Bellarmine on Psalm 120 : Title, theme and Verse 1

Title and subject matter

Titulus et argumentum

A canticle of the steps

Canticum graduum 

The second Psalm of the Steps consoles the travellers going up to Jerusalem, promising God’s perpetual safekeeping; the Prophet speaks firstly in the person of a traveller, then in his own person and he consoles the traveller.

Verse 1

I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from whence help shall come to me.

Canticum graduum. Levavi oculos meos in montes, unde veniet auxilium mihi.

Travellers look towards nothing more frequently than the place to which they are journeying, if it can be seen; if not, (they look) towards some other place nearby: for they obtain a great consolation from this, and this consolation provides strength and help to them as they walk; the earthly Jerusalem was in the mountains, and the heavenly Jerusalem is above all the heavens, and so the traveller, whether real or imaginary, says: “I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains,” which is the seat of the holy city, “from whence help shall come to me,” (that) of consolation. In Hebrew, the verb is in the future tense, levabo / I shall lift up, but the tenses often vary in Hebrew; and besides, as far as the sense is concerned, it does not matter a great deal whether the traveller says: I have lifted up my eyes, or I shall lift up my eyes. St. Augustine, in accord with his mystical way of interpreting texts, interprets mountains as referring to the holy Apostles; for just as mountains are the first to receive the light of the rising sun, so it is that, with the coming of Christ, the sun of justice, the Apostles were the first to receive the light.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.