old and New Testaments, with the narration of the past and the promise of the future. That then is the sword of good intent: but the other is of ill intent, wherewith they talk vanity, for that is of good intent, wherewith God speaks verity. For truly "the sons of men have teeth which are spears and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword."

Exposition on Psalm 144

"From" this "sword deliver me" [Psalm 144:11]. "And take me out of the hand of strange children, whose mouth has spoken vanity:" just as before. And that which follows, "their right hand is a right hand of iniquity," the same he had set down before also, when he called them "many waters." For lest you should think that the "many waters" were good waters, he explained them by the "sword of ill intent."

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Lord, deliver me from the hand of the sons of foreigners, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity." And he explains what kind of vanity he means, and what kind of right hand. What he calls the right hand of iniquity is the prosperity of this world. Not because it is never to be found with good people, but because when good people have it they hold it in the left hand, not in the right. They hold everlasting felicity in their right hand, temporal happiness they hold in their left. Greed for eternal things and eternal felicity ought not to be mixed with greed for temporal things, that is to say, for present and temporal felicity. And that is the meaning of "Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." So then, "their right hand is a right hand of iniquity."

Sermon 32:22

"Whose sons are like young vines firmly planted in their youth" [Psalm 144:12]. He wishes to recount their happiness. Observe, you sons of light, sons of peace: observe, you sons of the Church, members of Christ; observe whom he calls "strangers," whom he calls "strange children," whom he calls "waters of contradiction," whom he calls a "sword of ill intent." Observe, I beseech you, for among them you are in peril, among their tongues ye fight against the desires of your flesh, among their tongues, set in the hand of the devil wherewith he fights. [Ephesians 6:12] ...What vanity has their mouth spoken, and how is their right hand a right hand of iniquity? "Their daughters are fitted and adorned after the similitude of a temple."

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Their garners are full, bursting out from one store to another: their sheep are fruitful, multiplying in their streets" [Psalm 144:13]. Is not this then happiness? I ask the sons of the kingdom of heaven, I ask the offspring of everlasting resurrection, I ask the body of Christ, the members of Christ, the temple of God. Is not this then happiness, to have sons safe, daughters beautiful, garners full, cattle abundant, no downfall, I say not of a wall, but not even of a hedge, no tumult and clamour in the streets, but quiet, peace, abundance, plenty of all things in their houses and in their cities?

Exposition on Psalm 144

"Their oxen are fat: their hedge is not broken down, nor their road, nor is their crying in their streets" [Psalm 144:14]. Is not this then happiness? Or ought the righteous to shun it? Or do you not find the house of the righteous too abounding with all these things, full of this happiness? Did not Abraham's house abound with gold, silver, children, servants, cattle? What say we? Is not this happiness? Be it so, still it is on the left hand. What is, on the left hand? Temporal, mortal, bodily. I desire not that thou shun it, but that thou think it not to be on the right hand....For what ought they to have set on the right hand? God, eternity, the years of God which fail not, whereof is said, "and Your years shall not fail." There should be the right hand, there should be our longing. Let us use the left for the time, let us long for the fight for eternity. "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them."

Exposition on Psalm 144

"They have called the people blessed who have these things" [Psalm 144:15]. O men that speak vanity! They have lost the true right hand, wicked and perverse, they have put on the benefits of God inversely. O wicked ones, O speakers of vanity, O strange children! What was on the left hand, they have set on the right. What do you, David? What do you, Body of Christ? What do ye, members of Christ? What do ye, not strange children, but children of God?...What do you say? Say ye with us, "Blessed is the people whose Lord is their God."

Exposition on Psalm 144

Since we know that you are devoted to the public welfare, you must see how plainly the sacred writings show that the happiness of the state has no other source than the happiness of humankind. One of the sacred writers, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks thus as he prays: "Rescue me out of the hand of strange children, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity; whose sons are as new plants in their youth; their daughters decked out, adorned round about after the similitude of a temple; their storehouse full, flowing out of this into that; their sheep fruitful in young, abounding in their goings forth; their oxen fat. There is no breach of wall nor passage nor crying out in their streets. They have called the people happy that have these things, but happy is the people whose God is the Lord."You see that a people is not called happy because of an accumulation of earthly good fortune, except by the "strange children," that is, by those who do not belong to the regeneration by which we become children of God. The psalmist prays to be rescued out of their hand, lest he be drawn by them into that false opinion and into their impious sins. Truly they speak vanity when they "have called the people happy that have these things"—the things that he had listed above, in which that good fortune consisted, the only good fortune that the lovers of this world seek. Therefore, "their right hand is the right hand of iniquity" because they have preferred those things that should have been set aside, as the right hand is preferred to the left. Happiness in life is not to be attributed to the possession of those things; they should be subordinate, not preeminent; they are intended to follow, not to lead. If, then, we were to speak to him who prayed thus and desired to be rescued from the "strange children" who "called that people happy that have these things," and if we said, "What is your own opinion? What people do you call happy?" he would not say, "Happy is the people whose strength is in their own mind." If he had said this, he would, it is true, distinguish that people from the former, which made happiness consist in that visible and corporeal good fortune, but he would not yet have passed beyond all the vanities and lying follies, for, as the same writings teach elsewhere, "Cursed be everyone that places his hope in humankind." Therefore, he ought not to place it in himself, because he himself is a human being. Thus, in order to pass beyond the boundaries of all vanities and lying follies and to place happiness where it truly exists, he says: "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord."

Letter 155

Now, you know, I think, not only the nature of your prayer but its object, and you have learned this not from me but from him who has deigned to teach us all. Happiness is what we must seek and what we must ask of the Lord God. Many arguments have been fashioned by many people about the nature of happiness, but why should we turn to the many people or the many arguments? Brief and true is the word in the Scripture of God: "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord." That we may belong to that people and that we may be able to attain to contemplation of him and to eternal life with him, "the end of the commandment is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith." Among those same three, hope is put for a good conscience. "Faith therefore, and hope and charity," lead the praying soul to God, that is, the believing and hoping and desiring soul who attends to what he asks of the Lord in the Lord's Prayer. Fasting and abstinence from other pleasures of carnal desire—with due regard for our health—and especially almsgiving are great helps to prayer, so that we may be able to say: "In the day of my trouble I sought God with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived." How is it possible to seek an incorporeal God who cannot be felt with the hands, unless he is sought by good works?

Letter 130