1 A Psalm of David. LORD, I cry to you: make haste to me; give ear to my voice, when I cry to you.
Jerome · AD 420 O Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. Moses was standing with the people, and Pharaoh was pursuing behind his back, and on every side there was distress for him. At that time he wept to God, and immediately God said to him: 'Why do you cry out to me?' While he was praying in silence, he was heard; yet Scripture does not record that he spoke, but only that he wept.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Lord, I have cried unto Thee, hear Thou me" (ver. 1). This we all can say. This not I alone say: whole Christ saith it. But it is said rather in the name of the Body: for He too, when He was here and bore our flesh, prayed; and when He prayed, drops of blood streamed down from His whole Body.
Come Quickly to Me 2 Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 And he prays "constantly" (deeds of virtue or fulfilling the commandments are included as part of prayer) who unites prayer with the deeds required and right deeds with prayer. For the only way we can accept the command to "pray constantly" as referring to a real possibility is by saying that the entire life of the saint taken as a whole is a single great prayer.
Jerome · AD 420 Let my prayer be directed as incense in your sight. That is, let my prayer come straight to you, having no filth or faults or diabolical thoughts. Now incense is the prayers of the saints. And this we know from the Apocalypse, when the twenty-four elders held censers and said: 'These are the prayers of the saints.' The lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice.
John Cassian · AD 435 But what should be said concerning the evening sacrifices, since even in the Old Testament, by the law of Moses, these are ordered to be offered continually? We can show that the morning whole-burnt offerings and evening sacrifices were offered every day continually in the temple, although with figurative offerings.
3 Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
Jerome · AD 420 Set, O Lord, a guard to my mouth. 'Death and life are in the hands of the tongue.' And again: 'Amen I say to you, that for every idle word which you have spoken, you shall render an account on the day of judgment.' This therefore the prophet asks, that everything he speaks may not be idle, but holy and worthy of God. And set a door of enclosure to my lips.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But what is true is also the healthy confession of sins. Hence we heard in the psalm that was read first: Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips, so that my heart may not incline to evil words, to make excuses for sins. He asks God to set a guard over his mouth and explains what kind of guard he means.
Valerian of Cimiez · AD 460 But the blow inflicted by the tongue is incurable. The tongue strikes lightly, but it always stirs up deep sighs in the chest through the sorrow it causes.
4 Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.
Jerome · AD 420 Incline not my heart to words of malice, to make excuses for excuses in sins. O most wretched human race, who excuse our sins, saying, I was overcome by nature: when it is in our power both to sin and not to sin. We always excuse ourselves, and say: I did not want to sin, my flesh overcame me.
5 Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.
Jerome · AD 420 The just shall correct me in mercy, and shall rebuke me. 'Whom the Lord loves he corrects, and he chastises every son whom he receives.' Blessed is he who is corrected here: 'the Lord will not requite twice for the same thing.' It is a great wrath of the Lord, when here he is not angry with us: for he reserves us like a calf for the slaughter.
Caesarius of Arles · AD 542 "The just person shall correct me in mercy and shall reprove me—but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head." What does this mean? It would be better for me if the just person who sees my sin would correct me, not spare me, tell me that I have done wrong, be furious over my sin, in order to free me from it.
Martin of Braga · AD 580 Therefore in all matters where great flattery has even exceeded the limits proper to humanity, you must recall that well-known lesson of David, in which he shunned the poison of flatterers with these words: "The just person shall correct me in kindness and shall reprove me, but let not the oil of the sinner fatten my head." The "oil of the sinner" is flattery, which uses a smoo…
6 When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet.
Jerome · AD 420 Their judges have been swallowed up, joined to the rock. As elsewhere he says: 'Blessed is he who shall take hold of and dash your little ones against the rock.' 'And the rock was Christ.' Now the little ones are the lesser and small thoughts before they grow up.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 You say to me, What am I doing? I am beset with flatterers; they cease not to besiege me; they praise in me what I would not, that praise in me what I hold in little esteem; what I hold dear they blame in me; flatterers, treacherous, deceivers. For instance, "Gaiuseius is a great man, great, learned, wise; but why is he a Christian?
7 Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cuts and cleaves wood upon the earth.
Jerome · AD 420 As the thickness of the earth. Everything thick is near to the earth: and the soul that sins clings to the earth. For the Lord from the beginning made all things thin. By his own fault, therefore, each one is made thick, and is drawn down to the earth. Let us give an example.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 What then have all those deaths of the martyrs accomplished? Listen: "As the fatness of the earth is spread over the earth, our bones have been scattered beside the pit" [Psalm 141:7]. "The bones" of the martyrs, that is, the bodies of the witnesses of Christ. The martyrs were slain, and they who slew them seemed to prevail.
8 But my eyes are to you, O GOD the Lord: in you is my trust; leave not my soul destitute.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For unto You, Lord, are my eyes; in You have I hoped, take not Thou away my life" [Psalm 141:8]. For they were tortured in persecutions, and many failed.
9 Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity.
Jerome · AD 420 Keep me from the snare which they have set for me. Always either heretics or demons stretch snares for us. For faults are near to virtues. They have set a snare for me in almsgiving, if I stretch out my hand so that men may see, and, as though doing a good deed, I come into a fault and into sin.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Keep me from the trap which they have laid for me" [Psalm 141:9]. What was the trap? "If you consent, I spare you." In the trap was set the bait of the present life; if the bird love this bait, it falls into the trap: but if the bird be able to say, "The day of man have I not desired: You know:" [Jeremiah 17:16] "He shall pluck his feet out of the net," etc.
10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while that I also escape.
Jerome · AD 420 The sinners shall fall into his net. Above he said, Keep me from the snare which they have set for me, concerning many; but now concerning one, The sinners shall fall into his net.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Sinners shall fall into his nets" (ver. 10). Not all sinners, certain sinners, who are so great sinners, as to love this life to such a degree as to prefer it to everlasting life, "shall fall into his trap." But what sayest thou? Shall they that are such, thinkest thou, fall into his nets? what of Thy disciples, O Christ?