3. Ps..cxin. 5: 4 Ps. CxXxXv. 15. 7 Isa. lili. 1. 8 en, xxxvii, 28. (continued)
PSALMS. 365
PsaLm LXXVII] ON THE him into Egypt, when sold into Egypt, toiled, was humbled ; when made known and exalted, flourished, reigned. And by all these things he hath signified what? What but Christ sold by His brethren, banished from His own land, as it were into the Egypt of the Gentiles? There at first humbled, when the Martyrs were suffering persecutions: now exalted, as we see; inasmuch as there hath been fulfilled in Him, "There shall adore Him all kinds of the earth, all nations shall serve Him." ' Therefore Joseph is the people of the Gentiles, but Israel the people of the Hebrew nation. God hath redeemed His people, 'the sons of Israel and of Joseph." By means of what? By means of the corner stone,? wherein the two walls have been joined together.
the word of God is both an arrow because it doth smite; and rain because it doth water. Let no one therefore any longer wonder at the troubling of the abysses, when '' Thine arrows have gone through." What is, "have gone through"? They have not stopped in the ears, but they have pierced the heart. 'The voice of Thy thunder is in the wheel" (ver. 18). What is this? How are we to understand it? May the Lord give aid. When boys we were wont to imagine, whenever we heard thunderings from Heaven, that carriages were going forth as it were from the stables. For thunder doth make a sort of rolling like carriages. Must we return to these boyish thoughts, in order to understand, " the voice of Thy thunder is in the wheel," as though God hath certain carriages in the clouds, and the passing along of the carriages doth raise that sound? Far be it. This is boyish, vain, trifling. What is then, " The voice of Thy thunder is in the wheel"? Thy voice rolleth. Not even this do I understand. What shall we do? Let us question Idithun himself, to see whether perchance he may himself explain what he hath said: '' The voice," he saith, "of Thy thunder is in the wheel." I do not understand. I will hear what thou sayest: "Thy lightnings have appeared to the round world." Say then, I had no understanding. The round world is a wheel.® For the circuit of the round world is with reason called also an "orb:" whence also a small wheel is called an "orbiculus." "The voice of Thy thunder is in the wheel:" Thy " lightnings have appeared to the round world." Those clouds in a wheel have gone about the round world, have gone about with thundering and with lightning, they have shaken the abyss, with commandments they have thundered, with miracles they have lightened. "Unto every land hath gone forth the sound of them, and unto the ends of the orb the words of them." 7 "The land hath been moved and made to tremble: " that is, all men that dwell in the land. But by a figure the land itself is sea. Why? Because all nations are called by the name of sea, inasmuch as human life is bitter, and exposed to storms and tempests. Moreover if thou observe this, how men devour one another like fishes, how the stronger doth swallow up the weaker — it is then a sea, unto it the Evangelists went.
17. And he continueth how? "The waters have seen Thee, O God, and they have feared: and the abysses have been troubled" (ver. 16). What are the waters? The peoples. What are these waters hath been asked in the Apocalypse,3 the answer was, the peoples. There we find most clearly waters put by a figure for peoples. But above he had said, " Thou hast made known in the peoples Thy virtue.'* With reason therefore, "the waters have seen Thee, and they have feared." They have been changed because they have feared. What are the abysses? The depths of waters. What man among the peoples is not troubled, when the conscience is smitten? 'Thou seekest the depth of the sea, what is deeper than human conscience? That is the depth which was troubled, when God redeemed with His arm His people. In what manner were the abysses troubled? When all men poured forth their consciences in confession.
18. In praises of God, in confessions of sins, in hymns and in songs, in prayers, "There is a multitude of the sound of waters. The clouds have uttered a voice" (ver. 17). Thence that sound of waters, thence the troubling of the abysses, because "the clouds have uttered a voice." What clouds? The preachers of the word of truth. What clouds? Those concerning which God doth menace a certain vineyard, which instead of grape had brought forth thorns, and He saith, "I will command My clouds, that they rain no rain upon it."5 In a word, the Apostles forsaking the Jews, went to the Gentiles: in preaching Christ among all nations, "the clouds have uttered a voice.'"' " For Thine arrows have gone through." Those same voices of the clouds He hath again called arrows. For the words of the Evangelists were arrows. For these things are allegories. For properly neither an arrow is rain; nor rain is an arrow: but yet
19. "Thy way is in the sea" (ver. 19). But now Thy way was in the Holy One, now "Thy way is in the sea:" because the Holy One Himself is in the sea, and with reason even did walk upon the waters of the sea.®
6 [No idea of a sphere, but of a plane, bounded by the encircling horizon, —C.
2 Eph. ii. 20, 5 Isa. v. 6. I Ps, Ixxii. 11. 3 Rey, xvii. 15. 4 Ps, Ixxvil. 14.
7 Ps, xix. 4. 8 Matt. xiv. 25.