1 Of David. Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for the fight, my fingers for war —
Jerome · AD 420 Blessed be the Lord my God, who teaches my hands for the fight. He who interprets briefly gains this: that he himself has no praise, and yet whatever there is in the interpretation, those who have heard retain it. Blessed be the Lord my God, who teaches my hands for the fight, and my fingers for war.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Blessed be the Lord my God, who teacheth my hands for battle, my fingers for war" [Psalm 144:1]. These are our words, if we be the Body of Christ. It seems a repetition of sentiment; "our hands for battle," and "our fingers for war," are the same. Or is there some difference between "hands" and "fingers"? Certainly both hands and fingers work.
Blessed Be the LORD, My Rock 2 my loyal love and my stronghold, my high tower and my deliverer for me, my shield, and in him I have taken refuge, who subdues my people under me.
Jerome · AD 420 My mercy and my refuge, my helper and my deliverer: my protector. With how many names is God called! As many benefits, so many names. Who subdues my people under me. This can be said in the person of Christ, that is, from the assumed man. But it can also be said in the person of the apostles, that which he says: Who subdues my people under me.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 My Mercy and my Refuge, my Upholder and my Deliverer [Psalm 144:2]. Much toils this combatant, having his flesh lusting against his spirit. Keep what you have.
3 LORD, what is a human, that you know him? A son of a mortal, that you consider him?
Jerome · AD 420 Lord, what is man, that you have made yourself known to him? or the son of man, that you take account of him? This very thing is said also in the eighth psalm. 'What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him?' Lord, what is man, that you have made yourself known to him?
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Lord, what is man, that Thou hast become known unto him?" All is included in "that Thou hast become known unto him." "Or the son of man, that Thou valuest him?" Thou valuest him, that is, Thou makest him of such importance, Thou countest him of such price, Thou knowest under what Thou placest him, over what Thou placest him. For valuing is considering the price of a thing.
4 A human is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
Jerome · AD 420 Man is made like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow. Truly our days are like a shadow. I was a little infant, I was a boy, I was a young lad, I was a youth, I was a man, that is, of perfect age, I was of middle age. While I know it not, I am an old man. Death creeps up upon old age. I am changed daily, and I do not perceive that I am nothing.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But if this anomalous state of things were uniform in this life, in which, as the sacred Psalmist says, "Man is like to vanity, his days as a shadow that passeth away,"—so uniform that none but wicked men won the transitory prosperity of earth, while only the good suffered its ills,—this could be referred to the just and even benign judgment of God.
5 LORD, bend your heavens and come down; touch the mountains and they will smoke.
Eusebius of Caesarea · AD 339 I consider this to be connected with my present subject. For in his wonder at the knowledge of God the Word coming to people, the psalmist is astonished beyond measure at the love by which he descends from his divinity, and lessens his natural majesty and reckons the human race worthy of bearing him.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Lord, bow Thy heavens, and come down: touch the mountains, and they shall smoke." The Body of Christ, the humble David, full of grace, relying on God, fighting in this world, calleth for the help of God. What are "heavens bowed down"? Apostles humbled.
Leo the Great · AD 461 The psalmist is a witness of this matter when he says, "All have gone astray together; they have become worthless." And Christ's prophets, praying for help, said, "Lord, bow down your heavens and descend"; not that he might change the places in which all things are now located but that he might take on the flesh of human weakness for our salvation.
6 Flash lightning and scatter them; send your arrows and rout them.
Jerome · AD 420 Flash forth the lightning, and you shall scatter them. See what he says. He did not say, you shall destroy them: but, you shall scatter them.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Flash Thy lightning, and Thou shall scatter them; send forth Thine arrows, and Thou shall confound them." But there are some that conspire, that "gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Christ." They have come together, they have conspired.
7 Stretch out your hands from on high; set me free and deliver me from many waters, from the hand of the sons of a foreigner,
Jerome · AD 420 Send forth your hand from on high. 'Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?' Send forth your hand from on high. Lord, bow down your heavens, and descend. This is said to the Son: Bow down your heavens, and descend. And how does he say, Send forth your hand from on high? If he descended, how does he send his hand from on high?
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "But you sent down your help from above" and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness because my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her faith and in the spirit that she had from you she looked on me as dead.
8 whose mouth has spoken emptiness, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
Jerome · AD 420 Whose mouth has spoken vanity. They promise themselves knowledge, and they raise up their mouth against their Creator. 'They have set their mouth against heaven.' Whose mouth has spoken vanity. Their knowledge is the knowledge of vanity. And their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. Both are condemned, both mouth and hand, both knowledge and works.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "From the hand of strange children." Hear, brethren, among whom we are, among whom we live, from whom we long to be delivered. "Whose mouth has spoken vanity" [Psalm 144:8]. All of you today, if you had not gathered yourselves together to these divine shows of the word of God, and were not at this hour engaged in them, how great vanities would ye be hearing!
9 God, a new song I will sing to you; on a ten-stringed harp I will make music to you —
Jerome · AD 420 O God, I will sing to you a new song. A new man, a new song. O God, I will sing to you a new song. 'Sing to the Lord a new song.' How beautifully he did not say, I sing, but, I will sing. In the future he made his promise; for in the present he knows there is a battle, not a song. An army never sings, except when it has conquered.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "I will sing a new song unto You, O God" [Psalm 144:9]. "A new song" is of grace; "a new song" is of the new man; "a new song" is of the New Testament.
Bonaventure · AD 1257 In the mystery of prophetical revelation, Christ is symbolized through harmonious singing "with a ten-stringed lyre," as in the psalm where David learns how to prophesy.
10 the one who gives salvation to kings, who sets David his servant free from the evil sword.
Jerome · AD 420 Who gives salvation to kings. To what kings? 'The heart of the king is in the hand of God.' Even of Julian the persecutor, and of Nero, and of Decius? The heart of the king is in the hand of God. Those who reign over their own body, who subject their body and reduce it to servitude, lest, while preaching to others, they themselves be found reprobate.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Who giveth salvation to kings, who redeemeth David His servant" (ver. 10). Ye know who David is; be yourselves David. Whence "redeemeth He David His servant"? Whence redeemeth He Christ? Whence redeemeth He the Body of Christ?
11 Set me free and deliver me from the hand of the sons of a foreigner, whose mouth has spoken emptiness, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood,
Jerome · AD 420 Rescue me and free me from the hand of the sons of strangers. The little verses which were spoken above are repeated again. Whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity. Whose sons are like new plantings established in their youth. From the hand of the sons of strangers. Let us see what sort the sons of the heretics are.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Lord, deliver me from the hand of foreign sons, whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is the right hand of iniquity." And he explains what vanity he speaks of and what right hand. For he calls the right hand of iniquity the happiness of this age.
12 so that our sons are like plants grown large in their youth, our daughters like corner pillars carved in the pattern of a palace;
Jerome · AD 420 Their daughters are adorned, decked round about like the likeness of a temple. Their storehouses are full, belching forth from this into that. Their sheep are fruitful, abounding in their goings-out: their oxen are fat. There is no ruin of the wall, nor passage, nor outcry in their streets. They called blessed the people who have these things. This they said. What do I say?
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Whose sons are like young vines firmly planted in their youth" (ver. 12). He wisheth to recount their happiness. Observe, ye sons of light, sons of peace: observe, ye sons of the Church, members of Christ; observe whom he calleth "strangers," whom he calleth "strange children," whom he calleth "waters of contradiction," whom he calleth a "sword of ill intent." Observe, I besee…
13 our storehouses full, supplying from kind to kind; our flocks bringing forth thousands, ten thousands in our open places;
Jerome · AD 420 Their storehouses are full, belching forth from this into that. They are ready for contending. If you hold them fast on one testimony, they pass over to another. If you hold them fast in the scriptures, they flee to Aristotle. If you hold Aristotle fast, they pass over to Plato. Their storehouses are full, belching forth from this into that.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Their garners are full, bursting out from one store to another: their sheep are fruitful, multiplying in their streets" [Psalm 144:13]. Is not this then happiness? I ask the sons of the kingdom of heaven, I ask the offspring of everlasting resurrection, I ask the body of Christ, the members of Christ, the temple of God.
14 our oxen laden; there is no breach and no going out and no outcry in our squares.
Jerome · AD 420 Their oxen are fat. Pharaoh too saw in a dream fat Egyptian oxen. Their oxen are fat. The Israelite peoples are lean, the Egyptians are fat. For you may see that the masters of the heretics do nothing else, except pursue riches. They pursue riches, and they despise the poor Christ. Their oxen are fat.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "their oxen are fat: their hedge is not broken down, nor their road, nor is their crying in their streets" (ver. 14). Is not this then happiness? I ask the sons of the kingdom of heaven, I ask the offspring of everlasting resurrection, I ask the body of Christ, the members of Christ, the temple of God.
15 Happy is the people for whom it is so; happy is the people whose God is the LORD.
Jerome · AD 420 They called blessed the people who have these things. Many, not knowing, think such people blessed. But for us there is Christian simplicity: we do not want Platonic eloquence, but we want the apostolic simplicity of fishermen. This one holds the net, has feet and hands muddied from the work; this one has a calloused hand from the work.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Since we know that you are devoted to the public welfare, you must see how plainly the sacred writings show that the happiness of the state has no other source than the happiness of humankind.