Bellarmine on Psalm 31: Verses 7 & 8

 

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.

Verses 7 & 8

For this shall every one that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time. And yet in a flood of many waters, they shall not come nigh unto him.

Pro hac orabit ad te omnis sanctus in tempore opportuno. Verumtamen in diluvio aquarum multarum, ad eum non approximabunt.

The prophet says that many future sinners will, by his example, learn to pray to God for forgiveness of their sins so that in this way they may be delivered from the great evils in which other sinners are entangled. “Pro hac / For this:” according to the Greek translators, Theodoretus and Euthymius, and with them St Augustine, means pro hac impietate / from this impiety, because in Greek and Latin impietas is of the feminine gender; but the gender in Hebrew is masculine and does not agree with it, pro hac / for this in Hebrew is also feminine; therefore we are forced to say that pro hac / for this means for this thing, because in Hebrew they use the feminine endings for neuter. And so it can be correctly translated as propter hoc / on account of this, or super hoc / beyond this. And so the meaning will be: From this cause, that is, because you pardon penitents with such clemency, “he shall pray to thee”, that is, “everyone that is holy” will have confidence by praying to thee, that is, everyone devout who is truly penitent, who beginning to hate his impiety, begins to take on thy piety. He will, however, pray “in a seasonable time,” that is, before the time of mercy comes to an end, for as long as this life continues, for as long as God calls unto penitence. “Seek ye the Lord,” says Isaias. “while He may be found; call upon him, while he is near;”[1] 

What follows has a twofold meaning; one is: “For this shall every one that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time,” so that in a flood of many waters, those waters shall not come nigh unto him, that is, on the last day, when all kinds of punishments shall, like floods, rain down upon the wicked, and the time for prayer and repentance shall have passed by, then they may be safe from this manner of punishment. Here, the meaning in Hebrew is most clear: for thus does St Jerome translate: For this shall everyone, finding a merciful time, shall pray to Thee, so that when many waters cause an inundation, they shall not come nigh. Theodoretus follows this sense, although he explains it somewhat differently:

For this shall every one that is holy pray to thee in a seasonable time. So that when the waters of many tribulations rise in flood, they do not draw near to him, that is, they do not come nigh unto him; for he will remain above them and he will bear them undaunted. The other meaning is: “Every one that is holy shall pray to thee in a seasonable time,” and will act correctly and wisely in doing so; for in the flood of many waters, when evils shall inundate all the wicked on the last day, just as the waters of the flood in the times of Noe inundated the wicked, so the wicked shall not come nigh unto Him, that is, unto God. For it will no longer be a seasonable time; and so Isaias says: “Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near,”[2] for the time is coming when you may not be able to come nigh unto Him. St Augustine and others explain the text in this way. Either sense is true, but the first seems more literal; for the text the wicked shall not come nigh unto him does not seem, according to the letter, to refer to God, for no mention is made of God in the preceding lines. And thus, verumtamen / and yet is to be taken as a copulative particle, as Euthymius advises; for the Hebrew word means not only verumtamen / yet, however, but also certe / assuredly, vere / truly, etc.

[1] Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near. Quaerite Dominum dum inveniri potest; invocate eum dum prope est. [Isai. lv. 6]

[2] Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found: call upon him, while he is near. Quaerite Dominum dum inveniri potest; invocate eum dum prope est. [Isai lv. 6]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.