ON THAT PHRASE: IN TRIBULATION THOU HAST ENLARGED ME
A Just as one who is pleased by the variety of tongues, and who desires to know the words of those of another language, cannot teach himself, but learns from those who are skilled in the Hebrew, Roman, or barbarian tongues so that he may speak according to them, so he who wishes to understand the words of the prophets must beseech the God of the prophets, that He who taught them His words may also grant them the understanding of them. Come then, faithful and like-minded assembly, you who walk the same path of life as we do, who sail upon the same bitter, salty sea of life with us, who celebrate the Trinity with one spirit and one mind, and who hasten toward the one harbor of the kingdom of heaven: lend me, I pray, the anchor of your prayer. And why, I ask, do I request this? Because I have already heard each one saying: *The Lord will hear me when I cry to him.* Since you are immediately heard when you cry out to God—not by filling the air with sound, but by appeasing God with faith and virtue—do you, as ship-captains and merchants, sailors and passengers, high priests and priests, clergy and laity, assist every man who says these things with your prayers, as if helping a pilot, so that the word may be brought to the harbor of truth. Why does the inscription have, *To the end, in psalms, a Psalm of David*? Because he began badly, but ended his life well; therefore, *To the end, in psalms*. He began to look badly when he saw a woman bathing. She was bathing, and he was casting off his purity; she was being cleansed, and he was being defiled; she was using cold water externally, and he was being inflamed internally. These things, however, were not worthy of psalms and praises, but of reproach and correction. The spark of desire kindled the flame of adultery; adultery, proceeding further, gave birth to murder; for the wicked lover, having slaughtered the sheep, killed its shepherd. Two passions committed two crimes. Love and wrath are armed: love slaughtered the woman like a sheep; wrath killed the husband. And he slaughtered the woman like a sheep because adultery is the death of continence. Therefore Scripture called her a sheep, because she had kept an immaculate body for her husband. For the prophet Nathan says in his parable: *A traveler came to a rich man, and he, sparing his own, took the poor man’s sheep and slaughtered it* (2 Kings 12:4), calling the wife a sheep because of the immaculate marriage bed. For *marriage is honourable, and the bed undefiled* (Heb. 13:4). He calls adultery a slaughter, because murder B and homicide is such an insult to the continent man. But because David washed away his adultery through fasting, and wiped away the stains of blood with tears, and every night washed his bed with tears, because he had looked at the woman bathing at the wrong time, therefore it is *In reproach* at the beginning, and *In psalms* at the end; in the beginning, the eye cast in desire; at the end, the eye pours forth fountains of tears: *To the end, in psalms, a Psalm of David*. The work of repentance is the fruit of salvation; and because where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, he therefore said: Because I cast off sin like a tyranny, and recovered justice like a kingdom, *The God of my justice heard me*. For it was a just thing that I, who wandered, should turn back, and that I, who fell, should rise again, as it is written: *A just man shall fall seven times, and shall rise again* (Prov. 24:16). Since, therefore, I fell unjustly and performed penance justly, *The God of my justice heard me*. For David calls his penance his justice. Just as it is a double sin to sin and not to perform penance—first, that one has fallen; second, that one did not wish to rise—and therefore God was angry with Cain, not so much because he had killed, as because he had not repented after the murder; so, because David sinned and repented, he acquires justice in the very act of penance; or rather, penance is accounted to him as justice. Since, therefore, God received the penance of David as justice, he says: *The God of my justice heard me*. God saw the cleansed soul and accepted the prayer; the scroll of supplication was written with tears, and the appeased King signed the scroll written with tears. Or, because in the preceding Psalm he was mourning the persecution offered by Absalom, and was affected by shame in fleeing from his son, and could not fight against his own flesh and blood, but the prayer C interposed, suspended the tyrant and saved him who was oppressed by tyranny; as if asked how he conquered Absalom, how he cast down a second Goliath, he answered: How did I defeat the bear? Armed by prayer: *When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me*. The prayer was carried upward, and the tyrant hung downward upon the tree. For just as when I sinned, God stirred him up against me, so when I repented, He made him ready to be strewn and trampled by my army. Even now, when we sin, God stirs up enemies against us; but while we are being attacked, we do not need war to repel them, but rather let us demand an accounting from ourselves, and if we have sinned in any way, let us amend it: we shall see our enemies fall before our eyes. For this reason was it commanded us not to take vengeance on our enemies, because for our sins God often stirs them up against us; and we achieve nothing while we attack those whom God has instigated against us. Do you wish to see the ruin of those attacking you? Perform penance for your sins, and the enemies will fall. David calls Christ "God the Lord," *Who is made unto us wisdom from God, and justice, and sanctification, and redemption* (1 Cor. 1:30). He intercedes, and was a conciliator for David, so that he might be heard in praying; he did not attribute that to himself, but to Christ, when he said: *When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me*. Why was David heard when he called? Why? Because, when rebuked by Nathan, he was immediately bent toward penance. Because, then, he was obedient when rebuked, he was heard when he prayed; he did not procrastinate when called to penance, nor did God delay His providence. For as a master is asked by a servant, and as a king, when a soldier asks for a favor, the one considers the works of the servant, the other of the soldier: and if the servant is not a traitor and a hater of his master, and the soldier has faced dangers for the king and is well-disposed to him, so a religious man, if he renders thanks to God as a servant and a soldier, and obeys when commanded, is D then quickly heard when he supplicates. I do not say these things; hear God speaking in Isaiah: Do you wish that when you call, I may hear? Apply your mind; do what I say. *Loose every bond of iniquity, dissolve the tortuous contracts of the violent, tear up every unjust syngraph; break your bread to the hungry, and bring the needy, the wanderers, into your house; if you see the naked, cover him, and do not be proud toward those of your own seed*. *Then shall you cry, and the Lord will hear you; and while you are yet speaking, he will say: Behold, I am here* (Isa. 58:6, 7, 9). Be such a man, O human, and you will be able to say: *When I called upon him, the God of my justice heard me*. The clay cried out, and the Potter heard; the earth called, and heaven heard. When, therefore, David had told those who were near how quickly he had been heard, he changes his tone, and gives thanks to Him who heard him with these words: *In tribulation thou hast enlarged me*. But God enlarged him—