Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

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Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

Psalm 75 with Augustine – No Place to Flee from God Do not lift your horns 1 against heaven (v. 5). This the psalmist saw many people do in their hearts. He also added, no one from the East or the West or from the desert can exalt themselves. It is God who judges (vv. 6–7). God

is judge of your sins. If he is God, he is everywhere. Where will you hide from the eyes of God, so that in some region you may speak and he may not hear?

Augustine on Psalm 75 “Wherever you flee, there he is.”

If God judges only from the East, go West, and say what you want against God. If from the West, go East, and speak there. If he judges from the forsaken heights of the mountains, go into the midst of the people, where you may murmur to yourself. From no particular place does he judge—everywhere is secret, everywhere open; no one is allowed to know him as he truly is, and no one is permitted not to know him at all. Take care what you do. You are speaking sin against God. Do not think God to be somewhere in particular. He is with you as you have been with him. How have you been? Good, if you have been good; but he will seem evil to you if you have been evil; but a Helper, if you have been good; an Avenger, if you have injured others. There in your “secret” place you have a judge. Willing to do something evil, from the public you retire into your house, where no enemy may see; from those places of your house which are open and before human eyes, you remove yourself into a bedroom; you fear a witness even in your bedroom, so you retreat into your heart, there you plot—but he is more inward than your heart. Wherever you flee, there

1 “Do not lift your horns” – exalt yourself