For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
6. "For aliens have risen up against me" (ver. 3). What "aliens"? Was not David himself a Jew of the tribe of Judah? But the very place Ziph belonged to the tribe of Judah; it was of the Jews. How then "aliens"? Not in city, not in tribe, not in kindred, but in flower. ...But see the Ziphites, see them for a time flourishing. With reason "alien" sons. Thou amid the Ziphites hiding saidst what? "Blessed the people whereof the Lord is its God." Out of this affection this prayer is being sent forth into the ears of the Lord, when it is said, "for aliens have risen up against me."
7. "And mighty men have sought after my soul." For in a new manner, my brethren, they would destroy the race of holy men, and the race of them that abstain from hoping in this world, all they that have hope in this world. Certainly commingled they are, certainly together they live. Very much to one another are opposed these two sorts: the one of those that place no hope but in things secular, and in temporal f...
Strangers. Barbarous, (Worthington) enemies, though of the same tribe. (Calmet)
Hostis dicebatur quem nunc peregrinum dicimus. (Cicero, Off. i.)
The devil and our passions, as well as the world, are such to us. (Berthier)
He has next added the reason why He prays for His words to be heard: For strangers are risen up against Me and violent men have sought after My soul; they have not set God before their eyes. The Only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God and God the Word— although assuredly He could Himself do all things that the Father could, as He says: What things soever the Father does, the Son also does in like manner John 5:19, while the name describing the divine nature which was His inseparably involved the inseparable possession of divine power—yet in order that He might present to us a perfect example of human humility, both prayed for and underwent all things that are the lot of man. Sharing in our common weakness He prayed the Father to save Him, so that He might teach us that He was born man under all the conditions of man's infirmity. This is why He was hungry and thirsty, slept and was weary, shunned the assemblies of the ungodly, was sad and wept, suffered and died. And it was in order t...
