The Likeness of God and the Stewardship of the Land

The work of hymns signifies the gathering of all saints (Ps 133:1-2), neither by day nor by night, as sleep does not overcome them by the power of those then incorruptible and tireless bodies.

Hymns are the end of good things, while the works of God are the hypothesis of hymns, being gifts and benefits (Ps 134:1-2). Those who hymn are not strangers or those standing far off, but those present and remaining, just as David established the hymn-singers as those staying upon this.

If anyone says that the indwelling of humans by God is a great benefit and the capital of all benefits (Ps 134:3-4), just as He made the Hebrews His own people and a chosen people for Himself above all nations then, setting them apart as something more and surpassing, as also He is His own God in intimacy, the God of all in creation.

He recalls the things happening paradoxically concerning Israel (Ps 134:6-7)—not things that would appear by nature from the beginning, but by the will of the One above nature (this indeed of the heavens, such as fire, hail, and darkness; this of the earth, such as frogs, locusts, gnats, and the punishment against the firstborn; and this of those in the sea and the depths, such as those concerning the Red Sea)—to the creative power, linking these as having come from the same power, asserting that He alone is the one moving the clouds from the ends of the earth, kindling lightning, sending the precursors of rains, and sending winds from the invisible beginning; He says that the origin of winds is an unseen and unknown treasure of God, not known beforehand where they are before they blow; he continuously understands that the winds lie as in the bodies, having treasures.

The terrible things signify not only what happened for Israel's sake, but for the knowledge of God through all the earth and all time (Ps 134:13), not only while the works of the one doing them were being made known, but also later through memory.

Therefore, he names those above as gods according to the custom of the nations, though they are not gods; but now, to the shame of the false gods' idols, he names them by the matter, accusing that silver...

And it is like gold, purified by labor, because it is like that which is under men and the soulless, along with the vanity of souls, due to the absence of a life-giving spirit upon them; all such things possess the outward appearance of contempt, and the demons have the outward indictment that they are not gods, whose such likenesses exist. For the likeness of God is divine; therefore also man is the icon of the divine, not one sustained by divinity.

Not less than subduing the warring ones, to feed them in the wilderness and to lead them without supplies, and the cutting down of the Amorite kings, is a demonstration of the mercy of God, providing a place for habitation, giving to the Hebrews their land (Ps 135:16, 22). And this was the storing up of the wealth of the ungodly for the righteous. For they would not have been destroyed otherwise if they had not been coming to the fullness of sins, just as God said to Abraham; and Moses indeed says that he has not held Israel in possession of their land because of his own righteousness, but because of their lawlessness and through the love of God toward the fathers, so that toward them indeed the destructive judgment was to be just, but toward these a philanthropic beneficent giving, and for the participation in philanthropy, the piety of the fathers had become a preparation. For thus justly and goodly and fittingly into order things from God appear.

That they are lying in the wilderness shows just as the state of the captives is after the migration from their own cities (Ps 136:1, 2). For this is: 'At the willow trees we hung up our instruments' (Ps 136:2).

And according to the spiritual worship, they considered foreign lands to be the foreign souls, and to be kept in these, to bring forth the divine things, just as being migrated from one's own place into a foreign place, as the divine mouth of Christ says: 'Do not give the holy things to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine' (Matt 7:6). Such was also Herod, desiring to behold the signs of Christ, not seeking this for reverence but for pleasant spectacle, wherefore he did not succeed.

'I will not use another land like yours, O Jerusalem,' he says, 'nor will I place on an equal the unclean with the pure, nor the profane near the holy; but for me, even being outside your habitation, your one will approach' (Ps 136:4, 5).