59.
But in what manner he was ready to keep the divine commandments, he hath added, in these words: "The bands of the ungodly have surrounded me: but I have not forgotten Thy law" (ver. 61). "The bands of the ungodly" are the hindrances of our enemies, whether spiritual, as the devil and his angels, or carnal, the children of disobedience, in whom the devil worketh. 1 For this word peccatorum is not from peccata, "sins;" but from peccatores, "sinners." Therefore when they threaten evils, with which to alarm the righteous, that they may not suffer for the law of God, they, so to speak, entangle them with bands, with a strong and tough cord of their own. For "they draw iniquity like a long rope," 2 and thus endeavour to entangle the holy, and sometimes are allowed so to do.
