Nevertheless I am continually with you: you have held me by my right hand.
All Commentaries on Psalms 73:23 Go To Psalms 73
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
21. What is, "I knew not"? "As it were a beast I became to Thee, and I am alway with Thee" (ver. 23). There is a great difference between this man and others. He became as it were a beast in longing for earthly things, when being brought to nothing he knew not things eternal: but he departed not from his God, because he did not desire these things of demons, of the devil. For this I have already brought to your notice. The voice is from the Synagogue, that is, from that people which served not idols. A beast indeed I became, when desiring from my God things earthly: but I never departed from That my God.
22. Because then, though having become a beast, I departed not from my God, there followeth, "Thou hast held the hand of my right hand." He hath not said my right hand, but "the hand of my right hand." If the hand of the right hand it is, a hand hath a hand. "The hand Thou hast held of my right hand," in order that Thou mightest conduct me. For what hath he put hand? For power. For we say that a man hath that in his hand which he hath in his power: just as the devil said to God concerning Job, "Lay to Thine hand, and take away the things which he hath." What is, lay to Thine hand? Put forth power. The hand of God he hath called the power of God: as hath been written in another place, "death and life are in the hands of the tongue." Hath the tongue hands? But what is, in the hands of the tongue? In the power of the tongue. What is, in the power of the tongue? "Out of thy mouth thou shalt be justified, and out of thy mouth thou shalt be condemned." "Thou hast held," therefore, "the hand of my right hand," the power of my right hand. What was my right hand? That I was alway with Thee. Unto the left I was holding, because I became a beast, that is, because there was an earthly concupiscence in me: but the right was mine, because I was alway with thee. Of this my right hand Thou hast held the hand, that is, hast directed the power. What power? "He gave them power to become sons of God." He is beginning now to be among the sons of God, belonging to the New Testament. See in what manner the hand of his right hand was held. "In Thy will Thou hast conducted me." What is, "in thy will"? Not in my merits. What is, "in Thy will"? Hear the apostle, who was at first a beast longing for things earthly, and living after the Old Testament. He saith what? "I that at first was a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious: but mercy I obtained." What is, "in Thy will"? "By the grace of God I am what I am." "And in glory Thou hast taken me up." Now to what glory he was taken up, and in what glory, who can explain, who can say? Let us await it, because in the Resurrection it will be, in the last things it will be.
