Salmi 36:9 Commento

It is uncertain when, and upon what occasion, David penned this psalm, probably when he was struck at either by Saul or by Absalom; for in it he complains of the malice of his enemies against him, but triumphs in the goodness of God to him. We are here led to consider, and it will do us good to consider seriously, I. The sinfulness of sin, and how mischievous it is (Psa 36:1-4). II. The goodness of God, and how gracious he is, 1. To all his creatures in general (Psa 36:5, Psa 36:6). 2. To his own people in a special manner (Psa 36:7-9). By this the psalmist is encouraged to pray for all the saints (Psa 36:10), for himself in particular and his own preservation (Psa 36:11), and to triumph in the certain fall of his enemies (Psa 36:12). If, in singing this psalm, our hearts be duly affected with the hatred of sin and satisfaction in God's lovingkindness, we sing it with grace and understanding. To the chief Musician. A psalm of David the servant of the Lord.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 36 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord. This title, which the psalmist takes to himself, regards him not only as a creature, every man being the servant of the Lord as such, of right, though not in fact; but as a king, he being a minister of God for good to good men, and for evil to evil men; and also may respect him as a renewed man; and it is here used in opposition to and distinction from the wicked, who are the servants of sin and Satan, of whom he speaks in this psalm. The Syriac and Arabic versions in their titles suggest that this psalm was written when David was persecuted by Saul, and which is the sense of some interpreters; but R. Obadiah thinks Ahithophel is designed by the wicked man in it; and so it was penned on account of Absalom's rebellion.

For with thee is the fountain of life,.... Or "lives" (f): God himself is the fountain of living waters; this is a reason proving the happiness of those that trust in the Lord, and that they shall enjoy the above things; because with God the object of their trust is the fountain of life; not only of natural life, from whom they have it, and by whom it is supported, but of spiritual life, being quickened by him when dead in sin, by virtue of which they live by faith on Christ, and also of eternal life; and the phrase denotes, that life is originally in God as in its fountain, and that both the fulness of it is with him, and the freeness of it in the communication of it to others, as well as its continuance and duration; in thy light shall we see light; God is light itself, the Father of lights, and the former of it in every sense; in the light of his countenance, and the discoveries of his love, they that trust in him see light, or enjoy comfort; and in the light of his Son Jesus Christ, the sun of righteousness and light of the world, they see the face of God, and enjoy his favour, and behold the glory and excellency of Christ himself; and in the light of the divine Spirit, who is a spirit of wisdom and revelation, they see their sins exceeding sinful, their righteousness as nothing, and a preciousness in the blood, righteousness, and sacrifice of Christ; and in the light of the divine word they see the truths of the Gospel in their native simplicity and excellency, and the duties of religion to be performed by them; and in the light of faith, which is the gift of God, they have at least a glimpse of the unseen glories of the other world; and when the beatific vision shall take place, they shall see no more darkly through a glass, but face to face, even God himself, as he is in Christ. (f) "vena vitarum", Montanus.

What other light of God can we speak of, in which a person sees light, except God’s spiritual power, which when it lightens a person causes him either to see clearly the truth of all things or to know God, who is called the truth? Such then is the meaning of the saying, “In your light shall we see light”; that is, in your word and your wisdom, which is your Son, in him shall we see you, the Father.

The bishops [at the Council of Nicea], having detected the Arians’ deceitfulness in this matter, collected from Scripture those passages that say of Christ that he is the glory, the fountain, the stream and the express image of the person; and they quoted the following words: “In your light we shall see light”; and likewise, “I and the Father are one.” They, then, with still greater clearness, briefly declared that the Son is of one substance [homoousios] with the Father; for this, indeed, is the signification of the passages that have been quoted.

And now we have both seen and proclaim concisely and simply the doctrine of God the Trinity, comprehending out of light [the Father], light [the Son], in light [the Spirit].

But the coming of the Lord and Savior was prophesied, who, when He was about to come into the world, said: "I and the Father are one"; that is, we are one light, just as we are one name. Through the unity of light and name, we are both one; indeed, the Trinity is one in the unity of substance, but with the distinction of each person. The Trinity signifies the distinction of persons, the unity signifies the power. It can also be said of the Father: "For with you is the fountain of life," that is, in you from whom life proceeded, there was the Word, and He always was, because He was with you. All things were made through him, and in him was life, and he has shown himself to us, so that the hearts of men may be illuminated with the knowledge of your majesty.

(Verses 9, 10.) Therefore, He fittingly substitutes: 'For with you is the fountain of life: and in your light we shall see light.' Extend your mercy to those who know you, and your righteousness to those who are upright in heart. Indeed, after the remembrance of heavenly benefits, gratitude is rightly ascribed to our Lord Jesus Christ, who, as the life-giving fountain of eternity, descended to earth to water the dryness of our hearts. The same is the brightness of the glory of God the Father, and the image of his substance; and therefore in his true light, which enlightens every man that comes into this world, we shall see, he says, the Father; because God is light. It is also rightly said: In your light we shall see light; according to that: He who sees me, sees also my Father (John 14:9). Therefore, with you, O Source of life, we shall see the Father present. For just as you, being the Word of God, were with the Father in the beginning: so the Father is always with you, who are in him. For indeed in Him is present that which is. But the coming of the Lord and Savior was prophesied, who, when He was about to come into the world, said: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30); that is, we are one light, just as we are one name. Through the unity of light and name, we are both one; indeed, the Trinity is one in the unity of substance, but with the distinction of each person. The Trinity signifies the distinction of persons, the unity signifies the power. It can also be said of the Father: 'For with you is the fountain of life,' that is, in you from whom life proceeded, there was the Word, and He always was, because He was with you. All things were made through him, and in him was life, and he has shown himself to us, so that the hearts of men may be illuminated with the knowledge of your majesty. Therefore, extend your mercy to those who know you. The prerogative is claimed so that those who have the merit of your knowledge may deserve mercy. Finally, we see the pursuit of knowledge supported even among the lowest of people, as the Lord says: I will remember Rahab and Babylon among those who know me (Psalm 86:4); that is, I will remember that prostitute Rahab and that state of confusion among those who know me, or among themselves; because that prostitute acknowledged me, whom the people did not acknowledge. Among those, therefore, who wrote to me, Rahab will be remembered, so that she may obtain a worthy reward of faith. Hence, in the Gospel we hear this saying: 'The prostitutes and the tax collectors will precede you into the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. 21:31). But because we are weak in carrying out [good works], although devoted to believing [in God], may you, extend your mercy to those who believe in you, so that our deeds may correspond to both devotion and faith; and may the weakness of this body not abandon the zeal of our mind, but rather may we glory in the very temptations and weaknesses in which the Apostle gloried, saying: 'I will most gladly glory in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me' (1 Cor. 12:9).

The Light of the Father is Christ. In Christ we will see the light of the Holy Spirit in the light of the Father.

Let it rise to Him, and be enlightened by Him. "Come near," saith he, "to Him." And what shall we have? "And be enlightened." If, therefore, by "coming to" ye are enlightened, and by "departing from" ye become darkened, your light was not in yourselves, but in your God. Come to Him that ye may rise again: if ye depart from Him, ye shall die. If by coming to Him ye live, and by departing from Him ye die, your life was not in yourselves. For the same is your life which is your light. "Because with Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light we shall see light."

With what fountain then will you be overflowed, and whence runs such a torrent of His Pleasure? "For with You," says he, "is the fountain of Life." What is the fountain of Life, but Christ? He came to you in the flesh, that He might bedew your thirsty lips: He will satisfy you trusting, who bedewed you thirsting. "For with You is the fountain of Life; in Your Light shall we see light" [Psalm 36:9]. Here a fountain is one thing, light another: there not so. For that which is the Fountain, the same is also Light: and whatever you will you call It, for It is not what you call It: for you can not find a fit name: for It remains not in one name. If you should say, that It is Light only, it would be said to you, Then without cause am I told to hunger and thirst, for who is there that eats light? It is said to me plainly, directly, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." [Matthew 5:6, 8] If It is Light, my eyes must I prepare. Prepare also lips; for That which is Light is also a Fountain: a Fountain, because It satisfies the thirsty: Light, because It enlightens the blind. Here sometimes, light is in one place, a fountain in another. For sometimes fountains run even in darkness; and sometimes in the desert you suffer the sun, findest no fountain: here then can these two be separated: there you shall not be wearied, for there is a Fountain; there you shall not be darkened, for there is Light.

Christ … is man and God. He prays as man and gives what he prays for as God. Now what you have to grasp is that he assigns everything to the Father for the simple reason that the Father is not from him, but he is from the Father. He gives everything to the fount from which he is derived. But he too is the fount born of the Father; he is himself the “fountain of life.” So the Father as fount begot the fountain; fountain indeed begot fountain; but begetting fountain and begotten fountain are one fountain. Just as God begetting and God begotten, namely, the Son born of the Father, are one God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father; the Father is not from the Son, the Son is from the Father; but still Father and Son are one thing … because of their inseparable divinity.

Here he clearly reveals to us the mystery of the holy Trinity: he called the Only-begotten Word of God a “fountain of life.” This is the name, too, remember, God personally gave himself through the prophet Jeremiah: “They have forsaken me, a fountain of living water, taken their leave and dug for themselves cracked cisterns incapable of holding water.” So he says this fountain is in the presence of the Father, according to the following Gospel teaching: “I in the Father and the Father in me.” “In your light we shall see light”: Illumined by the all-holy Spirit we shall perceive the rays of your Only-begotten; Scripture says, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit,” and “God revealed to us through his Spirit.” We have consequently come to a precise knowledge of the three persons in the one divinity through the inspired words.

Since the fount is life and life is Christ, the fount is Christ.… By meditating on what is made we will see Christ, and in understanding Christ, we will see God.

You flood us with life, abundantly supplying us with it from the great number and variety of what is given us by you for sustenance and life.… Without light we can see nothing that exists, for when we are deprived of light and plunged into darkness, we have no recognition of what is at hand; whereas when light is available, we see and discern by recognition. So for discerning other things we need light, whereas light itself requires nothing else any longer for our being able to see; instead, with the aid of light itself we succeed in seeing everything through light and discern everything, including even light itself.… His meaning was to present the utter generosity and abundance of God’s gift—thus his mention of these two things in particular: the light (he made clear that from it he provided us both with existence itself and with sustenance) and enjoyment of the light, through which he conveyed the pleasure of life.

In human usage, light and fountains are quite distinct, or rather, in opposition to one another, since a fountain snuffs out the light of flames. But with God, these two images find a unity even though whatever you might say about him is both true and also ultimately inadequate. We say that God is Light, because “he enlightens every person who comes into the world”; he is a Fountain, because he satisfies the hungry and empty.… This verse properly says about the Savior, “in your light we will see light”; namely, the light of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, since through the Son’s preaching the entire Trinity was revealed to us.

It is a good fountain that cools us after the heat of this life and with its flood tempers the aridity of our heart.

Without the light of the Scriptures we are unable to see God, who is Light, or his justice, which is filled with light. The effort involved in reading the Scriptures is thus greatly beneficial to us, all the more so since it causes us to become illumined in prayer. For anyone whose soul, after having labored in reading and been purified by spiritual meditation, is fervent with love for God will pray in a luminous manner when he turns to prayer.… His mind has labored in mediating on divine providence and so is filled with joy. In his soul he carries the model for virtue that he has received from training through the agency of the Spirit; he has depicted before his eyes, as though in a picture, the lovely beauty of the saints’ way of life: wrapped up in reading about these things, he will exult over them and become fervent in spirit, so that the words of his Office and the incense of his prayer become illumined and pure, seeking that they flow out from the pure spring of his heart.

The matter of such nourishment is that they are joined to the fountain: and just as those who would hold their mouth to a fountain of wine would become inebriated, so those who hold their mouth, that is, their desire, to the fountain of life and sweetness, become inebriated: 1 Cor. 11: "But another is drunk." And so they are inebriated, because "with you is the fountain of life." If this is referred to Christ, the sense is: "With you," etc., that is, you are the fountain of life. But if it is referred to the Father, the sense is: "With you is the fountain of life," that is, your Word, which gives life to all things. It is with you. Jn. 1: "The Word was with God": Jer. 2: "They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water," etc. He who is truly the fountain of life, that is, of spiritual goods, by which all things are given life. The second is intelligible knowledge, which men, that is, rational creatures, participate in. Therefore he says:

"And in your light." There are two privileges of the rational creature. One is that the rational creature sees in the light of God, and because other animals do not see in the light of God, he therefore says "in your light." This is not understood of light created by God, because in that sense it would be understood as that which is said in Gen. 1: "Let there be light." But "in your light," namely that by which you shine, which is the likeness of your substance. This light is not shared by brute animals; but the rational creature first participates in it through natural knowledge: for the natural reason of man is nothing other than the radiance of the divine brightness in the soul: on account of which brightness man is made in the image of God: Ps. 4: "The light of your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us." The second is the light of grace: Eph. 5: "Rise, you who sleep," etc. The third is the light of glory: Is. 60: "Arise, be illuminated, O Jerusalem, for your light has come," etc. Or "in your light," that is, in Christ, who is light from light: and thus he is the light that is true God. Christ is therefore light insofar as he proceeds from the Father: he is the fountain of life insofar as he is the principle of the life-giving Spirit. The other privilege is that only the rational creature sees this light: hence he says, "We shall see light." This light is either created truth, that is, Christ insofar as he is man; or it is uncreated truth, by which we know certain truths. For spiritual light is truth: because just as through light something is known insofar as it is luminous, so it is known insofar as it is true. Brute animals indeed know certain truths, for instance, this thing is sweet: but they do not know the truth of the proposition "this is true": because this consists in the adequation of the intellect to the thing, which brute animals cannot achieve. Therefore brutes do not have created light. Similarly, nor uncreated light, because only man was made to see God through faith and through hope: and just as we now see through faith in the light, so we shall see him in his essence when we are in the fatherland.

On servant of the Lord, see on Psa 18:1, title. The wickedness of man contrasted with the excellency of God's perfections and dispensations; and the benefit of the latter sought, and the evils of the former deprecated. (Psa 36:1-12) The general sense of this difficult verse is, "that the wicked have no fear of God." The first clause may be rendered, "Saith transgression in my heart, in respect to the wicked, there is no fear," &c., that is, such is my reflection on men's transgressions.

Light is an emblem of all blessings, given of God as a means to gain more.