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COMMENTARY ON PSALM 11 To the end. A psalm of David. ursued by saul, the divine david uttered this psalm to those urging him to secure his salvation by flight. It is suitable, however, for every wronged person placing their hope in God. Now, “To the end” occurs in the title for the reason that it contains prophecy of God’s righteous judgment and the punishment to be imposed on the lawless.1 In the Lord I trust: how will you say to my soul, Move to the mountains like a sparrow? (v. 1). Why on earth, he is saying, do you urge me to flee and take to the mountains like a frightened sparrow, and transfer my dwelling there, having though I do firm hope in God and on that account being unafraid of hostile people? (2) Because, lo, the sinners have bent the bow, [940] they have prepared arrows for the quiver to shoot in the dark at the upright of heart (v. 2). Now, some linked this to the preceding verses,2 but what follows does not allow it: he adds, Because what you completed they laid low (v. 2). Now, from this we learn that the inspired author directed his words to God, employing a petition and teaching that both the arrows and the spears of the enemies were in readiness, and their purpose was to make use of lairs and ambushes against us as though on some dark and moonless night; by the dark, you see, he referred to the secrecy and furtiveness of the plot, the term suggesting a moonless night. He also spoke of upright in heart, not testifying to his own elevated virtue but 99 1. A rationalizing comment made necessary by Theodoret’s failure to recognize the titles as liturgical directions. He arrived at this meaning for the phrase at its first occurrence on Ps 4. 2. Theodoret is credited with acquaintance with and even reliance on the work of earlier commentators (see Introduction, section 4) and we shall shortly note his dependence; Guinot sees the hand of Diodore in this case. But, as we have seen from his preface, he can have his own views. knowing that he had never done anything to harm Saul, and instead had consistently dealt with him with the greatest good will. Because what you completed they laid low: far from seizing kingship, he is saying, I was elected by your grace. But they take up arms in defiance of your choice, and strive to undo me. (3) But what did the righteous man do? The Lord is in his holy temple , the Lord, his throne is in heaven. His eyes behold the world, his gaze examines the sons of men. The Lord examines the righteous and the godless (vv. 3–5). So while they practice their evil ways against me, you, the righteous Judge, seated on your heavenly throne and making your own special appearance in the Temple on earth, view the whole world, though sufficient for you is a mere glance of your eyes to learn about all human affairs. You know precisely the doings of the righteous and the unrighteous, and you measure out repayment for work done. Now, it must be acknowledged that he refers to eyes, eyelids, thrones, and other such things in rather bodily fashion to teach human beings divine realities from human things, giving the names of human faculties to the divine operations.3 He who loves unrighteousness hates his own soul. He who loves his soul hates unrighteousness, whereas he who is well disposed to the latter brings ruin on his soul, drawing down divine wrath, about which the inspired word goes into details. (4) Because on sinners he will rain down snares, fire and sulphur, and blast of a storm (v. 6).4 From what had happened previously in the region of Sodom he forms a description of the punishments; the Lord reigned down on those cities fire and sulphur from heaven from the Lord, remember.5 So here too he threatened 100 THEODORET OF CYRUS 3. An Antiochene could not let pass without comment and instruction the highly anthropomorphic expression of these verses. Characteristically, Theodoret is pithy even on such matters, whereas Chrysostom would spell out the risk to divine transcendence in such linguistic accommodation, or synkatabasis. 4. For the “snares” of the LXX Dahood suggests the Hebrew could better be rendered “bellows” (Dahood, Psalms I, 70). Theodoret is strangely silent on what must have...

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