Book Review: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Psalms 1-50 ed. by C. Blaising and C. Hardin

Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Old Testament VII: Psalms 1-50 edited by Craig A. Blaising and Carmen S. Hardin

This commentary provides an overview of patristic thought on the first third of the Psalms. The book has the text of each psalm (the translation is the Revised Standard Version) followed by a synopsis of the comments from the ancient Fathers of the Church. After that is texts from the Fathers (usually a paragraph of commentary, see the sample texts below), with citations for further research. 

This book is valuable as a study guide for exploring the Psalms as the earliest Christians saw them. The Fathers range from the first disciples of the apostles down to Saint Augustine in the 400s. They have a lot of interesting insights intot the meaning of the psalms. The commentaries also provide a way to pray the psalms more deeply by extending the time a reader spends with each psalm, highlighting nuances that can be passed over with a quicker reading.

I found this very valuable and am looking forward to the next volume.

Highly recommended.

Some sample texts:

From the commentary on Psalm 29, by Basil the Great on false glory:

The cedar is at time praised by Scripture as a stable tree, free from decay, fragrant, and adequate for supplying shelter, but at times it is attacked as unfruitful and hard to bend, so that it offers a representation of impiety.

And from the commentary on Psalm 32, by Caesarius of Arles on confession:

God wants us to confess our sins, not because he himself cannot know them but because the devil longs to find something to charge us with before the tribunal of the eternal Judge and wants us to defend rather than to acknowledge our sins. Our God, on the contrary, because he is good and merciful, wants us to confess them in this world so we will not be confounded by them later on in the world to come.

And from the commentary on Psalm 42, by Augustine on seeing God:

"Where is your God?" If a pagan says this to me, I cannot retort, "What about you? Where is your God?" because the pagan can point to his god. He indicates some stone with his finger and says, "Look, there's my god! Where is yours?" If I laugh at the stone, and the pagan who pointed it out is embarrassed, he looks away from the stone toward the sky; then perhaps he points to the sun and says again, "Look, there's my god! Where is yours?" He has found something he can demonstrate to my bodily eyes. For me it is different, not because I have nothing to demonstrate but because he lacks the kind of eyes to which I could demonstrate it. He was able to point the sun out to my bodily eyes as his god, but how can I point out to any eyes he has the sun's Creator?