The LORD shall count, when he registers the people, that this man was born there. Selah.
Read Chapter 87
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
7. As though it were said, How do ye know this? All of us have sung these Psalms: and Christ, Man for our sake, God before us, sings within us all. But is this much to say, "before us," of Him who was before heaven and earth and time? He then, born for our sakes a man, in that city, also founded her when He was the Most High. Yet how are we assured of this? "The Lord shall rehearse it when He writeth up the people" (ver. 6), as the following verse has it. "The Lord shall declare, when He writeth up the people, and their princes." What princes? "Those who were born in her;" those princes who, born within her walls, became therein princes: for before they could become princes in her, God chose the despised things of the world to confound the strong. Was the fisherman, the publican, a prince? They were indeed princes: but because they became such in her. Princes of what kind were they? Princes come from Babylon, believing monarchs of this world, came to the city of Rome, as to the head of...
Writings. He alone can number the inhabitants: or He will enroll all nations as citizens of Sion. (Calmet)
The New Testament explains the vocation of the Gentiles, and the incarnation of Christ. (Berthier)
The Scriptures are the books of all mankind, as well as of princes. All are equally interested in their contents, and ought to become acquainted with them. Hebrew, "the Lord has numbered, writing down peoples: He was born in it for ever. "(St. Jerome)
This refers to Jesus Christ, whose birth is also specified in the preceding verse, (Berthier) as ennobling Sion, far more than that of Homer, Alexander, or Cæsar could do any of the pagan cities, Egypt, ver. 4. (Haydock)
The mystery of the incarnation will shine forth at the last day, as well as the glory of the elect. But these things are already consigned in part to all nations, in the writings of the apostles, (Berthier) and in ecclesiastical history. (Menochius)
Princes, is not here in Hebrew. (Berthier)
