Salmi 73:28 Commento

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 73 A Psalm of Asaph. It seems by the title that Asaph was the penman of this psalm, as it is certain that he was a composer of psalms and hymns; see Ch2 29:30, though it may be rendered, "a psalm for Asaph", or "unto Asaph" (a); and might have David for its author, as some think, who, having penned it, sent it to Asaph, to be made use of by him in public service; see Ch1 16:7, and so the Targum paraphrases it, "a song by the hands of Asaph;'' the occasion of it was a temptation the psalmist fell into, through the prosperity of the wicked, and the afflictions of the righteous, to think there was nothing in religion, that it was a vain and useless thing; under which he continued until he went into the house of God, and was taught better; when he acknowledged his stupidity and folly, and penned this psalm, to prevent others falling into the same snare, and to set forth the goodness of God to his people, with which it begins.

But it is good for me to draw near to God,.... In prayer, and other acts of religious worship; to attend the word and ordinances in the sanctuary, where the psalmist had lately been delivered out of a sore temptation, and so had a recent experience, which was fresh in his mind, of the advantages of such exercises; for it is both an honourable good, what is becoming and commendable, and a pleasant good, what yields delight and satisfaction, and a profitable good, to draw nigh to God by Christ, the new and living way, assisted by the Holy Spirit; which, when done aright, is with faith, sincerity, reverence, and a holy boldness: I have put my trust in the Lord God; as the rock of his refuge and salvation, as his portion and inheritance: that I may declare all thy works; of providence and grace, by proclaiming the wisdom, power, goodness, and faithfulness of God in them; by giving him the glory of them, and by expressing thankfulness for them, both by words and deeds. Next: Psalms Chapter 74

“Behold,” [the psalmist] says, “people who separate themselves far from you [God] will perish.” For every individual either unites or separates himself from your mercy by his deeds. The person who does things he fears will be discovered flees from God, just as the person who is protected by walls or surrounded by darkness thinks he will not be seen by God. On the contrary, he is seen, as it says: “You destroyed everyone who fornicates himself away from you.” … And so, whoever does not cling to God but devotes himself to the vain worship of idols separates himself far from the Lord by perverse sacrilege. Whoever is separated from the Lord perishes. Therefore, the saintly person who greatly fears the judgment of God always wants to cling to Christ and to put his hope in him so that he may praise the Lord, to whom belongs honor, glory and infinity from all ages, both now and into all eternity.

Indeed, when we are abandoned by God, we are given over to the devil. When we have been given over to the devil, we are afflicted with countless terrible consequences. Well, then, in order to frighten his hearers the sacred writer said, “He has hardened” and “He has given up.” Listen to what he was really saying, when he said that he himself not only does not give us up but does not abandon us, either, unless we wish it: “Have not your iniquities caused a division between me and you?” And again, “They who withdraw from you perish.” Furthermore, Hosea declared, “You have forgotten the law of your God; I also will forget you.” And he himself said in the Gospels, “How often would I have gathered your children together, but you would not!” Isaiah, also, in another place said, “I came, and there was no one: I called, and there was no one that would hear.”

But you do what? "But for me to cleave to God is a good thing" [Psalm 73:28]. This is whole good. Will you have more? I grieve at your willing. Brethren, what will you have more? Than to cleave to God nothing is better, when we shall see Him face to face. [1 Corinthians 13:12] But now what? For yet as a stranger I am speaking: "to cleave," he says, "to God is a good thing:" but now in my sojourning (for not yet has come the substance), I have "to put in God my hope." So long therefore as you have not yet cloven, therein put your hope. You are wavering, cast forward an anchor to the land. Not yet do you cleave by presence, cleave fast by hope. "To put in God my hope." And by doing what here will you put in God your hope? What will be your business, but to praise Him whom you love, and to make others to be fellow-lovers of Him with you? Lo, if you should love a charioteer, would you not carry along other men to love him with you? A lover of a charioteer wherever he goes does speak of him, in order that as well as he others also may love him. For nought are loved abandoned men, and from God is reward required in order that He may be loved? Love thou God for nought, grudge God to no one....For what follows? "In order that I may tell forth all Your praises in the courts of the daughter of Sion." "In the courts:" for the preaching of God beside the Church is vain. A small thing it is to praise God and to tell forth all His praise. In the courts of the daughter of Sion tell thou forth. Make for unity, do not divide the people; but draw them unto one, and make them one. I have forgotten how long I have been speaking. Now the Psalm being ended, even judging by this closeness, I suppose I have held a long discourse: but it does not suffice for your zeal; you are too impetuous. O that with this impetuosity ye would seize upon the kingdom of Heaven.

For if anyone should have love, he sees God because "God is love," and that eye is cleansed more and more by love so that he may see that unchangeable substance in whose presence he may always rejoice, which he may enjoy forever, joined together with the angels. But let him run now that he may one day rejoice in his homeland.

So if you want to keep the order of true charity, act justly, love mercy, shun self-indulgence; begin according to the Lord's instruction to love not only friends but also enemies. And when you strive to maintain these standards faithfully with your whole heart, you will be able to climb up by these virtues, as by a flight of steps, to being worthy to love God with your whole mind and your whole strength. And when you reach this happy state of perfection, you will reckon all the desires of this world as nothing but dung, and with the prophet you will be able to say, "But for me to cling to God is good."

We ought to be on our guard against loving God for any reward. What is the point, after all, of loving God for a reward? What sort of reward is it that God is going to give you? Whatever else he gives you, it is less than he is. You are worshiping him not freely, not gratuitously, in order to receive something from him. Worship him freely, and you will receive God himself; God, you see, is keeping himself for you to enjoy him. And if you love the things he made, what must he that made them be like? If the world is beautiful, what must the architect of the world be like? So tear your heart away from the love of creatures, in order to cling to the creator, and to be able to say what is written in the psalm, "But for me it is good to cling to God."

If you recognize that you have received the virtues that you have, and if you return thanks to him from whom you have received them, directing them to his service even in your secular office; if you rouse the people subject to your authority and lead them to worship God, both by the example of your own devout life and by your zeal for their welfare, whether you rule them by love or by fear; if, in working for their greater security, you have no other aim than that they should thus attain to him who will be their happiness—then yours will be true virtues, then they will be increased by the help of him whose bounty lavished them on you, and they will be so perfected as to lead you without fail to that truly happy life that is none other than eternal life. In that life, evil will no longer have to be distinguished from good by the virtue of prudence, because there will be no evil there; adversity will not have to be borne with fortitude, because there will be nothing there but what we love; temperance will not be needed to curb our passions, because there will be no enticements to passion there; nor shall we have to practice justice by helping the poor out of our abundance, for there we shall find no poor and no needy. There will be but one virtue there, and it will be the same as the reward of virtue, which the speaker in the sacred writings mentions as the object of his love: "But it is good for me to stick close to my God." This will constitute the perfect and eternal wisdom, as it will constitute the truly happy life, because to attain it is to attain the eternal and supreme good, and to stick close to God forever is the sum of our good. Let this be called prudence because it will cling most providently to the good that cannot be lost, and fortitude because it will cling most stoutly to the good from which it cannot be parted, and temperance because it will cling most chastely to the good in which there is no corruption, and justice because it will cling most uprightly to the good to which it is deservedly subject.

I will briefly set forth the manner of life according to these virtues, one by one, after I have brought forward, as I promised, passages from the Old Testament parallel to those I have been quoting from the New Testament. For is Paul alone in saying that we should be joined to God so that there should be nothing between to separate us? Does not the prophet say the same most aptly and concisely in the words, "It is good for me to cling to God"? Does not this one word cling express all that the apostle says at length about love? And do not the words "it is good" point to the apostle's statement, "All things issue in good to them that love God"? Thus in one clause and in two words the prophet sets forth the power and the fruit of love.

There have been some philosophers of this world who have thought that the only happiness is to live according to the flesh, and they have placed humankind's good in the pleasures of the body. These philosophers were called Epicureans, from a certain Epicurus, their founder and teacher, and any others like them. However, some proud people came along who claimed to distance themselves from the flesh and set all their hopes of happiness on their souls by placing their supreme good in their own virtue. Your religious feelings, clearly, have recognized in yourself the words of the psalm; you know, realize and recognize how the holy psalm mocks "those who trust in their own virtue." These were the philosophers who were called Stoics. The Epicureans lived according to the flesh, and the Stoics lived according to the soul—neither of the two groups lived according to God.That is why, when the apostle Paul came to the city of the Athenians, where these philosophical schools engaged in feverish study and wrangling, as you can read in the Acts of the Apostles—and I am glad to see you are already ahead of me in what I am saying, with your quick and lively memories—it is written there, "Certain philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics conferred with him." Those who were living according to the flesh conferred with him, and those who were living according to the soul conferred with him. He, living according to God, conferred with them. The Epicurean said, "For me to enjoy the flesh is good." The Stoic said, "For me to enjoy my mind is good." The apostle said, "For me, though, to cling to God is good." The Epicurean said, "Blessed is the one who has the enjoyment of the pleasures of his flesh." The Stoic said, "Blessed, rather, is the one who has the enjoyment of the virtue of his mind." The apostle said, "Blessed is the one whose hope is the name of the Lord." The Epicurean has got it all wrong. I mean, it is simply not true that a person who has the enjoyment of the pleasures of his flesh is blessed. The Stoic, too, is quite mistaken. I mean it is simply not true; it is absolutely incorrect that a person who has the enjoyment of the virtue of his mind is blessed. So, [the psalmist says], "Blessed is the one whose hope is the name of the Lord." And because those others are vain windbags and liars [he adds], "and who has not paid attention to vanities and lying follies."

Therefore, the human being began to sin in the matter by which he departed from God. For it is written that “the beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord.” And in another place, “Indeed those who are far from you will perish; you put an end to those who are false to you.” Therefore, they who are far from God and are false to him indeed perish by sinning through their evil will that is not from God. God will destroy them by his just judgments as is proper to God. For God would not destroy them by his judgment, unless they had perished through their iniquities. For it is written, “How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.”

To whom it is answered that in this life he received his good things, because he considered all his joy to be transitory happiness. For the just can have good things here, and yet not receive them as recompense, because while they seek better things, that is eternal things, whatever good things may have been present, in their judgment, when they burn with holy desires, they seem hardly good at all. Hence the prophet David, who was supported by the riches of his kingdom and many attendants, although he perceived that these things were good for necessity, nevertheless panted with longing for one singular good alone, saying: "But for me, to cling to God is good."

But, if there are any who say that sins are only superficially put away in baptism, what can be more against the faith than such preaching, whereby they would fain undo the very sacrament of faith, wherein principally the soul is bound to the mystery of heavenly cleanness, that, being completely absolved from all sins, it may cleave to Him alone of Whom the Prophet says, "But it is good for me to cleave to God"? For certainly the passage of the Red Sea was a figure of holy baptism, in which the enemies behind died, but others were found in front in the wilderness. And so to all who are bathed in holy baptism all their past sins are remitted, since their sins die behind them even as did the Egyptian enemies. But in the wilderness we find other enemies, since, while we live in this life, before reaching the country of promise, many temptations harass us, and hasten to bar our way as we are wending to the land of the living. Whosoever says, then, that sins are not entirely put away in baptism, let him say that the Egyptians did not really die in the Red Sea. But, if he acknowledges that the Egyptians really died, he must needs acknowledge that sins die entirely in baptism, since surely the truth avails more in our absolution than the shadow of the truth. In the Gospel the Lord says, "He that is washed needeth not to wash, but is clean every whit." If, therefore, sins are not entirely put away in baptism, how is he that is washed clean every whit? For he cannot be said to be clean every whit, if he has any sin remaining. But no one can resist the voice of the Truth, "He that is washed is clean every whit." Nothing, then, of the contagion of sin remains to him whom He Himself who redeemed him declares to be clean every whit.

What is so finite and limited as a fulfilling [of the law]? Therefore, whatever you do, do it for the love of Christ, and let the intention or end of all your actions look to him. Do nothing for the sake of human praise, but everything for love of God and the desire for eternal life. Then you will see the end of all perfection, and when you have reached it you will wish for nothing more. When the psalm is read and you hear, “Unto the end, a psalm of David,” do not understand it except as Christ, for the apostle says, “Christ is the consummation of the law for the achievement of justice.” If you come to anything else, pass beyond it until you reach the end. What is the end? “But for me, to be near God is my good.” Have you adhered to God? You have finished your journey and will remain in your true country.

If the historical allusions of Psa 74:6-8, &c., be referred, as is probable, to the period of the captivity, the author was probably a descendant and namesake of Asaph, David's contemporary and singer (compare Ch2 35:15; Ezr 2:41). He complains of God's desertion of His Church, and appeals for aid, encouraging himself by recounting some of God's mighty deeds, and urges his prayer on the ground of God's covenant relation to His people, and the wickedness of His and their common enemy. (Psa. 74:1-23) cast . . . off--with abhorrence (compare Psa 43:2; Psa 44:9). There is no disavowal of guilt implied. The figure of fire to denote God's anger is often used; and here, and in Deu 29:20, by the word "smoke," suggests its continuance. sheep . . . pasture--(Compare Psa 80:1; Psa 95:7).