Bellarmine on Psalm LXII: Title & theme

Title and subject matter

Titulum et argumentum

A psalm of David when he was in the desert of Edom.

Psalmus David, cum esset in deserto Idumææ.

It is not written that David ever hid in the desert of Edom,[1] but in the desert of Judæa, see I Kings xxii and xxiii; in the Hebrew text it has in the desert of Judæa; but since the Holy Fathers Hilary, Jerome and Augustine in his Commentary write in the desert of Edom, the reading of the Vulgate version is not to be disregarded. Euthymius tries to reconcile these various readings by saying that the desert in which David hid belonged at one time to Edom but afterwards to Judæa: but this is guess-work. It seems more probable that the desert of Judæa was called the desert of Edom for the sake of increasing its extent : in the same way Jerusalem is sometimes called Sodom;[2] for the desert of Edom is much larger than the desert of Judæa: indeed the whole region of the Edomites is made up of mountains and a wilderness, as may be understood from I Malachi, where, speaking of the possession of Edom, God says: “I have made his mountains a wilderness, and given his inheritance to the dragons of the desert.”[3]  The same may be gathered from IV Kings iii, wherein it is stated that crossing the desert of Edom requires a journey of seven days, with no water, and so on. The theme of this Psalm is the prayer of David who, during his time in the desert in which he was then hiding, laments his own exile, and that of other righteous men, and shows his desire at some point to move on from the desert of this world towards his heavenly homeland.

[1] The country inhabited by the descendants of Edom. The word Idumea is the græcized form of the Hebrew name 'Edôm (Egypt., Aduma; Assyr., U-du-um-ma-ai, U-du-mu, U-du-mi), which appears to have been applied to the region from the red colour of its sandstone cliffs. Idumea was situated south of Juda and the Dead Sea. Red in Hebrew is "Edom". This became another name for Esau.

[2] Vide, e.g., And their bodies shall lie in the streets of the great city, which is called spiritually, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord also was crucified. Et corpora eorum jacebunt in plateis civitatis magnae, quae vocatur spiritualiter Sodoma, et Aegyptus, ubi et Dominus eorum crucifixus est. [Apoc. xi. 8]

[3] But have hated Esau? and I have made his mountains a wilderness, and given his inheritance to the dragons of the desert. Esau autem odio habui, et posui montes ejus in solitudinem, et haereditatem ejus in dracones deserti. [Malch. i. 3]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.