When we eat a certain food, the nourishing element hidden in it is extracted from it by our organic force. In the same way, the nourishing spiritual element is hidden in every good deed set before us. This is the measure of the commandment applicable to him. This element is extracted from him by love for the commandment, which makes it possible to feel its presence in that deed, to extract its nourishment and to attract it to oneself in the very performance of the deed. Only love for the commandments can and knows how to do so. That is why good deeds do not nourish without love. It is to the spirit what indigestible food is to the body: there is no taste and no nourishment. Others, perhaps, will say: "Well, if I have no taste for good deeds, and good deeds themselves are like grass for me, then why should I do good?" Do you see how the prophet speaks? First: "Preserve my soul the witnesses," and then: "Love me," and not just "Love," but "Love the earth." Begin to keep the commandments, and you will love them very much. There is love, let's say, mental love, which consists in the conviction that the commandments must be urgently observed and loved. From it is born also the love of feeling, or heartfelt love, and is born through the active fulfillment of the commandments. There are kinds of food that are not liked at first, but are taken, however, out of necessity, and then the organism learns to find taste in them and finally becomes so attached to them that without them even dinner is not lunchtime. This is exactly what happens to us in relation to the commandments. At first, it is as if they breathe cold, and then they become so close to the heart that it has no peace if it does not happen to do something to satisfy them. Do not look at the fact that there is still no taste in good deeds, but continue to keep the commandments, only with diligence and self-denial. If you find a taste, you will love them, you will love them.

Verse one hundred and sixty-eight

"Keep Thy commandments and Thy testimonies, for my ways are before Thee, O Lord."

The prophet again returns to the means of protection and preservation of a God-pleasing life according to the commandments and, as the most important of them, points to the awareness everywhere of the presence and all-seeing of God. This is as if a consequence of his previous reflections. The fear of breaking the commandments and the expectation of fruitfulness from fulfilling them lead to love. He who loves the commandments cannot but love Him who commanded, and having loved, he can no longer forget Him, and he constantly bears the memory of Him in his heart, for such is the quality of love. He who remembers God with love always has Him before his eyes, walks before His eyes and is aware of himself in all his paths and undertakings open before Him. And such a consciousness, what fear it arouses on its part in the heart, what hope and what love! And how therefore the mighty in itself combines the means for the protection and maintenance of life according to the commandments! The prophet confessed this more than once; and here he certifies that, realizing how all his ways are open before the Lord, he strictly fulfilled all His commandments; and before he said that he deliberately maintained this consciousness in himself, so as not to move from the right path: "I have seen the Lord before me, as I am at my right hand, that I may not be moved" (Psalm 15:8), and he explained the deviations of other people into the crossroads by nothing other than that they "did not offer God before them" (Psalm 53:5). Likewise, Sirach produces sin from the false conviction of sinners that no one sees them, because the darkness around them and the walls cover them. And they do not understand that "the eyes of the Lord are darker than the sun, despising all the ways of men, and looking in secret places" (Sir. 23:25-28). If they had understood this and remembered this, they would not have sinned.

For this reason all the holy ascetics had and taught others to have first of all the establishment of the memory of God in themselves, so that it would merge with the consciousness, which they called walking before God; for after this, whatever a man does, he cannot do it except with the thought that God is before him and sees what he does and how he does. And this is for both internal and external affairs. Hence the careful choice of only one God-pleasing thing and the accomplishment of what is chosen, in the most diligent way, in the thought that the chosen God-pleasing thing is dedicated to God and is therefore the work of God, one of those for which, if someone does it with negligence, he incurs an oath upon himself.

If you wish, therefore, to keep yourself blameless in all your ways, confirm in your memory that all your ways are open before God, and that the eyes of the Lord are set upon you, on your works, and on the thoughts of your heart. How to establish oneself in this? "Begin to work in acquiring such a skill, and the work itself will teach you how to succeed in it. Only desire fervently and strive zealously.

Verses 169 – 176

The last eight stanzas go under the letter "glav", which means "sign".

St. Isaac the Syrian writes as a guide to those who are following the path of inner life to an intelligent and heartfelt union with the Lord, so that he should keep in mind the signs by which he could determine whether he is walking or standing, and whether he is going right or wrong. "Put down," he says, "an omen, and, entering within yourself, see what passions have fainted in you and have departed from you; is it evident that in the midst of the festering of thy ulcer, living flesh, that is, spiritual peace, has begun to grow; do you find for sure that the thought has begun to be purified; whether the soaring of thoughts comes in the hour of prayer; do you feel within yourself that the soul is overshadowed by meekness and silence; whether your mind, without the participation of the will, admires the concepts of the incorporeal; whether a joy suddenly flares up in you, incomparable to anything and irresistibly drawing your mind inward" (Isaac the Syrian, p. 45). In other places he points out other signs of success, some for the contemplative, others for the active life. Each degree of both has its own signs.

Something similar is indicated by the prophet in the present eight stanzas, that is, he indicates the signs by which it is possible to determine whether one is on the good path and whether he is walking it as he should; this is the most useful conclusion of all his moral instructions. We will not, however, enumerate in advance what is indicated as a sign in this sense: the content of each verse itself will tell us about it.

Verse one hundred and sixty-nine

"Let my supplication draw nigh before Thee, O Lord, according to Thy word, enlighten me."

All fathers-leaders have a lesson – not to trust their own mind. Thus, if in every deed, not trusting yourself, you seek admonition from the Giver of all wisdom, then the right flows. In doing so, you imitate the prophet who prayed to God: "Lord, according to Thy word, give me understanding." Instruct — teach, that is, how to understand something that is encountered in life or in the Scriptures, or how to act in a given case. Our mind by itself, according to the ability given to it by God, can understand and interpret many things; each also has his own measure of prudence for the organization of external affairs and his own measure of sensitivity of conscience for the testimony of what is morally worthy, but even this ability and these measures are not too broad. For this reason there is also a vast circle of perplexity, the solution of which is desirable not only out of curiosity, but out of essential necessity. We can turn, as we sometimes do, to the smartest and most experienced of us, but their measure is not immeasurable, and confidence in them is not unconditional. Thus, one who is aware of his meager measure cannot in many cases not turn to the Source of reason with a prayer for enlightenment. If, however, we take into account that even in those cases which are resolved in a domestic way, there is always a vacillation left to be resolved, a hesitation that can only be removed by suggestions from above, then it is better in all cases in general without distinction to turn to God for admonition, in spite of the striving of the activity of one's mind and even its seeming comprehension of the essence of the matter.