Bellarmine on Psalm 125 : Title, theme and Verse 1

Title and subject matter

Titulum et argumentum

A canticle of the steps

Canticum graduum  

This Psalm speaks openly about returning from captivity and going up to the homeland; it properly belongs to that time in which the Cyrus’ decree was promulgated, ending the captivity of the Jews: this was a prefiguring of the Gospel in which the forgiveness of sins was announced, and the ascent to heavenly Jerusalem. 

Verse 1

When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became like men comforted.

In convertendo Dominus captivitatem Sion, facti sumus sicut consolati.

The Latin translator wanted to render an equivalent of the Greek words, and so it seems he spoke in a less than Latin manner. St. Jerome, following the thought rather than the words, translated it thus: When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became like men dreaming.  For the Hebrew word truly signifies dreaming, and the sense is: When we first heard news of our release and our return to our homeland, we could scarcely believe for joy what was said to us, and we seemed not to be hearing and seeing  but to be dreaming. Similar to what befell the patriarch Jacob, in Gen. xlv, who on hearing his son Joseph was alive, who had seemed to have been dead a long time, he did not believe it, as being like one waking from a heavy sleep. Saint Peter too, in Acts xii, delivered against all hope from prison, thought he saw a vision.[1] Moreover, the Septuagint translators used the word consoled / comforted, because it came about that the Jews seemed to themselves to be dreaming. But the reading will be clear if we join the two as follows:

When the Lord brought back the captivity of Sion, we became from excessive consolation and joy like men dreaming ourselves to be delivered; or, if you like, this can be the sense: We became like men comforted, that is, we became as they are who accept comforting after a great tribulation, that is, cheerful and rejoicing after being sorrowful and mourning. They truly experience this indescribable comforting who convert seriously to God, and having contempt for any hope in what is wordly and all earthly things, they direct their footsteps in the way of peace. For they understand what an indescribable gift it is, to be plucked from the devil's imprisonment , from the pit of hell, to be made ready so as to possess true freedom and everlasting peace in the heavenly homeland, with God calling and leading them.

[1] And going out, he followed him, and he knew not that it was true which was done by the angel: but thought he saw a vision. Et exiens sequebatur eum, et nesciebat quia verum est, quod fiebat per angelum : existimabat autem se visum videre. [Acts iii 9]

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.