The whole day it is my meditation.
Beyond my enemies you instructed me in your commands,
for it is for me forever.
Beyond all those who teach me I understood,
because your testimonies are my meditation.
Beyond elders I understood,
because I sought out your commandments.
From every evil way I withheld my feet,
so that I keep your words.
From your region I did not turn away,
because you gave laws to me.
How sweet to my throat are your words,
more than honey and honeycomb for my mouth.
From your commandments I understood;
on account of this I hated every way of injustice,
because you gave laws to me. (Psalm 119:97–104 LXX)
Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers. So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them. Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:46–52)
These enemies are to be understood as the obdurate Jews, the heretics or the pagans, who have either failed totally to understand the Lord’s commands, or are known to refuse to carry them out through misguided zeal. The people say that they have been made wiser than these enemies because they both devotedly accepted the Lord’s command and abided by it with genuine integrity.…
They appear to part company with that most holy humility of the blessed if we seek to interpret this as a claim to be superior to Moses, the prophets and the apostles who have instructed the Church with the purest faith. But let us advert to the previous verse, and here this entire false objection vanishes. There they said not “more than our fathers,” but Wiser than my enemies, who are precisely those who taught the Lord’s law with debased purpose. Here they refute rather than rebuke the teachers, denoting the Pharisees who restricted themselves to the letter, and disregarded spiritual understanding. The Lord often refutes them in the gospel, but their stony hearts did not deserve to experience the way of truth. So the evangelical band rightly claims that their understanding is better than that of all such teachers, because they rejected their teachers’ base errors, and received the true teaching of the Lord Savior.…
In this passage the people term as elders those hoary in body rather than in mind. They rightly say that they have understood more than these, for they venerated as their Creator one whom those others despised with sacrilegious minds. Often younger persons understand the divine Scriptures better than their elders; for example, Jacob, who submitted himself to the blessing and received the reward of the first benediction promised to his brother; or Samuel, who understood better than the priest; or Daniel, who knew better than the false elders whom he condemned to death when filled with the spirit of God. Certainly the new people had better understanding than the older Jewish people, for they happily accepted the Lord Christ who the Jews with mortal damage to themselves believed was to be despised. To enable the people to prove this with the testimony of truth, there follows the reason why they had understanding above the elders; it was because I have sought thy commandments.
Cassiodorus, Explanation of the Psalms 118.98–100
