The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^30. In the next place there follows, “And He led them into the mountain of His sanctification”. How much better into Holy Church! “The mountain which His right hand has gotten.” How much higher is the Church which Christ has gotten, concerning whom has been said, “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”. “And He cast forth from the face of them the nations.” And from the face of His faithful. For nations in a manner are the evil spirits of Gentile errors. “And by lot He divided unto them the land in the cord of distribution.” And in us “all things one and the same Spirit does work, dividing severally to every one as He wills.”

31. “And He made to dwell in their tabernacles the tribes of Israel.” In the tabernacles, he says, of the Gentiles He made the tribes of Israel to dwell, which I think can better be explained spiritually, inasmuch as unto celestial glory, whence sinning angels have been cast forth and cast down, by Christ's grace we are being uplifted. For that generation crooked and embittering, inasmuch as for these corporal blessings they put not off the coat of oldness, “Did tempt” yet, “and provoked the high God, and His testimonies they kept not: and they turned them away, and they kept not the covenant, like their fathers”. For under a sort of covenant and decree they said, “All things which our Lord God has spoken we will do, and we will hear.” It is a remarkable thing indeed which he says, “like their fathers:” while throughout the whole text of the Psalm he was seeming to speak of the same men as it were, yet now it appears that the words did concern those who were already in the land of promise, and that the fathers spoken of were of those who did provoke in the desert. “They were turned,” he says, “into a crooked,” or, as some copies have it, “into a perverse bow”. But what this is does better appear in that which follows, where he says, “And unto wrath they provoked Him with their hills”. It does signify that they leaped into idolatry. The bow then was perverted, not for the name of the Lord, but against the name of the Lord: who said to the same people, “You shall have none other Gods but Me.” But by the bow He does signify the mind's intention. This same idea, lastly, more clearly working out, “And in their graven idols,” he says, “they provoked Him to indignation.”

32. “God heard, and He despised:” that is, He gave heed and took vengeance. “And unto nothing He brought Israel exceedingly”. For when God despised, what were they who by God's help were what they were? But doubtless he is commemorating the doing of that thing, when they were conquered by the Philistines in the time of Heli the priest, and the Ark of the Lord was taken, and with great slaughter they were laid low. This it is that he speaks of. “And He rejected the tabernacle of Selom, His tabernacle, where He dwelled among men”. He has elegantly explained why He rejected His tabernacle, when he says, “where He dwelled among men.” When therefore they were not worthy for Him to dwell among, why should He not reject the tabernacle, which indeed not for Himself He had established, but for their sakes, whom now He judged unworthy for Him to dwell among. “And He gave over unto captivity their strength, and their beauty unto the hands of the enemy.” The very Ark whereby they thought themselves invincible, and whereon they plumed themselves, he calls their “virtue” and “beauty.” Lastly, also afterward, when they were living ill, and boasting of the temple of the Lord, He does terrify them by a Prophet, saying, “See ye what I have done to Selom, where was My tabernacle.” “And He ended with the sword His people, and His inheritance He despised”. “Their young men the fire devoured:” that is, wrath. “And their virgins mourned not”. For not even for this was there leisure, in fear of the foe. “Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows were not lamented”. For there fell by the sword the sons of Heli, of one of whom the wife being widowed, and presently dying in child-birth, because of the same confusion could not be mourned with the distinction of a funeral. “And the Lord was awakened as one sleeping”. For He seems to sleep, when He gives His people into the hands of those whom He hates, when there is said to them, “Where is your God?” “He was awakened, then, like one sleeping, like a mighty man drunken with wine.” No one would dare to say this of God, save His Spirit. For he has spoken, as it seems to ungodly men reviling; as if like a drunken man He sleeps long, when He succours not so speedily as men think.

33. “And He smote His enemies in the hinder parts”: those, to wit, who were rejoicing that they were able to take His Ark: for they were smitten in their back-parts. Which seems to me to be a sign of that punishment, wherewith a man will be tortured, if he shall have looked back upon things behind; which, as says the Apostle, he ought to value as dung. For they that do so receive the Testament of God, as that they put not off from them the old vanity, are like the hostile nations, who did place the captured Ark of the Testament beside their own idols. And yet those old things even though these be unwilling do fall: for “all flesh is hay, and the glory of man as the flower of hay. The hay has dried up, and the flower has fallen off:” but the Ark of the Lord “abides for everlasting,” to wit, the secret testament of the kingdom of Heaven, where is the eternal Word of God. But they that have loved things behind, because of these very things most justly shall be tormented. For “everlasting reproach He has given to them.”.

34. “And He rejected,” he says, “the tabernacle of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim He chose not”. “And He chose the tribe of Judah”. He has not said, He rejected the tabernacle of Reuben, who was the first-born son of Jacob; nor them that follow, and precede Judah in order of birth; so that they being rejected and not chosen, the tribe of Judah was chosen. For it might have been said that they were deservedly rejected; because even in the blessing of Jacob wherewith he blessed his sons, he mentions their sins, and deeply abhors them; though among them the tribe of Levi merited to be the priestly tribe, whence also Moses was. Nor has he said, He rejected the tabernacle of Benjamin, or the tribe of Benjamin He chose not, out of which a king already had begun to be; for thence there had been chosen Saul; whence because of the very proximity of the time, when he had been rejected and refused, and David chosen, this might conveniently have been said; but yet was not said: but he has named those especially who seemed to excel for more surpassing merits. For Joseph fed in Egypt his father and his brethren, and having been impiously sold, because of his piety, chastity, wisdom, he was most justly exalted; and Ephraim by the blessing of his grandfather Jacob was preferred before his elder brother: and yet God “rejected the tabernacle of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim He chose not.” In which place by these names of renowned merit, what else do we understand but that whole people with old cupidity requiring of the Lord earthly rewards, rejected and refused, but the tribe of Judah chosen not for the sake of the merits of that same Judah? For far greater are the merits of Joseph, but by the tribe of Judah, inasmuch as thence arose Christ according to the flesh, the Scripture does testify of the new people of Christ preferred before that old people, the Lord opening in parables His mouth. Moreover, thence also in that which follows, “the Mount Sion which He chose,” we do better understand the Church of Christ, not worshipping God for the sake of the carnal blessings of the present time, but from afar looking for future and eternal rewards with the eyes of faith: for Sion too is interpreted a “looking out.”