The LORD reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of coastlands be glad.
Read Chapter 97
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
3. ..."The Lord is King, let the earth be glad: yea, let the multitude of the isles be joyous" (ver. 1). It is so indeed, because the word of God hath been preached not in the continent alone, but also in those isles which lie in mid sea: even these are full of Christians, full of the servants of God. For the sea doth not retard Him who made it. Where ships can approach, cannot the words of God? The isles are filled. But figuratively the isles may be taken for all the Churches. Why isles? Because the waves of all temptations roar around them. But as an isle may be beaten by the waves which on every side dash around it, yet cannot be broken, and rather itself doth break the advancing waves, than by them is broken: so also the Churches of God, springing up throughout the world, have suffered the persecutions of the ungodly, who roar around them on every side; and behold the isles stand fixed, and at last the sea is calmed.
2. The earth restored is the resurrection of the flesh; for after His resurrection, all those things which are sung of in the Psalm were done. Let us then hear a Psalm full of joy on the restoration of the Earth. Let the Lord our God excite in us a hope and a pleasure worthy of so great a thing; may He rule our discourse, that it be fit for your hearts, that whatever joy our heart doth feel in such sights, He may bring on to our tongue, and thence conduct it into your ears, then to your heart, thence to your actions.
1. ...This Psalm is entitled, "A Psalm of David's, when his land was restored." Let us refer the whole to Christ, if we wish to keep the road of a right understanding: let us not depart from the corner stone, lest our understanding suffer a fall: in Him let that become fixed, which wavered with unstable motion; let that rest upon Him, which before was waving to and fro in uncertainty. Whatever doubt a man hath in his mind when he heareth the Scriptures of God, let him not depart from Christ; when Christ hath been revealed to him in the words, let him then be assured that he hath understood; but before he arriveth at the understanding of Christ, let him not presume that he hath understood. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." What doth this mean, and how are these words understood in Christ, "When his land was restored"? ...
Same. Huic. The title is the same as usual in the Septuagint. (Menochius)
It occurs not in Hebrew. The psalm may refer to David's establishment on the throne, after the death of Saul, or Absalom, or to the return from captivity, and to the first and second coming of Christ. (Calmet)
This last seems to be the most literal sense. (Berthier)
To him. Christ's body on the third day, and many souls were restored to life.
Islands. We have great reason to rejoice in being educated in the true faith, and we may hope that the Catholic religion will once more flourish in these isles. (Worthington)
The Son of man shall have dominion over all, Daniel vii. 14. His Church is persecuted, as the waves beat against an island. (Eusebius) (Calmet)
