Bellarmine on Psalm XXIII: Title, theme and verses 1-2

Title and subject matter

Titulum et argumentum

On the first day of the week, a psalm for David.

Prima sabbati. Psalmus David.

In this title, the words prima Sabbati / on the first day of the week are not found in the Hebrew but have been added in the Greek; this is perhaps because at the beginning of the Psalm it mentions the creation of the earth which was accomplished on the first day of the week, that is, on the Lord’s day; or perhaps it was the custom to recite this Psalm on the Lord’s day. There are some who believe the words on the first day of the week were added because it was on that day the Lord rose from the dead, but this does not seem probable to me because this Psalm clearly foretells the ascension rather than the resurrection; and the ascension is known to have taken place not on the first but on the fifth day of the week. That this Psalm properly pertains to the ascension is witnessed by Cyprianus in his serm. De Ascens.; Jerome in his epist. 142 ad Damasum; Ruffinus in Exposit. Symboli; Gregorius Nyssenus, Joannes Chrysostomus, Augustinus, Leo, and others in serm De Ascensione.

Verse 1

The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein.

Domini est terra, et plenitudo ejus; orbis terrarum, et universi qui habitant in eo.

David’s intention is to show that, out of the multitude of men without number, only Christ and a few others, a few, I say, compared to the multitude of others, will enter into the blessed, heavenly home of the Lord; lest perhaps certain men are believed not to belong to God but to have been created by some other causative principle, which is what the Marcionists and Manicheans later thought, the prophet places first these two sentences by which he shows that God is the Creator and Lord of the whole earth and of all the things that are in it. “The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof,” that is, all the things that are in it and that fill it. This is explained by the second part of the verse: “the world, and all they that dwell therein.” When he says, “The earth is the Lord's,” he makes clear that he chiefly means the habitable parts of the earth, which in Hebrew and Greek are properly represented by words which mean orbis terrae habitabilis / the habitable orb of the earth; and when he says omnis plenitudo eius / all the fulness thereof, he is saying that he chiefly means the men who inhabit the earth, not the other things which are in it.

Verse 2

For he hath founded it upon the seas; and hath prepared it upon the rivers.

Quia ipse super maria fundavit eum, et super flumina praeparavit eum.

He proves that God is the Lord of the earth and of all who dwell there, since He made it Himself, and He made it rise above the waters so that it might be habitable. For if the the earth were lacking in waters or were covered everywhere by waters, it would not be habitable. “For he hath founded it upon the seas,” he says, that is, from their foundations he built up the earth and made it from nothing; he made it “upon the seas,” so that the surface of the earth might be higher than the level of the sea; similarly, He “hath prepared it upon the rivers,” that is, He prepared the earth for the habitation of men, and so He made it higher and 

above the rivers: for otherwise the waters of  the sea and rivers would flood over it and be higher. From this, then, because God made the earth habitable for men, it follows that He is the Lord of all men, since not only were men made from the earth and return to the earth; but they inhabit the earth not as masters but as settlers established there by God to cultivate it.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.