The Douay-Rheims with the Glossa Ordinaria

¹Alleluia, of Aggeus and Zacharias.

v.1

VERS. 1.-- *Alleluia.* This voice, as it were saving musics, like a heavenly harmony, which delights not men only but angels also, setting forth the praise of God. And it is fitly prefixed to this psalm, where the just man exhorts his soul to the praise of God: because in adversities the soul is sometimes troubled, whether it will or no. Whence above: *Why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou disquiet me?* But that he may take away her disquiet, he suggests joy out of hope, if not out of the thing itself: *Hope in God,* etc. This soul, lifted up by hope, praises God here. First, he counsels himself, as it were all men, to praise, lest prayer be made among vain things; and as though acquiescing in the counsel, he affirms that he will praise there where he shall be able to praise fully. Secondly, he admonishes others not to hope in man, there: *Trust not.* Thirdly, he teaches that all hope is to be placed in the Almighty, there: *Blessed,* etc.

²Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord: I will sing to my God as long as I shall be. Put not your trust in princes:

v.2

VERS. 2.-- *Praise the Lord, O my soul.* But it is asked, by whom, and to whom, is this counsel given? If it be said that the flesh counsels the soul, this does not seem to be true, since counsel is wont to be given by the better and the worthier to the inferior: but the flesh is inferior to the soul. For the soul, although it be blamed because it is a sinner, is nevertheless called better by nature than the body that is praised in its own kind, because a spiritual nature excels the body, which it moves, rules, endows with sense, and apprehends: and being itself unbounded, it is near to the substance of God. So gold, blamed because it is foul, surpasses lead in purity, praise: so too a bad man surpasses the best of horses. Counsel therefore is not given to the soul by the flesh, however greatly it be subdued and made peaceable: which nevertheless is dead because of sin. Nor yet does the mortal flesh counsel the immortal soul, because it is always beneath the soul; but the higher part of the soul, that is, the mind, which thinks upon the divine wisdom, cleaving to it and sighing after it, sees certain of its own parts troubled by the motions of the world, and hurried away to outward things by the desire of earthly goods: whence it calls it back to things inward and higher. Exhorting itself therefore according to its sensuality, it says: *Praise the Lord, O my soul.* For what pleases thee in this world? Divided among so many loves of the things of the ages, gather thyself to thy Author: here is peace and security for thee. Then the soul answers the mind, as one weighed down here and not able to leave off, as is meet. *I will praise in life.* Here in death I shall praise but thinly, because the body *is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the sense that thinketh upon many things*; here hope feeds us, life is in the world to come. *In my life.* When I shall have cleaved to him perfectly, from whom to be parted, as now befalls, is death: but hope consoles, in which, living after a sort, it praises. *As long as.* Not that at some time he shall not be, because he shall be for ever, and therefore truly long.

³In the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.

⁴His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth: in that day all their thoughts shall perish.

⁵Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God:

⁶Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.

⁷Who keepeth truth for ever: who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong: who giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth them that are fettered:

⁸The Lord enlighteneth the blind. The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down: the Lord loveth the just.

⁹The Lord keepeth the strangers, he will support the fatherless and the widow: and the ways of sinners he will destroy.

¹⁰The Lord shall reign for ever: thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.