Verse 4
For thy mercy is better than lives: thee my lips shall praise.
Quoniam melior est misericordia tua super vitas, labia mea laudabunt te.
The word
quoniam / for seems not to refer to the previous but to the following lines, so that the meaning is: not only shall I see Thy power and Thy glory but my lips shall constantly praise
Thee, for Thy mercy is better to me than life itself : for Thy mercy gave life to me and that same mercy sustains that life; and if I shall lose that life for Thee, Thy mercy will make it much happier for me; but if, to save my life, I should fall from Thy mercy and grace, I shall throw away my life and Thy mercy. In Hebrew, it has the word
chaiim, meaning
vitas / lives, in the plural; but the word can also be taken for
vita / life, in the singular : many words are plural in form but singular in meaning; in the following lines : “Thus will I bless thee all my life long,” the word is in the plural but the translators have shown it in the singular. And so in this verse, we can interpret
vitas / lives as
life, as did the Holy Fathers Hilary and Jerome in his Commentary ; and this is also followed in the text of St. Hilary : but if it is preferred to accept a plural meaning, then we might understand by it the various occupations of the living, such as soldiers’ lives, the lives of clerics, the lives of farmers, and so on, as St. Augustine understands it, or lives in this world, howsoever long and happy, whether our own, of our spouses and loved ones, of our parents, brothers, or children.
Totus tuus ego sum
Et omnia mea tua sunt;
Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam.
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