For my iniquities are gone over my head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
7. "For mine iniquities have lifted up my head; and are like a heavy burden too heavy for me to bear" (ver. 4). Here too he has placed the cause first, and the effect afterwards. What consequence followed, and from what cause, he has told us. "Mine iniquities have lift up mine head." For no one is proud but the unrighteous man, whose head is lifted up. He is "lifted up," whose "head is lifted up on high" against God. You heard when the lesson of the Book of Ecclesiasticus was read: "The beginning of pride is when a man departeth from God." He who was the first to refuse to listen to the Commandment, "his head iniquity lifted up" against God. And because his iniquities have lifted up his head, what hath God done unto him? They are "like a heavy burden, too heavy for me to bear"! It is the part of levity to lift up the head, just as if he who lifts up his head had nothing to carry. Since therefore that which admits of being lifted up is light, it receives a weight by which it may be weig...
Me. They press upon me like a deluge or huge weight. (Calmet)
The sin of David had many aggravations. (Berthier)
His punishment was also great. (Calmet)
His spirit was almost overwhelmed, as the sins which are not bewailed, bring on other transgressions. (Worthington)
It is not so much sin as the neglect of penance, which destroys men. (Berthier)
This folly is here acknowledged by David. (Haydock)
