1 Unto the end. May you not destroy. Of David, with the inscription of a title, when he fled from Saul into a cave.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 And what is the drift of what we have just been singing to the Lord in the psalm? "Have mercy on me, Lord, because man has trampled on me." "Man" means whoever lives according to merely human criteria.
Cassiodorus · AD 585 "Have mercy upon me, Lord, because man has trampled me underfoot; all day long he wages war and afflicts me." The virgin mother Church, who gives birth to the faithful people and yet does not lose her virginity, asks her heavenly bridegroom with pious tears that she would not be allowed to be oppressed by her enemies, even as she recognizes that she still dwells in the misfortu…
2 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me. For my soul trusts in you. And I will hope in the shadow of your wings, until iniquity passes away.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Mine enemies have trodden me down all day long" [Psalm 56:2]. They that have been put afar off from holy men, these are mine enemies. All day long: already it hath been said, "From the height of the day." What meaneth, "from the height of the day"? Perchance it is a high thing to understand. And no wonder, because the height of the day it is.
3 I will cry out to God Most High, to God who has been kind to me.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For many men that war against me, shall fear" [Psalm 56:3]. Shall fear when? When the day shall have passed away, wherein they are high. For for a time high they are, when the time of their height is finished they will fear.
4 He sent from heaven and freed me. He has surrendered into disgrace those who trampled me. God has sent his mercy and his truth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "In God I will praise my discourses, in God I have hoped: I will not fear what flesh doeth to me" [Psalm 56:4]. Wherefore? Because in God I will praise my discourses. If in thyself thou praisest thy discourses: I say not that thou art not to fear; it is impossible that thou have not to fear.
5 And he has rescued my soul from the midst of the young lions. I slept troubled. The sons of men: their teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "All day long my words they abhorred" [Psalm 56:5]. Thus they are, you know. Speak truth, preach truth, proclaim Christ to the heathen, proclaim the Church to heretics, proclaim to all men salvation: they contradict, they abhor my words. But when my words they abhor, whom think ye they abhor, save Him in whom I shall praise my discourses?
6 Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "They shall sojourn, and shall hide" [Psalm 56:6]. To sojourn is to be in a strange land. Sojourners is a term used of those then that live in a country not their own. Every man in this life is a foreigner: in which life ye see that with flesh we are covered round, through which flesh the heart cannot be seen.
7 They prepared a snare for my feet, and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, yet they have fallen into it.
Jerome · AD 420 For God has made our days short, and our substance is as nothing in his sight. "All things are vanity, everyone living," whether living in the body or living in virtues, and yet all things are vanity. His condition is one of fluctuation and uncertainty, and, while he does not fear, he suffers a storm in fair weather.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For nothing Thou shalt save them" [Psalm 56:7]. He hath taught us even for these very men to pray. However "they shall sojourn and hide," however deceitful they be, however dissemblers and liers in wait they be; do thou pray for them, and do not say, Shall God amend even such a man, so evil, so perverse?
8 My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared. I will sing, and I will compose a psalm.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "O God, my life I have told out to You" [Psalm 56:8]. For that I live has been Your doing, and for this reason I tell out my life to You. But did not God know that which He had given? What is that which you tell out to Him? Will you teach God? Far be it. Therefore why says he, "I have told out to You"? Is it perchance because it profits You that I have told out my life?
9 Rise up, my glory. Rise up, psaltery and harp. I will arise in early morning.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "In whatsoever day I shall have called upon You, behold I have known that my God are You" [Psalm 56:9]. A great knowledge. He says not, "I have known that God You are:" but, "that my God are You." For yours He is, when you He succours: yours He is, when thou to Him art not an alien.
10 I will confess to you, O Lord, among the peoples. I will compose a psalm to you among the nations.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Let us therefore love God, brethren, purely and chastely. There is not a chaste heart, if God for reward it worships. How so? Reward of the worship of God shall not we have? We shall have evidently, but it is God Himself whom we worship.
11 For your mercy has been magnified, even to the heavens, and your truth, even to the clouds.
12 Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and your glory above all the earth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "In me, O God, are Your vows, which I will render of praise to You" [Psalm 56:12]. "Vow ye, and render to the Lord your God." What vow, what render? Perchance those animals which were offered at the altars aforetime? No such thing offer thou: in yourself is what you may vow and render.
Gregory the Dialogist · AD 604 For before the eyes of God the hand is never empty of a gift, if the treasury of the heart has been filled with good will. Hence the Psalmist says: In me, O God, are your vows which I shall pay, praises to you.