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This psalm has the title, For David himself, when he was in the desert of Idumæa. By the name of Idumæa is understood this world. For Idumæa was a certain nation of men going astray, where idols were worshipped. In no good sense is put this Idumæa. If not in a good sense it is put, it must be understood that this life, wherein we suffer so great toils, and wherein to so great necessities we are made subject, by the name of Idumæa is signified. Even here is a desert where there is much thirst, and you are to hear the voice of One now thirsting in the desert. But if we acknowledge ourselves as thirsting, we shall acknowledge ourselves as drinking also. For he that thirsts in this world, in the world to come shall be satisfied, according to the Lord’s saying, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for the same shall be satisfied. Therefore in this world we ought not to love fullness. Here we must thirst, in another place we shall be filled. But now in order that we may not faint in this desert, He sprinkles upon us the dew of His word, and leaves us not utterly to dry up, so that there should not be in our case any seeking of us again, but that we may so thirst as that we may drink. But in order that we may drink, with somewhat of His Grace we are sprinkled: nevertheless we thirst. And what says our soul to God?
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God, my God, unto You from the light I watch. What is to watch? It is, not to sleep. What is to sleep? There is a sleep of the soul; there is a sleep of the body. Sleep of body we all ought to have: because if sleep of body is not taken, a man faints, the body itself faints. For our frail body cannot long sustain a soul watching and on the stretch on active works; if for a long time the soul shall have been intent on active pursuits, the body being frail and earthly holds her not, sustains her not for ever in activity, and faints and falls. Therefore God has granted sleep to the body, whereby are recruited the members of the body, in order that they may be able to sustain the soul watching. But of this let us take heed, namely, that our soul herself sleep not: for evil is the sleep of the soul. Good is the sleep of the body, whereby is recruited the health of the body. But the sleep of the soul is to forget her God. Whatsoever soul shall have forgotten her God, sleeps. Therefore the Apostle says to certain persons that forgot their God, and being as it were in sleep, did act the follies of the worship of idols — the Apostle, I say, says to certain persons, Rise, you that sleepest, and rise up from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you. Was the Apostle waking up one sleeping in body? Nay, but he was waking a soul sleeping, inasmuch as he was waking her, in order that she might be lightened by Christ. Therefore as to these same watchings says this man, God, my God, unto You from the light I watch. For you would not watch of yourself, unless there should arise your Light, to wake you from sleep. For Christ lightens souls, and makes them to watch: but if His light He takes away, they slumber. For for this cause to Him there is said in another psalm, Lighten my eyes, that I may never slumber in death…
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My soul has thirsted for You. Behold that desert of Idumæa. See how here he thirsts: but see what good thing is here, Hath thirsted for You. For there are they that thirst, but not for God. For every one that wills anything to be granted to him, is in the heat of longing; the longing itself is the thirst of the soul. And see ye what longings there are in the hearts of men: one longs for gold, another longs for silver, another longs for possessions, another inheritance, another abundance of money, another many herds, another a wife, another honours, another sons. You see those longings, how they are in the hearts of men. All men are inflamed with longing, and scarce is found one to say, My soul has thirsted for You. For men thirst for the world: and perceive not themselves to be in the desert of Idumæa, where their souls ought to thirst for God…
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Wisdom therefore must be thirsted after, righteousness must be thirsted after. With it we shall not be satisfied, with it we shall not be filled, save when this life shall have been ended, and we shall have come to that which God has promised. For God has promised equality with Angels: and now the Angels thirst not as we do, they hunger not as we do; but they have the fullness of truth, of light, of immortal wisdom. Therefore blessed they are, and out of so great blessedness, because they are in that City, the Heavenly Jerusalem, afar from whence we now are sojourning in a strange land, they observe us sojourners, and they pity us, and by the command of the Lord they help us, in order that to this common country sometime we may return, and there with them sometime with the Lord’s fountain of truth and eternity we may be filled. Now therefore let our soul thirst: whence does our flesh also thirst, and this in many ways? In many ways for You, he says, my flesh also. Because to our flesh also is promised Resurrection. As to our soul is promised blessedness, so also to our flesh is promised resurrection…For if God has made us that were not, is it a great thing for Him to make again us that were? Therefore let not this seem to you to be incredible, because ye see dead men as it were decaying, and passing into ashes and into dust. Or if any dead man be burned, or if dogs tear him in pieces, do ye think that from this he will not rise again? All things which are dismembered, and into a sort of dust do decay, are entire with God. For into those elements of the world they pass, whence at first they have come, when we were made: we do not see them; but yet God will bring them forth, He knows whence, because even before we were, He created us from whence He knew. Such a resurrection of the flesh therefore to us is promised, as that, although it be the same flesh that now we carry which is to rise again, yet it has not the corruption which now it has. For now because of the corruption of frailty, if we eat not, we faint and are hungry; if we drink not, we faint and are thirsty; if long time we watch, we faint and sleep; if long time we sleep, we faint, therefore we watch…Secondly, see how without any standing is our flesh: for infancy passes away into boyhood, and you seek infancy, and infancy is not, for now instead of infancy is boyhood: again this same also passes into youth, you seek boyhood and findest not: the young man becomes a middle-aged man, you seek the young man and he is not: the middle-aged man becomes an old man, you seek a middle-aged man and findest not: and an old man dies, you seek an old man and findest not: our age therefore stands not still: everywhere is weariness, everywhere faintness, everywhere corruption. Observing what a hope of resurrection God promises to us, in all those our manifold faintings we thirst for that incorruption: and so our flesh manifoldly does thirst for God.
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Nevertheless, my brethren, the flesh of a good Christian and a believer even in this world for God does thirst: for if the flesh has need of bread, if it has need of water, if it has need of wine, if it has need of money, if this flesh has need of a beast, from God it ought to seek it, not from demons and idols and I know not what powers of this world. For there are certain who when they suffer hunger in this world, leave God and ask Mercury or ask Jove to give unto them, or her whom they call Heavenly, or any the like demons: not for God their flesh thirsts. But they that thirst for God, everywhere ought to thirst for Him, both soul and flesh: for to the soul also God gives His bread, that is the Word of Truth: and to the flesh God gives the things which are necessary, for God has made both soul and flesh. For the sake of your flesh you ask of demons: has God made the soul, and the demons made the flesh? He that has made the soul, the Same has made the flesh also: He that has made both of them, the Same feeds both of them. Let either part of us thirst for God, and after labour manifold let either simply be filled.
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But where thirsts our soul, and our flesh manifoldly, not for any one but for You, O Lord, that is our God? It thirsts where? In a land desert, and without way, and without water. Of this world we have spoken, the same is Idumæa, this is the desert of Idumæa, whence the Psalm has received its title. In a land desert. Too little it is to say desert, where no man dwells; it is besides, both without way, and without water. O that the same desert had even a way: O that into this a man running, even knew where he might thence get forth!…Evil is the desert, horrible, and to be feared: and nevertheless God has pitied us, and has made for us a way in the desert, Himself our Lord Jesus Christ: and has made for us a consolation in the desert, in sending to us preachers of His Word: and has given to us water in the desert, by fulfilling with the Holy Spirit His preachers, in order that there might be created in them a well of water springing up unto life everlasting. And, lo! We have here all things, but they are not of the desert…
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Thus in a holy thing I have appeared to You, that I might see Your power and Your glory…Unless a man first thirst in that desert, that is in the evil wherein he is, he never arrives at the good, which is God. But I have appeared to You, he says, in a holy thing. Now in a holy thing is there great consolation. I have appeared to You, is what? In order that You might see me: and for this reason You have seen me, in order that I might see You. I have appeared to You, that I might see. He has not said, I have appeared to You, that You might see: but, I have appeared to You, that I might see Your power and Your glory. Whence also the Apostle, But now, he says, knowing God, nay, having been known of God. For first you have appeared to God, in order that to you God might be able to appear. That I might see Your power and Your glory. In truth in that forsaken place, that is, in that desert, if as though from the desert a man strives to obtain enough for his sustenance, he will never see the power of the Lord, and the glory of the Lord, but he will remain to die of thirst, and will find neither way, nor consolation, nor water, whereby he may endure in the desert. But when he shall have lifted up himself to God, so as to say to Him out of all his inward parts, My soul has thirsted for You; how manifoldly for You also my flesh! lest perchance even the things necessary for the flesh of others he ask, and not of God, or else long not for that resurrection of the flesh, which God has promised to us: when, I say, he shall have lifted up himself, he will have no small consolations.