Bellarmine on Psalm 97 : Title, theme and verse 1

Title and subject matter

Titulus et argumentum

A psalm for David himself.

Psalmus ipsi David.

In Hebrew it does not have the name of David and reads simply A Psalm. It is not known who added for David himself; it was probably the Septuagint translators. The theme is the same as that in Psalm XCV; David foretells the first and second coming of Christ: the first unto salvation, the second unto judgement.

Verse 1

Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things.

Cantate Domino canticum novum, quia mirabilia fecit.

He calls on men to praise God for the miracles He has performed. “Sing ye to the Lord,” he says, “a new canticle,” because there is new material for the song, and not only new, but great and admirable. “Because,” he says, “the Lord hath done wonderful things;” for miraculously, and in a (totally) new way, He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin, He has committed no sin, justified sinners, made the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak, and even the blind He has made to see, the lame to walk, the sick to return to health, the dead to life, and what is above all else new and wondrous, after His death He showed Himself alive on the third day, He ascended into heaven in His body, He sent the Holy Spirit from heaven and, by means of simple and uneducated men, He persuaded the learned and the wise to worship the crucified, to despise present things and to desire things to come, and, finally, (as St. Augustine says), He conquered the world - not through the iron (of weapons) - but through (the) wood (of the cross). These things may also be read as referring to God the Father, who did these wondrous things in and through His Son; for the Lord says in John xiv: “ the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works.[1]

[1] Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works. Non creditis quia ego in Patre, et Pater in me est? Verba quae ego loquor vobis, a meipso non loquor. Pater autem in me manens, ipse fecit opera. [John xiv 10]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.