Preface

The notes here offered are prompted by the desire not so much to provide a learned commentary on the psalm as to present an attempt at how the Davidic songs so frequently heard in the Church may be turned to spiritual edification—drawing from them lessons for ordering one’s thoughts and for the right disposition of the heart and of all one’s life. Psalm 33 has been chosen for this purpose, in part because it is among the most frequently heard in church. One circumstance gives it an advantage over others—namely, that it is always read just before the close of the Liturgy. Christians leave the temple, each for their own affairs and circle of life, and here this psalm provides them with a parting instruction for the right disposition of the soul—a help toward the right ordering of life, as it were a program of conduct for an entire day and, since all life is made up of days, for an entire lifetime. The content of the psalm is precisely of this character. By its frequent repetition in church services, the Holy Church wishes to impress it upon the minds of Christians—to make them learn it even against their will and remember it, so as to engraft its lessons upon their hearts.

Indeed, a great many know this psalm by heart; but that very firm knowledge may sometimes hinder one from drawing from it all possible spiritual benefit. This is, one may say, inevitable when the memory alone works in the learning, without a prior or concurrent deepening into the content of the verses. Since no room is given for reflection, the intellect and the heart remain idle: the memory alone works, committing the sequence of words to itself. But as the psalm is learned, so afterwards it is used. The thought, suppressed from the very beginning during the learning process, no longer comes into motion even when the memorized text is repeated, and the repetition proceeds, almost always, leaving scarcely any trace upon the soul. Meanwhile every psalm is a spiritual treasure, if its content be developed. And so it often happens that many possess—or suppose they possess—something in their minds, yet do not possess it; they hold a treasure that is however concealed, though concealed within themselves, in the field of their soul, in the memory. It is therefore necessary to dig out this treasure, to spread it before the eye of the mind, and to let the soul enjoy the contemplation of it.

This is something that every person both can and must do through his own reflection. The present notes are offered as an aid. Lest, however, anyone’s zeal for giving them due attention be cooled by the thought that nothing can be learned from what is written here, it is proper to forewarn that in everything contained here the writer’s own thought rarely appears—and then only for the sake of connection; all that is principal and needful has been taken from the holy Fathers: Basil the Great, Athanasius the Great, Blessed Theodoret, Blessed Augustine, and other ecclesiastical writers and commentators on the Psalter: Euthymius Zigabenus, Anthimus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Irenaeus, Archbishop of Pskov (publication of the Holy Synod). After such a forewarning it is by no means too much to hope that for the diligent labor of composing these notes, repayment will be made by diligent and attentive reading of them and the best possible application to one’s own life of what is set forth in them.