The Eternal King and Priest

They shall have the joy from the wilderness, and that which they long for they shall reach: a safe landing in a harbor, upon which it is fitting to confess thanks to God in the church of the people and in the seat of elders, to hymn Him on account of, indeed, sins, as it was foretold, having delivered the nation to the waves, but having brought them by mercy into good things. And mercy itself makes manifest that one has been brought forth from sins. For the unworthy of good things are pitied, but regarding the evil ones, they are pitied; of which indeed the matter is not common, not as it often happens in the sea, where the good ones are tossed and shipwrecked, just as also Paul (Acts 27), and the bad ones are brought out of storms, being common to both sides in the things happening, so that being tested in the same trials, the difference in judgment will become clear toward which later a right and just retribution toward their own works has been pre-witnessed. Not indeed is the word about the many seas, but about the one being tossed by sin and by mercy reaching into the harbor of the people, of which also the church is for confession and the seat of elders for a hymn to God.

Mercy toward men which He asks on behalf of men (Ps 108:21). He who, not needing mercy Himself, is good in helping the worthy with terrible things, and not measuring out the equal, but for all things has come to Christ and is pitied on our behalf; for as He is, He also as a poor and humble man is pitied, and as being in disturbances, as He partook of the one being tossed in evils of nature, and as retreating into obscurity as far as His bodily appearance failed, and as having been moved and having been helped, as if one of the most deaf, according to those having snatched Him away, He gave Himself up; and the weakness from fasting and the sharpness from lack of food He brings from us into Himself, placing nothing between us and Himself, and He speaks a reproach upon these things, the reproach from those fighting which He now has from us, those mocking in His name.

That the whole world will be permeated shows the powerful authority of the divine King, having begun from Jerusalem according to 'I have been made king upon his holy Mount Zion' (Ps 109:2), and all will obey and serve.

Apollinaris, placing the interpretation of Symmachus, says: the continuousness of the peak and the unfading, being compared to eternal life by morning dews, just as the released life was compared to a shadow to a reclining one, 'The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind' (Ps 109:3), and the following.

An eternal priest, the one living eternally, a stable priesthood having been made firm by an oath (Ps 109:4), is a type of Melchizedek, whose death is not made manifest, as a sign of the non-existence of death; and now, having been revealed as king, he is now also shown as priest, which is impossible in Israel and by law. It was typified in Melchizedek and this too.

For it is evident how Christ, even before being exalted by men, was exalted, being in the form of God and having descended from heaven (Phil 2). But the symbol of lowliness is the journey and drinking water from a stream; and we indeed see the Lord walking and asking for drinking water from the Samaritan woman (John 4).

Regarding Psalm 110: It is said in the present that the hymn is through short verses, and through the twenty-two elements of the Hebrews, the first sounds of the verses precede according to the Hebrew from first to last, that is, from Aleph to Tav, having a grammatical propriety of such a composition, which is called a preparation for the learning of letters and books, just as the psalms immediately and clearly exhort to the study of the law, since Moses himself commanded from above the same and having ordered to be made introducers to letters and to command the children to teach the law, because they had the learning through hearing, not through the Spirit the wisdom as those being perfected according to Christ.

He says, the righteousness of the blessed is not being extinguished (Ps 111:9), nor...