Bellarmine on Psalm 31: Verse 9

 

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.

Verse 9

Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me: my joy, deliver me from them that surround me.

Tu es refugium meum a tribulatione quae circumdedit me; exsultatio mea, erue me a circumdantibus me.

Having received pardon for his sin, he now seeks remission of the punishment, namely, deliverance from the tribulation which has come upon him on account of his sin. He seems to be speaking of the persecution which he was suffering from his son Absalom, about which he spoke in the whole of the previous Psalm. He is perhaps also speaking of the temptations of evil spirits who continually surround us and oppress us. “Thou art my refuge from the trouble which hath encompassed me.” As though he might say: I have no safe refuge except in Thy mercy, for my friends on all sides forsake me and I am encircled by enemies on all sides: and so Thou who art alone “my joy,” that is, the cause of all my joy, take me away from these enemies surrounding me. In Hebrew it has: Thou art my refuge from affliction, or from the enemy, Thou wilt keep me safe: Thou wilt encompass me with joy by delivering me. But evidently it seems that the Rabbis’ signs and other changes in letters have altered this text. 

The last three sentences are omitted from this translation as they deal in some detail with Hebrew vocabulary and syntax.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.