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"This man shall receive blessing from the Lord, and mercy from the God of his salvation" [Psalm 24:5].

Now, it was quite appropriate for him to associate mercy with blessing: even what are thought rewards are given to human beings only on account of divine lovingkindness. I mean, all the righteousness of human beings is not nearly sufficient for gifts bestowed by God and certainly not for those yet to come, which even surpass human imagining.

The one who will judge is the very one who blesses; the one who could have issued a sentence of incommutable damnation declares innocence. Therefore he wanted the value of the kindness to be acknowledged because of the worthiness of the one who overlooks offenses.… The blessing of acquittal follows mercy so that this blessing might be perceived to have come not through merits, but through the Lord’s kindness. For there is no one who does not have need to be shown mercy. Transgressions are forgiven so that a crown may come, just as freedom will not be able to be granted until slavery has first been removed. Our savior is the Lord Christ by whom blessedness is bestowed and sins are loosened. What he said earlier should not disturb us: “He will receive blessing from the Lord”; later he added, “And mercy from God his savior,” while in the order of things he pardons our sins first, and afterwards the gifts of his blessings follow. You often find that the order is varied so that mercy is placed first.… This figure is called anastrophe or an inversion, when we express a thought in a reversed order.

"He shall receive." Here the reward is set forth. The reward consists in two things: namely, in the attainment of goods: "He shall receive a blessing," that is, good things from God: Prov. 10: "The blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just": 1 Pet. 3: "For unto this were you called, that you might possess a blessing as your inheritance." Likewise, in liberation from evils: hence he says, "And mercy from God his savior," who delivers from misery. Or in another way: the innocent in hands can approach; because he can be innocent for this reason, that "he shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy," because he avoids sins; Rom. 9: "It is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy."