Divine Provision and the End of the Wicked

It is from God, just as Paul boldly said that God will award him the crown of righteousness on that day, the righteous judge. For abundant things toward life are supplied from God (Ps 35:10a), without which being supplied, life would be destroyed.

It is illuminated (Ps 35:10b), he says, by the light from heaven by the one having set the sun into the light of day; but these indeed are for common use by both the righteous and the unrighteous, upon which also the thing of philanthropy was marveled, not being separated from the ungrateful of the enjoyment of those from God, but the exceptional thing is already and specifically of the ones belonging to God.

He is exhorted to receive God by those being silent, not being troubled by the things present but hoping in the things coming according to the apostolic teaching: rejoicing in hope, enduring in affliction (Ps 36:7), and the thing of Jeremiah: the Good one to a man when he takes up a yoke in his youth. He shall sit alone and be silent, he will give the stumbling one a muzzle, he will be filled with reproaches. He commands to look far off and not to be astonished by the things present (Ps 36:12), and to foresee indeed the destruction of the wicked, but the dominion of the good; and these indeed also at the end, that is to say, in the coming age, since the present does not have the outcomes of these, but rather the things in the earth are prevailed upon by the wicked. Therefore also the whole, he says, the world lies in the wicked.

He says they move the wicked themselves according to themselves what is prepared against the righteous (Ps 36:13), as if someone having drawn a sword might be slain by it, and the plot would be in vain just as a bow is being broken by the hand of the archer. And upon David, and bodily this has been fulfilled, to strike David with his own sword which they drew against David. Such a praise from the prophecy (Ps 36:17): to flee indeed from evil, but to practice the deed of the good upon the hope of eternal quiet, and a calculation upon the matter that the Overseer is righteous and does not overstep the ones belonging to Him.

Comparing a body suffering much, he likens it to the many pains and much suffering of the Psalmist, just as it is also in Isaiah, where from the feet even to the head there is no wholeness in him, but only a wound and a bruise of the consuming wrath (Ps 37:4; Isa 1:6). These are therefore the signs of wrath, while sins are the pretext of wrath, so that the sufferings lead to the sensation of sins; and in this way they benefit souls, just as bodies are being moved from insensibility into sensation.

The departure of friends and the rising up of enemies is seen (Ps 37:12), which is also observed in the sufferings of the Savior: through the fear of the disciples being scattered, and through all the bitterness and malice of the wicked used against him, which also fulfilled the silence spoken of there. He says that, having the right to answer the slandering ones, but knowing that the word was not for benefit, he bore the false sayings without returning evil (Ps 37:14). He acted as one not hearing and as one not having the power to rebuke: for what would he have said or answered? For to those not listening, the word is useless, but to God who hears, it is useful.

Men would not say these things on behalf of themselves, but Christ, instead of men, to men—a righteous one suffering from the unrighteous, taking their injustice upon himself—would say: 'Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?' (Ps 37:22) and 'Do not forsake me' and 'Do not depart from me' (Ps 37:23), as if this were impossible for him. For he says, 'I am not alone, since my Father is with me.' He asks for the salvation of men as his own, having something in the petition appropriate to the mixture of divinity with the human (this was the passion inherent in the flesh), but also having the dignity of the resurrected nature, by which he fulfilled the requirements of the petition.

And hearing, he says, the bold and insulting words of the enemy, and seeing the authority of the words used by one who ought not even to speak, he was moved on behalf of the dishonored righteousness (Ps 38:4). He says that he has no worthy expectation in himself, but waits for God's and yours, enduring in the present pains in hope of future goods (Ps 38:8). He says that he bears insults now without answering, as if knowing that God intended to strip him with insults, just as David himself brought this upon himself, being insulted by Zemaiah, saying that the Lord had said that David should be cursed (Ps 38:9). He speaks of the eternal waiting of the righteous upon himself and the...