The divine David learned from experience the vast number of goods gentleness brings, and the fact that a grievous end befitting their life awaits those addicted to injustice and practiced in arrogance. This he learned from his dealings with Saul and Absalom, and with the others who perpetrated similar things to them. So he offers all people an exhortation, urging them to take in good spirit the troubles that come their way and not to consider as blessings wicked people’s prosperity and success, but rather to call them wretched.

Being human, we are all irked by the prosperity of the affluent, especially when they are dishonest. So from the outset he immediately gives this exhortation: Do not imitate evildoers, even if they are rich, nor lawbreakers, even if from their wickedness they amass wealth. Why not? Because . . . though flourishing for a time, such people have a rapid end. He did well to compare them with flowers: they also delight the eye for a time but are unable to bear the heat and dry up at once.

Not infrequently good people, seeing others arrive at riches and honors by fraud and trickery, become green with jealousy and want to imitate them. They, too, are tempted to attain riches and fame by similar tricks and malpractices. . . . Do not be an imitator of wrongdoing and fraud. Rather, be an imitator of apostolic doctrine, of prophetic grace and of the virtue of the saints. Then you will bear fruit and reap the harvest of your good deeds.

What seems slow to you is swift to God; submit yourself to God, and it will seem swift to you as well. The word grass we take to mean the same as plants in the meadow. They are inconsiderable things that cling to the surface of the soil and have no deep roots. They thrive through the winter, but in summer when the sun begins to grow hot they wilt. This present time is your winter. Your glory does not show yet. But like the winter trees you have the deep root of charity, and so when the cold weather passes and summer comes (judgment day, I mean) the green grass will dry up and your glory burst forth, like the foliage of the trees. You are dead, says the apostle: you look as dead as the trees do in winter, parched and apparently lifeless. What hope have we, then, if we are dead? We have the root within us, and where our root is fixed, there is our life, for there is our charity. Your life is hidden with Christ in God, the apostle continues. How can anyone with such a root ever wilt? But when will spring arrive for us? Or our summer? When shall we be arrayed in fair foliage or laden with luscious fruit? When will that be? Listen to Paul’s next line: When Christ appears, Christ who is your life, then you too will appear with him in glory.^[1]

The land here indicates the heart of the listener and his soul. We are ordered, therefore, to indwell this land, that is, not to stray far from it, not to run to and fro, far and near, but to dwell and to stand firm within the bounds of our spirits and to consider the land very carefully and to become its tiller just as Noah was and to plant in it the vine and till the land that is within us, to renew the fallowed ground of our spirits and sow not among the thorns.^[1] Namely, let us purge our spirit from faults, and let us refine rough and harsh ways with the gentleness and the imitation of Christ, and thus finally we may feed from its wealth.

In everything he taught the benefit of hope in God: the person hoping in God, he says, and fed by him will enjoy the goods supplied by him while those who find delightful constant converse with him will most of all attain them.

The expression we have need is applied to those things that are necessary for life. Consequently, applied to material things, it means that one does not need most things but only those of which Paul says, but having food and clothing, we shall be satisfied with these things. Those things, [by contrast], that are accumulated in wealth and luxury are the result of abundance among those who live luxuriously. They are not considered to be necessary and absolutely essential but to be superfluous. So, therefore, there are also things that are necessary for us in the realm of divine matters, which bring us into life and cause us to be in the one who says, I am the life. But what supersedes these things would be said to supersede need. It is said of such things, Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the requests of your heart. These include all the things that are considered in relation to the paradise of luxury and in relation to wealth and glory, the things in the left hand of wisdom according to him who said, For length of life and years of life are in her right hand, but in her left hand are wealth and glory.^[1] One would say that these go beyond necessity.

Be sincere in pursuing good, not pretending to be honest while being evil; instead, be good openly and as it were without disguise so that God may openly repay you with good.

Offer up to God, he is saying, both yourself and your actions, and expect grace from him; for his part he will bring forth a just verdict like a judge, will extol you and make you famous to the extent of being known to everyone, like the light at midday.

Your righteousness is hidden at present; it is a reality, but in faith, not something that can be seen. You believe in something that prompts you to action, but you do not yet see what you believe in. When you begin to see the object of your faith, your righteousness will be led out into the light. Your faith itself was all along your righteousness, for the one who lives by faith is just.

God brings [justice] out into the light. He does not permit judgment to lie hidden. He reveals the good that you have chosen to do and the evil that you have refused to do. Not only does he make your judgment shine, but also he makes it shine like the sun at midday.

Even if you see one choosing wickedness and not deviating from his purpose but being borne downstream, do not be worried and concerned that no one is in control of the world.

How do you show yourself subject to [God]? By doing what he commanded. You do not receive your reward yet, but that may be because you are not yet capable of it. He is already able to give it, but you are not able to receive it. Exert yourself in your tasks, labor in the vineyard, and when evening comes ask for your wages, for he who brought you into the vineyard is trustworthy.

If, by the prudent use of reason, you could cut away the bitter root of indignation, you would remove many other vices along with this, their source. Deceit, suspicion, faithlessness, malice, treachery, rashness, and a whole thicket of evils like these are offshoots of this vice. . . . It is a malady on the soul, a dark mist over the reason. It brings estrangement from God, forgetfulness of the ties of kindred, cause for a strife, a full measure of disaster. It is a wicked demon coming to birth in our very souls, taking prior possession of our interior, like a shameless tenant, and barring entrance to the Holy Spirit.

Anger destroys not just the ordinary run of people, but even the wise. David warns the wise, saying to them, Cease from anger, for once that fire is set alight it will not cease until its flames have consumed you. Leave aside, he says, your rage. Here is his meaning: nature catches hold of you, it stirs up your feelings, you get excited about some fault, some slight that has offended you, you begin to rage but not to the point where you cannot stop. Drop it. Put an end to it, or it will drag you into sin.

Did you believe in Christ? Yes? Then why did you believe? What did he promise you? If Christ promised you happiness in this world, then go ahead and complain against him; complain when you see the unbeliever happy. But what sort of happiness did he, in fact, promise you? Nothing else but happiness when the dead rise again. And what did he promise you in this life? Only what he went through himself; yes, I tell you, he promised you a share in his own experience. Do you disdain it, you, a servant and a disciple? Do you disdain what your master and teacher went through? Do you not recall his own words: A servant is not greater than his master, nor a disciple above his teacher?^[1] For your sake he bore painful scourging, insults, the cross and death itself. And how much of this did he deserve, he, a just man? And what did you, a sinner, not deserve? Keep a steady eye, and do not let it be deflected by wrath.

Do not consider blessed those people for being in a position even to do whatever they wish, nor with your eyes on their suffering no harsh fate decide to attempt at any time in your own case to do some wrong. Because the evildoers will be wiped out: those guilty of wickedness will some day pay the full penalty and perish.

Nothing else is destroyed but that which is cut off from God.

Instead of considering their prosperity, await their end, and you will see their ruin.

Therefore it is right and proper, brothers, that we should be obedient to God rather than follow those who in arrogance and unruliness have set themselves up as leaders in abominable jealousy. For we shall bring on us no common harm, but rather great peril, if we surrender ourselves recklessly to the purposes of people who launch out into strife and seditions, so as to estrange us from that which is right. Let us be good one toward another according to the compassion and sweetness of him that made us. 1

The wicked not only grows rich but even plots against the righteous, God’s permission causing both developments to go ahead; but let it not alarm you. God in his foreknowledge [is] aware of the fate of the wicked and [sees] the righteous person’s endurance. . . . God looks ahead to [the wicked person’s] fate and mocks his threats and his frenzy, aware as he is of the future. Thus in many cases when the wicked think they have gotten the better of the righteous, then it is that sudden ruin overtakes them when unexpected punishment is inflicted on them by God.

What does his place mean? His function. Does the sinner have a function? Yes, he does. God uses sinners in the present world to test the just, as he used the devil to test Job and used Judas to betray Christ. So the sinner does have a certain role in this life. This role is his place.

But be meek, for the meek shall inherit the land. Be patient, merciful, guileless, and mild and gentle, and in every regard fearful of the words that you have heard. Do not exalt yourself or allow impudence in your soul. Your soul shall not cling to the proud but associate with good and humble people. Accept the troubles that come to you as good, knowing that nothing happens without God.

It is their right to possess the land, for in them God finds rest. We see this from the words of divine prophecy spoken by Isaiah: On whom shall I rest, if not on those who are poor and little and who tremble at my word?^[1] Who are the meek? They are those not easily roused to wrath, not quick to quarrel. Anger does not trouble them, fierceness does not drive them mad, raging cruelty does not enflame them. While still in the body they loved the peace of the Lord better than wine, banquets and riches. They thought to give up bodily pleasures and delights to gain instead eternal grace; these are the people who shall delight in abundance of peace.

Peace will be your gold, peace will be your silver, peace will be your broad estates, peace your very life. Your God will be your peace. Peace will be for you whatever you long for. In this world gold cannot also be silver for you, wine cannot be bread for you, what gives you light cannot provide you with drink; but your God will be everything to you. You will feed on him, and hunger will never come near you; you will drink him, never to thirst again; you will be illumined by him that you may suffer no blindness; you will be supported by him and saved from weakness. He will possess you whole and undivided, as he, your possessor, is whole and undivided himself. You will lack nothing with him, for with him you possess all that is; you will have it all, and he will have all there is of you, because you and he will be one, and he who possesses you will have this one thing and have it wholly.

He says the meek will possess the Jerusalem to come, a city about which much has already been said; it is a city constantly filled with the sweetness of good things where its inhabitants do not earn their living through trade, but feed on delight in God. There no one works to live, but in quietness receives all that the blessed soul desires. There the eye of the heart is fattened by a blessed hunger. There the soul is restored by sight alone, since whatever pertains to its desire is granted to it in the contemplation of the Lord’s face.

When the wicked person sees someone working on developing good character, he feels convinced that he is being indicted personally. He gnashes his teeth and becomes outraged. If he cannot corrupt someone’s character, then he immediately attempts to do away with his life.

Be careful, for daily the devil considers you and gnashes his teeth over you; but [as it says in the next verse] the Lord mocks him because he knows his day will come.

The way in which consolation is offered to us is amazing, for who should delight himself in the pompous display of one whose audacity he knows will soon perish? If we would rather not be disturbed by jealousy, then let us follow what the Lord does. Let us laugh at him whose downfall we foresee; let us regard the unhappy things which we possess as things that will perish in time. Let us believe these things with all tenacity, since they have been promised to us in truth. It will happen in the way described, that the sinner will depart under derision, although he once boasted in a happiness that was not to last.

What is the sword of the wicked? It is the absolute opposite to the sword of the Holy Spirit. . . . God’s Word is the sword of the Holy Spirit. But the sword of the wicked is the evil word. . . . Stupid and petulant speech issues from their mouths as from a scabbard, and would it not have been better to restrain it and bury it? In like manner the Word of the Lord is brought forth as a sword; so, too, the speech of the sinner, and the bow that they bend is their mind. The arrow that they shoot is the venomous word. Our arrow is Christ, the Word of God.

Even if the sinner tries to plot against the righteous person and is bent on carrying it through in every way, do not then grind your teeth at his going unpunished. God will spit on his plot, knowing that he will suffer sometime and that it is he who will sustain harm from his plot against the righteous.

What do you think: does the scoundrel’s wickedness harm you without harming himself? Of course not. How is it possible that the malice that springs from his ill will and hatred and lashes out to do you harm should not devastate him within before making its attempt outwardly on you? Hostility rides roughshod over your body; iniquity rots his soul. Whatever he launches against you recoils on him. His persecution purifies you but leaves him guilty. Who comes off worse, then? . . . Clearly, then, all who persecute the just are more severely damaged and more gravely wounded themselves, because in their case it is the soul itself that is laid waste.

When one of the enemies approaches to wound you and you want to turn his own sword back against his heart, according to the Scripture text, then do as we tell you. Distinguish within yourself the thought he has launched against you, as to what it is, how many elements it consists of and among these what sort of thing it is that most afflicts the mind. . . . As you engage in this careful examination, the thought will be destroyed and dissipate in its own consideration, and the demon will flee from you when your intellect has been raised to the heights by this knowledge.

A person might be rich in disputation, as are certain irreligious philosophers of this world. They can discourse on the movement of the heavenly bodies, of the stars, of Jupiter and Saturn, on the generation of humankind, on the cult of idols, on geometry and dialectics. Those philosophers are therefore rich in eloquence, but in faith they are poor, and in truth they are needy. On the other hand, very often the Lord’s priests are simple people. They are poor in eloquence but sublime in abstinence and virtue. Those philosophers utter falsehood to the multitude; these priests preach the faith to the few. Those others lose priests every day; but this poor priest adds whole peoples to the number of believers and to the church. Anyone who hears and sees the quality of their works will say, Better is a little to the just than the great riches of the wicked.

Knows means makes his own, as in the first psalm, Because the Lord knows the ways of the righteous,^[1] that is, makes them his own.

His eyes are light; those on whom he looks he illumines; and therefore his eyes are the days of the just.

Those choosing a blameless life enjoy providence completely; even if they encounter disasters, they will emerge superior to them; and when need becomes endemic, they will receive sufficiency from God, and in addition will enjoy everlasting goods.

Who is disconcerted? The person who says, I have not found what I was hoping for. . . . You are disconcerted because your hope has proved illusory; hope founded on a lie is always an illusion, and every mortal is a liar. If you rest your hope on your God, you will not be disconcerted, because you have rested it on one who cannot be deceived. . . . For sinners there is no place to rest in anything outside themselves, because there they endure afflictions; nor does their conscience offer them any consolation, because they are not comfortable with themselves. It is not comfortable to live with someone bad. But those who are bad live unpleasantly with themselves; inevitably such persons are tormented and are their own tormentor. Those with a torturing conscience are their own punishment. They can flee wherever they like from an enemy, but where will they flee from themselves?

The Greek puts it more forcibly, showing that where a person appears honored and exalted, there, by his very own failure, he is brought to a halt. It is rather like the current of a river: you think that it flows past you more swiftly than it came and that, while you are waiting for the waters to flow toward you, they have already rushed past you even as you waited.

Smoke bursts from the place where the fire is and wafts upward; and as it rises it billows into a great round cloud. But the bigger this cloud grows, the more tenuous it becomes; its very size means that it cannot be something durable and solid. It hangs loose and inflated, and it is carried away into the air and disperses; you can see that its very size was its undoing. The higher it rises, and the wider it spreads, and the more it extends itself over an increasing area, the weaker it is and the wispier, until it vanishes.

Saul was like that, ever the object of kindness at the hands of the divine David but reluctant to repay kindness with kindness; blessed David . . . , in imitation of his Lord, who makes his sun rise on wicked and good, continued showing kindness.

He or she receives but will not give back. Give back what? Gratitude. What does God want of you, what does God demand of you, except what it profits you to give? What great benefits has a sinner received! Yet he makes no return.

God gives a new heart so that we may walk in his justifications that pertain to the beginning of a good will. He also gives that we may observe and do his judgments that pertain to the doing of good works. Thus we know both the will to do good and the ability to do good from God. David agrees completely with this, showing that by the command of divine generosity the grace of a good will is granted.

Once you have set out to follow Christ’s way, do not promise yourself worldly prosperity. He walked through hard things but promised great things. Follow him. Do not think too much about the way but more about the goal ahead of you. You will have to put up with tough conditions on your journey through time, but you will attain joys that last forever. . . . But God has willed not only that our toil shall be temporary but also that it be brief. An entire human life lasts but a few days, even if no joyful ones are interspersed among the hard ones; and in fact joyful periods certainly occur more often and last longer than the difficult times. The hard ones are designedly briefer and fewer, so that we may hold out. So even if a person spent his or her whole life amid hard work and bitter experiences, in pain and agony, in prison, amid pestilence; if he or she were hungry and thirsty every day, every hour, throughout life, even to old age, it would still be true that human life is an affair of a few days only. Once all this toil is over, the eternal kingdom will come, happiness without end will come, equality with the angels will come, Christ’s inheritance will come, and Christ, our fellow heir, will come. What did the toil amount to, if we receive so great a reward? . . . If you choose Christ’s way and are a true Christian (for a Christian is one who does not reject Christ’s path but wills to walk that way through Christ’s own sufferings), do not seek to travel by any route other than that by which he went. It seems a hard road, but it is a safe one. Any other may offer attractions but is beset by brigands.

It is impossible for anyone to travel blamelessly the way of virtue without God’s grace. He works in association with those who have this intent: for the acquisition of virtue there is need of human zeal and divine assistance at one and the same time. Thus, you see, even if the one traveling this path should slip, he will gain divine support. Likewise, when blessed David stumbled and ran the risk of coming to grief, he was borne up by divine grace.

If you take it at face value, the meaning is obvious: in his own lifetime, David never saw the just forsaken. But a lifespan is brief, and the statement is moreover incredible. We have seen plenty of just people in this world who have been forsaken by people as soon as those just ones are persecuted by people in power. No one dares to go near them so long as they are subject to fear and injury. Remember what Job said: My brothers have departed far from me, they recognize strangers more than they recognize me; my friends have become merciless and those who knew me once have forgotten even my name.^[1] As for David, not only was he deserted, but also he was even attacked by his friends and those closest to him by family ties: My friends, he says, and my neighbors have advanced against me.^[2] How, I ask, can David state that which is the exact opposite of this? We can only understand it in this sense: the just person, even if forsaken by the world, is not abandoned by the Lord. Even Job on his dunghill^[3] was not deserted by the Lord. In the council of the angels, the Lord had praised Job with his own voice; and he allowed him to be tempted only so that he might win the crown. He allowed Job’s body to undergo severe testing, but he spared his life.

They can never be oppressed by the fasting of famine whose bread is that they should do the will of the Father who is in heaven and whose soul that bread that comes down from heaven nourishes.

There is money lent out at interest, and there is money lent in kindness. But the Lord expects a return. Money gets interest paid in cash. The grace of kindness wins an increase of faith. Lend out your faith generously to the Gentiles, and your grace will be multiplied. Do not go about borrowing like a pauper. Act like someone really rich and lend out so as to make great profit. Peter lent; Paul lent; John the Evangelist lent; and certainly they were not in want. What they lent was Christ’s money; they were not charging high rates of interest. So lend and do not grow weary.

Study the moneylender’s methods. He wants to give modestly and get back with profit; you do the same. Give a little, and receive on a grand scale. Look how your interest is mounting up! Give temporal wealth and claim eternal interest; give the earth and gain heaven.

Do not imagine that you have done enough if you have refrained from stealing anyone’s clothes. By not stripping someone, you have turned away from evil, but be careful not to dry up at that point and remain barren. You must take care not to strip someone of his clothes, certainly, but you must also clothe another who is naked; this is what turning away from evil and doing good implies. What will I get out of it? did you say? He to whom you are lending has already told you what recompense he will make to you: he will give you eternal life, so be easy in your mind and give to him.

You observe here that what destroys a person itself perishes and only those things last which cause him to remain in the kingdom of God.

The Word of God in his heart frees one from the snare, the Word of God in his heart steers one clear of the crooked path, the Word of God in his heart keeps one steady in a slippery place. If God’s Word never leaves your heart, God is with you.

The just, when he speaks God’s judgment or when he himself utters opinions that are just and full of wisdom, never speaks in an angry, passionate way. He does not speak in bitterness of soul; he does not speak from anguish, grievance or any passion. He simply speaks out the truth and states what is honest, just and fair. He weighs things not according to personal feelings but according to truth. He carefully considers what things should be said and what should not be said. He is like the one of whom it is said, The lips of the wise shall be bound by good sense.^[1] All that the wise say will be seen to accord with sound common sense; and such people, guided by their own prudence, understand well when they ought to remain silent. Matters that ought to be kept silent they keep confined to their own bosom and imprisoned, so to speak, by tightly closed lips. But when something ought to be said, then they loosen the bonds of their lips and come out with what they must say. Therefore the prophet aptly said, The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom.

Let us speak the Lord Jesus, for he is wisdom. He is the Word, the very Word of God. Does not Scripture say, Open your mouth to the word of God?^[1] Echo his speech, meditate his words, and you will breathe Jesus. When we speak of wisdom, it is he. . . . When we speak of truth and life and redemption, it is he.

It is fitting, the psalmist says, to carry around the divine sayings both on one’s tongue and in one’s mind and constantly give attention to them; learning in this way how to behave, the lover of virtue remains intrepid and unmoved, proof against efforts at overthrow.

The sinner cannot stand the just person who speaks wisdom with his mouth and meditates on it in his heart. He sees this one keeping the law of the Lord in his heart, and he does all in his power to make him sin mortally. But the Lord watches over the just. We need not fear the snares laid for us by the sinner, because God is for us.

Since, then, God does not allow the righteous, even if vulnerable to sinners, to be subject completely to their verdict, do not be despondent if ever you fall foul of disaster; instead, expect help from God by observing his decrees and commands, being attentive to his good pleasure and not withdrawing from virtue on account of the hardships besetting you. And he will exalt you to inherit the land: if you do this, he will shelter you, even if vulnerable to the sinner, and make you exalted by ensuring you secure occupancy of the land. In the destruction of sinners you will see: not only will you be freed from their scheming, but also you will see them destroyed.

The law of God is in the heart [of the righteous person], and his step is not supplanted. The devil considers him and desires to humiliate him, but God does not abandon him or curse him when he is judged. Await the Lord and guard his ways so you may inherit the land; in time you will see sinners perish.

You see a cedar raised to a great height on the loftiest peak, yet it can be shattered by the wind; it can be burned down by fire; it can grow old and decay. Such are the rich in this world. They make a grand display and shine, with a worldly sort of splendor, like Mount Lebanon. They are propped up by the powers of this world and positively exult in their money and their riches. To you the rich person seems to be something, that is, until you are able to say, Passing over, I shall see.^[1] For just as Moses passed over, in mind and soul, material things and saw God; you, too, if you will only pass over from this place and lift up the footsteps of your mind to God’s grace, will see that the rich person is nothing. Yes, nothing, even though in this world he appeared so high and mighty.

One passes out of this world in two ways, either when it is left through a person’s superior way of life, or when it is forsaken in the end by the dead. So the one who has passed on to God with a most holy way of life no longer sees a sinner as a powerful individual, since he sees everything in which humans boast as powerless. . . . This world is known as the place of sinners where they both carry out their wicked deeds and where their wealth, with all its transitory joy, is piled high. But this place is destroyed along with their prosperity, when the glory of the entire corruptible world is brought to an end.

The wicked will perish when salvation comes to the just from God, their protector in time of tribulation. The Lord helps and frees them and snatches them from sinners and saves them since they hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

To God alone, who remains forever, I entrust; to God alone who can forgive sins,^[1] I entrust my salvation. He will be my protector in time of trouble and will help and deliver me. He will snatch me away from sinful people when the hour comes for him to give judgment. He will save me because in him I have hoped. Only in him have I hoped. For he does not wish that we should serve both him and another. The one who serves God alone is set free; for God’s is the praise and the glory. He alone is eternal. To him all honor and power from the beginning of the ages, and now, and always, and to all ages of ages. Amen.

Those who practice righteousness . . . will enjoy divine aid and attain salvation, and by reason of placing complete hope in him, they will prevail over those endeavoring to wrong them.

He also adds the reason for the liberation: it is because they have hoped in him—not because they have not sinned, but because they have placed their hope in the Lord’s compassion. This can also be applied to the judgment, when he will deign to present an eternal reward to his saints.