Bellarmine on Psalm 101: Verses 24-25

We continue our series of posts featuring St Robert Bellarmine's commentary on Psalm 101, the fifth of the Seven 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 section.

Verse 24

He answered him in the way of his strength: Declare unto me the fewness of my days.

Respondit ei in via virtutis suae : Paucitatem dierum meorum nuntia mihi :

This verse is very obscure, both as regards the words and the meaning. St. Jerome translates it from the Hebrew as: He fastened my fortitude on the way. But it is easy to see the reason for the differences; for the Hebrew word is derived from hhinneh, which can mean to answer and to be fixed, and if a point is written on the second letter, it will mean He fastened, as St. Jerome writes. If it is read without the

point, it means He answered, as the Septuagint reads. And so if the Hebrew is read with iod, as St. Jerome reads it, it means my fortitude; but if it is read with vau, as the Septuagint does, it means his fortitude or his strength. But it does not read in translation as in the way of his strength but in the way his strength, because Hebrew has no case endings. And so our reading is correct: “He answered him in the way of his strength;” but it is difficult to judge in which name the verb respondit/answered is conjugated. St. Jerome writes in his Commentary the sense as being: “The Lord answered to Jerusalem.” St. Augustine reverses the sense: “Jerusalem answered to the Lord;” Euthymius  says the poor man  answered, referred to in the title of the Psalm. What if we add a fourth explanation and say that he answered him  who commanded him to write these things for another generation? For it seems this is the coming together of these verses: The Lord said to the Prophet: these words are to be written for another generation, and the people who will be created will praise the Lord, etc. The Prophet answered him in the way of his strength, that is, in the flower of his age, when he was in the most powerful way of his  life. “Declare unto me the fewness of my days,” that is, make me understand and seriously be convinced that few are my days to come, lest perhaps I am deceived by the flower of my age into thinking I will have a very long life; and lest I be taken hence when I least think it will happen, at an untimely moment and unprepared, and I will not belong to the people who will be created and who will praise Thee perpetually in the heavenly Jerusalem. 

Verse 25

Call me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are unto generation and generation.

ne revoces me in dimidio dierum meorum, in generationem et generationem anni tui.

The first half of this verse refer to the previous verse, for he sad there: “Declare unto me the fewness of my days;” he adds the prayer: “Call me not away in the midst of my days,” that is, do not call me away from my life’s course when I am only way, when I expect death less, when Thou shalt find me unprepared. In Hebrew, these verses are differentiated differently; and so St Jerome translates: I shall say: My God, do not take me away in the midst of my days. But those words, I shall say, my God, by altering the points, may be read as, tell Thou me, and this is how the Septuagint renders it; joining it to the previous verse,  Declare unto me; but there is no reason why we should not follow the reading and distinction in the Greek and Latin since that is what the Hebrew words bear best, with the points taken away that the Rabbis added. Regarding the following words: “thy years are unto generation and generation,” this is why it is meet for God to allow man to live as long as is necessary for him to die well, with a holy death, as though he might say: Thy years, O Lord, are eternal, and they endure from generation unto generation without any end; it is therefore meet for

Thee to grant unto him made in Thy image the sufficient and convenient space of time that may be required for him to gain eternal salvation.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.