Bellarmine on Psalm LXXXIV: Verse 3

Verse 3

Thou hast mitigated all thy anger: thou hast turned away from the wrath of thy indignation.

Mitigasti omnem iram tuam, avertisti ab ira indignationis tuae.

Here he gives a reason why, assuredly, God has forgiven the iniquity of His people; and he says it was dismissed because He had been placated and He had laid aside His anger. For in the same way that vengeance was the cause of God’s anger, so placation was the cause of God’s remission (of the iniquity) : God’s anger was placated, that is, God’s punitive justice : “The Lamb, (which was) slain from the beginning of the world.”[1]  His mercy and His goodwill gave to us the immaculate Lamb, He who “so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son.”[2] Here, then, is the order of our deliverance : God’s benediction, or goodwill, gave His son as Saviour; the Son, by His death, placated God’s anger, and satisfied His justice for the sins of the whole world; God, being placated, pardoned the sins; the forgiveness of sin set men free from captivity. And the Holy Spirit revealed to God’s Prophet the entire mystery hidden in God’s mind, and he has described it for us in these three lines. The phrase all thy anger signifies that Christ’s act of redemption was perfectly sufficient for full satisfaction. It also means that the future liberty which we shall have in due course, that is, at the last day, will be perfectly full and absolute, so that nothing of punishment or misery will remain; for all punishment proceeds from the anger of God. The sentence thou hast turned away from the wrath of thy indignation, repeats the same thing and has this sense : Thou hast turned Thyself away from Thine anger and indignation. In Hebrew, it has, Thou hast turned back, or Thou hast turned back from the anger of Thy rage.

[1] And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world. et adoraverunt eam omnes, qui inhabitant terram : quorum non sunt scripta nomina in libro vitae Agni, qui occisus est ab origine mundi. [Apoc. xiii. 8]

[2] For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum, ut Filium suum unigenitum daret : ut omnis qui credit in eum, non pereat, sed habeat vitam aeternam. [Ioann. iii. 16]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.