Bellarmine on Psalm 147 : Verse 3

Verse 3

Who hath placed peace in thy borders: and filleth thee with the fat of corn.

Qui posuit fines tuos pacem, et adipe frumenti satiat te.

The holy city of Jerusalem is not only fully fortified but is exempt from the dangers of war; hence it has the name Jerusalem, that is, vision of peace. For the one who in the beginning tried to disturb the peace was quickly expelled with such great force that the Lord was to say : “I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.”[1] “Who hath placed,” he says, “peace in thy borders,” that is, He caused peace to spread throughout the whole of your land, even to its uttermost confines; He willed there to be peace within your borders and territories so that it was not possible for war to pass through them. Not only does this city abound in supplies of good things, but it also has the best and most exquisite things, and the very marrow itself of good things. “And filleth thee,” he says, “with the fat of corn:” where the excellence of the foodstuffs is noted by the use of the words the fat of corn, and the greatest of abundance by the words filleth thee. All these things most properly and strictly speaking are found in the soil of the heavenly homeland : for there will be found perfect peace between the 

lower parts and the higher, and between the higher and God, and between all the citizens of that city, the greater and the lesser. They will truly be of one heart and mind, and, as the Lord says in John xvii : “Made perfect in one.”[2] There too they will all be filled with the fat of corn, since the food of the soul is truth and wisdom; they, however, will have truth as it is in itself, not in figures and enigmas; they will taste the sweetness of the eternal Word, without the exterior covering of the sacraments or the Scriptures; they will drink directly from the fount of wisdom, not from its streams, and not from showers falling gently upon the earth.[3] Thus shall they be filled in truth, so as to never hunger or thirst in eternity.  In the Church militant, which also is Jerusalem to a certain extent, we have peace with God but at the same time we suffer affliction in the world. To the extent that it is within us, we make an effort to be at peace with everyone; but we dwell in the midst of those who hate peace. Hence “combats without, fears within”[4] are never absent, and we eat indeed of the fat of corn, but not without various coverings (of allegory). We have the Word of God, in the flesh, and we truly eat of that very flesh of the Word, but under the covering of a sacrament. We drink of the waters of wisdom, but as from a shower coming from the Scriptures; because we are not filled by these blessings, our happiness here in the meantime is to hunger and thirst (for their fullness). Much less do these words apply to the earthly Jerusalem, the old Synagogue of the Jews, to whom all these things applied in the sense of figures.

[1] And he said to them: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven. Et ait illis : Videbam Satanam sicut fulgor de caelo cadentem. [Luke x 18]

[2] I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me. Ego in eis, et tu in me : ut sint consummati in unum : et cognoscat mundus quia tu me misisti, et dilexisti eos, sicut et me dilexisti. [John xvii 23]

[3] Psalm LXXI 6.

[4] II Corinth. vii 5.

Totus tuus ego sum

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:

Ad Jesum per Mariam.