Then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us:
All Commentaries on Psalms 124:3 Go To Psalms 124
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
3. "If the Lord Himself had not been in us, now may Israel say" (ver. 1) ...When? "When men rose up against us" (ver. 2). Marvel not: they have been subdued: for they were men; but the Lord was in us, man was not in us: for men rose up against us. Nevertheless men would crush other men, unless in those men who could not be crushed, there were not man, but the Lord. For what could men do to you, while ye rejoiced, and sang, and securely held everlasting bliss? what could men do to you when they rose against you, if the Lord had not been on your side? what could they do? "Perchance they had swallowed us up quick" (ver. 3). "Swallowed us up:" they would not first have slain us, and so have swallowed us up. O inhuman, O cruel men'! The Church swalloweth not thus. To Peter it was said, "Kill and eat:" not, Swallow quick. Because no man entereth into the body of the Church, save he be slain first? What he was dieth, that he may be what he was not. Otherwise, he who is not slain, and is not eaten by the Church, may be in the visible number of the people: but he cannot be in the number of the people which is known to God, whereof the Apostle saith, "The Lord knoweth who are His," save he be eaten; and eaten he cannot be, save he first be slain. The Pagan cometh, still in him idolatry liveth; he must be grafted among the members of Christ: that he may be engrafted, he must needs be eaten; but he cannot be eaten by the Church, save first he be slain. Let him renounce the world, then is he slain; let him believe in God, then is he eaten ...But they in whom the Lord is, are slain and die not. But they who consent aud live, are swallowed quick, when swallowed up they die. But they who have suffered, and have not yielded to tribulations, rejoice and say, "If the Lord had not been in us," etc.
