Bellarmine on Psalm 31: Verse 3

Today we continue St Robert Bellarmine's commentaries on Psalm 31, the second in the series of Penitential Psalms.

The Latin is reproduced courtesy of the Digital Collection site  - UANL and is accompanied by my fairly literal translation. The Scripture excerpts (Douay Rheims/Vulgate) are taken from the DRBO site but the verse numbering follows that of Bellarmine’s Latin text.

Where footnotes are included, the text follows each verse.

Because I was silent my bones grew old; whilst I cried out all the day long.

Quoniam tacui, inveteraverunt ossa mea, dum clamarem tota die.

Having spoken about the beatitude of the just, he now weeps over his own misery, as though he might say: They indeed are blessed, but I am wretched; I am someone who not only did not preserve my innocence but who put off for a long time the seeking of pardon through confession of my sin; and after acknowledging my sin, I started to cry out constantly and to waste myself away with roaring, so that my bones were weakened and crushed; that is, almost all my strength was taken away. “Because I was silent,” and indeed David was for a long time silent about his adultery; in fact, he tried to conceal it using many ploys. Firstly, he tried in various ways to induce Urias to sleep with his own wife, so that the son born of the adultery might be thought to be his own. And when Urias was unwilling to return to his home, David added the crime of homicide, so that with Urias now dead, and his widow immediately married to David, the birth which was expected after nine months, would be thought to come not from an adulterer but from a married man. But David, having taken that widow as his wife, did not confess immediately but waited for the child to be born. 

And even then he did not start to weep over his sin until the Prophet Nathan admonished him. Perhaps for a whole year, and perhaps even longer, David lay in his filthy sin and put off his confession.  Thus he says: “Because I was silent,” and I did not confess immediately but wanted to run away and hide; and so, “ my bones grew old; whilst I cried out all the day long,” that it, after acknowledging my sin, I began to cry out the whole day long for forgiveness; and for such a long time and with such great feeling did I cry out, that my bones were made weak and grew old. The Hebrew word halu means intraverunt / they (were) made old, and even consumpta sunt / were wasted away, consumed, or attrita sunt / were exhausted, as St Jerome has it. Now inveteraverunt / they (were) made old is not to be understood in terms of time but of degree of

weakness, as in “ My skin and my flesh he hath made old…,”[1] that is wasted and blackened, etc. dum clamarem / whilst I cried out appears in Hebrew as dum rugirem / whilst I roared out. From which we may understand that this crying out was a shout of sorrow and compunction, which can rightly be said to be a roaring.; not a crt of exultation in sin or of someone proudly boasting of his sins, as some expound. Nor may we think that this roaring is from a bodily affliction, as others would like to have it; for Scripture does not make any reference to David’s being ill at this time.; and to give witness to something outside Scripture is to guess. We interpret it as referring to the roaring of penitence, along with Theodoretus.

[1] Beth. My skin and my flesh he hath made old, he hath broken my bones. BETH. Vetustam fecit pellem meam et carnem meam; contrivit ossa mea. [Thren. Iii. 4]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.