Psalm 10 — In the Lord I put my trust

^10:1^ Unto the end. A psalm for David. ^10:2^ In the Lord I put my trust; how then do you say to my soul, “Fly to the mountain like a sparrow?” ^10:3^ For, lo, the wicked have bent their bow; they have prepared their arrows in the quiver to shoot in the dark the upright of heart. ^10:4a^ For they have destroyed the things which you have made,

^10:4b^ but what has the just man done? ^10:5a^ The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven.

^10:5b^ His eyes look on the poor man. His eyelids examine the sons of men. ^10:6a^ The Lord tries the just and the wicked,

^10:6b^ but he who loves iniquity hates his own soul. ^10:7^ He shall rain snares upon sinners; fire and brimstone and storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup. ^10:8^ For the Lord is just, and has loved justice; his countenance has beheld righteousness.

83. In the preceding psalms, thanksgiving for deliverance from enemies was described; here he shows the trust engendered by it. And he speaks in the person of a man desiring the favors of God which come from such security.

The title is unto the end. A psalm for David. Jerome has, victor. This was explained above.

This psalm can be explained about David according to the literal sense, but in the mystical or allegorical senses it is about Christ. It can be explained according to the moral sense about the just man and the heretics, as the gloss explains it. (Peter Lombard, Magna glossatura (Patrologia Latina [Migne], 191:147).)

David first describes his trust: in the Lord I put my trust, as though he has been delivered through the just judgment of God, who humbles sinners and exalts the poor. Blessed be the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord shall be his confidence (Jer 17:7). There is no shame for those who trust in you (Dan 3:40).

Second, he describes the attack on his trust, which elicits the words, how then do you say to my soul? For some counseled David, who was fleeing, to go to a fortified place in the mountains or to hide there like a sparrow would do.

How? For, lo, the wicked have bent their bow. And this is explained in two ways.

First, that the words are not David’s but others to him, as if to say, “Therefore, fly because they have bent their bow.”

Or they are words of David, as if he says, “**In the Lord I put my trust . . . for they have bent their bow; the wicked have prepared their arrows.”

And he makes three points.

First, he describes their depraved concern;

second, their perverse intention: to shoot;

and third, their unjust action: for they have destroyed the things which you have made.

Mystically it applies to Christ in this way: I, Christ, trust in the Lord; how, therefore, do you Pharisees say, “Fly to the mountain,” that is, to the observation of the law given on Mount Sinai? The Lord came from Sinai, and from Seir he rose up to us (Deut 33:2). And unless you do this, lo, the wicked have bent their bow, that is, they have prepared themselves to kill you and your disciples: for they have destroyed, that is, they have killed, the things which you have made.

Or, in the moral sense, the faithful one says this about the heretics, according to the gloss. (Peter Lombard, Magna glossatura (Patrologia Latina [Migne], 191:147).) In the Lord I put my trust, holding to his faith; how, therefore, do you heretics say to my soul, “Fly, to us, to the mountain,” that is, Christ, whom the heretics believed they had? The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared on the top of mountains (Isa 2:2). You mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew, nor rain come upon you, neither be they fields of first fruits, for there was cast away the shield of the valiant (2 Sam 1:21).

It is the mountain of the Jews or of the great heretics. Behold, I come against you, you destroying mountain, which corrupts the whole earth (Jer 51:25).

Or it is the mountain of the height of the intellect which they pretend to have. But if I should do this I would be a flighty sparrow, not a house sparrow.

For, lo, the wicked, that is, the heretics, have bent their bow, that is, they have warped the Sacred Scriptures to their own meaning, like those who bend a bow: they have prepared arrows, poisoned speech, in the quiver, that is, in memory or knowledge. Their quiver is as an open sepulcher (Jer 5:16).

Jerome has, their arrows are over the bowstring, that is, the string, with a perverse intention, to shoot the upright of heart, that is, the just, in the dark, that is, deceitfully. Their tongue is a piercing arrow (Jer 9:8).

Or it is in the dark, that is, with the subtleties of Sacred Scripture.

Another text has, in the dark moon. (Peter Lombard, Magna glossatura (Patrologia Latina [Migne], 191:148).) The moon is the Church, fair as the moon (Song 6:9) because of its brightness and because of its darkness. As the brightness of the moon is from the sun, so the brightness of the Church is from Christ. (Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms 10.3 (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, 38:75).) That was the true light, which enlightens every man (John 1:9). Also, just as half of the circle of the moon is bright and half is dark, so in the Church some are bright and some are dark.

Now, according to the gloss, the moon is sometimes darkened by its revolving, and then it is dark; sometimes it is darkened by an eclipse, and then it is turned to blood; and sometimes it is darkened by being blocked by clouds, and then it is black. (Peter Lombard, Magna glossatura (Patrologia Latina [Migne], 191:149).) So the Church was dark in its beginning because the preachers and doctors were not yet in it; it is bloody red through persecution by tyrants; and black because of clouds (that is, the seduction of heretics), and then he desires to shoot.

Here their unjust action is described: for they have destroyed the things which you have made. Another text has, whom you have made, but the first is better. And according to Jerome it is: for they have destroyed the laws which you have made. I know that transgressing you will transgress, and I have called you a transgressor from the womb (Isa 48:8). Of old time you have broken my yoke, you have burst my bands, and you said, “I will not serve” (Jer 2:20), as if to say, “They have destroyed your law, which you commanded us to obey.” The innocent and just person you shall not put to death (Exod 23:7), but they desire to kill him. The wicked have dissipated your law (Ps 118:126).

And God made it, since he gave it. He has not made in like manner for every nation (Ps 147:9). I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17).

If it says, they have destroyed whom you have made, it should be understood about Christ, whom you have made.

84. But what has the just man done? Here he puts down the reason for trust.

First, he gives the question;

second, the solution, at the Lord is in his temple;

third, he gives the reason for the solution, at the Lord is just, and has loved justice.

Therefore, he says, they act in this way; but what does the just Lord do with authority when he sees this? This is the name that they shall call him: the Lord our just one (Jer 33:16). He answers the question and describes what the just one does here.

First, he explains his power of judging or the situation of the judge;

second, the examination of the judge: his eyes look;

third, the condemnation of those examined: for he who loves.

If a judge always punishes he is cruel; if he always pardons he is remiss. Now God does both, and so his tribunal of mercy has a place, which is the temple: let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of grace (Heb 4:16), and so he says, the Lord is in his holy temple. Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16).

He also has a place of justice from which he punishes, namely heaven: the Lord’s throne is in heaven. This is where his power is considered to be. Heaven is my throne (Isa 66:1).

The faithful are called a temple because of their devotion and heaven because of their wisdom.

Also, heaven is said to be the cradle of the soul in which God sits, so that he makes him be a heaven—that is, one who knows secrets. Likewise, the soul is called the temple of God because God is adored in the temple as he is in the soul of the faithful. Enter into your chamber, that is, the secret of your soul, and having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret (Matt 6:6). Likewise, here sacrifices are offered, and they are also offered in the soul of the faithful. A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit (Ps 50:19). Likewise, just as prayers are poured forth to God in the temple, so also God acts in the soul. You have wrought all our works in us (Isa 26:12). Likewise, God sanctifies it and descends into it, just as he does into the temple. The grace of God is with his saints, and his respect (Wis 4:15).

85. His eyes look. Here he begins to treat judgment.

And first, he describes the perfection of the divine knowledge;

second, its careful examination, at his eyelids examine the sons of men;

and third, the equity of his judgment, at the Lord tries the just and the wicked.

Nothing can be hidden from the first, since he sees the disposition of the poor and of the wicked, of the sinner and of the just. The eyes of the Lord are far brighter than the sun, beholding round about all the ways of men, and the bottom of the deep, and looking into the hearts of men (Sir 23:28). All the ways of a man are open to his eyes; the Lord is the weigher of spirits (Prov 16:2), that is, of thoughts or of souls, according to the gloss. (Glossa Interlinearis, at Prov 16:2.) And so he says, have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am afflicted (Ps 30:10). Likewise: the Lord is my protector, in him has my heart hoped (Ps 27:7).

He also looks upon him to protect him by testing: the eyes of the Lord are upon the just (Ps 33:16). Likewise: in this way, in which you shall go I will fix my eyes upon you (Ps 31:8).

And so, watching him, he examines him carefully: his eyelids examine the sons of men.

By eyelids, discernment is signified, since just as the eyelids direct the sight, so discernment orders human wisdom. Let your eyelids go before your steps (Prov 4:25).

Therefore, the discernment of God examines him, that is, it probes and tests. Inquisition shall be made into the thoughts of the ungodly and the hearing of his words shall come to God (Wis 1:9).

And how? He sometimes punishes and sometimes pardons; he sometimes gives good things and sometimes takes them away. The arrows of the Lord are in me (Job 6:4). For he closes his eyelids and opens them. I have compassion upon the multitude (Matt 15:32). The kingdom of God shall be taken from you (Matt 21:43). Who gives to beasts their food (Ps 146:9).

His eyelids examine the sons of men, since by them some are made better, some worse; or some are made bad by the Scriptures and some good, since some understand them well and are not wearied by them but strengthened, but the opposite happens to the evil.

The equity of his judgment is described: the Lord tries the just and the wicked, since he sends his scourges upon the just and the unjust, and he gives temporal goods to the good and to the evil. You did admonish and try them, namely, the good, as a father, but the others, namely the evil, as a severe king, you did examine and condemn (Wis 11:11). So he says, the Lord tries the just and the wicked, that is, he tries them through tribulations. Gregory: by inflicting punishments, he questions whether someone in tribulation truly loves God.

He tries the just, that is, the Lord examines him to reward him. God rendered to his saints the wages of their labors (Wis 10:17). But he tries the wicked and the sinful to condemn them. Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness (Matt 23:13).

86. He describes their condemnation, and he discusses two aspects of it:

first, describing their guilt;

second, their punishment: he shall rain upon sinners.

He shows that the destruction of the evil does not come from God but from us, so he says, he who loves iniquity, that is, sin. Whoever commits sin also commits iniquity, because sin is iniquity (1 John 3:4). He hates his own soul. A man kills his own soul through malice (Wis 16:14).

But it is asked, how can one hate himself? It must be said that the sinner does hate himself in some respect, but he does not hate himself simply. (Cf. ST II-II, q. 25, a. 7.) No man ever hated his own flesh (Eph 5:29).

Now, that the evil do hate themselves in some respect and that the good also hate themselves in some way is explained this way: our soul has two faces, one turned to God by reason, another turned to the flesh according to the sensitive nature, which grasps only bodily things. And just as each thing loves its own proper good, so the man loves that which he understands his soul to be. For sinners consider their soul to be that to which it primarily inclines, since each thing is that which is primary in it, as the kingdom is called the king. Therefore, he who holds his sensitive nature to be primary loves it, but he who holds the intellectual as primary loves that. Therefore, no one hates his soul in regard to that which he considers primary. Therefore, the good hate the sensitive nature, but the evil hate the intellectual nature.

Second, he describes the punishment. And we can explain this as being about the present or about the future.

The metaphor helps show how it is about the present. He says that the Lord is in heaven since his throne is there; but rain comes from heaven, and so when he says, he shall rain snares upon sinners, he signifies his punishment. And what is it? Snares.

And if this is explained in regard to the present, it should be noted that there are four aspects of sin.

First is seduction; so he says, he shall rain snares upon sinners. It is as if the just judge allows them to be snared and seduced. And very many of them shall stumble and fall, and shall be broken in pieces, and shall be snared, and taken (Isa 8:15).

Second is the desire, and so he mentions the fire of concupiscence. Fire has fallen on them, and they shall not see the sun (Ps 57:9), namely, of carnal desire.

Third is the foul odor of infamy, and so he says, brimstone. So the Lord rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah.

A fourth can be added, namely, restlessness of mind, and so he says, storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup. The heart of the wicked is like the raging sea (Isa 57:20).

It is the portion of their cup, since a cup is a certain measure, and these have punishments in accordance with their sins. In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, you shall judge it (Isa 27:8).

But if it is explained about the future, they are punished in regard to their movement, since they will be bound so that they can neither do evil nor seek the good, so he says, he shall rain snares upon sinners, that is, by binding their senses, and so they are brought to the smell of brimstone and the touch of fire. Their fire shall not be quenched (Isa 66:24). They were cast into the pool of fire (Rev 20:14). Their desires are also bound, since they do not rest, since storms of winds shall be the portion of their cup, that is, restless, disturbing, and afflicting demons.

For the Lord is just, and has loved justice, and so nothing but justice should be expected from him. I am the Lord who exercises mercy, and judgment, and justice in the earth (Jer 9:24). The Lord is just in all his ways (Ps 145:17).

His countenance has beheld righteousness, or his face has—that is equity is seen to be his notice, as if to say, “To those whom he has known and those he has loved, he shows equity.”