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COMMENTARY ON PSALM 135 Alleluia. A Song ofthe Steps. HIS IS ANOTHER HYMN of praise, offered to God in fact by those who had attained freedom. We have already made a comment on "Alleluia."I Praise the name ofthe Lord, praise the Lord, you his servants (v. 1). Since the divine nature is invisible and yet he bids [them] sing its praises, he was right to say, Praise the name of the Lord. Be content with God's title , he is saying, and do not seek to see what it is not proper to see. You who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts ofthe house ofour God (v. 2). Freed from slavery of Babylonians, he is saying, and enjoying the splendor of the divine halls, sing the praises of the provider of these good things. Praise the Lord, because the Lord is good (v. 3): make the goodness of the one you praise the occasion for hymn singing. Sing to his name, because it is good: much benefit also comes to you from that. (2) Then he makes mention of the favors conferred on them. Because the Lord has chosenJacob for himself, Israelfor his own possession (v. 4). Symmachus, on the other hand, put it this way, "and Israel as his chosen." He accorded them greater attention, he is saying, styled them his own people, and though having care ofall people, [1916] he was mindful of them in a different way. Blessed Moses also said this: "When the Most High apportioned nations, as he separated Adam's sons, he established nations ' boundaries according to the number of God's messengers ; Jacob became the Lord's portion, his people, Israel his 1. Cf. opening of commentary on Ps Ill. This opening comment also suggests that Theodoret's text does in fact have a title reading "A Song of the Steps" like the others, unlike the Hebrew and other forms of the LXX. This would have encouraged in the commentator a like conciseness, and so the liturgical character of the hymn is not developed in commentary. 315 316 THEODORET OF CYRUS allotted inheritance."2 Because I know the Lord is great, and our Lord is above all the gods (v. 5). We have learned from experience itself, he is saying, the strength of our God, and the fact that in no way the gods adored by the other nations will be able to be compared with him: nothing, anything which really does not exist is comparable with the one who is and always has been. (3) Then he gives a glimpse of the power of God from creation . Whatever the Lord wished he did in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in all the depths (v. 6). What has been made is a measure not of his power but of his will: he was capable of creating more and much greater things than these, but his will was for this number and kind. Yet all are of his making, heaven and heavenly beings, earth and earthly beings, sea and what is in it. He calls depths the boundless mass of water, and spoke of seas in the plural since one sea is divided into many oceans-Atlantic gulf, Ocean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Aegean, Arabian, Indian, Euxine sea, Propontis, Hellespont, and the other seas more numerous than the aforementioned.s Bringing down clouds from the end of the earth (v. 7). The waters that naturally fall, in fact, are drawn up by the divine Word to become elevated, watering the whole continent; but he said they are !nought down from the end of the earth since they are composed of sea water, the ocean gulfs being the boundaries of the earth. He made lightning flashes for rain. He gives prior mention to the provision of rain through lightning flashes, and shows the most baffling of all marvels: a fire of lightning flashes coursing through water neither heats it nor is itself extinguished by it. Bringing out winds from his storehouses . By winds' storehouses he does not mean some kind of deposits ; rather, since the air is free of wind and the divine will without difficulty frequently moves it merely by willing to, he spoke of a storehouse ofwinds: once he wishes it, they come from all directions. (4) Mter giving a glimpse in this way of the creation and 2. Deut 32.8-g. Theodoret has no qualms about outlining the privileges of Israel as chosen people, though...

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