For we, O Lord, are become less than any nation, and be kept under this day in all the world because of our sins.
Read Chapter 3
Jerome
AD 420
These verses are to be used whenever the churches suffer want (because of the sins of the people) of holy men, and of magistrates who are most learned in the law of God, and also whenever in times of persecution no sacrifice or oblation is offered up. Some authorities relate this passage to the heavenly (p. 510) Jerusalem, on the ground that the souls have been plunged to the earthly plane and find themselves in a place of tears and utter distress, and bewail the sins of by-gone years and the other things included in the prophetic discourse. But the Church of God has not accepted this view.
“May the Lord make you fruitful, you and your children.” Have you seen another kind of blessing, the increase of the people? For this same reason it says elsewhere that the contrary is a punishment: “We have become smaller than any other nation; we are now humiliated throughout the earth.” And in fact they enjoyed this blessing when they were in Egypt, despite the infinite number of things forbidden them, the forced labor, the tribulations, the cruelty of their persecutors. But nothing caused the Word of God to fail, and the blessing acted in such a way that in two hundred years, they had become six hundred thousand people. - "On the Psalm 113.5"
