Bellarmine on Psalm 97 : Verse 7

Verse 7

Sing praise to the Lord on the harp, on the harp, and with the voice of a psalm: With long trumpets, and sound of cornet.

Psallite Domino in cithara; in cithara et voce psalmi; in tubis ductilibus, et voce tubae corneae. 

Four instruments are enumerated with which those, who have seen the salvation of God by faith and desire to see Him with their eyes, should make music: the harp,[1] the psaltery[2] (this signifies the same, in the language of the Psalm, and in the sound of the Psalter[3]), the long trumpet, and the cornet.[4] These were the instruments in use among the Hebrews; and their spiritual meaning has been variously explained by our commentators. To me, they seem to be capable of being applied fairly straightforwardly to the cardinal virtues: the harp to prudence, the psaltery to justice, the long trumpet to fortitude and the cornet to temperance. The harp, blending together the sounds of various strings, produces a sweet harmony: thus prudence joins various circumstances to good works and produces a perfect work. The psaltery with its ten strings represents to us the Decalogue, that is, all the commandments of justice. The long trumpet is stretched and shaped by the blows of hammers, so that it can produce a most sweet note: thus fortitude, by bearing patiently with tribulations and worries, extends and perfects in this way the man of God, so that he may, with holy Job, utter that sweet sound: “If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?”[5] Finally, temperance, like hard horn, rising above and defeating the soft flesh, that is, chastising the body with fasts and vigils, and reducing it to service of the spirit, produces the effect of a spiritual cornet: such was the Lord’s precursor who, content with woodland honey and locusts, and clad in camel skins, and girded with a leathern belt, would say: “ I am the voice of one crying in the desert;”[6] such too was the most blessed Paul who, long practised in the exercise of temperance, uttered those sweet words: “But having food, and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content;”[7] and in I Cor. vi he says: “Meat for the belly, and the belly for the meats; but God shall destroy both it and them;”[8] and in truth he says:  “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”[9]

[1] cĭthăra, ae, f., = κιθάρα, the cithara, cithern, guitar, or lute.

[2] psaltērĭum, ĭi, n., = ψαλτήριον. A stringed instrument of the lute kind, a psaltery

[3] Psalterii: an instrument, see 2.; but with a capital, it may refer to the Songs of David, the Psalms, or Psaltery.

[4] cornet, hornpipe: in early times a wind-instrument made of a horn or resembling a horn; a horn (obsolete).

[5] And he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women: if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? In all these things Job did not sin with his lips. Qui ait ad illam : Quasi una de stultis mulieribus locuta es; si bona suscepimus de manu Dei, mala quare non suscipiamus? In omnibus his non peccavit Job labiis suis. [Job ii. 10]

[6] For this is he that was spoken of by Isaias the prophet, saying: A voice of one crying in the desert, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Hic est enim, qui dictus est per Isaiam prophetam dicentem : Vox clamantis in deserto : Parate viam Domini : rectas facite semitas ejus. [Matt. iii. 3]

[7] But having food, and wherewith to be covered, with these we are content. Habentes autem alimenta, et quibus tegamur, his contenti simus. [I Tim. vi. 8]

[8] Meat for the belly, and the belly for the meats; but God shall destroy both it and them: but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Esca ventri, et venter escis : Deus autem et hunc et has destruet : corpus autem non fornicationi, sed Domino : et Dominus corpori. [I Cor. vi. 13]

[9] But godliness with contentment is great gain. Est autem quaestus magnus pietas cum sufficientia. [I Tim. vi. 6]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.