Собеседование 3-е на псалом 13

Ps.13:1. The fool said in his heart: “There is no God” 1. When a master is insulted, a good slave, out of a sense of devotion to him, becomes indignant. In the same way, when God is rejected, the prophet of God admonishes the fool, saying what you heard: “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” Just as a slave, devoted to his master, having learned that his fellow slaves reject their master, out of a feeling of devotion, hastens to settle the matter and either punishes the impudent one with his own hands, or dishonors him, making him hated by everyone, or, to admonish and intimidate others, informs the master and tries to ensure that he suffers the most severe punishment, in a word, he takes up arms against the troubler, as against a real enemy, so the prophet, having learned that the Creator is being dishonored creation, that the potter is offended by clay and God is rejected by the godless, and, being struck in the very heart, exclaims from unbearable pain, “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” Look at the strict correspondence with the previous psalm. After the psalmist said there with displeasure: “How long, O Lord, will you forget me to the end?” (Ps. 12:2), and not much later: “How long will my enemy exalt himself over me?” (Ps. 12:3), – enemy, i.e. a fool who claims that there is no God (because he who exalts himself before God will exalt himself much more before the prophets of God, and he who is proud before the Lord will be proud before his fellow servants) - being asked: why does he suffer illness in his heart day and night? he answers with the following words: why do I have heart pain? because “the fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” I take the very communication with an atheist to be God’s turning away from me. I have to live with an atheist, and I consider this a sign that God has forgotten me, because the wickedness of the atheist is grief and torment for a saint. So it is said about Paul: “While waiting for them in Athens (Timothy and his companions), Paul was troubled in spirit at the sight of this city full of idols” (Acts 17:16). “Why do the wicked live” (Job 21:7)? Historically, it is known that this psalm was spoken by David about Saul - regarding his ventriloquism, just as the fifty-second psalm - with the same content - refers to Doik. Mad Saul said: “Find me a sorceress” (1 Samuel 28:7). He becomes the second Adam, we are seduced by a woman. And he says to her: “Turn it to me” (1 Samuel 28:8); leaving prophecy, he descends to divination. “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” Let us beware, brethren, lest we fall into ruin like a madman, confessing God in words and denying His deeds: calling Him good and merciful, but showing no mercy to the sick, the poor, or the oppressed. That one can deny God not only with words, but also with deeds, and, bearing the name of a Christian, say in the same way as a madman: “There is no God,” the Apostle testifies to this, saying: “They say that they know God, but by deeds they deny” (Titus 1:16). As far as deeds are stronger than words in terms of persuasiveness, it is so much harder to deny God in practice than to deny Him with your lips or in your heart. “Said the madman.” And he who says with his mouth: I will love You, Lord, and in his heart hates his brother, how does he love God, turning out to be disobedient to His words: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18)? The Lord says: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word” (John 14:23). This means that whoever does not comply does not love. He calls God with his lips, but says in his heart: “There is no God.” The Lord is the witness, saying: “He draws near to Me with his mouth, and honors Me with his tongue, but his heart is far from Me” (Is. 29:13). “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” That the one who hates his brother and hates God, even if he cried out with his lips and shouted that he loves God, the Evangelist John speaks about this in his epistle: “Whoever says: “I love God,” and hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20)? So, when such a person acknowledges God in words, without explicitly renouncing, he forges wickedness in the heart. “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” Confirming this idea, the prophet below says: “Will not all those who practice iniquity come to their senses,” confessing God in words and denying him with their deeds, “but eating My people as they eat bread?... Have they not called on the Lord” (Ps. 13:4). They confess and acknowledge God, but since they rejected Him by their deeds, when they called, they did not call. The Lord Himself said: Why do you call Me: “Lord! God! “And you do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)? “Everyone who sins has not seen Him” (1 John 3:6), says John. When virtue is driven out by sin, piety, the existence of which depends on the absence of sin, also declines. 2. Thus did the children of Eli, the sons of perdition, who did not know the Lord - not in the sense that they denied Him with their lips, but in the sense that they committed their shameful deeds in the Tabernacle. Likewise, moneylenders do not know God. He says: “By deceit they deny to know Me” (Jer. 9:6), - Me, who said: “If you lend money to the poor of My people, do not oppress him and do not impose an increase on him” ( Ex. 22:25), - “there is no God.” What about what comes after God? there is no "God". What about what is from God? "there is no God" How does every human language call God? Are all the myriads of people really mistaken when they affirm the existence of God, and the madman alone considers himself right, remaining alone in his lie? And whoever wants to dispute five or seven testimonies in wills, as soon as the matter comes before the court of truth, is exposed by comparison: how does one madman want to refute the universe, the language of all the peoples of the world? Isn’t he, in fact, pathetic and more senseless than himself? He is mad already because he rejects God, and even more mad because he is shameless. After all, although different peoples of the universe formed different concepts about God, no one shook the very foundation of the name. “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” There is no foundation, but how does the building stand? There is no bottom, what is the ship supported on? There is no shipbuilder, but how is a ship built? There is no builder, but what about the house? There is no architect, but who built the city? There is no farmer, but how do the fields bring in the harvest? There is no musician, but where does the harmony on the lyre of the world come from? There is no providence, but how is everything subject to providence? There is no charioteer, but how do the chariots of the four elements move? There is no sculptor, but how do people fill the world like living statues? There is no vault maker, but who spread the vault of heaven over you? There is no goldsmith, but who placed the sun in front of you in the sky, as if it were a dish of pure gold on a table? There is no maker of lamps, and who gave you the moon at night like a silver lamp? There is no light giver, but who gave you the luminaries that serve as the source of light and radiance? There is no one who creates the great lights, and who gave you the brilliance of the stars on high, as the prophet says: “He alone created the great lights,... the sun to rule the day, and the moon and stars... to rule the night” (Ps. 135:7-9)? There is no creator, but how does the beauty of a creature testify to the creatures: “for from the greatness of the beauty of creatures the Author of their existence is comparatively known” (Wis. 13:5)? “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” Everything that happens in the world, and is done and produced, has an establisher and a finisher, and only the world does not have a ruler? If there is no God, what are you doing in his domain? Do you remain in the house of God and do not recognize its owner? Either be grateful for the home, or leave home. Why do you disgrace the house by belching blasphemy? The psalmist here calls a madman not one who has lost his mind, a lunatic or a feeble-minded person, but a person corrupted by the mind, who has not lost the innate and common human reason, but who has lost one of the four virtues - reason, the lamp of the soul, the king of thoughts, the beautiful teacher, about whom the influx says: “Whoever acquires understanding loves his soul; he who observes prudence finds good” (Prov. 19:8); and in another place: “get wisdom, get understanding: do not forget this” (Prov. 4:5). Could he say to someone damaged in the main principle, who had lost his natural reason and whose mind had become petrified, “acquire wisdom, acquire reason”? Of course, someone who has lost a natural organ, even if he wishes, cannot acquire wisdom. And that the one who is called here a madman was not by nature devoid of mental gifts, pay attention to how strong he was in his intelligence: “There is no God” - he did not say with his tongue, did not babble with his lips, but hid evil in his heart, because he knew that by saying this out loud, he would be in danger, since at that time anyone who blasphemed God or denied him was stoned, as witnessed by Naboth, who was condemned for blasphemy. In order not to suffer this fate, the evil one imprinted his godlessness on his heart, making his heart a church of wickedness. “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” If he were feeble-minded and devoid of reason by nature, and would say this not only in his heart, but also with his lips: “there is no God,” then he would not be in danger either from God or from people, because if often a king, the driver of the universe, insulted by a madman and a fool, condescends, being merciful by nature - of course, not under the influence of anger - then even more so when a madman by nature blasphemes, neither God nor man takes up arms against him, but they indulge him as a man talking nonsense. Therefore, those possessed by demons or raging for blasphemy are not condemned. 3. And every worshiper of polytheism says: “There is no God,” because just as with polyandry (for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband) (John 4:18) (there is no husband), so polytheism is ungodly. The introduction of many gods is a denial of the one God. And that the polytheists are called ungodly, listen to what the Apostle writes to the Ephesians: “Remember that you, who were once pagans according to the flesh, who were called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision of the flesh, done with hands, that you were at that time without Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, had no hope and were without gods in the world” (Eph. 2:11-12). What kind of atheists are the Ephesians? From there are idols, there are statues; here is the guardian (of the church) Artemis, here is Demetrius the silversmith, making the golden churches of Artemis; there are so many gods, and how is it that after this the Ephesians are not godless? Yes, precisely because they are godless because, having chosen many gods for themselves, they fell away from the One. “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” From the first madman (this madness) passed on to his disciples. The first madman is the devil, he is the first distributor of madness, the first messenger of godlessness. “And you will be like gods” (Gen. 3:5). Speaking of many gods, he rejected the One. The Jewish people are also mad. In madness, he reviled the name of the Lord, saying about Christ that he was not God: “if He were a prophet, He would know who and what kind of woman touches Him, for she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). Those who did not recognize Him as a prophet, how could they recognize Him as God? “Who can forgive sins except God alone”? Christ: “Why do you think this way in your hearts?” (Mark 2:7–8)? “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” God is everywhere, but He is not in the heart of a fool. This is what God said to the synagogue: “You have ceased to remember and keep me in your heart, but you have thrown me back” (Is. 57 and 1 Kings 14:9). The first madman, having generated madness from himself, is the devil, because, being mad, he started an insane business; and the serpent was even the wisest. And what did he want? I wanted to be equal to God, saying: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God,... I will be like the Most High” (Is. 14:13–14). He rejected the name “God” and used the name “Almighty,” ashamed to name Him whom he did not recognize. Likewise, every ardent heretic - during persecution - talking with a bishop, does not call him either a bishop, or an archbishop, or a pious, or a saint, but how? Your honesty, your prudence, your prudence, your justice, and (other) general names are appended to him, avoiding the name peculiar to his rank. This is exactly what the devil did towards God then. “I will be like the Most High”: not God, but “the Most High.” And, please note, what an accurate accuser of the devil the prophet is here. “The fool said in his heart.” Didn't say: says, but: "said". One day he dared and said. And after, having said this, he was cast out of heaven as a rebel, he no longer dares to say this himself. After I once only said: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High,” and, rejecting God, tried to be God, cast down from above and trampled on by people below, I no longer dared to say: “There is no God,” but calls God feignedly and covertly. “Did God truly say: Do not eat from any tree?” (Gen. 3:1) “I know You who You are, the Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34). “These men are the servants of the Most High God” (Acts 16:17). So, having once expressed an ungodly thought, he no longer dared to express it, because he knew that he had suffered (for that). Not: “says” the madman, but: “the madman said in his heart: “There is no God.” He no longer says this directly and on his own, but said it “in his heart” and (speaks) through every ungodly person who is like him in mind and heart. He said through Pharaoh: “I do not know the Lord” (Ex. 5:2), and made the deep sea his grave. Having said through Sennacherib of Assyria that Hezekiah, God “is not able to save you from my hand” (2 Kings. 18:29), and deliver him to be slaughtered into the hands of his sons, He said through Nebuchadnezzar to the three youths: “What God will deliver you from my hand?” (Dan. 3:15) - and the mightiest of men stooped to eat grass like an ox (Dan. 4) in order to learn that “the ox knows his owner” (Is. 1:3), but he rejected. Judas, who rejected the existence of God, was destroyed (by the devil) with a noose, forcing him to betray God as a man: “the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Simon Iscariot to betray Him” (John 13:2). “The fool said in his heart: “There is no God.” After all, if he had called Him God then, he would not have betrayed Him to death and would not have taught the Jews to commit deicide, since He convinced them that Jesus is not God: “We do not know where He comes from” (John 9:29). 4. They all attempted the impossible, and therefore were given over to destruction. The Prophet says with sorrow: “they have become corrupt and vile in their deeds” (Ps. 13:1). Having learned from the devil, they experienced his fate; just as he was from heaven, so they (were cast down) from the royal thrones. Whoever follows, shares his fate. “They have become corrupt and detestable...they have become depraved”; “they have become corrupt” because they have set corruption against the incorruptible, “and have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man” (Rom. 1:23). Not only have people become corrupt in their minds: “they have become corrupt”, but they have also become vile...they have become." Why? Because they have established wickedness in the church of their hearts, like the abomination of desolation. “In the works.” Why? Because what nature did not establish, they were “depraved,” like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. “They were corrupted,” because they were wounded, rotten, and bleeding—they “became vile” and became vile, wallowing in sins like pigs in the mud (2 Peter. 2:22), and like dogs returning to their vomit (Prov. 26:11), - because it is written: “But the sinner hates the fear of the Lord” (Sir.1:25). And since they made their knowledge of God abominable, they themselves became an abomination to the worshipers of God. “They became corrupted”, they became like clothes eaten by moths, and like iron corroded by rust, “vile... they became”, as they become defiled by touching the bones of corpses and dying people. The law declared unclean the one who touched the corpse (Num. 19:2), due to which Judas was also defiled, constantly touching Christ as dead and not seeing Him alive. “You have destroyed yourself, Israel, for only in Me is your support” (Hos. 13:9). To further show the fruits of wickedness and godlessness, the psalmist adds: “There is no one who does good.” He who has rejected God and does not recognize the Provider, of course, does not accept death, perfection, resurrection, judgment, or retribution, and therefore does nothing good or good. Just as a loyal subject obeys the laws and orders of the king, and one who takes the side of the rebel does not fulfill the royal commands, so one who denies God rejects the commandments of God and becomes useless and harmful to society. “There is no one who does good”: neither Herod beating innocent babies in Bethlehem, nor the Jew calling Beelzebub the one who casts out demons, nor the lawyer-tempter, nor the proud bishop, nor the scribe denying, nor the arrogant or swearing Pharisee, nor the arguing Sadducee, nor Judas the seller and the servant who blows his mouth, nor Pilate the condemning, nor the people shouting: “Take, take Him, crucify Him!” (John 19:15), neither the soldiers binding, nor the people spitting, beating with canes and slaps, weaving crowns of thorns, crucifying, giving vinegar and gall to drink. "There is no one who does good." Note carefully that this saying was fulfilled especially at the crucifixion of Christ. Indeed, with David, when this was said, there were doers of goodness, blessed prophets, companions of David. And at the time of the birth of Christ there were righteous people in the person of, for example, Joseph, Zechariah, Simeon, as well as the apostles, doing good, some bowing, others embracing. Only at the cross there was no one who did good. Nor did (the psalmist) say: There is no one who speaks good things, because the centurion and the thief spoke good things about Him. “Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your Kingdom!” ; “Truly this man was a righteous man” (Luke 23:42, 47; Matt. 27:54). “There is no one who does good,” since all the disciples left Him and fled. John leaves naked, Peter renounces, the disciples run away, the soul of his mother Mary is pierced by the sword of doubt. Consequently, during suffering, no one discovered the fruit of love, “there is no one who does good, not one” (Ps. 13:3), including that warrior who, after His death, pierced His side with a spear. But why, O prophet, before His coming in the flesh and incarnation, did not (the Lord) look upon the sick world as a physician? No, He looked, sought to help, wanted to heal, but no one wanted to be healed. “The Lord looked down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there was one who understood or sought God” (Ps. 13:2)? “All have turned aside, all have become completely worthless” (Ps. 13:3). And the prophecy was fulfilled: “truth came from heaven” - from the Father Christ; “truth has risen from the earth” - the Lord is from the Virgin (Ps. 84:12). Hearing that “the Lord looked down from Heaven,” do not assume the deposition of the divine and incorporeal nature, or bowing, or kneeling, or nodding your neck, but recognize His love for mankind and condescension and attention; although it is said about Him that He has a head, or eyes, or ears, or a mouth, or hands, and that He sits and does not get up, but in any case He does not have members, parts of the body - and body movements, therefore, if He leans in, this does not mean that He Himself leans down, but that He loves humanity towards us. And that “he looked down from Heaven” does not mean that He made windows and doors in the visible sky, and having opened them, He leaned in, but that from the heavenly faces, intelligent, incorporeal and immortal, He turned His attention to humanity. 5. Just as people are called earth: “you are dust, and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19), and: “I, dust and ashes” (Gen. 18:27), so the heavenly powers are called heaven, from which God looked upon the earth, upon humanity. “The Lord from Heaven looked down to earth” - not only to see, but in order to then save; not in order to know, but in order to help, to accept as a friend and love as a righteous one, to say, as I said to Noah: “I have seen you righteous before Me in this generation” (Gen. 7:1), and to appear as faithful. He appears to believe in Him in order to see if there is a weak person seeking a doctor, if there is a poor people from the tongues seeking Christ, the Father’s treasure, “if there is one who understands”, so that he can talk with him, who understands and is reasonable, “or one who seeks God” in order to find Him. When the prophets saw that “the Lord has looked down from Heaven,” they invite Him: It is not enough, Lord, just to come down from heaven as You came, but also to descend: “Bow down the heavens... and come down” (Ps. 143:5). Come, Son of the Father, seek what was created in Your image, because “all have turned aside, all have become completely worthless.” The entire military camp of the people has bowed down before the enemy: none of the warriors and prophets resists. Come, O King, and appear, and they will bow before Your dignity. Everyone has abandoned the ways of the prophets. Come, O Path, and the lost will return (to the right path). Having said: “they turned aside,” (the prophet) showed that by nature people knew how to walk upright, but from evil will they turned away into error, according to what is written in Ecclesiastes, that “God created man upright, but people indulged in many thoughts” (Eccl. 7:29). “Everyone has turned away,” like calves rushing across a meadow, and “everyone has become completely useless,” like buckets with holes, like wineskins that leak and are no longer good for anything. And not little by little, but all together, “all became completely worthless,” entangled together in one web of wickedness. If they deviated, then it is obvious that they were right by nature, because God, having created man, created him right, and not at all evil by nature. And in another place: “I have recognized all the sinners of the earth as criminals” (Ps. 119:119). With the words: “everyone has become completely worthless,” he showed that, although they were useful by nature, they became obscene of their own free will, apart from nature. So, the Lord came down from heaven to see, so that those who deviate could receive salvation if they repent; otherwise, continuing to sin without repentance, we would pronounce condemnation on ourselves. And that is precisely why the Lord approaches, and condescends, and looks down, in order to either save, go to condemn, listen to His own words: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, it is great, and their sin, it is very heavy; I will go down and see whether they are doing exactly what the cry is against them, rising to Me, or not; I will know” (Gen. 18:20–21). The Sodomites “all turned aside” and “all became completely worthless.” Therefore fire fell from heaven and consumed them like wood. The Nenevites turned aside, but since they quickly turned to repentance, they did not all become obscene, but were all saved together. You see how the Lord looks down, either to save or to destroy, therefore the prophet Hosea said: “Hear the word of the Lord, you sons of Israel; for the Lord has judgment with the inhabitants of this land, because there is neither truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God on earth. Oaths and deceit, murder and theft, and adultery have become extremely widespread, and bloodshed follows bloodshed” (Hosea 4:1-2). “Everyone has evaded, everyone has become completely worthless.” That is why the Lord came down from heaven to earth. How did you get in? Either shaking everything, or sending thunder, or frightening and revealing His indignation. “He will look at the earth and make it shake, it will fall close to... the mountains, and they will smoke” (Ps. 103:32). The Lord bowed down from heaven to the earth so that the earth, i.e., humanity itself, could see the indignant Master and stop sinning. This is exactly what happens when servants are furiously rampaging down in the courtyard or on the street and the master or king bows down from above, so that, having seen His servants were afraid and calmed down; in the same way, when the whole earth rushes towards wickedness, the Lord comes from heaven to earth, so that the terrified earth would calm down from its sins. The prophet testifies to this: “You proclaimed Your judgment from heaven: the earth was afraid and was silent” (Ps. 75:9-10). And after he said: “all have turned aside” (the expression: “all” often means the majority, as for example: “all have forsaken me” (2 Tim. 4:16), although in fact Paul’s close disciples did not forsake him), to show the general collapse of the world, he adds: “there is none who does good, not even one.” From the feet to the head, from the last beggar to the nobleman, all people are affected by the disease. God is looking for one faithful and righteous person, as in Abraham’s Chaldea, in Lot’s Sodom. But some have neither faith nor life, others have true faith, but do not have a good life, “they say that they know God, but deny by deeds, being vile and disobedient and incapable of any good work” (Titus 1:16). They talk a lot and loudly about God, but indulge in sleep regarding good deeds. “There is no one who does good, there is not one.” And after God came down from heaven and was indignant at sinners, the prophet teaches us that he not only came down, but also said with a threat: “Will not all those who practice iniquity come to their senses” (Ps. 13:4)? 6. “Won’t they come to their senses”? That the Lord is the God of vengeance (Ps. 93:1). “Will they not understand” that He is the Judge of the living and the dead? “Will they not understand” that he will reward everyone according to his deeds? They did not understand through admonition, but they will understand through punishment. So God once said something similar about the godless Egyptians: “And [all] the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord, when I show My glory on Pharaoh, on his chariots and on his horsemen” (Ex. 14:18). They will understand when they no longer receive any benefit from knowledge, when, pursuing with chariots, they are covered by waves. Or you can read it negatively: “all who practice iniquity will not come to their senses.” Why “will they not come to their senses”? The fact that the Lord came from heaven to earth. What won't they understand? That He is indignant at those who do wrong. How can they “not come to their senses”? They will not want to know the ways of God. Job is a witness to this, asserting: “and meanwhile they say to God: get away from us, we do not want to know Your ways!” ( Job 21:14 ). Precisely because they do lawlessness, they will not want to know the laws of God. And now there are wars, illnesses and earthquakes, but many do not come to the consciousness of their sins and are not brought to their senses by the disasters that befall them. What will they “not understand”? The will of God, His promises, heavenly blessings, the treasures of God, heaven of sweetness, eternal life. “All those who practice iniquity will not come to their senses”; Jews - that the Lawgiver and Lord of glory was crucified by them. “If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). And is this them? “But those who eat My people as they eat bread,” out of envy, seeking the death of the faithful. It is not said: those who eat, but: “those who devour” (devouring) 2 are more evil than beasts of prey. Beasts that have tasted human flesh soon leave, ashamed of the unpleasant food; the evil and envious (people), always devouring, are not satisfied with the insults of the faithful. Let us, brothers, be careful that, while insulting and By slandering those of the same faith, we will not be with the wicked. “All those who practice iniquity will not understand, whether heretics or fellow believers who devour my people. That even fellow believers devour fellow believers, the apostle says: “If you bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal. 5:15). Comparing those who devour the people with foreign nations, the Syrians and Greeks, Isaiah says: I will bring “the Syrians from the east, and the Philistines from the west; and they will devour Israel with their mouths full” (Is. 9:12). However, even if we were devoured by our enemies like lions for our sins, to the extent of our piety before God, we will receive relief. Listen to what Jeremiah says: “Israel was the holiness of the Lord, the firstfruits of His fruits; all who ate it were condemned, disaster befell them, says the Lord” (Jer. 2:3). Moreover, those who devour the sinners themselves sinned more gravely than those who were eaten, defeating the Lord’s intentions from above the people, as God said about him: “I was angry with My people, I brought to naught My inheritance and delivered them into your hands; but you showed them no mercy” (Is. 47:6). And in another place: “When I was little angry, they increased the evil” (Zech. 1:15). And for the sins of the people of God, Jeremiah says: “Israel is a scattered flock; First the king of Assyria devoured him, and then the king of Babylon crushed his bones. But if they had not gone astray like sheep, they would not have been eaten by lions. Think about what I'm saying. “But those who eat My people, how do they eat bread? “Aren’t they calling the Lord,” even if they wanted to call. Just as someone who brings something obtained by robbery to God does not bring anything (in reality), because God does not accept such an offering, so those who devour a brother, calling on the Lord, do not call. Or (one can say): “Have they not called on the Lord,” instead of saying: They are not recognized by Christ as Christians, since they armed themselves against Christ. And they did not listen to him who said: “Confess the Lord and call on His name” (Ps. 105:1). However, although they attacked like animals, “they trembled with fear [where... there was no fear].” Like lions they were bold, and they turned out to be timid, like hares. What the prophet said also applies to the fearful during the persecution, because hearing: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28) and: “Do not be afraid of the reproach of people” (Is. 51: 7), - “they trembled with fear [where there was no fear].” Not fearing God, they feared people when they saw that. God helps the pious. When asked why the wicked were afraid, the prophet answers: “For the Lord is among the generation of the righteous.” As a commander among a soldier and a king in the senate, so “the Lord is among the generation of the righteous,” (the Lord), saying: “where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). If He comes among two or three saints, much more is He “in the generation of the righteous,” where there is a peaceful life, where there is a carefree life, where there is immortal peace, an unexpired inheritance, an endless kingdom to which Christ calls, saying: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom” (Matthew 25:34). “For the Lord is among the generation of the righteous.” “You have put to shame the counsel of the poor, but his hope is the Lord” (Ps. 13:6), because it is said: fear no other besides God. (The Lord) also denounces Jerusalem, saying: “Who are you that you fear a man who is dying” (Is. 51:12). This was said regarding Sennacherib and Rapsal, who considered the people of God to be easily overcome and despised the Lord, whom they did not call. But although not a single person chased them, they fled, because the Lord found them all wicked, as if falling from heaven. They treated Hezekiah with contempt, as a weak man, and the family of the pious ruled by him, which he righteously shepherded. “Council om” called (here the prophet) firm confidence in God. Or in other words: just as in an agreement one should look not at faces, so with regard to advice one should pay attention not to power or advantage, but to the mind. Meanwhile, the Jews tried to disgrace the advice of the Savior, considering Him some kind of beggar, and not the very wealth of the Divine. They rejected both His teaching and miracles, as not divine and accidental. “Who will give salvation to Israel from Zion when the Lord returns His people from captivity, then Jacob will rejoice and Israel will rejoice” (Ps. 13:7-8). When everyone shied away from Him, then there was already a need for One who could forgive sins and save. It is said “from Zion” because He was from the tribe of David, according to the fact that from Zion “the Redeemer will come” (Is. 59:20), and “from Zion is the beauty of His beauty” (Ps. 49:2). And you can say, “from Zion on high,” just as our hope is the kingdom of heaven. When the nations are saved, the true Israel - the righteous and the prophets - triumph, rejoicing with us at the fulfillment of their prophecy. And Simeon, having called the Savior “a light to enlighten the Gentiles,” adds: “and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). The soul is in captivity, through its negligence it has been betrayed into the power of sin and the devil and has fallen away from virtue; she will return, having through repentance received the forgiveness of sins, which Christ prepared on the cross. One and the same is called here Jacob because he has the will of passion and triumphs over the forces acting in them (Gen. 27:36), and Israel because, having been cleansed, he will see God (Gen. 27:28). And the mind sees God. Perhaps, in addition to the prophecy about Christ, the prophet expresses here the desire that the captive ten tribes be freed, just as Jerusalem was liberated from the siege. Then those who are called Jacob and Israel will rejoice. May it be that all of us, after a calm, happy and serene life, reach the kingdom of heaven, by the grace of Christ, to whom belongs glory and power, now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen. Creations attributed to St. John Chrysostom and in the Patrology of Min, classified as Spuria The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us. – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith” Here Chrysostom plays on shades of meaning that are missing in the Russian translation. You might be interested in: