1 To the choirmaster. Upon the Silent Dove of Those Far Off. Of David. A miktam, when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Be gracious to me, God, for man has trampled me; all the day a fighter oppresses me.
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…
Be Merciful to Me, O God 2 Those who watch me have trampled all the day, for many fight against me proudly.
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 The day I fear, I myself will trust in you.
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 In God I praise his word; in God I have trusted — I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?
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 All the day they twist my words; all their thoughts against me are for evil.
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 They stir up strife, they lurk; they themselves watch my heels, as they have hoped for my life.
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 For iniquity — is there escape for them? In anger bring down peoples, God.
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 he was delivered up for our sins, and raised for our justification. Your justification, your circumcision, is not from you. By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not from you, but it is the gift of God; not from works. Lest perhaps you should say: I have deserved, and therefore I have received.
8 My wandering you yourself have counted; put my tears in your bottle — are they not in your book?
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 Then my enemies will turn back on the day I call. This I know: that God is for me.
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 In God I praise a word; in the LORD I praise a word.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 We heard the readings of the Scriptures while they were being recited. That is the material that has been given me to talk about.
11 In God I have trusted — I will not fear. What can mankind do to me?
12 Upon me, God, are your vows; I will fulfill thank offerings to you.
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.
13 For you have rescued my soul from death — have you not kept my feet from stumbling? — to walk about before God in the light of the living.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Because You have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from slipping: that I may be pleasing before God in the light of the living" [Psalm 56:13]. With reason he is not pleasing to alien sons, that are put afar off from holy men, because they have not the light of the living, whence they may see that which to God is pleasing.