O LORD our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! who have set your glory above the heavens.
Read Chapter 8
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
4. Accordingly it is said, "O Lord, our Lord, how admirarble is Thy Name in all the earth!" (ver. 1). I ask, how is His Name wonderful in all the earth? The answer is, "For Thy glory has been raised above the heavens." So that the meaning is this, O Lord, who art our Lord, how do all that inhabit the earth admire Thee! for Thy glory hath been raised from earthly humiliation above the heavens. For hence it appeared who Thou wast that descendedst, when it was by some seen, and by the rest believed, whither it was that Thou ascendedst.
2. There is another interpretation concerning the wine-presses, yet still keeping to the meaning of Churches. For even the Divine Word may be understood by the grape: for the Lord even has been called a Cluster of grapes; which they that were sent before by the people of Israel brought from the land of promise hanging on a staff, crucified as it were. Accordingly, when the Divine Word maketh use of, by the necessity of declaring Himself, the sound of the voice, whereby to convey Himself to the ears of the hearers; in the same sound of the voice, as it were in husks, knowledge, like the wine, is enclosed: and so this grape comes into the ears, as into the pressing machines of the wine-pressers. For there the separation is made, that the sound may reach as far as the ear; but knowledge be received in the memory of those that hear, as it were in a sort of vat; whence it passes into discipline of the conversation and habit of mind, as from the vat into the cellar: where if it do not throug...
1. He seems to say nothing of wine-presses in the text of the Psalm of which this is the title. By which it appears, that one and the same thing is often signified in Scripture by many and various similitudes. We may then take wine-presses to be Churches, on the same principle by which we understand also by a threshing-floor the Church. For whether in the threshing-floor, or in the wine-press, there is nothing else done but the clearing the produce of its covering; which is necessary, both for its first growth and increase, and arrival at the maturity either of the harvest or the vintage. Of these coverings or supporters then; that is, of chaff, on the threshing-floor, the corn; and of husks, in the presses, the wine is stripped: as in the Churches, from the multitude of worldly men, which is collected together with the good, for whose birth and adaptating to the divine word that multitude was necessary, this is effected, that by spiritual love they be separated through the operation o...
3. "Wine-presses" are also usually taken for martyrdoms, as if when they who have confessed the name of Christ have been trodden down by the blows of persecution, their mortal remains as husks remained on earth, but their souls flowed forth into the rest of a heavenly habitation. Nor yet by this interpretation do we depart from the fruitfulness of the Churches. It is sung then, "for the wine-presses," for the Church's establishment; when our Lord after His resurrection ascended into heaven. For then He sent the Holy Ghost: by whom the disciples being fulfilled preached with confidence the Word of God, that Churches might be collected.
O Lord, (Jehova) our Lord, (Adonenu). (St. Jerome) Dominator noster, "our Ruler. "(Haydock)
God is Lord of all by creation, and still more of those who believe. (Worthington)
Adonai is pronounced by the Jews, and sometimes applied to men. But they have lost the pronunciation of the first term, which some read Jehovah, (Calmet) or Jaho, (St. Jerome) Jave (Haydock)
Admirable. It expresses all that He is. (Exodus iii. 14.; Berthier) Essence itself. (Haydock)
Earth. This was verified after the incarnation; (St. Chrysostom) for before, the Gentiles knew it not, and the Jews caused it to be blasphemed. (Berthier)
Now all confess the glory of Jesus Christ, the master-piece of God. (Calmet)
Heavens; which are nothing in comparison, (Menochius) for he hath created them. (Worthington) (Habacuc iii. 3.)
The presses. In Hebrew Gittith, supposed to be a musical instrument: (Challoner) or, "the musicians from Geth "who were famous, and might follow David, 2 Kings i. 20., and xv. 18. The Septuagint must have read a v for i. (Calmet) Gothuth. Yet St. Jerome and Pagnin agree with them; (Haydock) and that sense seems as plausible as any other. The psalm relates to Christ alone; (Matthew xxi. 16., 1 Corinthians xv. 26., and Hebrews ii. 6.) who is represented treading the wine-press, Isaias lxiii. 3., and Apocalypse xix. 13. (Berthier)
The Jews confess that it speaks of the Messias. (Ferrand.)
We may explain it also of the natural prerogatives of man, (Calmet) though (Haydock) this weakens the force of the prophecy. (Berthier)
St. Augustine applies the expressions to the good and bad in the Church. (Worthington)
It might be sung during the feast of tabernacles, after the vintage. (Menochius)
