Собеседование 35 на псалом 87

Ps.87:1. Song - Psalm. Son of Kore. To the end. Joyful choral song. For the answer. In for teaching. Heman a Israelite a. 1. You already know that the sons of Kore were psalmists. Note also that the present hymn is the song of a psalm, since it is connected with the prophecy about Christ. As for the inscription: “to the end,” other translators translated: a victory song in chorus, from which it is clear that this song was sung not by one psalmist, but by a whole choir, and one psalmist, Heman the Israelite, began, and the choir responded to him in proportion and agreement. That’s why the inscription says: “For the answer. In for teaching. Heman a Israelite a. Lord, God of my salvation! Day... and night I cried out before You. May my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my prayer” (Ps. 87:1-3). So each of us must pray day and night before God, i.e. How it pleases Him if we want our prayer to reach Him and our petitions to be successful, so that we too may hear: “Your prayer is heard, and your alms are remembered before God” (Acts 10:31). Since the entire psalm was written about Christ, the prophet (on behalf of Christ) rightly called God the Lord and God of his salvation, speaking about salvation in general, because Christ considers the Father to be the author of our salvation, which He appropriates to Himself as its firstfruits, since by His good pleasure the Son came into the world and we received salvation. He called out to Him many times during the day on the mountain, and at night in Gethsemane, when Judas wanted to betray Him, i.e. with firm hope he asked the Father to hear His prayer. Which one exactly? “My Father! If this cup cannot pass from Me, lest I drink it, Thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42). “Let my prayer be heard before You, incline Your ear to my prayer” (Ps. 87:3), i.e., pay attention to my prayer and do what I ask of you, because I do not pray for myself, but for those whose image and form I have taken. “For my soul is filled with troubles, and my life is drawn near to hell” (Ps. 87:4). What evils? Human, because I bear the sin of all people. “And my life drew near to hell,” since those for whom I offered to pay the debt were debtors of death. “I have become equal to those who go down to the grave; I have become like a helpless man” (Ps. 87:5). I, he says, became like those descending into the ditch of death. It seemed that I, like them, was subject to death. However, as subsequent words show, this was not the case. “I have become like a helpless man among the dead... numbered like the slain who lie in the tomb, of whom You no longer remember and who are rejected from Your hand” (Ps. 87:5-6). He, like a helpless man, suffered cross and suffering, not wanting to take advantage of the help of angels, which is why he says: “I trodden the winepress alone” (Is. 63:3). He also reproached Peter when he cut off the ear of one of those who took Him, saying to him: “Or do you think that I cannot now ask My Father, and He will present Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then will the Scriptures be fulfilled, that this must be so? "(Matthew 26:53–54)? With these words He showed that He Himself limited the power of His Divinity, so that through Him the mystery of the economy predicted by the prophets would be fulfilled. But “as a helpless man,” not only as God, but also as sinless in humanity. That is why it was impossible for the bonds of death, as Peter says in his sermon (Acts 2:24), to restrain Him. “He was counted among the dead... as those who are slain, lying in the tomb, of whom You remember no more, and who are cast out of Your hand” (Ps. 87:6). And here we must mean: He was. He was like a wounded man, since the Jews tried to present Him in public opinion as wounded, i.e. a sinner, and, coming to Pilate, they called Him a deceiver (Matt. 27:62–63 ), And that sinners are called wounded in Scripture, you can learn this from the words of Jeremiah: “Oh, whoever gives water to my head and a fountain of tears to my eyes! I would weep day and night for the smitten daughters of my people” (Jer. 9:1). the tomb, deprived of strength and activity. (But having become like them), Christ nevertheless performs the resurrection of the dead. “He placed me in the pit of the grave, in darkness and the shadow of death” (Ps. 88:7). Notice how the truth of suffering is affirmed here and the dignity of the One who suffered is preserved. He is placed, he says, “in the pit of the grave,” because there is nothing lower than hell, “in the darkness,” pointing through this darkness to the place of death, but at the same time, with the expression “in the shadow of death,” pointing to the fleeting significance of suffering, to the fact that Christ was the Sun of righteousness, who only hid for a short time in the shadow of death. “Your wrath was heavy upon me, and all your waves... you brought upon [me]" (Ps. 87:8). Since He bore the sins of the human race, then, of necessity, the wrath of God fell on Him for sinners; He suffered death for us and became a curse, and since they were fulfilled on Him, they no longer dominate the human race. “And all your waves... you brought upon [me]" . By the waves of God we mean everything high, like the kingdom, sanctification, the proximity of slaves to the Master. Thus, just as the Father subjected Christ to all our humiliation, so in the same way he gave Him everything that belongs to us that is exalted. In Him we become participants in the latter. And that the high is called heights, this was clearly demonstrated by Jeremiah, saying: “If the heavens are exalted on high, says the Lord” (Jer. 31:35), that is, he will become higher than himself. A change of tone follows, since, having mentioned above the tomb and death, the prophet now begins to talk about what preceded them - about betrayal and the cross. “You have removed ... my acquaintances from me: they considered me disgusting to themselves, I am betrayed, and have no way out” (Ps. 87:9). 2. Luke speaks of this in the same words when he sets out the story of the crucifixion: “all those who knew Him, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood afar off and looked at it” (Luke 23:49). “They considered me disgusting to themselves, I am betrayed, and have no way out” (Ps. 87:9). And this was fulfilled in Peter, when he, in the courtyard of the high priest, was afraid of those who were saying: “A little later those standing there came up and said to Peter: Surely you are one of them, for your speech also convicts you. Then he began to swear and swear that he did not know this man” (Matthew 26:73–74). “I am betrayed, and have no way out.” Although He could enter, that is, escape, since He knew the time of the attack of the Jews, which is why He said to the disciples: “Are you still sleeping and resting?... Behold, he who betrayed Me has drawn near” (Matthew 26:45–46), but He was pleased to voluntarily betray Himself. “Are my eyes faint from suffering 7: I cried to You, O Lord, all the day long, I lifted up my hands to You” (Ps. 87:10). Suffering is called poverty, which is why Paul says about Christ: “For your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). So, His eyes became weak from suffering, because He voluntarily endured the things of man, and these eyes became weak. to such an extent that He even cried out: “Eli, Or! Lama sabachthani? That is, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). “All day long I lifted up my hands to You” - of course, on the cross, because He accomplished the dispensation of suffering as a high priest, offering a sacrifice for us, stretching out his hands in prayer. “Do you really perform miracles for the dead? Or will the doctor resurrect (them), and they will confess to you?” (Ps. 87:11). Here He turns to the Father, wanting to show us the reasons why His descent to the dead was necessary. The latter is that God does not perform miracles for the dead: he does not send lightning or thunder upon them, he does not produce a sudden storm or bad weather from clear weather, or a bucket from bad weather, or other miracles that nature presents to the living. Nor will doctors raise the dead to see these miracles. How can they confess, how can they be saved who died in unbelief, who did not hear the law or the prophets, and did not obey them? The prophet presupposes a change of tone for what follows, since the Spirit (the Holy One) temporarily interrupted his hymns, although the speech continues about the same economy. “Will anyone in the grave proclaim Your mercy to her and Your truth to her in (the place of) destruction?” (Ps. 87:12). Who can be a prophet or a lawgiver in the grave or in the land of destruction? By destruction the prophet means the place of the dead, calling death so because there is no hope for life there. God's mercy and truth, i.e. His law and commandments, or even Christ himself, who, having fallen under the power of death, in the very tomb could proclaim mercy and truth through judgment over the entire human race. “Will Thy wonders be known in darkness, and Thy righteousness in a forgotten land?” (Ps.87:13) The same thing continues. Hell is called darkness due to the absence of light; also means the land of oblivion, since before the descent of Christ to the dead these places were deprived of charity (of God), so there was no hope for the dead to know the miracles of God and the truth, i.e. signs and law. The prophet repeatedly uses the same expressions, wanting to show the inevitability of suffering (Christ's), as delivering benefit equally to both the dead and the living. “But I called to You, Lord, and... in the morning my prayer will precede You" (Ps. 87:14). Since Christ was the Son, equal in honor to the Father, when He prayed, His prayer necessarily preceded (the Father), went as if to meet the One to whom it was directed. The prophet also indicated the time well, so that you would be convinced from here that He speaks in accordance with the Gospels. Thus Luke says: “in those days He (Christ) went up to the mountain to pray and spent the whole night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12). Why He prayed with a cry is clearly shown by the prayer expressed below. “Why, Lord, do you reject my soul, do you turn away your face from me?” ( Ps. 87:15 )? Christ said this as having accepted our face, which God rejected for disobedience, just as He turned away our soul, which accused the Creator of what it itself had caused through its crime. But Christ asks about this not out of ignorance, but to show that after the justification He brought for everyone, God no longer rejects us. “I am poor and in labor since my youth: having risen, I humbled myself and fainted...” (Ps. 87:16). Christ, “being rich, became poor for your sake” (2 Cor. 8: 9), and was “in labor from my youth,” retiring to Egypt, from here - to hide - to Nazareth of Galilee, and being subjected to many other intrigues. “Having risen, He humbled himself and fainted...” Understand here the erection of either signs or the cross; both here and here Christ humbled himself and fainted, being blasphemed by the Jews. “Thy wrath swept over me, Thy fears shook me” (Ps. 87:17). Of course, anger at humanity, i.e. those punishments and threats that Christ accepted, giving Himself up to suffer. “Your fears shook me: they surrounded me, like water, all day long, they embraced me all together” (Ps. 87: 17-18). Of course, the fears expressed against the first-created man. Truly, they were great, because they were sealed and protected by the judgment of God. Christ was embarrassed to such an extent that he said: “My soul is sorrowful to death” (Matthew 26:38). “Now I have come” (John 12:27). “All day long, they all embraced me.” Here Christ mentions the day of suffering, when the bishops, the elders, the Pharisees, the scribes, and the Jewish people surrounded Him. Matthew testifies to this, narrating how Pilate, when everyone had gathered, asked: “Whom do you want me to release to you?” (Matthew 27:17). “You have removed from me my friend and my neighbor, and my acquaintances from (my) sufferings” (Ps. 88:19). Of course, Peter, who, as a disciple, was a friend, as you know from the words of Christ: “I no longer call you servants,” but “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). He is also understood by “neighbor” because of his special ardor and strength of faith, and by those who knew Him - all the apostles in general, because they knew Christ more than anyone else, as the Gospel says about this: “Righteous Father! and the world did not know You; But I knew You, and these knew that You sent Me” (John 17:25). Nevertheless, due to the severity of the suffering, they all fell into cowardice for a while. But Christ attributes the reason for this not to them, but to the Father, because the sacrament of the cross, as performed according to the thought and good will of the Father, exceeded their strength. 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” in Slavic – “from poverty” You might be interested in: