PSALM XLIX (50), f. 28v.
In the middle register to the left, the bearded psalmist and an angel with a wand have gathered together a group of 'saints' (verse 5) and are pointing to the manifestations in the heavens above them. The beardless, nimbed Christ-Logos, holding a book with His left hand and blessing (or making the gesture of speech) with His right, stands in a mandorla surrounded by six angels holding bannered staffs and placed on a hill in the center of the composition. In the extreme corners of the sky are personifications of the rising and setting sun (verses 1-2) . Fire is falling from heaven and is burning on the hillsides on either side of the Christ-Logos; and on the right side two personifications of winds are blowing down blasts upon the earth (verse 3). In the lower left people issue from a tabernacle, and a pair of bullocks and a pair of he-goats are approaching an altar (verses 8-9: 'I will take no bullock ... nor he-goats out of thy folds'). In the center below an angel with a scroll is addressing a group of men also holding scrolls. One of them is casting his scroll behind his back. These episodes illustrate verses 16-17: 'But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth? seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee.' Beside the angel is the seated and crowned personification of the earth with the attributes of an orb, two cornucopias filled with grain, and two rods which may be meant to indicate the 'orbis terrae' of verse 12. 'Fowls of the mountains,' 'wild beasts of the field,' and grain, 'pulchritudo agri,' are placed in various portions of the picture behind the angel, in front of Terra, and in the upper right (verses 10 and 11). A river flows across the foreground.
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