The Meaning of Non-Existence and the Patient Psalmist

unspoken and glorified. 'Do not disregard me, for I am a sojourner in this land.' Do not disregard me while I am praying, entreating, weeping, and bearing tears—such things as 'those who sow in joy shall reap.' Therefore, 'do not disregard me,' but having responded, give what I have requested; for disregard sometimes signifies delay and patience, and sometimes indeed patience, when it occurs regarding sins: 'having done these things, I remained silentilentilent' (Psalm 39:8), instead of 'I have not repaid you.' If I were an inhabitant, I would not have dared to ask and to pray. For the inhabitants are those responsible for wickedness and impiety. For it is said in Jeremiah: 'from the face of the north shall the evils be burned upon those inhabiting the land' (Jeremiah 50:39), not 'upon those sojourning.' And in the Revelation of John, it is said three times: 'woe, woe, woe upon those inhabiting the land' (Revelation 18:7). If I were, therefore, an inhabitant, I would not have said, 'do not disregard me.'

And I am a stranger just as all my fathers were. The sojourner and the stranger are one and the same. For Paul, having made a list of all those who were well-pleasing through faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews, called them sojourners and strangers (Hebrews 11:13). None of them is an inhabitant, none is a native, but a stranger. He has come from elsewhere into this place; he was not born here. Therefore, all the fathers according to virtue were sojourners in the land and strangers, such as the patriarchs and others who produced according to divine instruction, such as prophets, teachers, and lawgivers.

Refresh me, so that I may find refreshment before I depart and no longer exist. Here, refreshment is called praiseworthy, being equivalent to 'delighting in the Lord.' 'I found refreshment for myself,' says Ephrem. And that refreshment is a slight thing. One refreshes praiseworthily when he enjoys virtue, when he 'delights in the Lord,' when he perceives and receives the understanding of the 'paradise of delight.' Since, therefore, much is lacking to me—for this is why I send up a petition, so that I may be filled of the things lacking—for this also he said at the beginning of the Psalm: 'Lord, make known to me my end and the number of my days, what it is, so that I may know what I lack' (Psalm 39:4). When he knows the things that are lacking and acquires these, he finds refreshment through such possessions. Therefore, he says: refresh me to remain in this life, so that having been instructed, I may be refreshed...

I shall refresh myself before I depart from this life and no longer exist. He does not say, 'I shall not begin to be,' but rather, 'I shall be such a person as I desire to be'; for the soul does not move into non-existence. Listen, accordingly, to what is said to people: one must take the words in their proper sense. If the righteous man or the wise man says according to God, 'I strive for all things so that I may become rich' (cf. Prov 28:20), do not take what is said to mean material wealth. But if someone else were a rhetorician or a physician—and this one is therefore a holy wise man—he says, 'I have no other endurance except the Lord and the subsistence from Him.'

Thus, if this wise man says, 'Let me live most hopefully in this only life, so that I may refresh myself having eaten and drunk according to: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die' (Luke 12:19), one must take the refreshment appropriately to the person, both the 'let me' and the 'no longer to be.' He who says this is immortal. Therefore, if he says, 'I shall no longer be,' he does not say, 'I move into complete destruction, I turn into non-existence,' but rather, 'I shall no longer be in the way that I desired to have been.' If a sinner says, 'Admonish me, discipline me, so that I may no longer be'—for it is not so that he may move into complete destruction.

1–2 unto the end; the Psalm of David: 'Waiting, I waited upon the Lord, and He attended to me' (Ps 40:1). The preceding Psalm could have been spoken by any saint who has lived his life with patience and magnanimity, and by the Lord's man; for the Apostle, taking words from it, has set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning Christ those things having been said. This is the whole: 'A sacrifice and an offering You did not desire' (Heb 10:5), until: 'It is written about me in the head of a book' (Ps 40:7). And the Psalm is single-personed. The same person who began announces and sings until the end of the Psalm. He therefore says thankfully to God: 'Waiting, I waited upon the Lord, and He heard my prayer.' The 'waiting, I waited' has such a meaning as if someone were to say, 'I healed medically, I wrote grammatically.' They are waiting, not in a manner of mere waiting, but either through much insensitivity or sometimes through ambition. For the Apostle says: 'I will not deliver my body so that I may boast' (1 Cor 9:27), because of praise.