Verse 13
Who can understand sins? from my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord: And from those of others spare thy servant.
Delicta quis intelligit? ab occultis meis munda me; et ab alienis parce servo tuo.
He had said he kept God’s commandments and he corrects himself by excepting his sins of ignorance, which can scarcely be guarded against. As if he were to say: Thy servant guards against sins by keeping Thy law, not perfectly, but as much as human weakness allows. In Hebrew, the words read very well with,
who can understand sins committed through ignorance? Here he opposes ignorance in the intellect, wishing to demonstrate that it is supremely difficult to guard against sins which are committed through ignorance; and yet, because they really are sins, and could be guarded against, he adds the words: “From my secret ones cleanse me.” What follows, “And from those of others spare thy servant,”
does not mean that God pardons us for the sins of others, as this text is popularly cited as meaning, but that God guards us against close association with sinful men. For men of good will, such as St. David was, ought chiefly to guard against ignorance of their own sins and from seduction by wicked acquaintances. For the word
alienis / others, the Hebrew has
zedim, which means
superbos / the proud. St. Jerome translates this phrase as
From the proud, deliver Thy servant. But the Septuagint version reads
zedim as
zarim: and this means
alienos / others. The sense is almost the same, because according to the Hebrew as it now has it, the meaning is deliverance from one kind of wickedness, that is from the proud; but according to the Greek and the true Hebrew meaning, it means a general deliverance from all wicked friends. Our reading may be explained thus: from others, that is, from those who are other (foreign) in their ways, spare Thy servant, that is, sparing us, remove them from the friendship of Thy servant.
Verse 14-16
[14]If they shall have no dominion over me, then shall I be without spot: and I shall be cleansed from the greatest sin. [15] And the words of my mouth shall be such as may please: and the meditation of my heart always in thy sight. [16] O Lord, my helper, and my redeemer.
Si mei non fuerint dominati, tunc immaculatus ero, et emundabor a delicto maximo. [15] Et erunt ut complaceant eloquia oris mei, et meditatio cordis mei in conspectu tuo semper. [16] Domine, adjutor meus, et redemptor meus.
He gives the reason why he fears so greatly familiarity with the wicked : for if the aforementioned men of different morals “shall have no dominion over me,” that is, if through having no great familiarity with them, they would not subject me to themselves, and would not make me subject to their will, “then shall I be without spot: and I shall be cleansed,” that is I shall be clean, “from the greatest sin,” that is, from grave and mortal sin; for every mortal sin may be called the “greatest sin” because it turns man away from God, the greatest good, and plainly leads to the greatest punishment in Hell. St. Augustine;s reading is a
delicto magno / from the great sin, as the Greek has it, but this is of little import.
Not only shall I be without spot, but “the words of my mouth shall be such as may please,” that is, so that the speech of my mouth may please, “and the meditation of my heart (shall be) always in thy sight,” that is, the hymns which I sing in my mouth and in my heart to praise Thee, will always be pleasing unto Thee because they come from a clean heart and a mouth without guile.
My canticles, I say, shall be pleasing unto Thee, because of Thy grace and not my own merits: because I have it from Thy gift that I may be without spot, cleansed of the greatest sin, and that my words may be pleasing unto Thee, who art “my helper, and my redeemer,” one who helps me obtain good things and who redeems me from wicked things.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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