1 The titil of the sixe and sixtithe salm. `In Ebreu thus, To the victorie in orguns, the salm of the song. `In Jerom `thus, To the ouercomer in salmes, the song of writing of a delitable thing with metre.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 ...Thence he beginneth, "Be joyful in God." Who? "Every land" (ver. 1). Not therefore Judaea alone. See, brethren, after what sort is set forth the universality of the Church in the whole world spread abroad: and mourn ye not only the Jews, who envied the Gentiles that grace, but still more for heretics wail ye.
2 God haue merci on vs, and blesse vs; liytne he his cheer on vs, and haue merci on vs.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "But play ye to His name" (ver. 2). What hath he said? By you "playing" let His name be blessed. But what it is to "play"? To play is also to take up an instrument which is called a psaltery, and by the striking and action of the hands to accompany voices.
3 That we knowe thi weie on erthe; thin heelthe in alle folkis.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Say ye to God, How to be feared are Your works!" [Psalm 66:3]. Wherefore to be feared and not to be loved? Hear another voice of a Psalm: "Serve the Lord in fear, and exult unto Him with trembling." What means this? Hear the voice of the Apostle: "With fear," he says, "and trembling, work out your own salvation." [Philippians 2:12] Wherefore with fear and trembling?
4 God, puplis knowleche to thee; alle puplis knouleche to thee.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Also in this place (which we have been quoting), the apostle to the Gentiles said that the wrath of God comes on the children of infidelity because of these evils. When, however, he says, "And you yourselves once walked in them when they were your life," he shows well enough that they were not their life then.
5 Hethen men be glad, and make fulli ioye, for thou demest puplis in equite; and dressist hethene men in erthe.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 O ye Gentiles, O most distant nations, leave lying Jews, come confessing. "Come ye, and see the works of the Lord: terrible in counsels above the sons of men" (ver. 5).
6 God, puplis knouleche to thee, alle puplis knouleche to thee;
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Wherefore what has He done by the terror of His counsel? He has turned the sea into dry land. For this follows, "That has turned the sea into dry land" [Psalm 66:6].
Theodoret of Cyrus · AD 458 Then [Symmachus] outlines what was done of old. "He turns the sea into dry land; they will cross the river on foot." The tense has been changed here: he spoke of the past as future, whereas the others retained the tense, Symmachus saying, "He turned the sea into dry land, they crossed the river on foot." This is the God, he is saying, who will grant us salvation as well, who of…
7 the erthe yaf his fruyt. God, oure God blesse vs, God blesse vs; and alle the coostis of erthe drede hym.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 In whom? "In Him that reigneth in His virtue for everlasting" [Psalm 66:7]. For what virtue have we and is it everlasting? If everlasting were our virtue, we should not have slipped, should not have fallen into sin, we should not have deserved penal mortality. He, of His good pleasure, took up that whereunto our desert threw us down.