By awesome deeds in righteousness will you answer us, O God of our salvation; who is the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar off upon the sea:
All Commentaries on Psalms 65:5 Go To Psalms 65
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
9. "Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour" (ver. 5). He hath disclosed now Whom he nameth as God. The "Saviour" specially is the Lord Jesus Christ. It hath appeared now more openly of Whom he had said, "Unto Thee every flesh shall come." That One Man that is taken unto Him into the Temple of God, is both many and is One. In the person of One he hath said, "Hearken, O God, i.e., to my hunger:" and because the same One of many is composed, now he saith, "Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour." Hear Him now more openly preached: "Hearken to us, O God, our Saviour the Hope of all the ends of the earth and in the sea afar." Behold wherefore hath been said "Unto Thee every flesh shall come." From every quarter they come. "Hope of all the ends of the earth," not hope of one corner, not hope of Judaea alone, not hope of Africa alone, not hope of Pannonia, not hope of East or of West: but "Hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea afar:" of the very ends of the earth. "And in the sea afar:" and because in the sea, therefore afar. For the sea by a figure is spoken of this world, with saltness bitter, with storms troubled; where men of perverse and depraved appetites have become like fishes devouring one another. Observe the evil sea, bitter sea, with waves violent, observe with what sort of men it is filled. Who desireth an inheritance except through the death of another? Who desireth gain except by the loss of another? By the fall of others how many men wish to be exalted? How many, in order that they may buy, desire for other men to sell their goods? How they mutually oppress, and how they that are able do devour! And when one fish hath devoured, the greater the less, itself also is devoured by some greater. ...Because evil fishes that were taken within the nets they said they would not endure; they themselves have become more evil than they whom they said they could not endure. For those nets did take fishes both good and evil. The Lord saith, "The kingdom of Heaven is like to a sein cast into the sea, which gathereth of every kind, which, when it had been filled, drawing out, and sitting on the shore, they gathered the good into vessels, but the evil they cast out: so it shall be," He saith, "in the consummation of the world." He showeth what is the shore, He showeth what is the end of the sea. "The angels shall go forth, and shall sever the evil from the midst of the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Ha! ye citizens of Jerusalem that are within the nets, and are good fishes; endure the evil, the nets break ye not: together with them ye are in a sea, not together with them will ye be in the vessels. For "Hope" He is "of the ends of the earth," Himself is Hope "also in the sea afar." Afar, because also in the sea.
