In Psalmum 94

Of the Same Author, on the verse "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord." The blast of the trumpet rouses the hoplite to war and presents him ready for battle against the enemy; and the escape from the storm compels sailors to board a ship from the anchorage. And the psalmist David, having sounded a festive melody through his psaltery, has led us today to this spiritual feast. For what does he say? "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us shout to God our deliverer. Let us anticipate his face with confession." O Davidic voice! O good summons! O spiritual food! "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us shout to God our deliverer. Let us anticipate his face with confession." O lordly compassion! O prophetic exhortation calling to repentance. You see, beloved, the goodness of lordly compassion and the cheerfulness of prophetic proclamation: how he urges us all to repentance and calls us to piety and salvation, saying, "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord." The Lord commanded, the prophet called, let us obey. For he did not call us to a perishable feast, wishing to satisfy the belly's desire. Thus he calls us through his sweet-voiced lyre: "Come, let us rejoice in the Lord." Therefore, all who are bound by the chains of his love and bear the yoke of obedience, let us approach the Master, having made a cleansing of the evils committed during the day. For the present life is for repentance, while the future coming is of threat and judgment. Listen to the prophet himself saying, "But in Hades, who will confess to you?

Let us not, then, bind our mind with intricate chains, but with our whole heart let us beseech Him; for He is ready to hear the petition of those who ask. Only do not neglect to ask Him. Your God is more ready than you are present. You have no need of a long journey, nor to cross seas; but hear Him saying, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." You have no need of great expenses and outlays, but turn away and groan, and at once you have rendered the Master propitious. Hezekiah once turned toward the wall, not the one composed of stones, but the one built up through prophetic and apostolic teaching. I mean that wall of which Paul boasts, saying, "As a wise architect I have laid the foundation." I mean that wall on which the cornerstone was placed; I mean Christ, of whom the Scripture said, "Holy stones will be rolled." I mean that wall through which the temple of God was built. What are you doing, O Hezekiah? Why do you turn toward the wall? He says, "I seek that one, the giver of life and the deliverer from death; I seek that one, and I take refuge in him." Nevertheless, having turned and repented, he reaped life, and escaped the sentence of God pronounced against him, and God added fifteen years of life to him; and when enemies surrounded the city and encircled it, an angel became a champion and laid low the vast multitudes of the Assyrians. So great was the power of repentance. For it says, "An angel of the Lord went out and in the battle array of the Assyrians slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand.

He released Sennacherib, the leader of these, alive, for no other reason, as I think, than that God was summoning him to repentance. At any rate, when God saw that he was not persuaded, nor did he turn away from his own wickedness, but was some implacable and hard-to-approach person, He caused him to be killed by his two sons. For when he expected to escape the utterly destructive and god-driven death, and to reach his own land, and for his affairs of peace to be secure, then Adrammelech and Sarasar, his two sons, slay him and flee to the mountains of Ararat. Do you see, beloved, how much confession benefited Hezekiah? And how much evil persisting in sins wrought upon Sennacherib? Do you wish me to show you another path of repentance and a door of confession? Imitate the repentance of those barbarians, I mean the Ninevites. For they, having become obedient to a prophet, not having received evangelical words, not having heard a prophet of God, not having received the good news of the kingdom of heaven, see how they approach God, how they appease God, how they reconcile the Lord to themselves when He is angry with them; how they dissolved God's decree; how they thrust aside God's anger and invoked His philanthropy; how they made their city, which was a pit and a ruin, stronger than a wall and more solid than any adamant. The dignity of purple did not move God, but sackcloth did; nor did a royal diadem and power, but ashes with sackcloth; nor a throne inlaid with gold and composed of stones, but confession.

O the power of sackcloth, which outshines and conquers royal purple! O the power of ashes, stronger than a diadem and a royal throne! For while the king was on his throne, in his purple, and holding the scepter that gives him his power, with his armies standing around him and a great bodyguard surrounding him, the prophet entered into their midst, barefoot, covered with dust, sweat on his face, and said: "Three more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown." What are you doing, O prophet? If the Spirit of God is in you at all, why do you not know the will of God, that He did not intend to kill, but to call them to repentance, and that for this reason He gave the pronouncement? "Nothing else," he says, "did God tell me, but only this: 'Three more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown.'" What are you doing, O Jonah? Why do you not add further teaching? For what else did Isaiah hear from God to say to Israel? Nothing other than a single saying. And what saying was this? "Say," he says, "to this people: 'You will hear with your ears and not understand, and you will see with your eyes and not perceive.'" And you see how much other teaching and instruction he sounded into them, how much exhortation, consolation, and reproof! Reproof, in his saying: "The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's manger. But Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me." These were words of reproof. But hear him also exhorting: "Wash yourselves, become clean, remove the wickedness from your souls." And how again he consoles:

If you wish, he says, and if you listen to me, you will eat the good things of the earth. And he also discusses many other things with them beyond these, having written an entire book for the sake of testimony. And he did not stop at this, but he also brings in witnesses at the beginning of his teaching, saying: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, that the Lord has spoken." What has he spoken? Speak clearly, O Isaiah. "I have begotten and raised up sons," he says, "but they have rejected me." But you, O Jonah, did none of these things; rather, you proclaimed the destruction, saying: "Yet three days, and Nineveh will be overthrown." But you said nothing to them about God, nor did you say, "That the Lord has spoken," according to Isaiah; instead, you utter a savage and inhuman pronouncement. Yet the Ninevites, even though they had received no instruction in teaching, even though they had not become hearers of prophets, even though they had received no promises of evangelical grace, no desire for the kingdom, no fear of punishment, but having a bestial manner and a barbaric and inhuman character, upon hearing the pronouncement, immediately turn to repentance, confessing the deeds they have done, and this without knowing whether they will be forgiven. For they said, "What? Who knows if God will turn back and repent and save us?" For they do not know to look to others who have repented and been saved, nor to other Ninevites, but they are still uncertain about their own salvation; nevertheless, they repent. And immediately the king, casting aside his diadem and purple, puts on sackcloth and ashes, and the whole city does likewise, from the smallest to the greatest, and not only the people, but also the cattle, the oxen, and the sheep.

What are you doing, O king? Because men have sinned, why have you condemned even the cattle to fast? Why do you also clothe them in sackcloth and ashes? We, he says, have been pierced by many sins, and we are not worthy to entreat God. With what face, then, shall we approach and implore God? For this reason we have made the creatures that have not sinned intercede on our behalf. For one might see this happening even among men. When someone has offended one of those in authority, those who have not offended intercede on his behalf, so that his transgression may be forgiven. This is what we do. We have sinned inexcusably; we are not worthy to entreat on our own behalf and to appease God; and for this reason we have made the cattle, the oxen, and the sheep worship and supplicate God. O the power of repentance! O the strength of confession! Repentance strengthened the city, having dissolved the decree of God. But nevertheless, despite these things, the prophet disbelieves in the salvation of the Ninevites; and going and sitting opposite the city, he watched to see what would become of the city—whether the decree would prevail, or whether repentance would. And both were as if placed on a balance and on the turn of a scale: on one side the decree, on the other repentance; and repentance, having conquered death, raised up the city. Then, to cut the story short, Jonah was grieved, as he was about to appear a liar. Then what does the all-wise God do to him? He commands the sun to cast fiery rays upon his head, so that he could not bear the heat of the sun.

As he was burning up for a long time and despairing, during the night God commanded a gourd to spring up at dawn and to cast shade over Jonah’s head. Here I would gladly ask the Jew, saying to him: Tell me, O Jew, you who say, How did the virgin give birth without a man, and how, having given birth, did she remain a virgin? Tell me first, how did the earth in one hour of the morning put forth the gourd from itself, and how in one moment did it grow leaves and shade the prophet? And I will tell you how the virgin gave birth and after giving birth remained a virgin. But let us not cast holy things to the dogs. Let the unbelieving Jews be expelled from our list. Then, as the gourd was shading him, God again commanded a worm at dawn, and it struck the gourd, and immediately it withered. See, O Jew, and do not disbelieve, when God accomplishes something very great. It came to be in a night, and in a night it perished. Then, when the gourd had withered, Jonah despaired and lamented, and his spirit gave out, grieving over the gourd, and he said: It is better for me to die than to live. To him the all-wise God went and consoled him, saying: Are you very grieved over the gourd? And Jonah said: I am very grieved, even to death. And again God said to him: You grieved over the gourd, for which you suffered no hardship and which you did not nurture, which came to be in a night and perished in a night.

But I shall not be grieved for Nineveh, the great city, in which dwell more than twelve myriads of men, who, from the multitude of inhabitants, do not know right from left, and many cattle. What he says is this: I am, he says, a lover of humanity, and not wishing to destroy the works of my hands, which I made with love. For this reason I threatened destruction and death, not as one wishing to kill, but to urge toward repentance. Having awaited their return for so many cycles of years, when they did return, ought I to have overlooked it? This is not in me, O Jonah. You, as a man, wish to condemn, but I, as God, have the capacity to show love for humanity. Glory to you, Lord, glory to you. How great a wealth of love for humanity and mercy is with you. Those formerly subjected to a death sentence have now become teachers of the world. For all, looking to them, are guided, and taking their repentance, we remain unshipwrecked. Do you see, beloved, how powerful repentance is? Let us not, then, put off from day to day. For you do not know what the coming day will bring. For the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. Come, then, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us cry out to God our deliverer. Let us anticipate his face with confession. For the outcome of our life is uncertain, awaiting no season, no fixed time for us. But whenever the one who gave breath to all commands, then the soul, flying away from the body, leaves it desolate.

Each of us, therefore, knowing the uncertainty of the departure, let us await the bridegroom, and when he knocks at the door, let us light our lamps, which are always kept burning, having oil with us, so that whenever a sound is heard of those saying, "The bridegroom is coming," we may enter with him, lest we too be found outside the bridal chamber with the five foolish virgins. Let us not fall asleep, beloved, but let us always have oil in our lamps. For at that hour, when we have departed, it will not permit us to buy oil from the sellers; for here it is sold, and there it is consumed. And who are the sellers, but the poor? Give bread, and you receive what the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him. Come then, let us rejoice in the Lord, let us shout for joy to God, our deliverer. Let us anticipate his face with confession, for the night has advanced, and the day of uncertain life has drawn near. May it be that all of us, being light from light, walk in the light of the glory of Christ our Savior, in our Lord himself, to whom is glory unto the ages of ages. Amen.