Letter 140. To Cyprian the Presbyter.

Cyprian had visited Jerome at Bethlehem and had asked him to write an exposition of Psalm XC. in simple language such as might be readily understood. With this request Jerome now complies, giving a very full account of the psalm, verse by verse, and bringing the treasures of his learning and especially his knowledge of Hebrew to bear upon it. He asserts its Mosaic authorship but is careful to add that "the man of God" may have spoken not for himself but in the name of the Jewish people. He speaks of the five books into which the psalter is divisible and says that it is a mistake to ascribe all the psalms to David. An allusion to the doctrine of Pelagius shows that the letter must belong to Jerome's last years, and Vallarsi is probably right in assigning it to a.d. 418.

The below translation made by ChatGPT 3.5 from this Latin text.

1. First, Cyrianus, most studious of the priests, concerning their number, about whom Moses heard: Choose Presbyters, whom you know to be Presbyters (Exod. 12), as much as I have learned from letters, and the word gained by blessed men, who meditate in the Law of God day and night (Psal. 1). Now, however, since knowledge of the outer man has also been made known to us, and after greetings and sweet embraces, by which friendship is joined, you ask me immediately to expound to you the most difficult Psalm, which is numbered eighty-ninth among the Greeks and Latins, not with a composed diction and popular applause which usually deceives and fools the ears of the unlearned, but with simple speech and truth of Ecclesiastic eloquence: so that our interpretation does not need another interpreter, since it often happens with very eloquent speakers that understanding what they explain is more difficult than what they are attempting to explain. I will undertake the most difficult task, and supported by the aid of your holy prayers, I will remember that verse: The Lord shall give the word to them that preach with much power (Ps 67:12).

2. And first it must be known that the title of this Psalm according to the Hebrew is "A Prayer of Moses, the man of God"; according to the Septuagint, "A Prayer of Moses, the man of God". But the Holy Scripture teaches us the difference between man and man of God. A fifty-year-old man speaks to Elijah: "Man of God, the king calls you." To which he replied, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men" (4 Kings 1:9-10). To Timothy also the Apostle writes: But thou, O man of God, fly these things. Moreover, concerning a man of God, the same Apostle instructs: But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ: and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God. This man is he who ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. For the man was not created for the woman; but the woman for the man (1 Corinthians 11:3-9). And elsewhere: But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). And in another place: Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). Therefore, whether the appellation of man or of a holy man is ascribed to him who saw God face to face, and whose soul was saved, by his mouth we have learned the nature of the world's creation, of those matters, at least, which are visible, and the condition of man, and all the true history that goes back from our own times. He has left us not only five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but also eleven Psalms from the 89th, which begins, "O Lord, Thou hast been our refuge," to the 99th which is entitled, "A psalm of thanksgiving." However, Psalm 98 is not titled "A Psalm of David" in Hebrew, although it is in most manuscripts; this is because the Holy Scripture has a practice of assigning these titles to all the Psalms whose authors are not explicitly identified in the text, while those whose names are given in early Psalms have no titled assigned.

3. However, there are four Psalms that have the title of prayer: The sixteenth, which is titled Prayer of David and begins with "Hear my just cause, O Lord"; And the eighty-fifth: Incline your ear, O Lord; And the eighty-ninth, which is now in our hands: Lord, you have become our refuge; And the one hundred and first, which has the title, a prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord. David and the poor man, who although he was rich, became poor for us, refers to Christ, who sat on the foal of a donkey, according to Zechariah (Chapter 9, verse 9), poor and gentle. But Moses, through whom the Lord gave the law, whose mouth we heard speaking with God, "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26): and immediately entered, "And God created the man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them," from the beginning of man's condition to his death and resurrection, explains everything, how he was created, how long he lives, what he does in the world, what the fruit of life is, why he toils, and where he strives to go. And since he who writes these things is a human being himself, he bears witness through his own person to the condition of the entire human race. Some, however, refer this Psalm, or Prayer, to the people of Israel: how they offended God in the wilderness and fell, and were deemed unworthy to enter the promised land; how the sons entered in place of their fathers, and again await God's favor, which is fulfilled in the coming of Christ.

4. A discourse about scripture. - Discourse, according to grammarians, is the speech of those who express the meaning of words, and whose etymology they thus explain: Discourse is the expression of the mouth. In the Holy Scriptures, however, we find it difficult to read Discourse in this sense, but rather that which pertains to prayers and supplications. The Hebrews say that the book of Psalms contains five books; from the first to the fortieth; from the forty-first to the seventy-first; from the seventy-second to the eighty-eighth; then from the beginning of the fourth book, which is the eighty-ninth, and which we are now discussing, to the hundred and fifth. At the end of all which a twofold amen is placed, which the Septuagint translate, "So be it, so be it," and from the 106th to the end it is like the Twelve Prophets; whose books we find are joined in one volume, and which are also treated by one church in a uniform order, which begins at Hosea and ends with Malachi; but in another Ezra and Nehemiah are counted as one book. But what I nearly forgot, asserting among the eleven psalms of Moses, that the 98th also belongs to him, where it is written, "O magnify the Lord our God and worship his footstool; for it is holy", the opinion of some people seems to be opposed to ours, because Moses is believed to have mentioned Samuel, whom we know to have lived long after his time. The solution of which question is easy; the prophetic name is Samuel's, who was of such great merit that he was mentioned with Moses in Jeremiah; if Moses and Samuel shall stand (Jer. 15. 1): according to that example, when the man of God speaks in Samaria: altar, altar, thus says the Lord: behold a son shall be born to the house of David, Josias his name (5th Kings 13. 2). We also know that those who think all the Psalms were written by David are mistaken, and not those whose names they bear. Therefore, they also want this Psalm to be composed by David under the name of Moses, because the Lawgiver describes the common offense and calamity of the human race, and then the expectation of salvation, with a sacred mouth.

5. Lord, you have become our dwelling place in every generation. In the Septuagint: "Lord, you have been made our refuge, in every generation." In Hebrew, Maon is used for dwelling and refuge, but it sounds more like a dwelling place than a refuge. The narrator is going to tell a sad story and deplore the human race, but begins with praising God, so that whatever misfortunes may happen to man, they may not be seen as the harshness of the Creator, but rather as the fault of the one who was created. Whoever endures the storm, seeks refuge in either rocks or shelter. He who is pursued by an enemy flees to the walls of cities. The weary traveler seeks comfort in the shade, from both the sun and the dust. If a savage beast thirsts for human blood, it desires and strives, in whatever way it can, to avoid immediate danger. And so man, from the beginning of his existence, makes use of God as his helper; and since he owes his creation to that grace and his subsistence and life to that mercy, he can perform no good work without Him who granted him free will in such a way that He would not deny His grace for each individual act. So that free will might not result in an injury to the Creator nor in his obstinacy for which reason man was made free, to know that he has nothing except God. Moreover, when he says "In generation, and generation," he means all times both before the Law, and under the Law, and under grace of the Gospel. Therefore, the Apostle says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God," and all his Epistles in their salutations say not first "Peace," but "Grace unto you," so that we may obtain the peace of the Lord by the remission of our sins.

6. "Before the mountains were born, and the earth and world brought forth, from eternity to eternity, You are God." (Psalm 90:2) "Before the mountains were settled, before the earth and world were created, from eternity to eternity, You are God." (Septuagint) Some people distort this passage through wicked interpretation, especially those who want to posit the souls as prior to humans being made on the sixth day. They read and interpret it as follows: "Lord, You have been a refuge for us from generation to generation, before the mountains were settled, before the earth and world were created," so that what follows will make sense: "from eternity to eternity, You are God." This is how they wrongly teach it. If the Lord, before the mountains were established, and the earth and the orb of the earth were formed, was the refuge of men; therefore there were souls in heaven, before human bodies were formed. But we, as we have proposed, should distinguish reading thus: Before the mountains were established and the earth and the orb of the earth were formed, from age to age you are God; so our refuge was not before the creation of the world, who we were not yet; but that God always be God from eternity to eternity. For he whom the Latin interpreter has placed, from age to age, and in Hebrew it is Olam, we will interpret more correctly, from everlasting to everlasting. Something similar is read also in Proverbs from the persona of wisdom, which is Christ: The Lord created me at the beginning of his ways, in his works, before the ages he established me, before he made the earth and the abysses, before the fountains of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before all hills he generated me (Prov. 8. 22. et seqq.). But no word of creation should be moved since in Hebrew there is no creation that is called Bara; but possession. For it is written: Adonai Canani Bresith Dercho, which is expressed in our language: The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways. However, there is much diversity between possession and creation. Possession means that the Son has always been in the Father, and the Father in the Son. However, the creation of him who did not exist before is the beginning of a condition. According to the laws of tropology, the words "Before the mountains were established, before the earth was formed and the world was made," mean that before sublime dogmas were established in our soul, and the earth of our body was formed or stabilized by God, and the world, which in Hebrew is called Thebel and more significantly in Greek oukoumenē and can be translated as "inhabited," was established or stabilized, God has always been our refuge. However, an inhabited soul deserves to have God as a guest, not deserted, as the Savior says: "I and the Father will come and dwell with him" (John 14:23). Moreover, that which is also Hebrew, and all other interpreters: "Before the mountains were born, and the earth was brought forth," is clearly brought forth to us for tropology. For neither mountains nor earth receive birth and parturition, but condition. From which it is clearly demonstrated that even the holy and lofty virtues are always born of God's mercy.

7. You will turn man to contrition, and say, "Return, sons of Adam." According to the Seventy: "Do not turn man into humility," you said, "return, sons of men." According to the Hebrew that is said, it means: "Oh God, who created man, and from the beginning of him is refuge and habitation, you will turn him to contrition; you made him and molded him to be shattered in death, and your vessel at the end of his life will be broken; when this condition hangs over him, so that he may perish in his rise, and no matter how long he may have lived, he will dissolve in the end; you speak to him daily through the prophets: Return, sons of Adam, who by your fault offended God and became mortal from immortality." For you did not wish to hear the command: Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death. (Gen. 2.17). Moreover that which the Seventy have translated: Do not turn man to humility, and you said: Be converted, O sons of men, has this sense: I ask that you do not humiliate the man whom you have created in your image and likeness and have deemed worthy to call a son from a servant; do not make him forever captive to sin, lest the old sentence prevail over him: "You are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen. 3.19). For you have promised us repentance, saying: I desire not the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live (Ezekiel 18:23); You have said, by the voice of all your saints: "Turn ye, turn ye, O ye sons of men, unto the most gracious God, who meets those who come and offers the sign which they had lost through their own fault, and gives anew the old robe of incorruption."

8. Because a thousand years are in your sight like yesterday, which passed, or like a watch in the night. You who always provoke us to repentance through the prophets, saying, “Return, O sons of men,” we ask (as I have already said) that you do not keep man in everlasting humility. For we do not think that what you promise is far off, giving us salvation after many ages. For compared to eternity, the length of all time is short. For a thousand years in your sight are like one day. And he immediately rebuked himself. "I misspoke," he said, "I should have said that one day, and the length of a single day is equivalent to a thousand years in your sight, when I ought rather to have said that the space of a single watch stands for a protracted period of a thousand years. The night is divided into four watches, each of which is reckoned as comprising three hours. Hence the Lord came to the Apostles who were sailing in the fourth watch (Matt. 14:25; and Mark vi. 48). Therefore, just as a single watch of the night speedily slips by, especially for those who are wearied by watching, so too do living spaces of a thousand years pass with you, who are always to be, and always are, and always have been, for an incredibly short time." And further, as yesterday's day, which has passed, in accordance with the opinion of the Apostle who writes to the Hebrews, let us feel that Jesus Christ yesterday and today, the same and forever (Heb. 13:8). Therefore, I believe that from this place, and from the Epistle which is inscribed in the name of Peter the Apostle, a thousand years are accustomed to be called one day: so that because the world was made in six days, only six thousand years are believed to subsist: and afterwards the sevenfold number comes, and the octonary, in which the true Sabbath is exercised, and the purity of circumcision is restored. Therefore, also, the rewards of good works are promised by eight beatitudes. However, Peter writes this way: "One thing, beloved, should not escape your notice: with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." The Lord does not delay in His promise, as some think. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

9. Upon striking them, they will be like a dream, passing away like a herb in the morning. It flourishes in the morning and fades away, and by evening it is worn out and dried up. As for those things which are considered worthless, their years shall be as many: passing away like a herb in the morning, flourishing in the morning and passing away, falling in the evening, becoming hardened and withered. According to the Hebrew, the meaning here is: Our conversion and salvation have greatly benefited from the fact that all the lives of mortals, like a dream, are contracted by a swift death: which, like flowers and hay, dries up and fades almost at the same time. Striking you," he said, "that is to say, men; and with that speech complete: 'You fool, this night your soul will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' (Luke 12.20) Every human condition is compared to a dream. For just as in the morning the green grass, and blooming with its own flowers, pleases the eyes of those who behold it, and gradually withering, loses its beauty, and turns into hay that must be crushed: so every kind of person blossoms in childhood, flourishes in youth, thrives in the men of full age: and suddenly, not knowing it, their hair turns white, their faces wrinkled, their once stretched skin contracts; and at the very end, that which is called evening here, that is, old age, can hardly move: so that one is not recognized as the same person who existed before, but is almost transformed into another. What shall we say of the times from infancy to extreme and decrepit old age, when sickness causes this as well as sadness from starvation, so that the previously most beautiful faces of women pass into such foulness, that love is replaced by hatred? About this condition of mortals, Isaiah also speaks: All flesh is grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls (Isaiah 40:6). It must be explained similarly according to the Septuagint. Everything that seems long in the world, God, is brief for you. For the days and years in which human life is contracted, if compared to eternity, will be considered as nothing. For, just as the grass grew in the morning, flourished, and dried up, at evening, it withered and died; so will be all human beauty.

10. For we have been consumed in your anger, and are troubled in your indignation. Seventy: For we have failed in your anger, and we are troubled in your fury. Symmachus and Aquila translated it as "we have been disturbed" because of what we said, we are troubled. However, it signifies the brevity of human life. And what Intro brought: in your anger and in your fury, the sentence of God showed perseverance, to which all men are subject. Namely this: you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. But, beautifully, not as in the Septuagint, we are troubled, but according to the Hebrew, we are said to hasten; so, although the age of men may appear long, yet in comparison with eternity it is short. This also is testified by the illustrious Poet, who says:

But meanwhile it flees, time flees irretrievably. (Georgics, book 3.) Et iterum . . . . Rhoebe for a long time (if any thing lasts long for mortals) We have lived. (Aeneid. 10.)

11. "You have set our iniquities before you; our hidden sins are in the light of your face" (Psalm 90:8). In the Septuagint, it reads: "You have set our iniquities before you, our age in the light of your face." Where we have translated "our hidden sins" instead of "our age" as the Septuagint did. In the Hebrew script, it is written as "Alomenu," which the fifth edition interprets as "youth"; Aquila translates it as "oversights," and we can also translate it into our language as "errors" or "ignorances." Whence, he said in another place: The sins of my youth and my ignorances remember not (Psalm 24:7). And again: Who understandeth sins? And: Cleanse me from my secret faults, O Lord: and from those of others spare thy servant (Psalms 18: 13-14). For the faults that we commit, which we often do by will, sometimes by ignorance or error, are foreign to us; and yet, when there is no will in the crime, error is the fault. But I wonder why the seventy wanted to call the age, neglects, and errors, or ignorances, the world: unless perhaps because vices are committed in the world and in the time of this life. And what he meant by "in illuminatione" or "in the light of your face" is this: none of our sins have escaped your notice, O sinner, and your eye has even seen our secrets, according to what is written: "Darkness shall not hide from you" (Psalm 139:12), and "God searches the heart and the reins" (Psalm 7:9). And again, "As his darkness, so also his light" (Psalm 139:12). For man sees only what is on the surface, but God sees into the heart.

12. For all our days have passed away in Thy wrath: we have consumed our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years. But if in the strong they be fourscore years: and what is beyond these is labour and sorrow. For it is passed away in thy anger and we shall be troubled. The years of our life are threescore and ten, or fourscore, if with more strength: and in them is labour and sorrow. For it is come to an end, and we are gone. Who knoweth the power of thy anger, and for thy fear can number thy wrath? However, we have often said that the wrath and anger of God is not that God takes revenge when angry, but that He seems to be angry at those who endure punishments. For what comes upon us from our own perturbation is derived from God's justice. Regarding the speech of the speaker, the Seventy translated "meditationem araneae." For just as the words of a speaker fly by, so too the work of a spider is woven in futility. This refers to the person of heretics as it was written in Isaiah: "They weave the web of a spider" (Isaiah 59:5); which can catch small and light animals such as flies, mosquitoes, and others of this sort; but are broken by stronger animals. It is similar in the Church with the simple-minded who are deceived by errors, as they are incapable of contending with the stronger men in faith and truth.

13. "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow" (Psalm 90:10). In the Septuagint, it reads: "The days of our years in them are threescore years and ten. But if in power they be fourscore years, and what is more of them is labor and sorrow." For what we have translated as "in them," the Hebrew has "Baem," and Symmachus translated it more significantly as "whole," which we can translate more for sense than for word as "entire." Therefore, whatever we live, and in which mortal life is pleasant, is encompassed by a span of seventy years. But if, as Symmachus interpreted it, contrary to opinion, they are eighty years; whatever is above, is spent in illnesses and infirmity, which are companions of old age, with dimming eyes, aching, or falling out of the hardest teeth first, which the divine word more fully describes in Ecclesiastes: The days of evil shall come, and when we shall say that we have no pleasure in them. When the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars; and the clouds return after the rain; In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall stagger: and the grinders shall be idle in a small number, and they that look through the holes shall be darkened: And the doors shall be shut in the street, when the grinder's voice shall be low, and they shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low; And they shall fear high things, and they shall be afraid in the way: the almond tree shall flourish, and the locust shall be made fat, and the caper tree shall be destroyed. For man shall depart into his eternal home: and they that mourn shall go about the streets: Until the silver cord be broken, and the golden fillet shrink back, and the pitcher be crushed at the fountain, and the wheel be broken upon the cistern, and the dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it. Vanity of vanities, said Ecclesiastes, and all is vanity. All these things are contained in the miseries of human life, and especially of old age: and we have spoken of the sense they have in their place. They are those who interpret this place allegorically, referring to the mystery of the Sabbath and circumcision: that we first rest in the Law, and afterward the sacraments of true circumcision in the Gospel hold us, admonishing that also: Give a portion to seven, and also to eight. And multitudes of seventy thousand and eighty thousand men, from whom the temple was built under Solomon. But what is this to the present place, which a simple and pure explanation suffices for, one that seeks not the glory of doctrine in the multiplication of words, but should seek the understanding of the reader?

14. "For we have passed quickly and flown away. Septuagint: For meekness has come upon us and we shall be corrected. For which in Greek it is written παιδευθησόμεθα, which is an ambiguous word; and it signifies both correction and education and doctrine. For whom the Lord loveth, he corrects and teaches, and whips every son whom he receives. Symmachus translated this passage as follows: For we fall suddenly and fly away. The Fifth Edition in this way: For we have passed quickly and dissolved." And there is meaning. After seventy years, and, as is often the case, eighty, which is how long human life lasts, when the soul is separated from the body, we fly away like the wind; either because it compares man to the green grass and beautiful flowers, which wither in the evening, now for the dryness of the evening, it sets forth the cutting down of the flowers. And when we have passed through everything we lived for, we are dissolved by a sudden death. What the Seventy have said, 'For meekness will come upon us, and we shall be taken away,' has this meaning. After seventy and eighty years, when the meekness of the Lord will come, and the day of our death will approach, we will not be judged according to merit, but according to mercy: and what is thought to be correction, will be teaching and doctrine. And we are quite amazed as to why the Hebrew word Ais, the Septuagint, Theodotion, and the Sixth Edition transferred meekness, when Aquila, Symmachus and the Fifth Edition translated hurry and suddenly quickly.

15. Who knows the strength of your anger, and according to your fear, your indignation? Seventy: Who knows the power of your anger, and can count your rage because of fear? There is a different distinction between Hebrew and the Septuagint. For the Septuagint connect the enumeration of the fear and rage of the Lord. Moreover, in the following verse the Hebrew is adapted, so that it follows: Show us, Lord, the length of our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. This should be briefly explained to us. Who can know how long your anger, from which fear is born for the human race, will last, unless you teach us, who are God? Therefore, I beg that you may reveal to us the time of our life, so that we may prepare ourselves with a wise heart according to your judgment. But what he said: "Who knows the strength or power of your anger; and according to your fear, your indignation?" shows that it is difficult to know the secret of God's anger, fear, and indignation, and the reason why. Hence, the Prophet begs tearfully: "Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chastise me in your wrath" (Ps. 6.1). For He does not inflict pain to destroy, but to correct and amend. Therefore, in Hosea (Ch. 4:14), even to the people of Judea, whom He is very angry with, He says that He is by no means angry nor will He visit their transgressions upon their children, when they commit adultery. And through Ezekiel He speaks to Jerusalem: 'I do not mean to vent My wrath on you' and 'My menace shall withdraw far from you. (Ezek. 16:42).' And in the Chronicles when Israel is going out against the enemy for battle, his heart is peaceful.

16. Show us the number of our days, and we will come with a wise heart. Seventy: Make your right hand known, and those learned in wisdom. This is how Aquila, Symmachus, and Quinta Editio translated it: Show us our days so that we may come with a wise heart. The obvious mistake for why they said "right hand" instead of "days" is because the word yameinu is a compound word meaning our days. When it is written in the singular form, the last letter (called Nun) represents the right hand, as in the name Benjamin, which means son of the right hand. But if Mem has it, it means (indicates) a day or days. Moreover, the meaning is: Show us the number of our years and days, which you decreed for us to live in this world, so that we may prepare for your advent; and despising the error of mortals, hasten to go to you with a wise heart, and desire your presence and hasten to you. For nothing deceives the human race so much as while they are ignorant of the spaces of their own lives, they promise themselves a longer possession of this world. Hence, that excellent saying: There is no one so old and so decrepit in age that he does not suspect he will live one more year. It is also related to this meaning that which is said: Remember thy own death, and thou shalt not sin (Eccl. 7. 40). For he who recalls that he is going to die every day, despises the present, and hurries towards the future. This is what David prays of in another place, saying, "Take me not away in the midst of my days": before I go hence, and be no more seen'. This passage is thus explained: 'Do not let me die at a time when I think that I am still going to live, so that I may be able to correct my sins by penitence. For, if Thou doest this, I shall have ceased to be found making progress in my misdoings.' This is not that he denies any hope of resurrection, but that he declares himself unable to stand before One, in Whose sight all who continue in their sins are considered as nothing. Where we have translated 'those who are learned in heart', others have translated 'those who are bound', being deceived by the ambiguity of the word. For, if you say πεπεδημένους it means 'those who are bound'.

17. Return, O Lord, how long? And be gracious to your servants. Likewise Psalm 70. For we repent, and knowing the brevity of our life, we desire to come to you with a wise heart; and you, Lord, return to us. For we have strayed far from our sins and you have forgiven us, so that we may walk according to our will and thoughts. But as he carries it farther, how long, he has that understanding which we read in the twelfth Psalm: How long, o Lord, wilt thou forget me unto the end? For he who is in distress, the help of God seems slow; and therefore he prays more earnestly that he may soon feel the aid of the Lord God, and not judge him angry, but appeased.

18. Fill us with your morning mercy, and we will praise and rejoice in all our days. The Seventy: We are filled in the morning with your mercy, and we rejoiced and were delighted in all our days. In almost all places, the Seventy have this custom, that what is presented (or even placed) in the future by the Hebrews, they refer to as already done and past. So here, not as they desired, they say that they have been filled with the morning mercy of God, and are glad; otherwise, if this had not been done, why do they afterwards pray and say, "Look upon thy servants and upon thy works?" But they pray for the whole of what they ask, in order that they may deserve His morning mercy, which when they shall have obtained, they may praise God and be glad in all the days of their life. But they seem to me to pray for the rewards of eternal life in the hope of resurrection, saying: 'Fill us with your morning mercy.' Indeed, this is the title of the twenty-first Psalm, which pertains properly to the mystery of the Lord and his resurrection, and is inscribed as: 'For the morning assumption.'

19. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Seventy: We were glad for the days in which Thou didst humble us, for the years in which we saw evils. And Lazarus, who had received evils in his life, rests in the bosom of Abraham in eternal joy (Luke 16). But he does not call evils such things as are contrary to good, but he puts them for affliction and distress. With what evils both Sarah and Hagar afflicted her handmaid, and of which it is written in the Gospel: Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof (Matthew 6:34). How much therefore in this world, by persecutions, poverty, the power of enemies, or the tortures of illness we have been afflicted; so much after the resurrection in the future we will obtain greater rewards. For beautifully he did not say, we have endured evils; but we have seen. For who is the man who lives and does not see death? (Psalm 88:49) Which is not so much to be referred to the dissolution of the body as to the multitude of sins, according to which it is said: The soul that sins, it shall die (Ezekiel 18).

20. Let your work appear to your servants, and your glory over their children. Seventy: Look upon your servants, and upon your works, and direct their children. Therefore, the Lord himself works his work in his servants. Nor is he who seeks his own salvation content, but seeks the glory of his children, that is, the servants of God. But we ought to receive as sons, not so much those who are born from their line, as their disciples; of whom also Paul spoke: My little children, of whom I am in labor again. (Gal. 4. 19). Hence, John the Apostle, according to the merits of his children and the progress of their individual works, writes to little children, to young men, and to fathers.

21. "And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it." (Psalm 90:17) In the Septuagint, it reads: "And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us; and direct Thou the works of our hands over us: yea, the work of our hands, direct Thou it." Where are those who, applauding their power of free will, think that they have obtained the grace of God if they have the power to do good or evil, or not to do so? Now here blessed Moses, after the resurrection that he had asked for, saying: 'Fulfill us with your morning mercy, and we will praise and be glad in all our days', was not happy to have only risen again and obtained eternal life; but he asks that the glory of the Lord his God be over those who have risen, and that it shine in the souls and hearts of the saints. He Himself guides the works of their hands and make them eternal, and confirms everything that seems good in the holy ones. For as the humility of the supplicant earns rewards, so the pride of the one who despises or is confident in the help of God will be abandoned.