Psalms 145

Psalms 145:1

Augustine of Hippo: I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:2

Augustine of Hippo: Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:3

Ambrose of Milan: You cannot, then, heretic [Arian], build up a false doctrine on the basis of an analogy of human procreation. Nor can you gather the means for such a purpose from our discussion, for we cannot embrace the greatness of infinite godhead, “of whose greatness there is no end,” in our limited speech. If you should seek to give an account of a human’s birth, you must certainly point to a time. But the divine generation is above all things. It reaches far and wide, and it rises high above all thought and feeling. For it is written, “No one comes to the Father, except by me.” Whatever, therefore, you conceive concerning the Father—yes, even his eternity—you cannot conceive anything concerning him except with the Son’s aid nor can any understanding ascend to the Father except through the Son. “This is my dearly beloved Son,” the Father said. “Is,” please note, means that who he is, and what he is, is [true] forever. Hence David is also moved to say, “O Lord, your Word abides forever in heaven,” for what abides fails neither in time nor in eternity. — Exposition of the Christian Faith 1.10.63

Augustine of Hippo: “Great is the Lord, and very much to be praised” [Psalms 145:3]. How much was he about to say? What terms was he about to seek? How vast a conception has he included in the one word, “very much”? Imagine what you will, for how can that be imagined, which cannot be contained? “He is very much to be praised. And of His Greatness there is no end;” therefore said he “very much:” lest perchance thou begin to wish to praise, and think that you can reach the end of His praises, whose Greatness can have no end. Think not then that He, whose Greatness has no end, can ever be enough praised by you. Is it not then better that as He has no end, so neither should your praise have end? His Greatness is without end; let your praise also be without end…. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Augustine of Hippo: “Can any praise be worthy of the Lord’s majesty?” “How magnificent his strength! How inscrutable his wisdom!” Humankind is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you “thwart the proud.” But still, since he is a part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.Grant me, Lord, to know and understand whether a person is first to pray to you for help or to praise you and whether he must know you before he can call you to his aid. If he does not know you, how can he pray to you? For he may call for some other help, mistaking it for yours. Or are people to pray to you and learn to know you through their prayers? “Only, how are they to call on the Lord until they have learned to believe in him? And how are they to believe in him without a preacher to listen to?” “Those who look for the Lord will cry out in praise of him,” because all who look for him shall find him, and when they find him they will praise him. I shall look for you, Lord, by praying to you, and as I pray I shall believe in you, because we have had preachers to tell us about you. It is my faith that calls to you, Lord, the faith that you gave me and made to live in me through the merits of your Son, who became man, and through the ministry of your preacher. — Confessions 1.1

Gregory of Nyssa: Now if any one should ask for some interpretation, description and explanation of the divine essence, we are not going to deny that we are unlearned in this kind of wisdom, acknowledging only so much as this, that it is not possible that which is by nature infinite should be comprehended in any conception expressed by words. The fact that the divine greatness has no limit is proclaimed by prophecy, which declares expressly that of his splendor, his glory and his holiness, “there is no end.” If his surroundings have no limit, much more is he himself in his essence, whatever it may be, comprehended by no limitation in any way. If then interpretation by way of words and names implies by its meaning some sort of comprehension of the subject, and if, on the other hand, that which is unlimited cannot be comprehended, no one could reasonably blame us for ignorance, if we are not bold in respect of what none should venture on. For by what name can I describe the incomprehensible? By what speech can I declare the unspeakable? Accordingly, since the Deity is too excellent and lofty to be expressed in words, we have learned to honor in silence what transcends speech and thought. If he who “thinks more highly than he ought to think” tramples on this cautious speech of ours making a jest of our ignorance of things incomprehensible, and recognizes a difference of unlikeness in that which is without figure, or limit, or size or quantity (I mean in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and brings forward to reproach our ignorance that phrase that is continually alleged by the disciples of deceit, “ ‘You worship you know not what,’ if you know not the essence of that which you worship,” we shall follow the advice of the prophet. We shall not fear the reproach of fools or be led by their reviling to talk boldly of things unspeakable. That unpracticed speaker Paul we make our teacher in the mysteries that transcend knowledge. He is so far from thinking that the divine nature is within the reach of human perception that he calls even the judgments of God “unsearchable” and his ways “past finding out.” He affirms that the things promised to them that love him, for their good deeds done in this life, are above comprehension so that it is not possible to behold them with the eye, or to receive them by hearing or to contain them in the heart. — AGAINST EUNOMIUS 3:5

Gregory of Nyssa: Instead of speaking of him [God the Father] as “ungenerated,” it is permissible to call him the “First Cause” or “Father of the Only-Begotten,” or to speak of him as “existing without cause,” and many such expressions that lead to the same thought. In that case Eunomius confirms our doctrines by the very arguments in which he brings charges that we do not know any name indicative of the divine nature. We are taught the fact of its existence, while we assert that a name of such breath as to include the unspeakable and infinite nature either does not exist at all or at any rate is unknown to us. Let him then abandon his usual fictive language, and show us the names that signify the real meanings and then proceed further to divide the subject by the divergence of their names. But as long as the statement of the Scripture is correct that Abraham and Moses were not capable of the knowledge of the name, and that “no one has seen God at any time,” and that “no one has seen him, nor can see,” and that the light around him is unapproachable and “there is no end of his greatness,” so long can we say and believe these things. This is similar to an argument that promises any comprehension and expression of the infinite nature by means of the meaning of names to one who thinks that he can enclose the whole sea in his own hand! Just as the hollow of one’s hand is comparable to the entire depth of the sea, so is all the power of language comparable to that nature that is unspeakable and incomprehensible. — AGAINST EUNOMIUS 7:4

Psalms 145:4

Augustine of Hippo: For how great things besides has His boundless Goodness and illimitable Greatness made, which we do not know! When we lift the gaze of our eyes even to the heaven, and then recall it from sun, moon, and stars to the earth, and there is all this space where our sight can wander; beyond the heavens who can extend the eyesight of his mind, not to say of his flesh? So far then as His works are known to us, let us praise Him through His works. [Romans 1:20] “Generation and generation shall praise Your works” [Psalms 145:4]. Every generation shall praise Your works. For perhaps every generation is meant by “generation and generation.”…Did he perchance mean to imply two generations by that repetition? For we are in this generation sons of God, we shall be in another generation sons of the Resurrection. Scripture has called us “sons of the Resurrection;” the Resurrection itself it has called Regeneration. “In the regeneration,” it says, “when the Son of Man shall be seated in His Majesty.” [Matthew 19:28] So also in another place; “For they shall not marry, nor be given in marriage, for they are the sons of the Resurrection.” [Luke 20:35-36] Therefore “generation and generation shall praise Your works….And they shall tell out Your excellence.” For neither shall they praise Your works, save in order to “tell out Your excellence.” Boys at school are set to praise, and all such things are set before them to be praised, as God has wrought: a mortal is set to praise the sun, the sky, the earth; to come to even lesser things, to praise a rose, or a laurel; all these are works of God: they are set, they are undertaken, they are praised: the works are lauded, of the Worker they are silent. I desire in the works to praise the Creator: I love not a thankless praiser. Do you praise what He has made, and art silent of Him who made? In that which you see, what is it that you praise? The form, the usefulness, some virtue, some power in the things. If beauty delight you, what is more beautiful than the Maker? If usefulness be praised, what more useful than He who made all things? If excellence be praised, what more excellent than He by whom all things were made?… — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:5

Augustine of Hippo: I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:6

Augustine of Hippo: And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:7

Augustine of Hippo: They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:8

Augustine of Hippo: The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:9

Augustine of Hippo: The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:10

Augustine of Hippo: “Let all Your works, O Lord, confess to You, and let Your saints bless You” [Psalms 145:10]. How so? Is not the earth His work? Are not the trees His work? Cattle, beasts, fish, fowl, are not they His works? Plainly they too are. And how shall these too confess to Him? I see indeed in the angels that His works confess to Him, for the angels are His works: and men are His works; and when men confess to Him, His works confess to Him; but have trees and stones the voice of confession? Yes, verily; “let all” His “works confess to” Him. What do you say? Even the earth and the trees?…But there arises the same question in regard of praise, as in regard of confession. For if earth and all things devoid of sensation therefore cannot confess, because they have no voice to confess with; neither will they be able to praise, because they have no voice to proclaim with. But do not those Three Children enumerate all things, as they walked amid the harmless flames, who had leisure not only not to fear, but even to praise God? They say to all things, heavenly and earthly, “Bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.” Behold how they praise. Let none think that the dumb stone or dumb animal has reason wherewith to comprehend God. They who have thought this, have erred far from the truth. God has ordered everything, and made everything: to some He has given sense and understanding and immortality, as to the angels; to some He has given sense and understanding with mortality, as to man; to some He has given bodily sense, yet gave them not understanding, or immortality, as to cattle: to some He has given neither sense, nor understanding, nor immortality, as to herbs, trees, stones: yet even these cannot be wanting in their kind, and by certain degrees He has ordered His creation, from earth up to heaven, from visible to invisible, from mortal to immortal. This framework of creation, this most perfectly ordered beauty, ascending from lowest to highest, descending from highest to lowest, never broken, but tempered together of things unlike, all praises God. Wherefore then does all praise God? Because when you consider it, and see its beauty, thou in it praisest God. The beauty of the earth is a kind of voice of the dumb earth….And this which you have found in it, is the very voice of its confession, that you praise the Creator. When you have thought on the universal beauty of this world, does not its very beauty as it were with one voice answer you, “I made not myself, God made me”? — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:11

Augustine of Hippo: For when Your saints bless You, what say they? “They shall tell the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your Power” [Psalms 145:11]. How powerful is God, who has made the earth! How powerful is God, who has filled the earth with good things! How powerful is God, who has given to the animals each its own life! How powerful is God, who has given different seeds to the womb of the earth, that they might make to spring up such various shoots, such beautiful trees! How powerful, how great is God! Do thou ask, creation answers, and by its answer, as by the confession of the creature, you, O saint of God, blessest God, and “talkest of His power.” — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:12

Augustine of Hippo: “That they may make known to the sons of men Your power, and the glory of the greatness of the beauty of Your kingdom” [Psalms 145:12]. Your saints then commend “the glory of the greatness of the beauty of Your kingdom,” the glory of the greatness of its beauty. There is a certain “greatness of the beauty of Your kingdom:” that is, Your kingdom has beauty, and great beauty. Since whatever has beauty, has beauty from You, how great beauty has Your whole kingdom! Let not the kingdom frighten us: it has beauty also, wherewith to delight us. For what is that beauty, which the saints shall hereafter enjoy, to whom it shall be said, “Come, you blessed of My Father, enjoy the kingdom”? [Matthew 25:34] Whence shall they come? Whither shall they come? Behold, brethren, and, if you can, as far as you can, think of the beauty of that kingdom which is to come; whence our prayer says, “Your kingdom come.” For that kingdom we desire may come, that kingdom the saints proclaim to be coming. Observe this world: it is beautiful. How beautiful are earth, sea, air, heavens, stars. Do not all these frighten him who considers them? Is not the beauty of them so conspicuous, that it seems as though nothing more beautiful could be found? And here, in this beauty, in this fairness almost unspeakable, here worm and mice and all creeping things of the earth live with you, they live with you in all this beauty. How great is the beauty of that kingdom where none but angels live with You! There is a greatness of a certain beauty; let it be loved before it is seen, that when it is seen, it may be retained. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:13

Augustine of Hippo: “Your kingdom.” What kingdom mean I? “a kingdom of all ages.” For the kingdom of this age too has its own beauty, but there is not in it that greatness of beauty, such as in the “kingdom of all ages.” “And Your dominion is in every generation and generation” [Psalms 145:13]. This is the repetition we noticed, signifying either every generation, or the generation which will be after this generation. “Faithful is the Lord in His words, and holy in all His works.” “Faithful is the Lord in His words:” for what has He promised that He has not given? “Faithful is the Lord in His words.” Hereto there are certain things which He has promised, and has not given; but let Him be believed from the things which He has given. We might well believe Him, if He only spoke: He willed not that we should believe Him speaking, but that we should have His Scriptures in our hands:…as though a kind of bond of God’s, which all who pass by might read, and might keep to the path of its promise. And how great things has He already paid in accordance with that bond! Do men hesitate to believe Him concerning the Resurrection of the dead and the Life to come, which alone now remains to be paid, when, if He come to reckon with the unbelievers, the unbelievers must blush? If God say to you, You have My bond: I have promised judgment, the separation of good and bad, everlasting life for the faithful, and will you not believe? There in My bond read all that I have promised, reckon with me: verily even by counting up what I have paid, you can believe that I shall pay what still I owe. In that bond you have My only-begotten Son promised, “Whom I spared not, but gave Him up for you all:” [Romans 8:32] reckon this then among what is paid. Read the bond: I promised therein that I would give by My Son the earnest of the Holy Spirit: reckon that as paid. I promised therein the blood and the crowns of the glorious Martyrs; let the White Mass remind you that My debt has been paid….He sets before the eyes of all His payment of His debts: some He has paid in the time of our ancestors, which we saw not: some He has paid in our times, which they saw not; throughout all generations He has paid what was written. And what remains? Do men not believe Him, when He has paid all this? What remains? Behold you have reckoned: all this He has paid: is He become unfaithful for the few things which remain? God forbid! Wherefore? Because “the Lord is faithful in His words, and holy in all His works.” — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:14

Ambrose of Milan: And the apostle [Paul] added, “For of him, and through him and in him are all things.” What does “of him” mean? It means that the nature of everything exists according to his will and that he is the creator of everything that has come into existence. What does “through him” mean? It means that the creation and preservation of all things is his gift. What does “in him” mean? It means that all things by a wonderful kind of longing and unspeakable love look on the author of their life and the giver of their abilities and functions according to that which is written: “The eyes of all look to you,” and “You open your hand and fill every living creature with your good pleasure.” — On the Holy Spirit 2.9.91

Augustine of Hippo: “The Lord strengthens all that are falling” [Psalms 145:14]. But who are “all that are falling”? All indeed fall in a general sense, but he means those who fall in a particular way. For many fall from Him, many also fall from their own imaginations. If they had evil imaginations, they fall from them, and “God strengthened all that are falling.” They who lose anything in this world, yet are holy, are as it were dishonoured in this world, from rich become poor, from honoured of low estate, yet are they God’s saints; they are, as it were, falling. But “God strengthens.” For “the just falls seven times, and rises again; but the wicked shall be weakened in evils.” [Proverbs 24:16] When evils befall the wicked, they are weakened thereby; when evils befall the righteous, “the Lord strengthens all that are falling.”…“And lifts up all those that have been cast down:” all, that is, who belong to him; for “God resists the proud.” [James 4:6] — Exposition on Psalms 145

Gregory of Nyssa: A person, then, who remains the same and yet babbles to himself about the change for the better he has undergone in baptism should attend to what Paul says: “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” For you are not what you have not become; whereas the gospel says of the regenerate that “he gave all those who received him the power to become God’s children.” Now the child born of someone certainly shares his parent’s nature. If, then, you have received God and become his child, let your way of life testify to the God within you; make it clear who your Father is! The marks by which we recognize God are the very ones by which a son of his must show his relation to him: “he opens his hand and fills everything living with joy”; “he overlooks iniquity”; “he relents of his evil purpose”;29 “the Lord is kind to all and is not angry with us every day”; “God is straightforward, and there is no unrighteousness in him”31—and the similar sayings scattered through Scripture for our instruction. If you are like this, you have genuinely become a child of God. But if you persist in displaying the marks of evil, it is useless to babble to yourself about the birth from above. Prophecy will tell you, “You are a son of humankind, not a son of the most High. You love vanity and seek lies. You fail to realize that the only way one is magnified is by becoming holy.” — ADDRESS ON RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 40

Leo the Great: Whoever finds the healing of correction to be difficult should flee to the mercy of God for help and beg that the chains of evil habit be broken away from them, for “the Lord lifts up all who collapse and raises up all who have been broken down.” No, the prayer of a believer will not be empty, since our merciful God “will accomplish the intentions of those who fear him.” He will give what has been asked for, since he provided the inspiration to ask it. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. — SERMON 36:4.2

Psalms 145:15

Augustine of Hippo: “The eyes of all hope upon You, and You give them food in due season” [Psalms 145:15]. Just as when you refresh a sick man in due season, when he ought to receive, then You give, and what he ought to receive, that You give. Sometimes then men long, and he gives not: he who tends, knows the time to give. Wherefore say I this, brethren? Lest any one be faint, if perchance he has not been heard, when making some righteous request of God. For when he makes any unrighteous request, he is heard to his punishment: but when making some righteous request of God, if perchance he have not been heard, let him not be down-hearted, let him not faint, let his eyes wait for the food, which He gives in due season. When He gives not, He therefore gives not, lest that which He gives do harm. [2 Corinthians 12:7] …“You give them meat in due season.” — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:16

Augustine of Hippo: Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:17

Augustine of Hippo: The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:18

Augustine of Hippo: “The Lord is near unto all that call upon Him” [Psalms 145:18]. Where then is that, “Then shall they call upon Me, and I will not hear them”? [Proverbs 1:28] See then what follows: “all who call upon Him in truth.” For many call upon Him, but not in truth. They seek something else from Him, but seek not Himself. Why do you love God? “Because He has made me whole.” That is clear: it was He that made you so. For from none else comes health, save Him. “Because He gave me,” says another, “a rich wife, whereas I before had nothing, and one that obeys me.” This too He gave: you say true. “He gave me,” says another, “sons many and good, He gave me a household, He gave me all good things.” Do you love Him for this?…Therefore if God is good, who has given you what you have, how much more blessed will you be when He has given you Himself! You have desired all these things of Him: I beseech you desire of Him Himself also. For these things are not truly sweeter than He is, nor in any way are they to be compared to Him. He then who preferrs God Himself to all the things which he has received, whereat he rejoices, to the things he has received, he “calls upon God in truth.”… — Exposition on Psalms 145

Bede: But we must look attentively at this—that not everyone who seems to pray before other people is proven to ask or to seek or to knock at the entrance of the heavenly kingdom in the sight of the searcher of hearts. The prophet would not have said, “The Lord is near to all who call on him in truth,” unless he recognized that there are some who call on the Lord, but not in truth. They do indeed call upon the Lord in truth who do not contradict in their lives what they say in their prayers. They call on the Lord in truth who, as they are about to offer their petitions, first busy themselves with carrying out his orders. Those who, as they are about to say to him in prayer, “And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors,” have fulfilled that mandate of his that says, “And whenever you stand to pray, grant pardon if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father too, who is in heaven, may forgive you your sins.” Hence about such persons the prophet appropriately adds, “He will fulfill the will of those who fear him, and will hearken to their prayers and will save them.” Accordingly, they call on the Lord in truth who are acknowledged to fear him. He listens to their prayers when they cry out [to him]; he grants their pious desires when they long for him; he raises them up to eternal salvation when they have passed from this life. — Homilies on the Gospels 2:14

Fulgentius of Ruspe: If there are any who are even in the catholic church and live evil lives, before they finish this life, let them hasten to give up the evil life, and let them not think that the catholic [Christian] name is enough for salvation, if they do not do the will of God. For our Savior says, “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” In the book of Psalms as well, it is written that “the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them.” Wherefore also in Proverbs each one of us is commanded both to fear the Lord and to depart from evil. There it is said, “fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.” — ON THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 1:26.2

Psalms 145:19

Augustine of Hippo: “He will perform the will of them that fear Him” [Psalms 145:19]. He will perform it, He will perform it: though He perform it not at once, yet He will perform it. Certainly if therefore you fear God, that you may do His will, behold even He in a manner ministers to you; He does your will. “And He shall hear their prayer, and save them.” You see that for this purpose the Physician hears, that He may save. When? Hear the Apostle telling you. For we are saved in hope: but hope which is seen is not hope: but if what we see not we hope for, then do we with patience wait for it: [Romans 8:24] “the salvation,” that is, which Peter calls “ready to be revealed in the last time.” [1 Peter 1:5] — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:20

Augustine of Hippo: The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Psalms 145:21

Augustine of Hippo: My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD: and let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever. — Exposition on Psalms 145

Theodoret of Cyrus: We have confessed that God the Word took not a body only but also a soul. Why then did the divine Evangelist omit in this place mention of the soul and mention the flesh only? Is it not clear that he mentioned the visible nature and intended to include the nature united to it? For the mention of the soul is understood of course in that of the flesh. For when we hear the prophet saying, “Let all flesh bless his holy name,” we do not understand the prophet to be exhorting bodies of flesh without souls but believe the whole to be summoned to give praise in the summoning of a part. — DIALOGUE 9