Psalms 4:6

For I trust that ye are well versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and that nothing is hid from you; but to me this privilege is not yet granted. It is declared then in these Scriptures, “Be ye angry, and sin not,” and, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Happy is he who remembers this, which I believe to be the case with you. But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may He bestow on you a lot and portion among His saints, and on us with you, and on all that are under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Father, who “raised Him from the dead.” Pray for all the saints. …

And again Menander, paraphrasing that Scripture, “Sacrifice a sacrifice of righteousness, and trust in the Lord,” thus writes:

In Isaiah: “For what purpose to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith the Lord: I am full; I will not have the burnt sacrifices of rams, and fat of lambs, and blood of bulls and goats. For who hath required these things from your hands?” Also in the forty-ninth Psalm: “I will not eat the flesh of bulls, nor drink the blood of goats. Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee: and thou shalt glorify me.” In the same Psalm, moreover: “The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me: therein is the way in which I will show him the salvation of God.” In the fourth Psalm too: “Sacrifice the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord.” Likewise in Malachi: “I have no pleasure concerning you, saith the Lord, and I will not have an accepted offering from your hands. …

10. I read further, “Be ye angry, and sin not.” And how was I moved, O my God, who had now learned to “be angry” with myself for the things past, so that in the future I might not sin! Yea, to be justly angry; for that it was not another nature of the race of darkness which sinned for me, as they affirm it to be who are not angry with themselves, and who treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and of the revelation of Thy righteous judgment. Nor were my good things now without, nor were they sought after with eyes of flesh in that sun; for they that would have joy from without easily sink into oblivion, and are wasted upon those things which are seen and temporal, and in their starving thoughts do lick their very shadows. Oh, if only they were wearied out with their fasting, and said, “Who will show us any good?” And we would answer, and they hear, O Lord. …

7. “Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord” ( ver. 5 ). He says the same in another Psalm, “the sacrifice for God is a troubled spirit.” Wherefore that this is the sacrifice of righteousness which is offered through repentance it is not unreasonably here understood. For what more righteous, than that each one should be angry with his own sins, rather than those of others, and that in self-punishment he should sacrifice himself unto God? Or are righteous works after repentance the sacrifice of righteousness? For the interposition of Diapsalma not unreasonably perhaps intimates even a transition from the old life to the new life: that on the old man being destroyed or weakened by repentance, the sacrifice of righteousness, according to the regeneration of the new man, may be offered to God; when the soul now cleansed offers and places itself on the altar of faith, to be …

These sacrifices one may see in the Old [Testament] also, shadowed out beforehand. “Offer to God,” it is said, “a sacrifice of righteousness” ( Ps. iv. 5 ); “Offer a sacrifice of praise” ( Ps. l. 14 ); and, “a sacrifice of praise shall glorify Me” ( Ps. l. 23 ), and, “the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit” ( Ps. li. 17 ); and “what doth the Lord require of thee but” to hearken to Him? ( Mic. vi. 8 .) “Burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had no pleasure in: then I said, Lo I come to do Thy will, O God!” ( Ps. xl. 6, 7 ), and again, “To what purpose do ye bring the incense from Sheba?” ( Jer. vi. 20 .) “Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.” ( Amos v. 23 .) But instead of these “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” ( Hosea vi. 6 .) Thou seest with what kind of “sacrifices God is well pleased.” ( c. xiii. …

4. Therefore, the whole law did not treat of sacrifices, though there was in the law a commandment concerning sacrifices, that by means of them it might begin to instruct men and might withdraw them from idols, and bring them near to God, teaching them for that present time. Therefore neither at the beginning, when God brought the people out of Egypt, did He command them concerning sacrifices or whole burnt-offerings, nor even when they came to mount Sinai. For God is not as man, that He should be careful about these things beforehand; but His commandment was given, that they might know Him Who is truly God, and His Word, and might despise those which are falsely called gods, which are not, but appear in outward show. So He made Himself known to them in that He brought them out of Egypt, and caused them to pass through the Red Sea. …

And at any rate (this is the case), when we are agitated against this very anger, because it has stolen on us against our brother, and when in wrath we expel its deadly incitements, nor suffer it to have a dangerous lurking place in the recesses of our heart. To be angry in this fashion even that prophet teaches us who had so completely expelled it from his own feelings that he would not retaliate even on his enemies and those delivered by God into his hands: when he says “Be ye angry and sin not.” For he, when he had longed for water from the well of Bethlehem, and had been given it by his mighty men, who had brought it through the midst of the hosts of the enemy, at once poured it out on the ground: and thus in his anger extinguished the delicious feeling of his desire, and poured it out to the Lord, without satisfying the longing that he had expressed, saying: “That be far from me tha …

And some are commanded to “be angry” after a wholesome fashion, but with our own selves, and with evil thoughts that arise, and “not to sin,” viz., by bringing them to a bad issue. Finally, the next verse explains this to be the meaning more clearly: “The things you say in your hearts, be sorry for them on your beds:” i.e., whatever you think of in your hearts when sudden and nervous excitements rush in on you, correct and amend with wholesome sorrow, lying as it were on a bed of rest, and removing by the moderating influence of counsel all noise and disturbance of wrath. …