Bellarmine on Psalm 94 : Verses 5 & 6

Verse 5

For the sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.

quoniam ipsius est mare, et ipse fecit illud, et siccam manus ejus formaverunt.

The third reason is that our God is Lord not only of the land but also of the sea, for He surrounded it with dry sand in which it is held as if in a container. It is therefore right that men, who derive great benefits from the sea, should give thanks and praise to Him.

Verse 6

Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.

Venite, adoremus, et procidamus, et ploremus ante Dominum qui fecit nos;

The fourth reason is because the same Lord not only made the land and the seas, but He also made us men; now, we men offend our maker by our sins. “Come,” the Prophet says, “let us adore and fall down: and weep,” lamenting our ingratitude and our sins “before the Lord that made us,” and for this reason in all justice He is our Lord, and we owe Him every obedience. From the Hebrew, St. Jerome’s translation is genua flectamus / let us bend our knees, instead of what we have, ploremus / let us weep. But all the Greek and Latin codices have ploremus / let us weep, and this is how all the old exegetes read and translate it;

nor is it likely that the prophet would have said let us bend our knees after he had (already) said let us adore and fall down; for the Hebrew for adorare / to adore means  prosterni /to prostrate oneself and succumbere / to fall down, which is explained by the following word, procidamus / let us fall down. For it is more to fall down and to prostrate the whole body than to bend the knee. And so it is probable that the Septuagint translators were working from the true Hebrew text which means ploremus / let us weep; but with the passage of time one letter was inserted in the Hebrew which meant it was translated as genua flectamus / let us bend our knees. It is no way credible that the Septuagint translators, men most learned, would have translated it as ploremus / let us weep, if they had not read it thus, as we now read it in the Hebrew codices.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.