Собеседование 31 на псалом 139

Ps.139:1. Remove me, O Lord, from the evil man, deliver me from the unrighteous man. 1. It is remarkable that the prophet did not pray for deliverance from demons, lions or dragons, but from the evil man. Obviously, this means that wicked people are worse than lions. In fact, the lions spared Daniel, and the Jews crucified the Lord on the cross; The ravens fed Elijah on the mountain, and Joseph's brothers devoured him and sold him, not heeding his pleas. The youth begged them not to sell him to foreigners, but neither his pleas softened their excessive heartlessness, nor their young age inspired them with pity, nor did brotherly blood speak in them, as if not the same sower had sown them and not the same almost same field had grown them; but without any mercy they sold the noblest and, moreover, brother as a slave. “Remove me, O Lord, from the evil man.” Wild bees fed John in the desert, and Herodias beheaded him during a feast. Dragons, snakes and asps were ashamed of this man, but the depraved woman was not ashamed of the prophet. Daniel destroyed the dragon in Babylon, and David could not defeat the envy of Saul. The serpent only seduced Eve, and Cain destroyed his brother with his cunning. The dog Cain, subjected to blows, obeys the Lord, and Judas, fed, betrayed the Lord. “Remove me, O Lord, from the wicked man,” and not from the beasts, because the evils of beasts are all guarded against, and wicked people hide their malice under the guise of meekness. Just as poisoners often resort to the help of honey in order to soften the bitterness of poison with its sweetness, so wicked people have sweet words in their mouths, but a bitter disposition in their hearts, they carry honey on their tongues, and forge a sword in their minds, in others appearing from the outside, and hiding others inside. The crafty man, of course, is more dangerous than the beast; but listen, the beast, having no reason, finds no evil against a person, because he does not understand and does not use the instructions of intelligence and cunning; “Delete me, Lord, from the wicked man.” Not from the evil angel. There are, after all, evil angels, as David mentions: “I sent furious wrath upon them... My own: rage and anger and sorrow, brought down through the angels (sending) disasters. I paved the way for His wrath” (Ps. 77:49-50). But an evil man is worse than an evil angel, because An evil angel fulfills the commandments of God, and an evil man distorts His commandments. What is more evil than the devil? But, however, having envied Job, he did not dare to approach him without a divine command. And the evil man, hearing: “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), not only does not love his enemies, but even hates his benefactors, and seeks to kill them, as Saul did with David. his opponent Goliath and freed him from fear, and he was cunning to kill him. Then, David drove away the evil spirit from him with his playing on the harp, and he sharpened his sword at him and shook his spear. “Remove me, Lord, from the wicked man,” - not from demons. Demons are driven away by the sign of the cross, and an evil person confronts the Lord himself; Paul cast out demons with one word, but could not defeat the malice of Alexander the forger: “Alexander the coppersmith,” he says, “has done me much harm. May the Lord reward him according to his deeds” (2 Tim. 4:14). “Remove me.” “I, Lord, am from the evil man,” - not from the good man. “A good man brings forth good from a good treasure, and an evil man brings out evil from an evil treasure” (Matthew 12:35), and from his own heart, as if from a root, each of them returns his own, the good one - kindness, and the evil one - wickedness. and a crafty person’s gait, look, appearance, and actions are crafty. So, the Wise One says about their feet: “Leave him, do not walk on him, turn away from him and pass by, because their feet run to evil” (Prov. 4:15, 1:16). chika" (Ps. 70:4). The Lord spoke about the evil eye: “Or is your eye envious because I am good?” (Matthew 20:15) “Delete me, O Lord, from the wicked man.” Such a person weaves deceit, refines himself in hypocrisy, and forges envy in his heart. “From the wicked man,” - not from the righteous man, because “the righteous man also cares for the life of his livestock,” as it is written (Proverbs 12:10), but the unrighteous even encroach on the souls of people. “The righteous man also cares for the life of his livestock,” just as Moses, going up the mountain, gave Jethro’s sheep water, and the unrighteous Pharaoh drowned the firstborn of the Jews in the river: one watered the sheep with water, and the other destroyed people with water. 2. So, as far as possible, one must avoid deceit and untruth; and not only avoid, but also deliver those who are wronged at the hands of the offenders, as Abraham delivered Lot, who was captured, from the hands of foreigners, as Lot himself delivered the angels from the iniquity of the Sodomites. Of course, the nature of angels in itself is inviolable, but this was due to the frivolity of people. So Moses delivered the Jewish people from the hand of the Egyptians; so David freed Saul from the violence of the demon; So the three youths were preserved in the burning furnace by an angel who came down to them; Thus faith brought Daniel out of the lion's den; Thus, repentance saved Jonah in the belly of the whale; So Jeremiah was freed from a dirty pit by the eunuch Abimelech; Thus Daniel in Babylon delivered Susanna from the judgment of the lawless elders; Thus the Lord plucked all mankind from the hand of the devil; This is how the apostles delivered those possessed by spirits and diseases. But it is not only husbands who are given the responsibility to do this: the same thing is instilled in wives. And indeed, many women delivered many from death and danger: thus Sarah delivered Abraham from the hand of Abimelech, wisely calling him her brother; so Rebbeka delivered her son Jacob from the hand of his brother Esau, advising him to flee; So Rachel delivered her father from serving idols, stealing soulless idols from him, because she stole for no other purpose than to save her father from idolatry; So Rahab the harlot delivered the spies from the hands of foreigners, hiding them in a dry well; So Michal saved David from the hands of Saul, revealing to him the secret; So Abigail saved Nabal from death by begging David; so the mother of Moses delivered the baby from the hand of Pharaoh by placing him in a basket; So Martha and Mary brought their brother Lazarus out of the grave, pitying the Lord; Thus the widows Tabitha was saved from death by begging Peter; so faith healed the bleeding woman, and fasting saved the Ninevites. “Delete me, O Lord, from the evil man, deliver me from the unrighteous man.” Let's see from whom in particular the prophet prays to deliver himself. The wicked man is Doeg, and the unrighteous man is Saul. It was David, fleeing from Saul, who came to Nob, the city of the priests, and here the priest Abimelech gave him the spear of the foreigner Goliath and the showbread. Doeg the Edomite, overseer of Saul's donkeys, witnessed what happened here; he went and slandered David and the priest Abimelech, saying: Yesterday I was in the city of Nob, and David was there, and the priest Abimelech gave him the loaves and the spear of the foreigner Goliath. Then Saul, angry and completely filled with rage, said to the soldiers surrounding him: kill the priests living in the city of Nob. They did not dare to raise their hands against the priests, since the fear of God restrained their hands, and before their hands, their intentions. Then, turning to Doik, Saul says: kill all the priests of the Lord, spare neither old nor young, nor woman, nor maiden, nor baby, nor suckling; destroy everything, including the donkey, the sheep and the bull. Doik went and, dividing his detachment, ordered some to surround the city so that no one would run away and be saved, while he ordered others to set fire to the city, and he himself, like a lion hungry for blood, rushed at the inhabitants of the city, like sheep imprisoned in an enclosure, and killed on that day three hundred and fifty priests who wore the ephod, and did not spare an old man, a young man, a maiden, a woman, a suckling child, and not a single head of sheep, bulls and donkeys, and burned the city itself with fire. Then David, having learned about this, ran away and said: “Remove me, Lord, from the wicked man, deliver me from the unrighteous man.” Indeed, extraordinary cruelties were committed: the blood of young men mixed with the blood of children, the mouths of babies squeezed their mother’s breasts, the unripe harvest was removed ahead of time, the ears were cut prematurely with a sickle, and the grapes, not yet ripe, were destroyed with hail; women's secrets that needed to be hidden were revealed to everyone, because the head covers were torn off and the hair fell apart, breasts were exposed, which are ashamed of even the rays of the sun, and members, which nature itself teaches to hide. Who can depict everything that happened then? So, if an evil man and an unrighteous husband does this, then we will never cease to fervently pray to God, saying: “Delete me, O Lord, from the evil man, deliver me from the unrighteous man.” Let us not only pray for this with our lips, but also with good deeds we will try to earn our prayer to be heard. If in this way we pray to God, then we will be heard, and He will not He will only deliver and save us from an evil person and an unrighteous man, but he will also protect us from our invisible enemies, and, together with earthly blessings, will honor us with our eternal blessings. In particular, we will maintain mutual love among ourselves pure and unhypocritical, and we will consider the well-being of our neighbor to be our own benefit. power, to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. 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” You might be interested in: