The Requisite Dispositions for Trustful Recourse to God (Verses 9–11)

Verses 9–11 stand, as it were, as separate propositions, by which those pressed by needs from various sides are encouraged to have trustful recourse to God. But if one penetrates into the main thoughts they contain and sets them side by side, it is not difficult to notice an inner connection between them, by which the dispositions indicated in them call forth one another, and all together form one God-pleasing disposition capable of drawing help from above. In verse 9 the main thought is the tasting of goodness and hope; in verse 10—the fear of God; in verse 11—the seeking of God. These dispositions bind themselves into a whole as follows. The opening words: taste and see — point to the tasting and seeing of God’s goodness, through which hope enters the soul, bringing a consolation that imparts blessedness. Hope ought at once to generate the seeking of God or recourse to Him; but one who does not live in the fear of God has no support for his hope, and an unclean conscience undermines his boldness in prayer. Therefore, between hope and the seeking of God, as an indispensable intermediary, there is placed the active fear of God, proper to the holy. Thus, the tasting of goodness regenerates hope; and hope, through the intermediary of the active fear of God, gives the boldness to seek God with a sense of unworthiness and helplessness. This seeking is as it were the opening of the mouth in prayer, the fear of God is the foundation on which the one who prays stands, hope is the spirit that moves the prayer, and the tasting of goodness is the intake of enlivening air.

Ps. 33:9. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him.

He said earlier: draw near to Him and be enlightened; now he says: taste and see. This is interior and deeper. There—only a drawing near to God as it were from without; but here—a more intimate drawing near to Him, as it were a blending together. Just as one who tastes food receives it within himself: so one who tastes the Divine is inwardly penetrated by it and discerns it as clearly as though seeing it with his eyes. All that is divine is truly known through perception in the heart, for the mind cannot comprehend it. When the Apostle speaks of senses trained to distinguish spiritual things, he points to the one source for the acquisition of spiritual knowledge—in the tasting of the heart’s sense. Here the Prophet speaks only of goodness; but every other property of God is likewise comprehended in no other way. So too are justice, long-suffering, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence comprehended. The heart will taste them, or sense them; then the spirit of man will know them. As taste distinguishes foods, so the sense—the heart—distinguishes spiritual things. Holy Basil the Great says here: “Just as the quality of honey can be explained to one who has not tasted it less by words than by the very sense of taste, so the goodness of heavenly things cannot be clearly conveyed in teaching, unless after long experience one is able to apprehend them by personal knowledge. So it is with the apprehension of the Lord’s goodness. He said: Taste — not: be filled; because now we know in part and see truth through a glass, darkly (1Cor. 13:12). A time will come when the present pledge—this tasting—will be turned for us into the fullness of enjoyment. Just as those who suffer from stomach ailments and feel revulsion toward food are treated by physicians who, by means of specially prepared food, stimulate appetite for it—and when the sense is stimulated by these artfully prepared dishes, the appetite for food increases hour by hour—so too with regard to spiritual goods: the very experience of them, says the Prophet, will continually call you to an insatiable longing, which, however, is not painful but blessed, as the Lord says: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Mt. 5:6)”. Even a little—just to taste. This little will whet the appetite for more and lead to perfection. Whatever perfection it may reach, however, it is still but a pledge in relation to what is to come.

The Prophet invites us to taste—that is, to know by experience the Lord’s goodness. But how is this to be achieved? How is the heart to be brought to the tasting of this goodness? By faith, by devout reflection, and by the experiments of casting oneself into the embrace of goodness. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. It is in the spiritual realm what sensory experience is with regard to visible things. If faith wavers and grows weak, strengthen it by reflection on the divine properties and acts, and on the experiences of God’s goodness manifested and being manifested in the human race—whether toward whole peoples and communities or toward individual persons. There the laws governing the Lord’s providential care for those who have recourse to Him will become clear, as though in operation. When the mind perceives their applicability to yourself as well, the heart cannot but sense a certain readiness of goodness to overshadow you also. But goodness is tasted more inwardly and effectively by actual deeds—by the experiments of casting oneself into God’s embrace. It is this last that David seems above all to have in mind. He speaks as it were thus: make the experiment, begin in actual deed to cast your sorrow upon God, leaving all other supports and sources of consolation, and you will know how good the Lord is to all who turn to Him in trustful prayer (Euthymius Zigabenus, Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov).

A special and most universally accessible means of tasting the goodness of God is indicated by holy Athanasius the Great, Blessed Theodoret, Euthymius Zigabenus, and Anthimus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the partaking of the most holy, most pure, and life-giving Mysteries. This verse is sung in the church when the Holy Communion is prepared for those who will commune, while they await in prayerful reverence the blessed moment of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. The sinner who has repented and cleansed his conscience by confession senses the embrace of the Heavenly Father receiving him again under His shelter, into sonship and the inheritance that is ready. The blood of the Lord cleanses us from all sins. The Lord in His Body, as our Forerunner, entered into the inner place behind the veil. Therefore one who has partaken of the Body and Blood of the Lord is both cleansed from all sins and senses this calling to joint inheritance with Christ. When Communion is not merely an outward act, the experience of these blessings given by God’s goodness cannot but come about, along with the tasting of goodness itself.

“The tasting of the Life-giving Food, says Blessed Theodoret, clearly shows the goodness of the Saviour. For what proves His love for mankind so clearly? Is it not the Cross? Is it not the suffering? Is it not the death He underwent for our sake? Is it not that for His sheep He became at once both nourishing Food and a refreshing Spring?”

Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. The tasting of goodness gives birth to a resting in its embrace, as in a mother’s embrace; and this repose is the characteristic mark of hope. Therefore the tasting of God’s goodness is the source of hope; and hope is the possessor of all the treasures of goodness. One who has tasted of goodness has found the treasury. Hope opens the door into it and leads into the possession of all its goods. This is why blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. Blessed—not with the blessedness that is outside, but with that which is within. The latter does not diminish under any outward deprivation; whereas the former diminishes or ceases the moment the desired good is received. Outward goods entice and provoke the seeking of them. For as long as the seeking continues, the good seems to be a good. But as soon as it is attained, it immediately ceases to be a good. The tasting of it reveals a bitterness in it, disillusions, and turns one toward new seekings. And so, without end: always only seeking and anticipating satisfaction, and never receiving it or finding contentment in it. But the one who hopes rests in God’s imperishable and unchanging goods and is blessed without interruption—for he ceaselessly tastes God’s goodness.

Hope in God takes away the value of all human supports and all sources of consolation other than the Lord. Whoever tastes how good the Lord is will lay no more hope on anything else and will find rest in nothing else but the Lord. Whoever leans on anything created certainly has no hope and has not yet tasted the goodness of God. Without supports it is impossible for a person to live. But if his support is not in God, then it is in himself, in others, or in something around him. Such a person does not say: God will help; but—I will manage, or I have the means to work it out. He does not say: God will not permit you to harm me; but—while such-and-such a person is alive I have nothing to fear, you can do nothing to me, I have a powerful protector (Blessed Augustine). Such a person is an unfortunate man. Inwardly he is ceaselessly in fear and agitation; and outward things are themselves ceaselessly changing and falling into disorder. Holy Apostle James rebukes such self-reliant people, saying: hear now, you who say: today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a city and spend a year there and trade and make a profit—you who do not know what tomorrow will bring: for what is your life? It is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say: if the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil (Jac. 4:13–16). And the holy prophet Jeremiah even threatens God’s anger upon such: cursed, he says, is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm and whose heart turns away from the Lord: he shall be like a wild tamarisk in the desert and shall not see any good come; he shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in a salt land where no one dwells. On the other hand, of the man who trusts in God he speaks all blessings, saying: blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord: he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, that sends out its roots by the stream; he shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaf remains green; in the year of drought he is not anxious and does not cease to bear fruit (Jer. 17:5–8).

Ps. 33:10. Fear the Lord, all His holy ones, for those who fear Him lack nothing.

Hope in God is not a single disposition standing alone. It is the leader of the whole company of good dispositions of the heart, the crown and flower of them. It belongs not to those who live in negligence and carelessness, but to those who labor tirelessly day and night in the endeavors of good works. Therefore, having blessed those who hope in the Lord, the holy Prophet adds: fear the Lord, all His holy ones — as if to say: blessedness lies in hope; but take care not to grow slack in hope and give yourself over to carelessness. On the contrary, live all the more in the fear of God; for only on that condition will our hope not be put to shame and you will not be deprived of every good. The fear of God is not an idle feeling, but is the keeping of the commandments—the constant abiding in righteousness and love. When it is such, it serves as the foundation of the confidence with which we draw near to God and taste the sweetness of His gifts (Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov).

Serve the Lord diligently—and you will have just reason to look to Him for every help. So it is among us as well: to one with whom we stand in good relations and have rendered services, we go with some need openly and boldly, not doubting and not expecting a refusal. But if we have caused someone an unpleasantness, we dare not even show ourselves before him, even if we know he readily helps everyone. The same holds here. One whose conscience is clean, who knows he has served the Lord in the fulfilling of His commandments—that person hopes boldly for His help. But one who has offended God by transgressions—in the hour of grief and trouble will find no hope arising in his heart; unless there should arise in his heart at the same time sincere repentance with the resolve to serve from now on the one Lord alone.

Holy Isaac the Syrian, in his 67th Discourse, thus describes the necessary connection between hope and a virtuous and God-fearing life: “One who, having no care for the transient, is zealous day and night for virtues alone and for divine occupations—such a person rightly hopes in God, because he has become His servant and diligent in His work, and does not give himself to negligence for any reason whatsoever. Such a one is worthy that God show upon him His care in a special way, because he has kept God’s commandment, which says: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you (Mt. 6:33). But a person whose heart is buried in earthly things, who is negligent about what is pleasing to God, who has no concern for any virtue on account of constant intercourse with people and dissipation in amusements—how will such a one dare to turn to God in hope of His help, when he is pressed by want or death and overwhelmed by the fruits of his own transgressions? Perhaps even such a one will say: I will place my hope in God, and He will make me free from care and give me relief. Until this very hour, O senseless one, you did not remember God, but offended Him by the baseness of your deeds, and the name of God was, on your account, blasphemed—as it is written (Rom. 2:24); and now you dare to say with open mouth: I will place my hope in Him, He will help me and take care of me. Do not deceive yourself; hope in God is preceded by labor for God and by the sweat shed in doing good. Only the righteous man trusts as a lion (Prov. 28:1). And as his constant care is devoted to God, so God says of him: I am with him in his tribulation; I will deliver him and glorify him—I will fill him with length of days and show him My salvation (Ps. 90:15–16). The slack and lazy in his own work cannot have such hope. But one who abides in all things with God and draws near to Him by the goodness of his deeds can say of himself what holy David said: my eyes fail from waiting upon my God (Ps. 68:4)” (Isaac the Syrian, Ascetic Discourses, 67).

Why should the fear of God be instilled in the holy ones, when the holy ones are holy precisely because they are filled with the fear of God? In order that they should not allow this fear to grow weak in themselves. For the fear of God is the guardian of virtue until the grave; and the holy ones must all the more guard themselves by it, the more they serve as a target for the enemy’s arrows, as objects of his envy and hatred. And sin, which still lives in them, can raise its head as soon as it notices that the sword guarding the entrance to the paradise of the sanctified heart has been lowered. Holy Basil the Great says: “If the fear of God does not govern our life, it is impossible for sanctification to arise and be preserved in the body. For it is written: pierce my flesh with Your fear (Ps. 118:120). Just as the members of those who are nailed with nails remain motionless and inactive, so those who are seized by the fear of God in their soul escape every passionate assault of sin”.

In what sense does the holy Prophet say that those who fear the Lord lack nothing?

First, in that the fear of God makes them morally perfect. Such is the thought of holy Basil the Great! “One who is restrained by fear from every improper action, he says, is lacking in force for no virtue; but is perfect and lacks nothing of the perfections proper to human nature. Whoever has acquired perfect fear and is afraid of everything out of the fear of God will not sin in anything, because he despises nothing—and he will suffer no lack, because the fear is always with him in every circumstance”. For this reason the Wise Man says: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man (Eccl. 12:13)—as though saying: the entire good and perfection of man consists in fearing God and keeping His commandments (Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov).

Second, in that though they too are subject not infrequently to deprivations, the feeling of deprivation does not afflict them—being swallowed up by the heart’s certainty that all that befalls them works together for their good, by God’s providential ordering. From this a spirit of endurance fills them, overpowering all deprivations to such a degree that it is as though those deprivations do not exist. This spirit is richer than any wealth. The spirit must be rich—not the storehouse. A truly God-fearing person does not desire wealth either. And when someone does not have what he has no desire to have, it cannot be said of him that he is deprived of it (Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov).

Third, in that the Lord does not abandon those who fear Him in time of need, but grants them even temporal blessings when this is needed for the perfecting of their moral character, for the good of others who live with them, and for the glorification of God’s name. In Holy Scripture, and above all in the lives of the saints, we find countless examples proving that God has special care for His servants, wondrously providing them with all that is necessary for the maintenance of their lives. Those who are perfect in spirit do not require this, being content with whatever lot is theirs; but the spiritually young are nourished, as with milk, by the arrangement of external prosperity for them. By this path were led those under the law, who were instructed to fear God at least for the reason that He gives temporal blessings. But Christians God’s Providence leads by a more perfect path, in which even martyrdom does not refute the proposition that those who fear the Lord lack nothing (Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov).

Blessed Augustine adds the following lesson at this point: “Many, he says, are reluctant to take upon themselves the fear of God because they fear hunger. When told: stop deceiving people, they answer: and how are we to feed ourselves? You cannot succeed without deception, and our dealings are nothing without it. But God will punish you for deception—fear God. If I start fearing God, they say, there will be nothing to live on. It is precisely such people that the Prophet encourages: fear the Lord—for those who fear Him lack nothing. He promises sufficiency to one who doubts and fears lest he grow poor if he takes on the fear of God. God has fed you when you gave no thought to Him at all—will He abandon you now, when you begin to fear Him? See that you do not say: that man over there is rich, not fearing God, while I am poor, though I fear God. Think about how much that man has gained without fearing God. And I fear Him, yet am naked and hungry. Do not say that; but give heed to what the Prophet says next: the rich have grown poor and gone hungry”.

Ps. 33:11. The rich have grown poor and gone hungry, but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing.

The holy Prophet crowns the ladder of dispositions that draw God’s protection with the seeking of the Lord. The seeking of the Lord is the expression of hope in God. In time of need, one immediately seeks the one in whom one has support. Whoever rests his hope upon God seeks Him as well. This seeking is wrested involuntarily from a hoping heart, when the sting of conscience does not undermine it. The seeking that arises in a heart that has reached hope through the tasting of God’s goodness is animated by boldness from a life pleasing to God and filled with the fear of God. This is why the Prophet makes mention of it at once, immediately after he has urged the having of perfect fear of God—a fear testified by the labors of good works.

Those who seek the Lord are contrasted with the rich. Therefore the rich here are those who do not seek the Lord—who do not turn to Him in their needs, who are self-satisfied and hope to arrange their lot for the good by their own means without God; that is, those who rely entirely upon their own strength, money, connections, and position. These are those of whom it is said in one place: he grew fat, became gross and swollen, and forgot God (Deut. 32:15).

When holy David says of them that they grew poor and went hungry, he means to indicate: they are poor and hungry (the Hebrew past tense signifies the present in its completed form). Because they are never satisfied, but always desire more—like the hungry and the poor. The seekers of the Lord, on the other hand, are filled with a sense of contentment from the tasting of the Lord’s goodness, of which He vouchsafes them when they seek Him by the proper path and ascend to Him. They rest in the Lord and feel themselves possessors of every good. This is the direct meaning of the verse: the repose in the Lord of those who seek Him, in the sense of possessing every good—as opposed to those who seek not the Lord but rely on wealth, strength, connections, and social position, and who are tormented by a sense of scarcity and deprivation, always accompanied by painful anxieties for themselves and for all that is theirs. What is considered here is not the outward condition of either group, but their inward disposition and the corresponding state of spirit.

Holy Basil the Great reasons thus at this point: “the rich have grown poor and gone hungry — these words teach us to despise material wealth, showing the instability of abundance in possessions. For wealth is inconstant and, like a wave driven by the force of winds, is accustomed to flow here and there. The all-perfect good is God Himself, of Whom all who seek Him will not be deprived. Whoever elevates material wealth and carnal advantages to the rank of goods assigns to lowly and unworthy things the adorable name that belongs to God alone. The saints did not consider visible goods to be goods at all, and did not seek them. Therefore, when it is said that they were deprived of no good, we must understand under this other goods. Whoever, reading this verse, understands visible goods, will become entangled in insoluble contradictions. For how, for example, will they reason about the Apostles? Either they must say that the Apostles did not receive bodily goods because they did not seek the Lord, or—if, having sought Him, they did not have such goods—they must accuse Scripture itself, which asserts that those who seek the Lord will not be deprived of any good. No; it is not about bodily goods—visible ones—that we should understand this, but about invisible—spiritual—goods. Only these goods are, in the proper sense, goods. Bodily goods, moreover, contain more of what is painful than of what is pleasant; and each of them is overshadowed by a corresponding evil: marriage—by childlessness (or bad children), widowhood—by loneliness, agriculture—by barrenness, commerce—by shipwrecks, wealth—by machinations, luxury—by satiety, frequent pleasures—by illnesses”.

Blessed Augustine adds to this: “If these words are understood literally, the facts do not correspond to them. Many unrighteous rich men die rich, without having grown poor while alive. From this it happens that one sees a rich man growing old in wealth, living to the very last hour of his life in every abundance, breathing out his soul on a bed of ivory, surrounded by a large household, being carried to an honorable funeral, and lowered into the grave in all magnificence—and seeing all this, if he knew some sins of this man, says to himself: I know how much evil this man did; and yet here he is, having grown old in wealth, died on his own bed, his own people carry him out, and what a magnificent funeral he has. I know what he did, and yet this is his lot. So Scripture has deceived me, in which I hear the psalm: the rich have grown poor and gone hungry. When did he grow poor? When was he hungry? I also hear: but those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing. And yet here am I—I go to church every day, I kneel every day, I seek the Lord every day—and I have nothing at all. While that man did not seek the Lord, and yet died in such plenty. The snare of temptation strangles the one who reasons thus. The devil throws the noose over him and drags him toward sin, in imitation of the rich man whom he saw die in such abundance”.

“Do not reason thus, and do not interpret this passage literally. How then are we to understand it? Understand it with reference to spiritual goods. What are these goods and where are they? They are invisible to the bodily eye, but are seen by the heart. Whoever loves them sees them: the heart sees them. I will now point them out to you—attend. Suppose you have two servants: one handsome, fine-looking, well-built, but worthless, a scoundrel, a deceiver, a thief; and the other ugly, swarthy, ungainly, but faithful in everything, sober, and careful. Tell me, which of them will you love? If you ask your carnal eye, the worthless handsome one will prevail; but if you ask the eyes of a pure heart, the faithful ugly one will carry the day. There is a good for you, invisible to the eyes but visible to the heart, which you yourself value above the visible. Now if someone were filled with such spiritual goods, would he be poor? Of course not. For how would you call him poor, when his heart is a treasury of precious pearls of every virtue: righteousness, love, faith, endurance, humility? Compare him now with the man who is rich but whose heart is full of every evil, and say: which of them is poor and hungry, and which lacks no good thing? Thus the rich are poor and hungry because they have no spiritual goods. And I will tell you yet more—they are poor even in bodily goods. Why? Because they are never satisfied by anything. However much they have, it is still too little. That very rich man you speak of was destitute, if he desired something more to his last breath than what he had. The hungry and thirsty for righteousness, on the other hand, are satisfied—as the Lord has said. And that is why those who seek the Lord will lack no good thing!”

Inequalities in the lot of people are the inheritance of earthly life. The Distributor is the Lord, inscrutable in His counsels. When thoughts come that trouble the heart at the sight of those who suffer and yet seek the Lord—lead your reasoning through the following questions: is the one who suffers truly suffering? Are you not projecting your own feelings onto him? It is only apparent that he lacks this and that; but whether he grieves over it is unknown to you. If he has no need of it, he certainly does not feel its lack, and therefore does not grieve. There are people who are content with a piece of bread and a cup of water. If for you this is a great deprivation, count yourself as deprived of good when necessity brings you to that point, but do not judge another. Consider also: you see those who seek the Lord deprived of good. But do they truly belong to this class of people? Do they seek—thoroughly? Sincerely? By the right path? Why be troubled if, when there are deficiencies in the seeking of God, there is also a lack of the goods promised for seeking? God’s providence, which itself nurtures this very seeking, found it needful to subject it to trial, so as to raise it to perfection, and afterward to grant it the full promise spoken of those who seek the Lord.

Such is the reasoning for bystanders. Those who themselves have felt sorrows and deprivations, however, should develop more broadly within themselves that thought hidden in their heart as a seed—that everything which Providence arranges for them is inevitably necessary for themselves, for their moral perfection. If there were no such need, the Lord would not have permitted the deprivations. If He has permitted them, they must therefore be necessary. Your whole task now must consist in making good use of the present deprivations for your own benefit—bearing them with a good spirit and in gratitude, and under their shelter taking care to correct what is faulty in character and to raise to the highest degree possible the interior turning of mind and heart toward God—which in days of plenty found no small obstacles in the plenty itself. Let there also be developed in them another thought—that however great their deprivations may be, not all is lost. There is another life, to which the present is only a preparation and an upbringing. Endure an hour or two—for the whole of life is but an hour. And you will enter into that place where truly you will lack no good thing—to the reception of which labor has here been expended, the foundation laid, the capacity formed.