Bellarmine on Psalm 109 : Verse 7

Verse 7

He shall judge among nations, he shall fill ruins: he shall crush the heads in the land of the many.

Judicabit in nationibus; implebit ruinas, conquassabit capita in terra multorum.

He has said what Christ will do to His enemies at the present time, the kings and the princes of the earth: now he adds what He will do towards all His enemies at the last day: “He shall judge,” the Prophet says, “among nations,” that is, He who at this time crushes the attacks of kings, and preserves His Church in a time of persecutions, shall afterwards at the end of the world “judge among nations,” that is, He will pronounce His judgement against all nations; and, all the wicked having been condemned, “he shall fill ruins,” that is, He will bring about their total elimination, He will complete the destruction of the wicked. From the Hebrew, St. Jerome’s translation is: He will fill the pits of hell, which is also true, for then shall be filled the lowermost pits, all the wicked men and demons being thrust down and coming to their end therein: and in this way “He shall crush the heads in the land of the many,” that is, He will humble and crush the proud, those who now march boastfully with heads held high against Him, He will on that day trample on their pride, and He will reveal their feebleness to the whole world, and He will confound them and render them contemptible: and this is what it will mean to crush and grind down their heads. He says “in the land of the many,” because on earth the truly humble and pious are very few  compared to the proud and the wicked, who are nearly without number. In Hebrew it has in much of the earth, that is, in a great part of the earth; but the sense is the same, whether it is said that many are the proud who are found on earth, or the proud occupy much of the earth. St. Augustine explains all these things as referring to the present time, and having a good effect, so that to fill ruins is to rebuild what has fallen, and to crush heads is to humble a person unto salvation through contrition; this is a pious and useful interpretation, but mystical: for Theodoret, Euthymius and others commonly interpret this literally as being about the final judgement.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.