Psalm LXXXVIII
6. “Thy indignation lieth hard upon Me” (ver. 7), or, as other copies have it, “Thy anger;” or, as others, “Thy fury:” the Greek word θυμὸς having undergone different interpretations. For where the Greek copies have ὀργὴ , no translator hesitated to express it by the Latin ira; but where the word is θυμὸς , most object to rendering it by ira, although many of the authors of the best Latin style, in their translations from Greek philosophy, have thus rendered the word in Latin. But I shall not discuss this matter further: only if I also were to suggest another term, I should think “indignation” more tolerable than “fury,” this word in Latin not being applied to persons in their senses. What then does this mean, “Thy indignation lieth hard upon Me,” except the belief of those, who knew not the Lord of Glory? who imagined that the anger of God was not merely roused, but lay hard upon Him, whom they dared to bring to death, and not only death, but that kind, which they regarded as the most execrable of all, namely, the death of the Cross: whence saith the Apostle, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.”
On this account, wishing to praise His obedience which He carried to the extreme of humility, he says, “He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death;” and as this seemed little, he added, “even the death of the Cross;” and with the same view as far as I can see, he says in this Psalm, “And all thy suspensions,” or, as some translate “waves,” others “tossings,” “Thou hast brought over Me.”
We also find in another Psalm, “All thy suspensions and waves are come in upon Me,” or, as some have translated better, “have passed over Me:” for it is διῆλθον in Greek, not εἰσῆλθον: and where both expressions are employed, “waves” and “suspensions,” one cannot be used as equivalent to the other. In that passage we explained “suspensions” as threatenings, “waves” as the actual sufferings: both inflicted by God’s judgment: but in that place it is said, “All have passed over Me,” here, “Thou hast brought all upon Me.” In the other case, that is, although some evils took place, yet, he said, all those which are here mentioned passed over; but in this case, “Thou hast brought them upon Me.” Evils pass over when they do not touch a man, as things which hang over him, or when they do touch him, as waves. But when he uses the word “suspensions,”
he does not say they passed over, but, “Thou hast brought them upon Me,” meaning that all which impended had come to pass. All things which were predicted of His Passion impended, as long as they remained in the prophecies for future fulfilment.
7. “Thou hast put Mine acquaintance far from Me” (ver. 8). If we understand by acquaintance those whom He knew, it will be all men; for whom knew He not? But He calls those acquaintance, to whom He was Himself known, as far as they could know Him at that season: at least so far forth as they knew Him to be innocent, although they considered Him only as a man, not as likewise God. Although He might call the righteous whom He approved, acquaintance, as He calls the wicked unknown, to whom He was to say at the end, “I know you not.” In what follows, “and they have set Me for an abhorrence to themselves;” those whom He called before “acquaintance,” may be meant, as even they felt horror at the mode of that death: but it is better referred to those of whom He was speaking above as His persecutors. “I was delivered up, and did not get forth.” Is this because His disciples were without, while He was being tried within? Or are we to give a deeper meaning to the words, “I cannot get forth” as signifying, “I remained hidden in My secret counsels, I showed not who I was, I did not reveal Myself, was not made manifest”? And so it follows,—
“My eyes became weak from want” (ver. 9). For what eyes are we to understand? If the eyes of the flesh in which He suffered, we do not read that His eyes became weak from want, that is, from hunger, in His Passion, as is often the case; as He was betrayed after His Supper, and crucified on the same day: if the inner eyes, how were they weakened from want, in which there was a light that could never fail? But He meant by His eyes those members in the body, of which He was Himself the head, which, as brighter and more eminent and chief above the rest, He loved. It was of this body that the Apostle was speaking, when he wrote, taking his metaphor from our own body, “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing?” etc. What he wished understood by these words, he has expressed more clearly, by adding, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” Wherefore as those eyes, that is, the holy Apostles, to whom not flesh and blood, but the Father which is in Heaven had revealed Him, so that Peter said, “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God,” when they saw Him betrayed, and suffering such evils, saw Him not such as they wished, as He did not come forth, did not manifest Himself in His virtue and power, but still hidden in His secrecy, endured everything as a man overcome and enfeebled, they became weak for want, as if their food, their Light, had been withdrawn from them.
8. He continues, “And I have called upon Thee.” This indeed He did most clearly, when upon the Cross. But what follows? “All the day I have stretched forth My hands unto Thee,” must be examined how it must be taken. For if in this expression we understand the tree of the Cross, how can we reconcile it with the “whole day”? Can He be said to have hung upon the Cross during the whole day, as the night is considered a part of the day? But if day, as opposed to night, was meant by this expression, even of this day, the first and no small portion had passed by at the time of His crucifixion. But if we take “day” in the same sense of time (especially as the word is used in the feminine, a gender which is restricted to that sense in Latin, although not so in Greek, as it is always used in the feminine, which I suppose to be the reason for its translation in the same gender in our own version), the knot of the question will be drawn tighter: for how can it mean for the whole space of time, if He did not even for one day stretch forth His hands on the Cross?
Further, should we take the whole for a part, as Scripture sometimes uses this expression, I do not remember an instance in which the whole is taken for a part, when the word “whole” is expressly added. For in the passage of the Gospel where the Lord saith, “The Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth,” it is no extraordinary licence to take the whole for the part, the expression not being for three “whole” days and three whole nights: since the one intermediate day was a whole one, the other two were parts, the last being part of the first day, the first part of the last. But if the Cross is not meant here, but the prayer, which we find in the Gospel that He poured forth in the form of a servant to God the Father, where He is said to have prayed long before His Passion, and on the eve of His Passion, and also when on the Cross, we do not read anywhere that He did so throughout the whole day. Therefore by the stretched-out hands throughout the whole day, we may understand the continuation of good works in which He never ceased from exertion.
9. But as His good works profited only the predestined to eternal salvation, and not all men, nor even all those among whom they were done, he adds, “Dost thou show wonders among the dead?” (ver. 10). If we suppose this relates to those whose flesh life has left, great wonders have been wrought among the dead, inasmuch as some of them have revived: and in our Lord’s descent into Hell, and His ascent as the conqueror of death, a great wonder was wrought among the dead. He refers then in these words, “Dost Thou show wonders among the dead?” to men so dead in heart, that such great works of Christ could not rouse them to the life of faith: for he does not say that wonders are not shown to them because they see them not, but because they do not profit them. For, as he says in this passage, “the whole day have I stretched forth My hands to Thee:” because He ever refers all His works to the will of His Father, constantly declaring that He came to fulfil His Father’s will: so also, as an unbelieving people saw the same works, another Prophet saith, “I have spread out my hands all day unto a rebellious people, that believes not, but contradicts.” Those then are dead, to whom wonders have not been shown, not because they saw them not, but since they lived not again through them. The following verse, “Shall physicians revive them, and shall they praise Thee?” means, that the dead shall not be revived by such means, that they may praise Thee. In the Hebrew there is said to be a different expression: giants being used where physicians are here: but the Septuagint translators, whose authority is such that they may deservedly be said to have interpreted by the inspiration of the Spirit of God owing to their wonderful agreement, conclude, not by mistake, but taking occasion from the resemblance in sound between the Hebrew words expressing these two senses, that the use of the word is an indication of the sense in which the word giants is meant to be taken.