Verses 97–104

The thirteenth octet is headed by the letter or word “mem”—“blemish.”

A blemish is the same as a defect or flaw in an object, or equally a moral deficiency of some kind, and in the end, sin.

Reasoning from this standpoint, we encounter questions: in what do the defects or blemishes that stain a person consist, where do they come from, what consequences do they bring, and how can they be remedied?

In this octet the prophet shows how the principal spiritual vices are corrected: blindness of mind, crookedness of will, and hardening of heart—insensibility. All of them are corrected by meditation on the law of God and faithful adherence to it. Life by the commandments opens the eyes of the mind, so that it understands everything clearly (vv. 97–100); it restores rectitude to the will, ordering all its undertakings (vv. 101–102); and it revives in the heart the forgotten sense for everything holy and divine (vv. 103–104).

Ps. 118:97. O how I love Your law, O Lord! It is my meditation all the day.

“O how I love Your law, O Lord”—that is, how dear to me is Your law! Thus cries the soul that has experienced the beneficial effects of a life lived by God’s commandments. One who begins to fulfill the commandments may approach this task out of fear of punishment, out of shame before people for his vices, out of intellectual conviction that this is how it must be—not yet feeling drawn to the commandments, not knowing what taste is hidden in them; at this stage he is led like one being led along, and labors like a beast of burden. But then, little by little, he begins to feel the good of such a manner of life and to enter into its taste, and the further he goes the more he feels this; at last he becomes convinced that nothing is more blessed than to depart from evil and do good, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night. Now he applies himself to the law not from a sense of duty or from any other motive but from heartfelt love of it, for one cannot fail to love what is good. Blessed Theodoret writes: “Not everyone who fulfills God’s law fulfills it out of love; some fulfill it from fear and dread of punishment, and others in pursuit of glory from men; but the sincere lovers of virtue strive to fulfill God’s commandments out of an inclination toward the good.”

Saint Hilary says: “One might say: how faithfully I fulfill Your law! But since it is more valuable when a person does something out of love rather than out of fear, the prophet says: ‘O how I love Your law!’ Adherence to God’s will out of love stands far apart from fulfilling one’s duty out of fear. The prophet testifies that his obedience to the law comes from devotion and love, and from nothing else. Many keep the fast only because they fear rebuke from the pastors for not doing so; some give to the poor only to avoid being reproached for stinginess; others go to church merely to escape the shame of being rebuked for such negligence. All such people do not act out of love. In love there is a voluntary eagerness to do the thing, done with joy and pleasure. Whatever a person loves, that he also willingly desires.”

Whatever a person loves, he constantly thinks about. And the prophet, who had come to love the law, meditated on it all the day: he meditated amid every task, so that his work might be pleasing to God and not offend Him; he meditated when free from tasks, preparing patterns for his deeds so that when he encountered them he would not be at a loss as to how to act; and he meditated simply because such meditation nourishes the soul with the heavenly, divine elements of good thoughts and wholesome feelings. This last mode of meditation is more commonly practiced, and it is also more easily accomplished. There is a rule of the fathers—to read the word of God in the morning with deep attention until you come upon a passage that falls upon the heart. Such a passage will then occupy you the whole day, like a key that winds up a music box. Some, in order to keep the mind occupied all day with the divine, advise learning psalms by heart and then reciting them. Others of stronger mind, having fixed the mind in the morning in contemplation of God, do not let their thought depart from God all day. All this, though varying in form, is an equal fulfillment of what the prophet says: “It is my meditation all the day.”

For one who lives this way, night is as day—or rather, for him there is no night, but all is day. This is perhaps why the prophet said “all the day” without mentioning the night, as he did in the first psalm: “in the law of the Lord does he meditate day and night.” Saint Athanasius writes: “For the one who is progressing, it is day when he lives by the law, and night when he does not meditate on it with all his heart and does not do what the law requires. But for those who have made progress and have become saints, there is no longer night, but all is day.” Saint Hilary says the same: “What the prophet has loved, that he is ceaselessly occupied with: he has loved the law, and he meditates in it without interruption all the day. Other occupations do not distract him, and the cares and vanities of this age do not bring forgetfulness. He is always the same, and always in the same thing. He is wholly absorbed in meditating on the law he loves, which makes of his whole life one unbroken day.”

Ps. 118:98. You have made me wiser than mine enemies through Your commandment, for it is ever with me.

The prophet begins to explain how his devotion to the commandments drove the blindness from the eyes of his mind. The enemies of our salvation, through the enchantment of worldly allurements or through the confusion of thoughts which they sow, often darken the mind so that it, like a blind man, sees nothing and acts at random. And the enemies at such times direct it toward evil; and it falls. The prophet assures us that he was delivered from such misfortunes by the commandment of God. It made him wise, revealing the enemies’ schemes and making all their attempts to destroy him or do him some harm ineffective.

One who knows the commandments automatically has before his mind a single, comprehensive norm of life. It illumines all the paths of life and all the entanglements of circumstance. Perplexities do not trouble him, and the question “what is to be done?” waits for no resolution—everything is resolved at once. It is understood, of course, that such a benefit belongs not to knowledge alone, but to knowledge rooted in life. “You have made me wise,” he says, “O Lord, through Your commandment”—that is, by teaching me how to walk in the commandments, prescribing them to me and giving me strength to fulfill them. The experiences of life by the commandment made me wise, and the enemies shall no longer succeed in deceiving me: I have become wiser than they are; they are not as clever in devising evil as I am wise in doing good according to Your will.

Blessed Theodoret writes: “Having confessed that he loves the law of God ardently, the prophet ascribes everything to God’s grace and says: having received wisdom and knowledge from You, I have come to love Your law, because You have given me understanding greater than my enemies.”

One of the enemy’s wiles is to suggest: sin just this once, and then, having repented, you will return to good deeds. Against this the prophet sets forth an unrepentant resolve, declared once and for all: to depart from God’s commandment under no circumstances whatsoever; to die rather than break God’s commandment. This is what he expresses in the words: “for it is ever with me.” Such a resolve keeps the mind ever undivided, allowing no second-guessing—no question of whether one might allow oneself a little latitude. Such ruinous suggestions are what the enemy tries in every way to sow; but in one who keeps in his heart the resolution “it is ever with me,” they leave no trace—they come and they go.

Such a resolve—“it is ever with me”—is possible only when one is prepared even for death, if without it one cannot remain faithful to the commandment. Hence comes its unshakeable strength. What can shake one who has devoted himself to death? But one who enters the struggle with self-pity carries within himself a traitor, who in the hour of battle will deliver him to the enemy. Such a person will not outwit his enemies, but will be in their hands like a ball which they toss wherever and however they please, for their amusement and his mockery. Saint Isaac speaks of such people: “Because from the very beginning they did not resolve to give themselves over to death, they prove to be the last and most cowardly in every battle. Such men are fearful and above all spare their own bodies. And the enemy drives them like a storm, for he sees no strength of soul in them—the kind of strength he is accustomed to see in the saints.”

Ps. 118:99. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.

It is no great wonder to be made wiser than one’s enemies by God’s commandment; but what is wondrous is that the prophet, by meditating on God’s law, became more knowing and understanding than all his teachers. Who were these teachers, and how did the prophet surpass them in understanding?

The first of these questions the prophet does not answer. But whoever they were, they were still human beings, and the prophet understood better than they did, because after them the Lord took him under His own teaching, as he said just before. Since the Lord had made him wise by the commandment, he became not only wiser than his enemies but more understanding than his very teachers—mere men. Therefore in these words there is expressed no self-exaltation or proud opinion of himself on the prophet’s part, but a confession of God’s mercy in that He, by His grace, gave him to understand His will more fully and perfectly than his teachers had conveyed it. Saint Ambrose says: “These words might seem an unwarranted presumption, had not the prophet prefaced them with what he said before—that the Lord had made him wise. One who was taught by Wisdom herself could not fail to understand more than all others. This is why he says in another place: ‘Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law’ (Ps. 93:12).”

When the Lord teaches someone, He opens the mind and places treasures of knowledge within it, or He takes the spirit of a person and introduces him into direct contemplation of the things being revealed to him. The mind under the action of God sees what the Lord is pleased to show it as clearly and distinctly as with his physical eyes a man sees things standing before him at a certain distance in broad daylight. And all this can take place in an instant, and the measure of what is revealed and contemplated can be so great that no human words can contain it. So Saint Paul saw when he was caught up to the third heaven; so the apostles saw when the Lord appeared to them after His resurrection and, breathing upon them and imparting the Spirit, “opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.” In one moment their minds beheld everything hidden in the Old Testament writings concerning the New Testament events that had come to pass. And the Lord, immediately after, only drew the general conclusion from what the apostles had seen: “thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to enter into His glory” (Luke 24:45–46). So swiftly and fully does the Lord reveal the heavenly to all whom He considers worthy of it.

But such enlightenments of the mind are extraordinary. The usual order of enriching the mind with divine knowledge, even with the Lord’s direct assistance, is the enlightenment of the mind in the study of the revelation already given. The prophet himself says that he understood more than his teachers “for Your testimonies are my meditation.” He labored at the study of God’s testimonies with faith and prayer, and the Lord, seeing his zeal and love, placed in his mind such a grasp of the written word as is inaccessible to the independent efforts of the mind. Someone once said that at times, in the hour of prayer, his mind enters into the contemplation of divine truths—a contemplation so clear and definite as was given him by neither his own research nor the reading of others’ research. From this one may conclude that the true knowledge of what is revealed is only that which is implanted in the mind by precisely this path. The labor of study and deep attention to the testimonies prepares the way; and grace, in the hour of prayer, completes the knowledge, enlightening the mind by contemplation and sealing what it has seen in the heart. All other learning is external: this alone is interior, spiritual, divine, and abundant in fruit.

Ps. 118:100. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Your precepts.

Among every people, the elders are regarded as men made wise not only by learning but by the experiences of life—persons who form the foundation of society, who guide the new generation entering upon its work with their counsel and who unite the past with the future. Such men were present in the time of the holy prophet in Jerusalem, and of course he often availed himself of their counsel in establishing good orders in his kingdom across all branches of governance. But these same experiences taught him that he understood every matter far better and more truly than the elders.

And the reason for this is the same as for his superiority over his teachers—namely, that the Lord Himself had made him wise. Saint Ambrose says: “This too is not difficult—for one whom the Lord teaches to understand more than the elders. Grace supplies the years, and the wisdom of old age becomes the possession of one who is not old in years. Since ‘the true age is an unspotted life’ (Wis. 4:9), being taught an unspotted life provides an elder’s understanding. When Saint Jeremiah, because of his youth, declined the office of prophet, he was told: ‘Say not, I am a child’ (Jer. 1:7). God’s judgment did not regard him as a child, certainly because he possessed the wisdom of grey hair, which shone in him through the all-sanctifying grace of God.”

Thus God’s grace enlightened the prophet David as well, and therefore he too understood God’s ways more than the elders. But why such grace? — Because he had sought God’s commandments. Since from childhood he had made it the law of his whole life to please God by the unfailing fulfillment of His commandments, he presented in himself a strong vessel for receiving the streams of divine wisdom. And she was poured into him. “Into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter” (Wis. 1:4). If men do not place precious perfumes in unclean or leaky vessels, would the Lord place heavenly wisdom in a soul that serves the passions and is therefore unclean and broken? And even if, by an excess of grace, He were to condescend to do so, the malicious soul would have no capacity to receive this wisdom. Its mind is stuffed with worthless, base, and false notions—how then can it contain the lofty divine truths? The dispositions of its heart are all turned toward earthly and sensual objects—how then can it grasp the beauty of pure, unearthly goods, so as to approve them and set them above all else? It has grown accustomed to earth and cannot imagine any other life—how then can it understand lessons whose ultimate goal lies in another life? Meanwhile its pride knows no measure, and it will not hesitate to say to the Lord Himself: “Depart from me; for I desire not the knowledge of Your ways!”

The prophet calls himself one who has “sought” the commandments not in the sense that he strove in every way to find out what God’s commandments were, but in the sense that he strove in every way to make progress in fulfilling each of them and to acquire such a habit of doing so that they would all seem not merely external precepts but the natural inclinations of the heart. The heart is by nature disposed toward every good, but the passions that have crept in disfigure and pervert it. When the active seeking of the commandments suppresses the passions and raises up the good inclinations, these inclinations themselves become pointers to what the commandment requires in any given case. Just as a skilled craftsman, whatever task presents itself in his domain, at once understands how to begin it, what materials to use, and with what instruments to work, so one who has sought the commandments and acquired the habit of fulfilling them immediately understands how to act in any given case: practical wisdom sits by his heart and interprets this. What for another requires laborious deliberation presents no difficulty for him at all. As it is natural for a man to breathe, so from his heart there flow forth, always timely, the lessons of wisdom.

Ps. 118:101. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your word.

The blindness of mind has been driven away; in its place, knowledge and wisdom have come to dwell—such as have no equal among the people who ought to be distinguished by them—and all this was attained by meditation on the commandments and faithfulness to them in life. Now the prophet shows how the crookedness of will was also corrected; and this too, he says, was accomplished by the same path. I began to restrain my feet from every evil way and not to turn aside from God’s judgments, and my will was corrected, acquired the habit of keeping God’s words, and was established in it.

Our conscience always urges us to flee evil, but the will to follow it is lacking. The attractions of self-indulgence overpower it, and a person goes toward evil. And having done evil once, he will not hold back a second time, and soon a habit of some form of self-indulgence in defiance of conscience takes shape. So one habit forms, then another, then a third, then dozens, hundreds. When a person comes to his senses and resolves to walk uprightly and to please God, he finds himself bound and entangled on all sides. What is to be done?

Guard the firm resolve to keep God’s words; fan and sustain it in every way by keeping in your heart the fear of God, the remembrance of death and God’s judgment—and then restrain your feet from every evil way. You cannot suddenly come to love the good so that love alone holds you to it. Begin by not doing what is evil, and even though your habituated will may lunge toward evil, hold it within its proper bounds by the force of your resolve. Evil began in the heart and grew strong in habitual deeds. To destroy it, go by the reverse path: cease the deeds, and through them you will arrive at the cutting off of evil in the heart.

Do not go where you have been accustomed to satisfy a bad habit; break off relations with companions in sin and change all the ways of life that have been feeding the sin. This is what it means to restrain the feet. When the occasion for sin is before one’s eyes, how can someone who is habituated to it restrain himself? But when the occasions are removed, even if thoughts of sin come—they will make some noise in the head and then depart. And it is easier to drive them away then than when not only thoughts but also eyes, ears, touch, and smell are being bathed in sinful vapor. The holy fathers compare one who stands before a temptation to one standing on the edge of an abyss: the moment the enemy wishes, he can topple him in even with the slightest push. But one who keeps away from temptations they compare to one standing far from the abyss: when the enemy tries to drag him toward the abyss, he still has time to shake him off, or to cry out for help and be delivered from the danger.

Turning aside from evil ways removes evil and restores good in the soul. But this is outward labor; to it one must add inward labor—restraining the mental feet from mental evil paths as well. A mental evil path is this: an evil thought begins, attracts sympathy, arouses desire, and inclines one to action. When this mental path toward sin is completed, the outward path to the commission of sin in deed follows. You have stopped these outward excursions toward sin—that is good. But do not think to stop there; strive to cut off the inward paths toward it as well; for despite outward avoidance of evil ways, mental wanderings do not cease immediately but often make their way there and roam about. Therefore restrain also the mental feet from evil paths, lest they lead the bodily feet there as well. Drive away evil thoughts; destroy the sympathies they arouse; and above all, beware of inclining toward evil. So long as this has not happened—you are still safe; but when it does happen—you are already in danger. Though even then you can still avoid it, it is better not to be subjected to it, for a battle lies ahead. The abyss is still far away, but the enemy has already taken hold and is dragging you toward it. The chief thing in this matter is the shunning of evil thoughts; they buzz like mosquitoes—drive them away and do not weaken. If you hasten to replace evil thoughts with good ones, your struggle will be helped and eased a hundredfold.

Ps. 118:102. I have not departed from Your judgments, for You have taught me.

I restrained my feet from evil ways and did not depart from God’s judgments—that is, I fulfilled what I myself had advised others: “Depart from evil, and do good” (Ps. 33:15). This followed of itself. One cannot be without deeds; but if one turned away from evil deeds, one certainly did not turn away from good ones. “It is impossible,” says Blessed Theodoret, “to walk on two roads at once—the road of vice and the road of chastity, of righteousness and of unrighteousness. One must avoid the contrary paths and walk the straight path. Only in this way can one become a keeper of God’s laws.”

God’s judgments are His decisions as to how we ought to live—the determinations of God’s will, the same as the commandments. Therefore, not to depart from God’s judgments is the same as not to depart from the fulfillment of God’s commandments. For this there is no need to go across the sea to find an occasion to fulfill the commandments: occasions for that are always before our eyes. The moment you restrain your feet from stepping onto an evil path, at that same moment you have an occasion to step onto the right path. Someone asks for alms—the evil path is to refuse, while God’s judgment is to give: give, and you will restrain yourself from the evil path and not depart from God’s judgment. Someone has wronged you—the evil path leads you to revenge, while God’s determination is forgiveness: when you forgive, you restrain your feet from the evil path and do not depart from God’s judgments. So it is in everything. Therefore, not departing from God’s judgments may be said to consist in this: watch alertly around you and under your feet, and do not let pass any opportunity to do good that presents itself to you.

An opportunity for good that is before your eyes is the same as a direct command from God to you to do that good. If you turn away from it, you go contrary to God. The prophet sets forth this as the motive for not departing from such judgments of God: “for You have taught me.” The awareness that in any given case God is, as it were, personally commanding one to do this or that good is the most powerful incentive for the God-fearing to not turn away from that good. When this awareness visits someone, from it there flows an irresistible moral force toward submission to God’s command. One who lives in the fear of God will not depart from it even if it should cost him not only all his possessions but his very life. The source of such a disposition is a firm faith in God’s Providence, which determines all the contingencies of our life and directs them all toward the end that our salvation may be accomplished in the most reliable way.

Nowadays we have many charitable institutions. Do not think that, having made the customary contribution, you are already free from personal acts of charity. That goes in its own course, and this in its own. Though even that is ordered not without God’s will, the nearest and most direct will of God is the opportunity for good that stands right before your eyes. If you pass it by, you go contrary to God. God has many giving hands, and without you there will be those who help; but God has done you the honor of helping through you and of presenting in your person His own beneficent right hand. Take care, then, not to turn away from this honor, as did the guests invited to the wedding feast in the parable. Call to mind often the Samaritan, who, finding on the road a man beaten by robbers, did not stop to deliberate but at once did everything he could—and for this is praised by the Lord of all and set before everyone as an example.

Ps. 118:103. How sweet are Your words to my taste—yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

It remains to warm the heart that is cold toward everything holy and divine. Man was created in the image of God; consequently, everything divine ought to find a warm response in him. But when man fell from his proper rank and tasted of sensory pleasures, the taste for the spiritual was closed off, and that realm became for him an unknown land; he entirely forgot what these spiritual and divine goods were. As a blind man does not understand what flowers are, however much their beauty is described to him; as a deaf man looks even at instruments whose harmonious sounds enchant everyone and can understand nothing of what is happening around him—so one in whom the sense of the spiritual has been closed, seeing, does not see it, and hearing, does not hear it, for “the heart of this people is waxed gross” (Acts 28:27).

Who does not know this coarseness, this hardening and insensibility of the heart? It is known to all who fear God and walk in the path of His commandments. But in the God-fearing it is only a temporary deadening of the heart that comes and goes; whereas where passions and various attachments hold sway, insensibility and coldness toward the divine is an already permanent condition. There the soul is dead; its resurrection begins with the revival of spiritual feeling.

The first blows struck against this feeling are very painful. It is struck by the fear of death, judgment, and eternal torments. From this, along the usual path, there is born the fear of God, which revives the conscience and together with it leads to repentance and to the resolve to leave the evil path and cleave to the Lord by pleasing Him through the fulfillment of His commandments. But even here only the beginning of the revival of spiritual feeling is laid. A sick man has risen, but he has not yet any appetite for anything: he eats and drinks by conviction that he must eat and drink in order not to die. Such also is one who has entered upon the path of God through repentance: he compels himself to do good and resists evil, but as yet finds no taste in his deeds; he acts from conviction that it cannot be otherwise, from the vow and resolve to do everything according to the commandments.

Constancy in this self-compelled activity then begins little by little to revive the feeling as well. The soul begins to experience pleasantness and sweetness in what it formerly found tasteless. Prayer begins to bring delight; the courts of God (temples) become beloved; almsgiving brings consolation; every act of self-restraint brings joy. This is like what happens in the torpor of cholera: they rub the patient without pity and gradually restore warmth to his chilled limbs. The same happens in a soul struck by the cholera of sin: the person begins to rub himself by self-compelled virtue—by almsgiving, fasting, prayer—and little by little thaws out his frozen spiritual feeling. From this there comes at last the point where he finds pleasure only in deeds pleasing to God; he is drawn only toward that which bears the imprint of God’s will; he is at peace only where he can be with God and in God’s works. One who has reached this state has revived spiritual feeling within him. This is precisely the state the prophet expresses in the words: “How sweet are Your words to my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” “Words” means God’s commandments. Not such sweetness, he says, does honey leave in the throat as the fulfillment of the commandments leaves in the soul.

Ps. 118:104. Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

Feeling has two sides. If it finds sweetness in one thing, it finds bitterness in the opposite thing, and as much as it is disposed toward the first, so much does it recoil from the second. So long as a person lives in self-indulgence and sensuality—the spiritual is tasteless to him; when he has repented, left self-indulgence behind, and begun to walk by the will of God, the sensual and self-indulgent at last becomes tasteless to him. These are the most decisive indicators of a person’s moral state. Look at what you find taste in, toward what the heart shows sympathy, and by that determine whether you are on the good path or the wrong one.

It should be noted that sympathies toward the carnal, passionate, and self-indulgent break through from the heart for a long time even after conversion, and even after the experiences of the labor of cleansing the heart. One may say that in the early stages all sympathy lies on the side of the former passionate life; it is only restrained within proper bounds by the force of resolution. Then sympathy toward the good begins to appear; further on it becomes equal to the opposing sympathy for the passionate; afterwards it prevails over the latter; then sympathy toward the passionate dies away; and at last all that is passionate, carnal, and self-indulgent becomes repugnant—the soul begins to abhor it. This, as the holy fathers observe, is already evidence of the heart’s cleansing from the passions. This is what the prophet speaks of here: “I hate every false way.” And how did he arrive at this? — “I get understanding,” he says, “through Your precepts”; I came to understand that walking by Your commandments is “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42), and I entered upon their path; and walking in them, I came to love them, for they produced sweetness in my soul; and this love and sweetness gave me the ability to feel the bitterness of unrighteousness and to develop a hatred for it. Behold the end of the healing of the soul and the limit of the uprooting of its defects!

Saint Basil the Great, when asked, “What is the sign of the cleansing of the heart?” — answered more than once: “This: when a person hates sin.” The same answer he gave to the question of what is the sign that a person’s sins have been forgiven. Saint Barsanuphius gives the same answers. The latter says that so long as there is even the least sympathy toward anything passionate, this means that the soul is not yet clean. If we call what is passionate “pus,” this thought is confirmed by comparison with the healing of wounds. A wound does not heal so long as all the pus has not been drawn out; so too the wound of the soul has not yet healed so long as sympathies for what is sinful break through in it.

From this the following lesson follows: it is dangerous to rest in the assurance that I am not doing evil deeds. For it may be that circumstances have so arranged themselves that it is better for you not to do evil, and you do not—but within the heart evil lives on. If God looks upon a person according to the disposition of his heart, then consider what you are worth in this case and what you ought to expect. Do not boast of the outward correctness of your behavior, but look into where the heart inclines. Saint Macarius says: if you have gone down into the depths of the heart and slain the serpent lurking there—then boast; as for visible deeds alone, there is nothing to boast of. How many will appear at God’s judgment to whom God will say “I know you not” (Luke 13:25), although they themselves and others considered them zealous knowers of God!