It is time for you, LORD, to work: for they have made void your law.
Read Chapter 119
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
125. "It is time," he saith, "for the Lord to lay to His hand" (ver. 126). For this is the reading of most copies: not as some have, "O Lord." Now what is this, save the grace which was revealed in Christ at its own time? Of which season the Apostle saith, "But when the fullness of time was come, God sent His Son." ...But wherefore is it that, seemingly anxious to show the Lord that it was time to lay to His hand, he hath subjoined, "They have scattered Thy law;" as if it were the season for the Lord to act, because the proud scattered His law. For what meaneth this? In the wickedness of transgression, they have not guarded its integrity. It was needful therefore that the Law should be given to the proud and those presuming in the freedom of their own will, after a transgression of which whosoever were contrite and humbled, might run no longer by the Law, but by faith, to aiding grace. When the Law therefore was scattered, it was time that mercy should be sent through the only-begotten...
To do. Our best, since so many prove rebellious, (Hebrews iv. 11., and Ecclesiasticus v. 8.; Berthier) or we stand in the utmost need of the Messias, since even the Jews give erroneous explanations of the law. (St. Ambrose)
Hebrew, "it is time for the Lord to act "by punishing the guilty; or, "to act for the Lord "faciendi Domino, by striving to repair the injuries done to his name and worship. (Calmet)
