The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^22. Because then, though having become a beast, I departed not from my God, there follows, “You have held the hand of my right hand.” He has not said my right hand, but “the hand of my right hand.” If the hand of the right hand it is, a hand has a hand. “The hand You have held of my right hand,” in order that You might conduct me. For what has he put hand? For power. For we say that a man has that in his hand which he has in his power: just as the devil said to God concerning Job, “Lay to Your hand, and take away the things which he has.” What is, lay to Your hand? Put forth power. The hand of God he has called the power of God: as has been written in another place, “death and life are in the hands of the tongue.” Hath the tongue hands? But what is, in the hands of the tongue? In the power of the tongue. What is, in the power of the tongue? “Out of your mouth you shall be justified, and out of your mouth you shall be condemned.” “You have held,” therefore, “the hand of my right hand,” the power of my right hand. What was my right hand? That I was always with You. Unto the left I was holding, because I became a beast, that is, because there was an earthly concupiscence in me: but the right was mine, because I was always with you. Of this my right hand You have held the hand, that is, hast directed the power. What power? “He gave them power to become sons of God.” He is beginning now to be among the sons of God, belonging to the New Testament. See in what manner the hand of his right hand was held. “In Your will You have conducted me.” What is, “in your will”? Not in my merits. What is, “in Your will”? Hear the apostle, who was at first a beast longing for things earthly, and living after the Old Testament. He says what? “I that at first was a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious: but mercy I obtained.” What is, “in Your will”? “By the grace of God I am what I am.” “And in glory You have taken me up.” Now to what glory he was taken up, and in what glory, who can explain, who can say? Let us await it, because in the Resurrection it will be, in the last things it will be.