The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^10. This levity, by which consent is easily given to what is evil, is followed by severe torment; therefore he proceeds:—

“Like as the fire that burns up the wood, and as the flame that consumes the mountains”: “so shall You persecute them with Your tempest, and in Your anger shall disturb them”. Wood, he says, for its barrenness, mountains for their loftiness; for such are the enemies of God's people, barren of righteousness, full of pride. When he says, “fire” and “flame,” he means to repeat under another term, the idea of God judging and punishing. But in saying, “with Your tempest,” he means, as he goes on to explain, “Your anger:” and the former expression, “You shall persecute,” answers to, “You shall disturb.” We must take care, however, to understand, that the anger of God is free from any turbulent emotion; for His anger is an expression for His just method of taking vengeance: as the law might be said to be angry when its ministers are moved to punish by its sanction.

11. “Fill their faces with shame, and they shall seek Your name, O Lord”. Good and desirable is this which he prophesies for them: and he would not prophesy thus, unless there were even in that company of the enemies of God's people, some men of such kind that this would be granted to them before the last judgment: for now they are mixed together, and this is the body of the enemies, in respect of the envy whereby they rival the people of God. And now, where they can, they make a noise and lift up their head: but severally, not universally as they will do at the end of the world, when the last judgment is about to fall. But it is the same body, even in those who out of this number shall believe and pass into another body (for the faces of these are filled with shame, that they may seek the name of the Lord), as well as in those others who persevere unto the end in the same wickedness, who are made as stubble before the wind, and are consumed like a wood and barren mountains. To these he again returns, saying, “They shall blush and be vexed for ever and ever”. For those are not vexed for ever and ever who seek the name of the Lord, but having respect unto the shame of their sins, they are vexed for this purpose, that they may seek the name of the Lord, through which they may be no more vexed.