Commentary on Psalms

Theodoret of Cyrus (393–458)

The streams from the divine Spirit resemble watering by rivers: just as they cause trees planted near them to flourish, so the spiritual streams are the cause of bearing divine fruit. For this very reason Christ the Lord called his own teaching water.… Appropriately, then, blessed David compared the person devoted to the divine sayings with trees growing on riverbanks, ever green, bearing fruit in season.

Having concluded the first psalm with a reference to the ungodly, he opened the second in turn with this same reference so as to teach us that the aforementioned end of the ungodly lies in wait for both kings and rulers, Jews and Gentiles, who rage against the Savior.

[The words of the psalm] come from someone deploring and censuring folly.… Despite their conspiring together and hatching a tawdry plot for the murder of the Lord, their schemes all came to nothing, as they were unable to consign to oblivion the one crucified by them: on the third day he rose again and took possession of the world.

[This] verse … is expressed in human fashion: as God he possesses his kingship by nature, as human he receives it by election.

See also

• More works by Theodoret of Cyrus

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