Изъяснение псалма 101-го.

Ps.101:1. The prayer of a sufferer when he becomes discouraged and pours out his sorrow before the Lord. The prayer of a beggar, when he becomes discouraged, will pour out his prayer before the Lord.” The psalm contains a prediction about the disastrous state of the Jewish people in Babylon and about the return from there, and at the same time predicts the calling and salvation of the pagans. But it is also appropriate for every person who struggles with disaster and asks for God’s help; because the Prophet calls the one who needs God’s providence for him a beggar. Ps.101:2. God! Hear my prayer, and let my cry come to You. “Lord, hear my prayer and my cry to You.” Accept my request, Lord, and give Your help to those who beg with tears. For the word: “cry”, Symmachus translated: weep. Ps.101:3. Hide not Your face from me; in the day of my tribulation, incline Your ear to me; on the day [when] I cry [to You], hear me quickly. "Do not turn Your face away from Me." Be merciful to me, stop being indignant. “In the day when I mourn, incline Your ear to me: in the day when I call on You, you will soon hear me.” And these sayings in the psalm make it clear that this is a foreshadowing of the future, and not a narrative of what has happened. since the people of Israel during the reign of the divine David were in great prosperity and glory; then the Prophet, speaking on behalf of this people, by the way brings prayer and asks for God’s care for them when the time comes. Ps.101:4. For my days are gone like smoke, and my bones are burned like a brand. “As if my days had vanished, like smoke, and my bones had dried up.” From here the Prophet, in a way especially characteristic of him, begins to describe future disasters as if they were past, and says that the time of his life disappeared like smoke, and his body from sadness became dry, like a brand, as if burned by the attack of some kind of fire. For this is how Aquila translated it: and my bones, like scorched earth, crumbled. Ps.101:5. My heart is smitten and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. Ps.101:6. Because of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my flesh. “I was wounded like grass, and my heart wasted away.” Like grass, I am destroyed and have lost my former color. “As if I forgot to take my bread.” “Because of the voice of my groaning my bone joined my flesh.” I lost the desire for all food, completely lost my previous health, because from sadness my body withered away, only skin covered the bones that had been exposed from the flesh. Ps.101:7. Because of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my flesh. Ps.101:8. I don’t sleep and sit like a lonely bird on the roof. “We became like the tawny owl of the desert, like a nighttime corvid diving.” “Bdekh and bykh like a bird” 33 “special here.” The prophet uses many comparisons, wanting to fully depict disasters; in each of the birds he named, he makes it possible to see the fear and lack of a caregiver. So the sparrow, out of anxiety, drives away sleep from itself, the “night corvid,” avoiding residential houses, looks for empty and abandoned houses; because Symmachus translated the word: “dive”: ruins. So another bird spends its life in deserts. Ps.101:9. Every day my enemies revile me, and those who are angry with me curse me. “All day long I reproach you, and those who praise me are cursed by me.” I have become funny to those who hate me; I was once the object of envy and wonder; and now I have become a curse to those who marveled at me before; because they swear by my misfortunes: lest I suffer what one or the other suffered! Ps.101:10. I eat ashes like bread, and I dissolve my drink with tears. Ps.101:11. From Your anger and Your indignation, for You exalted me and cast me down. “I have eaten ashes like bread, and dissolved my drink with weeping,” “From the presence of Thy anger and Thy wrath.” The same is said in the seventy-ninth psalm: “feed us with the bread of tears, and water us with tears in moderation” (Psalm 79:6): and with this the Prophet makes it possible to see the excessiveness of grief. For if the time of eating is filled with sorrow, much less is any other time free from it. I am overwhelmed by these disasters, says the Prophet, because You, Lord, have stirred up anger against me. “For you have exalted me and cast me down.” Showing me tall and making me visible to everyone, he suddenly fell down. For in the expression: “thou hast cast down,” the image of speech is borrowed from those who lift something into height and strike it on the ground. Ps.101:12. My days are like a retreating shadow, and I am withered like grass. My days have turned away like the shade, and I have dried up like hay.” In the very west of life, I become like a shadow, evading and already disappearing, like dry grass, calling upon itself the hands of mowers. Ps.101:13. But You, Lord, remain forever, and Your memory endures forever. “But You, Lord, remain forever, and Your memory endures forever.” Such is my nature already, I am associated with so many disasters. But You, as the Ever-Sustaining and Eternal, can conveniently grant me some change in the present disasters. For this is added by the Prophet. Ps.101:14. You will rise up and have mercy on Zion, for the time has come to have mercy on it, for the time has come. “You have risen, having shown mercy to Zion: for the time has come to show mercy to it, for the time has come.” Give a change for the better in adversity; because the time demands mercy. The Prophet gives this to mean the end of seventy years of a certain punishment. So the wonderful Daniel, having calculated the time of captivity, brings prayer. We agree with this saying of this spiritual sweet song: “for the time has come to reward him, for the time has come.” Ps.101:15. For Thy servants have loved its stones, and have pity for its dust. “For Thy servants are pleased with his stone, and their dust they will destroy.” Zion is very desirable for us, even though it has become extremely desolate, the scattered stones are worthy, even the memory of the ruins formed after destruction arouses pity in us. Ps.101:16. And the nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory. “And the nations shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth shall fear thy glory.” For, looking at our return and at the building of the city, those who saw our previous disasters, kings and princes, rulers and rulers, will be amazed at Your power, and being afraid, they will believe that You are the only God. This, in its own sense and in its very reality, took place after the incarnation of our God and Savior. For at the appeal of the Jews, the surrounding nations were indeed surprised at what had happened, but they were very far from believing in the God of all, and at the same time they undertook war against the Jews. And here the prophetic word foretells a change in all nations and in kings; and in part we see this accomplished, and in part we hope that it will happen. For the divine Apostle says: “We do not see that all things are subject to Him” (Heb. 2:8); however, he teaches that “every tribe will worship Him, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). Ps.101:17. For the Lord will build Zion and appear in His glory. “For the Lord will build Zion, and will appear in His glory.” since those ignorant of God’s economy recognized the weakness of God as the cause of the slavery of the Jews and the desolation of Jerusalem; then the Prophet rightly called the renewal of the city the glory of God, as if saying: after the reward of Zion, everyone will again see the God of all in the former glory. Ps.101:18. He will look upon the prayer of the helpless and will not despise their prayers. “Look at the prayer of the humble, and do not despise their prayers.” He did not despise them like captives and slaves, but accepted the prayer and gave them freedom. Ps.101:19. This will be written for the next generation, and the coming generation will praise the Lord. “Let this be written for generations, and the people of the land will praise the Lord.” Let us commit this good deed to writing forever, so that future generations will know Your love for mankind. By “people” the Prophet calls the people gathered from the pagans, about whom blessed Paul says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), and the divine David himself in the twenty-first psalm said: “He will proclaim the coming generation of the Lord, and they will proclaim His righteousness to people who will be born to those who have what the Lord has created” (Psalm 21, 31–32 ). This people, studying both the old and the new, sends out appropriate hymns to the Savior God. Ps.101:20. For He came down from His holy height; from heaven the Lord looked down upon the earth. Ps.101:21. To hear the groan of the prisoners, to allow the sons of death. Ps.101:22. So that they may proclaim the name of the Lord in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem. “As from His holy heights, the Lord looked down from heaven to earth,” “To hear the groaning of the chained, to release the sons of the slain”: “To proclaim the name of the Lord in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem.” Supervising and ruling over everything, the God of all heard those supervised by Him, and pronounced a decree on liberation, so that the chained would return to the place of those killed, build a domestic city, and, as usual, serve God in it according to the law. Ps.101:23. When nations and kingdoms are gathered together to serve the Lord. Ps.101:24. He exhausted my strength along the way, He shortened my days. Ps.101:25. I said: My God! do not take me away in half my days. Your summers in childbirth. “People will always gather together, and the king will work for the Lord.” “Answer Him in the way of His strength: Make me the lowliness of my days”: “Do not bring me to the height of my days.” When we are worthy to return, says the Prophet, and nations and kings will gather, marveling at Your power; Then we will have so much joy that we will beg Your goodness to grant us more years and not put us to death at the end of our days. “The path” of “fortress” the Prophet calls the very return granted by the strength of God. “Thy generation is like the generation of your years.” For You have limitless existence, and it is not difficult for You to make others long-lasting. Ps.101:26. In the beginning You [Lord] founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Ps.101:27. They will perish, but You will remain; and they will all wear out like a robe, and like a garment You will change them, and they will be changed. “In the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the works of Your hand are the heavens.” “They will perish, but You remain.” For what is impossible to the Creator of all things? You gave existence to the earth, created the heavens out of nothing, and when all this is subject to change, immutability belongs to you. By naming the earth and the sky, the Prophet showed that God is the Creator of everything else they contain. “And they will all promise like a robe, and like a garment I will take off, and they will be changed.” Symmachus translated it this way: they will all wear out like a robe, and you will change them like a garment, and they will change; because everything visible will grow old and become worn out like garments; but You will change, renew, and from what is perishable, make it imperishable. The divine Apostle also said this: “for the creation itself will be freed from the work of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Ps.101:28. But You are the same, and Your years will not end. “You are the same, and Your years will not fail.” Therefore, as You please, O Lord, You renew creation, and You Yourself have an immutable nature, not subject to any change. The Divine Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews attributed this to the face of the Son. But in the Son we see the Father: “whatever He does, the Son also does likewise” (John 5:19); both in the Father and in the Son the identity of nature is recognized, for we know the one action of the Trinity. Ps.101:29. The sons of Your servants will live, and their seed will be established before You. “Thy servants shall dwell in their sons, and their seed shall be perfected forever.” Symmachus translated: he will remain. This means that those freed from slavery will dwell in Jerusalem, and their seed will remain forever. About this seed the divine Apostle said: “Until the Seed comes, He was promised” (Gal. 3:19); and: “He made vows to Abraham, and to his seed: He did not say, and to seed, as many, but as one, and to your seed, who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). This seed will endure forever; because, having united with God the Word, it has an indestructible existence, and gives life to believers, according to the word of the Lord himself: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood, you will live forever” (John 6:56,58). You might be interested in: