Verses 137–144

The eighteenth octave is arranged under the letter “tsade”—meaning “side” or “flank.”

Since the prophet is throughout speaking of the commandments, one must seek in this octave an indication of the various sides—either of the commandments themselves or of our relationship to them. Here the sides of the latter are indicated. We may imagine the body of the commandments in the center, to which one may approach from east, west, north, and south. From each side the relationship to them is expressed in a particular disposition. From the east stands “faith”—the assurance that the commandments of God are righteousness and unalterable truth (Ps. 118:137–138); from the west—the “zeal” issuing from this assurance to fulfill all these commandments, and one’s own love for them (Ps. 118:139–140); from the north—“humility with hope” (Ps. 118:141–142); from the south—“patience” in all that befalls one for the sake of fidelity to the commandments (Ps. 118:143–144). Such is the content of this octave.

Ps. 118:137. Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments.

The prophet confesses the righteousness of the Lord, affirming his conviction that nothing unrighteous can proceed from the mouth of God: “Righteous are You, O Lord”; but he confesses this not as an abstract contemplation, but as the foundation of the uprightness of God’s judgments. God’s judgments include all His decrees in general—that is, everything that God has decreed shall be: this brings one into the realm of God’s providence and fills one with peace in surrender to the will of God. But since the subject here is the commandments, as is evident from the following verse, which in its content resembles the present one, it is more apt to understand by “judgments” the decrees by which God determines how we ought to live—that is, He determines not our fate but how we must act, independently of our fate. This thought is also suggested by the Greek word corresponding to the word “upright”—“straight,” meaning that the paths indicated to us by Your commandments, O Lord, are straight—they lead directly to the goal.

In these two verses (Ps. 118:137, 138) the prophet expresses his assurance in the uprightness and truth of the commandments. In the first he draws this assurance from his contemplation of God’s righteousness, and in the second from understanding the properties of the commandments themselves. The commandments’ prescriptions, he says, are straight, O Lord, because You Yourself are righteous and nothing unrighteous or crooked could receive Your approval. When You have said: live thus and thus, and when I do not doubt that this was truly spoken by You, then the thought that there could be any crookedness in the paths of Your commandments cannot enter my mind. As certain as I am that You are righteous, so certain am I that the paths You indicate in Your commandments are straight. They are straight, and are always the surest and most direct path, just as a straight line is between two known points. I draw my assurance of this from my certainty in Your righteousness. The rays of Your righteousness that I contemplate rest upon the commandments and brightly color them with Your justice.

If the prophetic view of the commandments is such that assurance of their uprightness must flow from faith in the righteousness of God, then how do some people think they can build firm legislation for true human morality apart from faith in God and His Holy Revelation? Strain as they may, they will not even manage to construct their own system, let alone draw anyone to it with assurance in the truth of its prescriptions. How many different paths are indicated by the customs and morals that take root among people! How many crossroads appear from the bifurcation of vision under the influence of one’s own passions and wrongful impulses! How can one there know the most direct path, and how can one be certain that the path we choose is the surest? As on a sea in places hiding many submerged rocks, only a skilled and experienced pilot can safely navigate a ship, so in the sea of life, only the all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-righteous God can point out, amid the varied pathways and collisions, a path that is straight and safe. Only from faith in Him can assurance flow—assurance in the uprightness of the paths we choose, when, that is, one sees that they were indicated by God Himself.

Ps. 118:138. You have commanded Your testimonies in righteousness and in exceeding faithfulness.

Descending from the heights of his contemplation of God’s righteousness to the commandments attested by the word of His mouth, the prophet confesses that they, being in themselves righteous and true in the highest degree, give us the most direct, surest, and most unalterable rule of life. The thought is the same as in the preceding verse, but there the prophet’s attention was fixed on the righteousness of God, while here it rests on the righteousness and truth of the commandments—and in such a way that, just as there he saw in God’s righteousness the uprightness of the commandments, so here in the commandments he sees God’s righteousness, confessing that they are as unalterably righteous and true as God Himself is unalterably righteous—He who by His testimony has established their surpassingly high worth. Saint Athanasius the Great writes: “You have commanded Your testimonies as genuine and most evident truth. The supremely straight prescriptions of Your judgments reveal Your righteousness. Your testimonies are the Divine Scriptures: they are righteousness in their moral commandments, and truth in the meaning contained in the very words.”

The commandments are upright and exceeding true because they correspond perfectly to our nature, to our present condition, and to the varied circumstances and situations of our life; and consequently, upon the one who fulfills them, they bring a deep inner peace, give him firmness in the face of adversity, quietly lead him out of difficulties, guide him straight to the goal, and bring him into blessed eternity. Such convictions about the worth of God’s commandments the prophet carried in his heart, and such he wishes to plant in our hearts as well, for in this conviction lies the foundation of a firm moral life and the courage to walk its paths without deviation. Just as any undertaker, once convinced of the soundness of his plan, moves toward the goal and applies the means he has devised, undisturbed by any obstacles, confident that he will reach what he seeks—so walks boldly the path of the commandments the one who holds deep in his heart the conviction that their path is the one sure path, and that by walking it he will undoubtedly come to the most desired goal—eternal blessedness.

Ps. 118:139. My zeal has consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten Your words.

What should the one who is assured of the high worth of the commandments do? He must love them and live by them zealously. This is what the prophet testifies immediately after the preceding verse. But zeal for the commandments cannot limit itself to the mere personal fulfillment of the commandments; it seeks that all others likewise fulfill them zealously, so that the name of the Lord who commanded them may be glorified and life according to His will may be the prevailing one—not only in the milieu where the zealot lives, but everywhere. This side of zeal is what the prophet expresses in the present verse. “My zeal,” he says, “has consumed me.” True zeal is fiery; the one who nurtures it burns in spirit—burns, but is not consumed. This feeling is not destructive, though it is greatly arousing; and being greatly arousing, it does not call for unrestrained action. All this the prophet expresses in the gentle word: “my zeal has consumed me”—that is, the zeal that the Lord Himself has, since He is “a zealous God.” “The prophet” in this case expresses his own imitation of the Lord. As the Lord is zealous for His commandments, desiring that all fulfill them, so do I, so let all strive to do the same. Or thus: “Your zeal” is zeal for You. The prophet says: loving You, O Lord, I am zealous for You—that Your will might be fulfilled by all everywhere, and Your most holy name be glorified thereby. Both the one and the other are an inseparable property of a truly pious spirit.

The one who burns with zeal for God, where the will of God is unknown, strives to spread knowledge of it; and where it ought to be known and is visibly forgotten, he grieves and is distressed. It is painful to me, he says, to see how “mine enemies” dare to forget Your will. Perhaps the prophet points here to his personal enemies; or perhaps he wishes to express that those who forget the words of God and thereby manifest a hostile disposition toward God, appearing as enemies of God, are also his enemies. Zeal for You, O Lord, stirs up my zeal against them, as though they were waging war against me personally.

Such is love. It cannot regard as foreign to itself anything that concerns the beloved. Therefore it is zealous for everything pleasing to him. Saint Athanasius the Great describes the state of the prophet depicted in this verse: “Into what zeal did I fall, as soon as I saw anyone forgetting Your words! And not simply did I fall into zeal, but I was consumed by zeal for You, when I saw those who forget Your words. Of this zeal, expressed in the psalm from the Lord’s own voice, ‘the disciples remembered that it was written: the zeal of Your house has consumed me’ (Ps. 68:10; John 2:17).” The blessed Theodoret also cites other examples of such zeal: “The prophet mourns those who live in lawlessness and, seeing how the Lawgiver is despised, is rightfully moved to indignation. Such zeal glorified Phinehas; it made the great Elijah ever worthy of honor; enkindled by it, Stephen reproved the unbelief of the Jews; keeping it within himself, the divine Paul cried out: ‘Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?’ (2 Cor. 11:29). And the blessed Luke says of him that ‘his spirit was stirred within him at Athens, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry’ (Acts 17:16).”

Ps. 118:140. Your word is exceeding pure, and Your servant loves it.

Having placed first the zeal that causes him to be consumed by the forgetting of the words of God by others, the prophet might have expected the objection: “What is it to you what others do? What are you yourself like?” And so he says: I love, I love the words of my Lord and as a servant I submit to Him. But he speaks of this not to those who act lawlessly, but in conversation with the Lord: “Your word is exceeding pure.” “Pure”—unadulterated, unmixed, as he says of it in another place as well: “The words of the Lord are pure words, silver refined in the earth, purified seven times” (Ps. 11:7). The word of the Lord is pure and perfect, and therefore attractive; and being attractive, it stirs up love for itself. I, he says, have loved it; but I loved it not only because it is pure, but more because it is from the Lord. Recognizing myself as a servant of the Lord, I submit to His word, all the more willingly as His word is always full and unmixed truth—dear and attractive to my heart. For the God-fearing, delight in the word is not abstract or merely contemplative, but always accompanied by a feeling of obligation toward it and a love that moves one to deeds in accordance with its guidance.

The word “pure” also suggests the thought that it is fiery—permeated with fire. Being fiery, it warms, and not only warms but also kindles, and by kindling—cleanses; it is not only itself pure, as though refined by fire, but also cleanses those who receive it by its fiery action. Saint Paul points to this action of the word: “The word of God is living and active,” he says, “sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Man is a mixture of good and evil. The word of God, received in faith, enters within him like fire, and, acting upon what is good, quickens it, while it scorches what is evil; and then all the good contemplations, movements, and feelings rise up in the spirit. And since through this he enters into his proper state, he cannot but feel well in such a condition. And he does feel it, and takes delight in it, and loving that state, comes to love also the word of God that brings it to him. As refreshing it is for one who comes out of a stuffy room into fresh air, so refreshing it is for the spirit, freed by the word of God from the stuffiness of evil thoughts, feelings, and desires, into the refreshing freshness of meditation on God and love of what is good.

Ps. 118:141. I am young and despised, yet Your statutes I have not forgotten.

But how can this be? How is he the youngest, when he was already in his old age? What kind of despised is he, when he was a king honored by all? Perhaps he recalled that time when Samuel came to the house of his father and commanded him to show all his children, and when his father, having shown all the older ones, said: “That is all,” and forgot about him, as though he were not worth presenting to the prophet. So think the blessed Theodoret, Saint Ambrose, and Hilary. And perhaps he recalled that circumstance when, having offered to fight Goliath in single combat, he heard from his countrymen: “What do you think you can do, young fledgling! He will crush you at once.” Recalling one and the other, Saint Ambrose reflects, he now says: “No one even wanted to look at me, on account of my youth. I saw this, but did not forget Your commandments; or thus: those accounted me as nothing, but You did exalt me, because I did not forget Your commandments.” Or yet again: You did exalt me; therefore I will never forget Your commandments, seeing how fidelity draws Your goodwill and is clothed in Your power. This is the thought of the blessed Theodoret.

But is it not better to suppose that he speaks thus of himself in a feeling of humility, as Saint Athanasius thinks? There is absolutely no sense in me, as in a child, and there is nothing in me for which I could be praised even a little—I am worth nothing; yet worthless as I am, I still do not forget Your commandments, knowing their beauty and greatness, still take shelter under their shadow, to cover my nothingness with their dignity. I have clothed myself in them as in a garment, so that men might forget about my nothingness on account of their radiance. Or perhaps thus: I have forgotten about myself as the most insignificant, but Your statutes I have never forgotten. And this too: I am nothing, notwithstanding that I have never forgotten Your statutes and commandments, for with all my effort always to remember them and walk in them, I cannot say that I have entirely fulfilled them, since “Your commandment is exceeding broad” (earlier, verse Ps. 118:96). In this sense he expresses here the same thing that the Lord commanded all who keep His commandments to feel: “When you have done all that was commanded you, say: ‘We are unworthy servants; we have done only what it was our duty to do’” (Luke 17:10).

Ps. 118:142. Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.

The thought here is the same as in the first two verses of this octave. What is added here is only the word “everlasting.” The holy prophet’s thought, having begun with youth and traversed the whole of life, has been carried into eternity and has seen upon that entire expanse only the righteousness of God remaining unchanged. “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness.” Why? Because it alone gives a law that is not only true but is itself truth. Nourished by this conviction, the prophet says as it were: “I take courage with the hope that, walking the path of Your law and remaining faithful to Your righteousness, I hold to that which is alone truly real, undeceiving, and unfailing. There, beyond the bounds of life, I see the crown that shall crown fidelity to Your law and Your righteousness.” Saint Athanasius writes: “Among men, righteousness for a little while is attributed to those who judge rightly; but the righteousness of God grants eternal justification.” The blessed Theodoret adds to this: “The one who follows the commandments of God has as a reward for his labors eternal life.”

Humility (the preceding verse) sees nothing in itself that could justify it, yet the truly humble person does not lose heart—why? Because he is encouraged by the hope that the most merciful Lord will not condemn him. Upon what does such hope rest? Upon the consciousness that he sincerely believes and always strives with all his might to be faithful to what he believes. His conscience does not accuse him of sloth, carelessness, or deliberate departure from the law of God. Therefore, although he finds himself insignificant compared to what he ought to be, he does not lose hope of being saved, for he has done and continues to do all that depends on him. Such was the holy Apostle Paul. “The time of my departure,” he says, “has come… I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; from now on there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:6–8). You will say, is this not self-confidence? No. “I know nothing against myself,” he confesses, “yet I am not thereby justified” (1 Cor. 4:4). The One who justifies us is the Lord; and if the Lord justifies someone, who shall condemn him? What draws the Lord’s justification? “Faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Be faithful to the Lord then, and with feelings of humility, take courage in the hope that for the sake of this fidelity you will not be disregarded by the Lord.

Ps. 118:143. Trouble and anguish have found me, yet Your commandments are my meditation.

With inward brightness, outward dimness—this is the fourth side of fidelity to the commandments! Troubles and hardships almost always, like darkness, overshadow the one faithful to the commandments. Your commandments, says the prophet, are my meditation. I hold them in my mind, cherish them in my heart, I am lost in them with all my attention and by them, as by a carpenter’s line, I direct my life. And yet what do I encounter on the way? Troubles and hardships, unceasing collisions that wound my heart and burden me. Why is it so? Because it so pleases God. And why it pleases Him so—only He knows. Bow your head beneath the strong hand of God and be silent. Who are you, to answer back to God? Be content with faith alone—that if God is your God and you are God’s, then all is yours. The testament to this is already written and legally sealed. A little more—and you will be brought into your inheritance, but for now you are still under trial. When the appointed time has passed, you will enter into the rank and glory of a son, to which the right is indeed yours even now, but which is not yet given to you because you are still a minor.

Saint Anthony the Great was once asked why the radiance of a life in Christ Jesus is covered over by outward sorrows and inward uprisings of various impurities, and he replied: so that you do not gaze too long upon that radiance and destroy yourself. If you gaze too long, you will begin to think too highly of yourself; thinking too highly of yourself, you will grow proud; growing proud, you will drive away the grace of God from yourself. Then the enemy will swoop down and shatter your bones. You yourself should be hiding from yourself, but since you cannot be trusted, and the Lord desires your salvation, He has appointed to hide you from yourself through a special ordering of your life, under which you see nothing good in yourself—for the sin that dwells in you often rises up and covers everything—while from without only troubles and hardships find you. Bless the Lord, then, who so wonderfully saves you, and walk your path humbly, not giving way to curiosity and not attempting to dispel with the feeble breath of your mind the darkness that surrounds you. Even in the dimness of faith you see a bright point ahead; direct your path toward it, paying no heed to what is around you.

Ps. 118:144. The righteousness of Your testimonies is everlasting; give me understanding, and I shall live.

Whatever comes upon you must be borne with good cheer, caring only to walk the path of the commandments without deviation, believing that this is the one sure path. Troubles and hardships endeavor to dim the brightness of this faith, but do you dispel such dimming and restore the brightness of your faith, repeating to yourself: No, the commandments are an everlasting righteousness. God Himself has attested their unalterability. And at the same time, turning to the Lord Himself, pray: “Give me understanding, and I shall live”—grant me, O Lord, always to keep in my mind the conviction of the unalterability of Your commandments—“and I shall live”; that is, I shall live by them; or: no temptations shall disturb the evenness of that life which, by Your mercy, has been established in my spirit; or: having lived this age unfailingly according to Your commandments, I shall pass faithful to You into the other life. There You will grant me eternally blessed life—and I shall eternally live with You and in You. By such thoughts and cries the one who endures strengthens himself, and his life flows evenly and undisturbed, though from outside it may appear like a frail vessel that the waves of life toss to and fro and seem ready to shatter and scatter across the expanse of the waters.

Let us now bring together all the sides of life according to the commandments. Believe with faith, and you will have light; be zealous with zeal, and you will live, quickened by love; humble yourself with humility, without losing hope, and never say to your zeal: “Enough”; endure with patience and good cheer, seeing through the gloom and darkness of the present the bright future. The program is brief, but laborious. Take courage; for it is not written that those who enjoy rest shall seize the Kingdom of God, but “the violent take it by force” (Matt. 11:12). The violent—that is, those who compel themselves and act with intensity, not sparing themselves, like one who, groaning under a burden, climbs laboriously up a mountain. And the bread of spiritual life, no less than bodily bread, is eaten in the sweat of one’s face. So the merciful God has ordained. Of course, this would be easy if sin had not troubled our paths. But never mind that! The Lord has overshadowed us with the brightness of hope. Labor a little, and you will enter into the brightness of your Lord. “Where I am,” the Lord says, “there shall My servant be also.” And to that servant it was said: “Take My yoke upon you and labor.” In the evening, at the hour of going to rest, you will receive what you do not expect. You yourself will be amazed, and all the witnesses of your recompense will be amazed. Only do not be lazy, do not despair, do not waver, and blessed shall be your journey.