Psalm 89 [MT 90]

It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son's eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases "he was not" and "before" and "when" are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our world, says, "And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground." And in Deuteronomy, "When the most High gave to the nations their inheritance." And the Lord said, "If you love me, you will rejoice because I said, I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you might believe." And concerning the creation he says in the words of Solomon, "Before the world existed, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth." And, "Before Abraham was, I am." And concerning Jeremiah he says, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." And David in the psalm says, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, you are God from everlasting and world without end." And in Daniel, "Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, you know the secrets, and know all things before they are." Thus it appears that the phrases "once was not," and "before it came to be," and "when" and the like, belong to things that have an origin and were created, which come out of nothing but are alien to the Word.

"Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another" [Psalm 90:1]: either in every generation, or in two generations, the old and new: because, as I said, he was the Minister of the Testament that related to the old generation, and the Prophet of the Testament which appertained to the new. Jesus Himself, the Surety of that covenant, and the Bridegroom in the marriage which He entered into in that generation, saith, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me." [John 5:46] Now it is not to be believed that this Psalm was entirely the composition of that Moses, as it is not distinguished by any of those of his expressions which are used in his songs: but the name of the great servant of God is used for the sake of some intimation, which should direct the attention of the reader or listener. "Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to the other."

The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord's ascension our glorification. Today, you see, we are celebrating the feast of the ascension. So if we are to celebrate the Lord's ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as God-fearing people, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. In ascending, however, we must not get above ourselves. Yes, we should lift up our hearts, but to the Lord. As you know, not lifting up hearts to the Lord is due to pride; lifting up hearts to the Lord is called "taking refuge." After all, we say to the one who has ascended, "Lord, you have become a refuge for us."He rose again, you see, to give us hope, because what rises again is what first dies. So it [Christ's resurrection] was to save us from despair at dying and from thinking that our whole life ends with death. We were anxious, I mean, about the soul, and he by rising again gave us an assurance even about the flesh. So he ascended—who did? The one who descended. He descended in order to heal you; he ascended in order to lift you up. You will fall if you have lifted yourself up; you remain standing if you have been lifted up by him. So, lift up your hearts, but to the Lord—that is taking refuge. Lifting up your heart, but not to the Lord, that is pride. So let us say to him as he rises again, "Since you, O Lord, are my hope"; and as he ascends, "You have placed your refuge very high." How, I mean, can we possibly be proud, if we lift up our hearts to him, seeing that he humbled himself for our sakes, so that we should not remain proud?

Therefore, "God is our refuge and strength." To him who is able to say, "I can do all things in him," Christ, "who strengthens me," God is strength. Now, it is the privilege of many to say, "God is our refuge," and "Lord, you have been our refuge." But to say it with the same feelings as the prophet is the privilege of few. For there are few who do not admire human interests but depend wholly on God and breathe him and have all hope and trust in him. And our actions convict us whenever in our afflictions we run to everything else rather than to God. Is a child sick? You look around for an enchanter or one who puts superstitious marks on the necks of the innocent children; or finally, you go to a doctor and to medicines, having neglected him who is able to save. If a dream troubles you, you run to the interpreter of dreams. And, if you fear an enemy, you cunningly secure some man as a patron. In short, in every need you contradict yourself in word, naming God as your refuge; in act, drawing on aid from useless and vain things. God is the true aid for the righteous person. Just as a certain general, equipped with a noble heavy-armed force, is always ready to give help to an oppressed district, so God is our helper and an ally to everyone who is waging war against the wiliness of the devil, and he sends out ministering spirits for the safety of those who are in need.

He adds, how He became our refuge, since He began to be that, viz. a refuge, to us which He had not been before, not that He had not existed before He became our refuge: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age You are" [Psalm 90:2]. Thou therefore who art for ever, and before we were, and before the world was, hast become our refuge ever since we turned to You. But the expression, "before the mountains," etc., seems to me to contain a particular meaning; for mountains are the higher parts of the earth, and if God was before even the earth were formed (or, as some books have it, from the same Greek word, "framed" ), since it was by Him that it was formed, what is the need of saying that He was before the mountains, or any certain parts of it, since God was not only before the earth, but before heaven and earth, and even the whole bodily and spiritual creation? But it may certainly be that the whole rational creation is marked by this distinction; that while the loftiness of Angels is signified by the mountains, the lowliness of man is meant by the earth. And for this reason, although all the works of creation are not improperly said to be either made or formed; nevertheless, if there is any propriety in these words, the Angels are "made;" for as they are enumerated among His heavenly works, the enumeration itself is thus concluded: "He spoke the word, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created;" but the earth was "formed," that man might thence be created in the body. For the Scripture uses this word, where we read, God made, or "God formed man out of the dust of the ground." [Genesis 2:7] Before then the noblest parts of the creation (for what is higher than the rational part of the Heavenly creation) were made: before the earth was made, that You might have worshippers upon the earth; and even this is little, as all these had a beginning either in or with time; but "from age to age You are." It would have been better, from everlasting to everlasting: for God, who is before the ages, exists not from a certain age, nor to a certain age, which has an end, since He is without end. But it often happens in the Scripture, that the equivocal Greek word causes the Latin translator to put age for eternity and eternity for age. But he very rightly does not say, You were from ages, and unto ages You shall be: but puts the verb in the present, intimating that the substance of God is altogether immutable. It is not, He was, and Shall be, but only Is. Whence the expression, I Am that I Am; and, I Am "has sent me unto you;" [Exodus 3:14] and, "You shall change them, and they shall be changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail." Behold then the eternity that is our refuge, that we may fly there from the mutability of time, there to remain for evermore.

But as our life here is exposed to numerous and great temptations, and it is to be feared lest we may be turned aside by them from that refuge, let us see what in consequence of this the prayer of the man of God seeks for. "Turn not Thou man to lowness" [Psalm 90:3]: that is, let not man, turned aside from Your eternal and sublime things, lust for things of time, savour of earthly things. This prayer is what God has Himself enjoined us, in the Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," [Matthew 6:13] He adds, "Again You say, Come again, you children of men." As if he said, I ask of You what You have commanded me to ask: giving glory to His grace, that "he that glories, in the Lord he may glory:" [1 Corinthians 1:31] without whose help we cannot by an exertion of our own will overcome the temptations of this life. "Turn not Thou man to lowness: again you say, Turn again, you children of men." But grant what You have enjoined, by hearing the prayer of him who can at least pray, and aiding the faith of the willing soul.

"For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday, which is past by" [Psalm 90:4]: hence we ought to turn to Your refuge, where You are without any change, from the fleeting scenes around us; since however long a time may be wished for for this life, "a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday:" not as tomorrow, which is to come: for all limited periods of time are reckoned as having already passed. Hence the Apostle's choice is rather to aim at what is before, [Philippians 3:13] that is, to desire things eternal, and to forget things behind, by which temporal matters should be understood. But that no one may imagine a thousand years are reckoned by God as one day, as if with God days were so long, when this is only said in contempt of the extent of time: he adds, "and as a watch in the night:" which only lasts three hours. Nevertheless men have ventured to assert their knowledge of times, to the pretenders to which our Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons, which the Father has put in His own power:" [Acts 1:7] and they allege that this period may be defined six thousand years, as of six days. Nor have they heeded the words, "are but as one day which is past by:" for, when this was uttered, not a thousand years only had passed, and the expression, "as a watch in the night," ought to have warned them that they might not be deceived by the uncertainty of the seasons: for even if the six first days in which God finished His works seemed to give some plausibility to their opinion, six watches, which amount to eighteen hours, will not consist with that opinion.

I certainly believe that to be God is to enjoy an infinite present, where nothing has yet passed away and nothing is still to come. Does it follow that we can say the same of saints and angels? Or at any rate exactly the same? The dead might experience a time which was not quite so linear as ours--it might, so to speak, have thickness as well as length. Already in this life we get some thickness whenever we learn to attend to more than one thing at once. One can suppose this increased to any extent, so that though, for them as for us, the present is always becoming the past, yet each present contains unimaginably more than ours.

In Psalm 90 (4) it had been said that a thousand years were to God like a single yesterday; in 2 Peter 3:8—not the first place in the world where one would have looked for so metaphysical a theology—we read not only that a thousand years are as one day but also that 'one day is as a thousand years'. The Psalmist only meant, I think, that God was everlasting, that His life was infinite in time. But the epistle takes us out of the time-series altogether. As nothing outlasts God, so nothing slips away from Him into a past. The later conception (later in Christian thought—Plato had reached it) of the timeless as an eternal present has been achieved.

Next, the man of God, or rather the Prophetic spirit, seems to be reciting some law written in the secret wisdom of God, in which He has fixed a limit to the sinful life of mortals, and determined the troubles of mortality, in the following words: "Their years are as things which are nothing worth: in the morning let it fade away like the grass" [Psalm 90:5]. The happiness therefore of the heirs of the old covenant, which they asked of the Lord their God as a great boon, attained to receive this Law in His mysterious Providence. Moses seems to be reciting it: "Their years shall be things which are esteemed as nothing." Such are those things which are not before they are come: and when come, shall soon not be: for they do not come to be here, but to be gone. "In the morning," that is, before they come, "as a heat let it pass by;" but "in the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things? "For all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever."

Whatever is in the world fades away, passes away. What is this life, except what the Psalm says: "In the morning it passes away like grass, in the morning it blooms and passes: in the evening it falls, hardens, and withers?" This is all flesh. Therefore Christ, therefore a new life, therefore the hope of eternity, therefore the promised consolation of immortality, and already given in the flesh of the Lord. For that flesh was assumed by us, which is now immortal, and he has shown us in himself what he fulfilled in himself. For he had flesh for us. For he: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Seek flesh and blood: where is it in the Word? Because he truly willed to suffer with us, and to redeem us, he assumed the form of a servant, and descended who was here, that he might appear who was not absent; and he willed to become man who made man, to be created from a mother, who created a mother. He ascended to the cross, died, and showed us what we knew, to be born and to die. He fulfilled in himself these old humble things of ours, known and familiar. We knew to be born and to die: we did not know to rise again and live forever. Therefore he assumed our two old things humbly: he fulfilled two other great and new things exaltedly. He raised the flesh, lifted the flesh into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father. He willed to be our Head, the Head cried out for the members: because even when he was here, he said: "Father, I desire that where I am, they also may be with me." Let us hope this also for our flesh, for the resurrection, the change, the incorruption, the immortality, the eternal abode: and let us act so that we may attain this.

"In the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things? "For all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever."

Making no secret that this fate is a penalty inflicted for sin, he adds at once, "For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are troubled at Thy wrathful indignation" [Psalm 90:7]: we consume away in our weakness, and are troubled from the fear of death; for we are become weak, and yet fearful to end that weakness. "Another," saith He, "shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not:" although not to be punished, but to be crowned, by martyrdom; and the soul of our Lord, transforming us into Himself, was sorrowful even unto death: for "the Lord's going out" is no other than in "death."

"You have set our misdeeds before You" [Psalm 90:8]: that is, You have not dissembled Your anger: "and our age in the light of Your countenance." "The light of Your countenance" answers to "before You," and to "our misdeeds," as above.

"You have kept our iniquities before you." Nothing eludes you; night does not conceal our sins, nor does the darkness cover them; all things are clear before you: "Our life in light of your scrutiny." This is expressed much better in the Hebrew: "our hidden sins in the light of your scrutiny." Whatever we do, whatever we think we are doing in secret, lies open before your eyes. "All our days have passed away." Our life hurries on at a great pace, and when we least expect it, it slips away, and we die. These very words we speak are of death, and we do not take thought. "We have spent our years like a spider." Meditate on these words of the psalmist. In the same way that the spider produces, as it were, a thread and runs to and fro, back and forth, and weaves the whole day long, and his labor, indeed, is great but the result is nil; so, too, human life runs about hither and thither. We search for possessions, and we accumulate wealth; we procreate children; we labor and toil; we rise in power and authority; we do everything; and do not realize that we are spiders weaving a web.

Let everyone above all have this zeal in common so that having made a beginning they not hesitate or grow fainthearted in their labors or say, "We have spent a long time in ascetic discipline." Instead, as though we were beginning anew each day, let each of us increase in fervor. For the entire lifetime of a human being is very brief when measured against the age to come; accordingly, all our time here is nothing compared with life eternal. Everything in the world is sold according to its value and things of equal value are exchanged, but the promise of eternal life is purchased for very little. For it is written, "The days of our life are seventy years or, if we are strong, perhaps eighty; more than this is pain and suffering." When we persevere in ascetic discipline for all eighty or even one hundred years, we will not reign for the equivalent of those one hundred years. Instead of a hundred years, we will reign forever and ever. And although we are contested on earth, we will not receive our inheritance here; we have promises in heaven instead. Once more: when we lay aside this perishable body we receive it back imperishable. LIFE OF ST.

"For all our days are failed, and in Thine anger we have failed" [Psalm 90:9]. These words sufficiently prove that our subjection to death is a punishment. He speaks of our days failing, either because men fail in them from loving things that pass away, or because they are reduced to so small a number; which he asserts in the following lines: "our years are spent in thought like a spider."

And so the human race was lying under a just condemnation, and all men were the children of wrath. Of which wrath it is written: "All our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told." Of which wrath also Job says: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Of which wrath also the Lord Jesus says: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." He does not say it will come, but it "abideth on him." For every man is born with it; wherefore the apostle says: "We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Now, as men were lying under this wrath by reason of their original sin, and as this original sin was the more heavy and deadly in proportion to the number and magnitude of the actual sins which were added to it, there was need for a Mediator, that is, for a reconciler, who, by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices of the law and the prophets were types, should take away this wrath. Wherefore the apostle says: "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Now when God is said to be angry, we do not attribute to Him such a disturbed feeling as exists in the mind of an angry man; but we call His just displeasure against sin by the name "anger," a word transferred by analogy from human emotions. But our being reconciled to God through a Mediator, and receiving the Holy Spirit, so that we who were enemies are made sons ("For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"): this is the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

For in the most general sense it holds good that it is apparently not possible for any person to remain altogether without experience of ill. For, as one says, "the whole world lies in wickedness"; and again, "Most of the days of human life are labor and trouble." But you will perhaps say, "What difference is there between being tempted, and falling or entering into temptation?" Well, if one is overcome by evil—and he will be overcome unless he struggles against it himself and unless God protects him with his shield—that person has entered into temptation, and is in it and is brought under it like one that is led captive. But if one withstands and endures, he is indeed tempted; but he has not entered into temptation or fallen into it. Thus Jesus was led up of the Spirit, not indeed to enter into temptation but to be tempted of the devil. And Abraham, again, did not enter into temptation, neither did God lead him into temptation, but he tried [tested] him; yet he did not drive him into temptation. The Lord, moreover, tested the disciples. Thus the wicked one, when he tempts us, draws us into the temptations, as dealing himself with the temptations of evil. But God, when he tests, presents the tests as one untempted by evil. For God, it is said, "cannot be tempted by evil." The devil, therefore, drives us on by violence, drawing us to destruction; but God leads us by hand, training us for our salvation.

They say concerning Abba Apollo, who lived in Scete, that he was originally a rude and brutish herdsman, and that he [once] saw in the fields a woman who was with child and that, through the operation of the devil, he said, "I wish to know the condition of the child that is in the womb of this woman," and that he ripped her open and saw the child in her belly; then straightway he repented, and he purged his heart, and having repented he went to Scete and revealed unto the fathers what he had done. And when he heard them singing the psalms and saying, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and with difficulty [we come] to fourscore years," he said to the old men, "I am forty years old this day, and I have never prayed; and now, if I live for forty years more, I will never rest nor cease nor refrain from praying to God continually that he may forgive me my sins." And from that time onwards he did even as he had said, for he never toiled with the work of his hands, but he was always supplicating God and saying, "I, O my Lord, like a man, have sinned, and do you, like God, forgive me"; and he prayed this prayer both by night and by day instead of reciting psalms. And a certain brother who used to dwell with him once heard him say in his prayer, now as he spoke he wept, and groaned from the bottom of his heart and sighed in grief of heart, "O my Lord, I have vexed you; have pity on me, and forgive me so that I may enjoy a little rest." Then a voice came to him that said, "Your sins have been forgiven you, and also the murder of the woman; but the murder of the child is not yet forgiven you." And one of the old men said, "The murder of the child also was forgiven to him, but God left him to work because this would prove beneficial to his soul."

"The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is more of them but labour and sorrow" [Psalm 90:10]. These words appear to express the shortness and misery of this life: since those who have reached their seventieth year are styled old men. Up to eighty, however, they appear to have some strength; but if they live beyond this, their existence is laborious through multiplied sorrows. Yet many even below the age of seventy experience an old age the most infirm and wretched: and old men have often been found to be wonderfully vigorous even beyond eighty years. It is therefore better to search for some spiritual meaning in these numbers. For the anger of God is not greater on the sins of Adam (through whom alone "sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men"), [Romans 5:12] because they live a much shorter time than the men of old; since even the length of their days is ridiculed in the comparison of a thousand years to yesterday that is past, and to three hours: especially since at the very time when they provoked the anger of God to send the deluge in which they perished, their life was at its longest span.

"For who knows the power of Your wrath: and for the fear of You to number Your anger?" [Psalm 90:11]. It belongs to very few men, he says, to know the power of Your wrath; for when Thou dost spare, Your anger is so far heavier against most men; that we may know that labour and sorrow belong not to wrath, but rather to Your mercy, when You chasten and teachest those whom You love, to save them from the torments of eternal punishment: as it is said in another Psalm, "The sinner has provoked the Lord: He will not require it of him according to the greatness of His wrath." With this also is understood, "Who knows?" Such is the difficulty of finding any one who knows how to number Your anger by Your fear, that he adds this, meaning that it is to the purpose that Thou appearest to spare some, with whom You are more angry, that the sinner may be prospered in his path, and receive a heavier doom at the last. For when the power of human wrath has killed the body, it has nothing more to do: but God has power both to punish here, and after the death of the body to send into Hell, and by the few who are thus taught, the vain and seductive prosperity of the wicked is judged to be greater wrath of God.. ..

"Make Your right hand so well known" [Psalm 90:12]. This is the reading of most of the Greek copies: not of some in Latin, which is thus, "Make Your right hand well known to me." What is, "Your right hand," but Your Christ, of whom it is said, And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? [Isaiah 53:1] Make Him so well known, that Your faithful may learn in Him to ask and to hope for those things rather of You as rewards of their faith, which do not appear in the Old Testament, but are revealed in the New: that they may not imagine that the happiness derived from earthly and temporal blessings is to be highly esteemed, desired, or loved, and thus their feet slip, when they see it in men who honour You not: that their steps may not give way, while they know not how to number Your anger. Finally, in accordance with this prayer of the Man that is His, He has made His Christ so well known as to show by His sufferings that not these rewards which seem so highly prized in the Old Testament, where they are shadows of things to come, but things eternal, are to be desired. The right hand of God may also be understood in this sense, as that by which He will separate His saints from the wicked: because that hand becomes well known, when it scourges every son whom He receives, and suffers him not, in greater anger, to prosper in his sins, but in His mercy scourges him with the left, that He may place him purified on His right hand. [Matthew 25:33] The reading of most copies, "make Your right hand well known to me," may be referred either to Christ, or to eternal happiness: for God has not a right hand in bodily shape, as He has not that anger which is aroused into violent passion.

A hermit said, 'If you lose gold or silver, you can find something as good as you lost. But the man who loses time can never make up what he has lost.'

"So make your right hand known that fettered we may gain wisdom of heart." Some codices say "trained"; others "fettered." "Trained" implies one thing; "fettered," another. What, then, is the meaning of "make your right hand known"? Why have you restrained your right hand so long, God? "Why draw back your hand and keep it idle beneath your garment?" says another psalm. Here is its meaning: we are lying prostrate in sickness; we are powerless in our sins; send forth your right hand and raise us up. Why do you keep your right hand so long idle beneath your cloak? Your heart overflows with a goodly theme;37 send forth your right hand and set us free. Make known to us the mystery that has been hidden from generation to generation. "Make your right hand known." What are you pilfering, Arius? The psalmist did not say, "Make your right hand," for God was never without his right hand. But what did he say? Your right hand, that you have always had and that has been in your bosom, make it known to us. Because we are not able to know him abiding in his Godhead, he assumes our humanity, and in that way we know him.

And as when they became so well known, as to despise these things, and by setting their affections on things eternal, gave a testimony through their sufferings (whence they are called witnesses or martyrs in the Greek), they endured for a long while many bitter temporal afflictions. This man of God gives heed to this, and the prophetic spirit under the name of Moses continues thus, "Return, O Lord, how long? And be softened concerning Your servants" [Psalm 90:13]. These are the words of those, who, enduring many evils in that persecuting age, become known because their hearts are bound in the chain of wisdom so firmly, that not even such hardships can induce them to fly from their Lord to the good things of this world. "How long will You hide Your face from me, O Lord?" occurs in another Psalm, in unison with this sentence, "Return, O Lord, how long?" And that they who, in a most carnal spirit, ascribe to God the form of a human body, may know that the "turning away" and "turning again" of His countenance is not like those motions of our own frame, let them recollect these words from above in the same Psalm, "You have set our misdeeds before You, and our secret sins in the light of Your countenance." How then does he say in this passage, "Return," that God may be favourable, as if He had turned away His face in anger; when as in the former he speaks of God's anger in such a manner, as to insinuate that He had not turned away His countenance from the misdeeds and the course of life of those He was angry with, but rather had set them before Him, and in the light of His countenance? The word, "How long," belongs to righteousness beseeching, not indignant impatience. "Be softened," some have rendered by a verb, "soften." But "be softened" avoids an ambiguity; since to soften is a common verb: for he may be said to soften who pours out prayers, and he to whom they are poured out: for we say, I soften you, and I soften toward you.

Next, in anticipation of future blessings, of which he speaks as already vouchsafed, he says, "We are satisfied with Your mercy in the morning" [Psalm 90:14]. Prophecy has thus been kindled for us, in the midst of these toils and sorrows of the night, like a lamp in the darkness, until day dawn, and the Day-star arise in our hearts. [2 Peter 1:19] For blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God: then shall the righteous be filled with that blessing for which they hunger and thirst now, [Matthew 5:8, 6] while, walking in faith, they are absent from the Lord. [2 Corinthians 5:6] Hence are the words, "In Your presence is fullness of joy:" and, "Early in the morning they shall stand by, and shall look up:" and as other translators have said it, "We shall be satisfied with Your mercy in the morning;" then they shall be satisfied. As he says elsewhere, "I shall be satisfied, when Your glory shall be revealed." So it is said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us:" and our Lord Himself answers, "I will manifest Myself to Zion;" [John 14:8, 21] and until this promise is fulfilled, no blessing satisfies us, or ought to do so, lest our longings should be arrested in their course, when they ought to be increased until they gain their objects. "And we rejoiced and were glad all the days of our life." Those days are days without end: they all exist together: it is thus they satisfy us: for they give not way to days succeeding: since there is nothing there which exists not yet because it has not reached us, or ceases to exist because it has passed; all are together: because there is one day only, which remains and passes not away: this is eternity itself. These are the days respecting which it is written, "What man is he that lusts to live, and would fain see good days?" These days in another passage are styled years: where unto God it is said, "But You are the same, and Your years shall not fail:" for these are not years that are accounted for nothing, or days that perish like a shadow: but they are days which have a real existence, the number of which he who thus spoke, "Lord, let me know mine end" (that is, after reaching what term I shall remain unchanged, and have no further blessing to crave), "and the number of my days, what it is" (what is, not what is not): prayed to know. He distinguishes them from the days of this life, of which he speaks as follows, "Behold, You have made my days as it were a span long," which are not, because they stand not, remain not, but change in quick succession: nor is there a single hour in them in which our being is not such, but that one part of it has already passed, another is about to come, and none remains as it is. But those years and days, in which we too shall never fail, but evermore be refreshed, will never fail. Let our souls long earnestly for those days, let them thirst ardently for them, that there we may be filled, be satisfied, and say what we now say in anticipation, "We have been satisfied," etc. "We have been comforted again now, after the time that You have brought us low, and for the years wherein we have seen evil" [Psalm 90:15].

But now in days that are as yet evil, let us speak as follows. "Look upon Thy servants, and upon Thy works" [Psalm 90:16]. For Thy servants themselves are Thy works, not only inasmuch as they are men, but as Thy servants, that is, obedient to Thy commands. For we are His workmanship, created not merely in Adam, but in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them: "for it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure." "And direct their sons:" that they may be right in heart, for to such God is bountiful; for "God is bountiful to Israel, to those that are right in heart."...

Thus, if Isaiah says, "The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth"; and Susanna said, "O everlasting God";42 and Baruch wrote, "I will cry to the Everlasting in my days," and shortly after, "My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will have you, and joy is come to me from the holy One"; yet forasmuch as the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, "Who being the radiance of his glory and the expression of his person";44 and David too in the ninetieth psalm, "And the brightness of the Lord be on us," and, "In your light shall we see light," who has so little sense as to doubt the eternity of the Son? For when did humankind see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, "There was once, when he was not," or "Before his generation he was not."

"And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us" [Psalm 90:17]; whence the words, "O Lord, the light of Your countenance is marked upon us." And, "Make Thou straight the works of our hands upon us:" that we may do them not for hope of earthly reward: for then they are not straight, but crooked. In many copies the Psalm goes thus far, but in some there is found an additional verse at the end, as follows, "And make straight the work of our hands." To these words the learned have prefixed a star, called an asterisk, to show that they are found in the Hebrew, or in some other Greek translations, but not in the Septuagint. The meaning of this verse, if we are to expound it, appears to me this, that all our good works are one work of love: for love is the fulfilling of the Law. [Romans 13:10] For as in the former verse he had said, "And the works of our hands make Thou straight upon us," here he says "work," not works, as if anxious to show, in the last verse, that all our works are one, that is, are directed with a view to one work. For then are works righteous, when they are directed to this one end: "for the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." [1 Timothy 1:5] There is therefore one work, in which are all, "faith which works by love:" [Galatians 5:6] whence our Lord's words in the Gospel, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." [John 6:29] Since, therefore, in this Psalm, both old and new life, life both mortal and everlasting, years that are counted for nought, and years that have the fullness of loving-kindness and of true joy, that is, the penalty of the first and the reign of the Second Man, are marked so very clearly; I imagine, that the name of Moses, the man of God, became the title of the Psalm, that pious and right-minded readers of the Scriptures might gain an intimation that the Mosaic laws, in which God appears to promise only, or nearly only, earthly rewards for good works, without doubt contains under a veil some such hopes as this Psalm displays. But when any one has passed over to Christ, the veil will be taken away: [2 Corinthians 3:15] and his eyes will be unveiled, that he may consider the wonderful things in the law of God, by the gift of Him, to whom we pray, Open Thou my eyes, and I shall see the wondrous things of Your law.