Your hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments.
All Commentaries on Psalms 119:73 Go To Psalms 119
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
72. ..."Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me" (ver. 73). The hands of God are the power of God. Or if the plural number moveth them, since it is not said, Thy hand, but, "Thy hands;" let them understand by the hands of God the power and wisdom of God, both of which titles are given to one Christ, who is also understood under the figure, Arm of the Lord. Or let them understand by the hands of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit; since the Holy Spirit worketh conjointly with the Father and the Son: whence saith the Apostle, "But all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit:" he said, "one and the self-same;" lest as many spirits as works might be imagined, not that the Spirit worketh without the Father and the Son. It is easy therefore to see how the hands of God are to be understood: provided, at the same time, that He be not denied to do those things through His Word which He doth by His hands: nor be considered not to do those things with His hands, which He doth through His word. ...But is this said in respect of Adam? from whom since all men were propagated, what man, since Adam was made, may not say that he himself also was made by reason of procreation and generation from Adam? Or may it rightly be said, in this sense, "Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me," namely, that every man is born even of his parents not without the work of God, God creating, they generating? Since, if the creative power of God be withdrawn from things, they perish: nor is anything at all, either of the world's elements, or of parents, or of seeds, produced, if God doth not create it. ...
73. The Greek version hath a more concise expression for our, "Give me understanding," sunetison me, expressing "give understanding" by the single word sunetison, which the Latin cannot do; as if one could not say, Heal me; and it were necessary to say, Give me health, as it is here said, "Give me understanding;" or, make me whole, as here it may be said, make me intelligent. This indeed an Angel could do: for he said to Daniel, "I am come to give thee understanding;" and this word is in the Greek, as it is here also, sunetisai se; as if the Latin translator were to render qerapeusai se by sanitatem dare tibi. For the Latin interpreter would not make a circumlocution by saying, to give thee understanding, if, as we say from health, "to heal thee," so one could say from intellect, "to intellectuate thee." But if an Angel could do this, what reason is there that this man should pray that this be done for him by God? Is it because God had commanded the Angel to do it? Just so: for Christ is understood to have given this command to the Angel. ...
74. "That I may learn Thy commandments." Since Thou, saith he, hast formed me, do Thou new form me; that that may be done in Christ's Body, which the Apostle speaks of, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
