ARGUMENT

ARG. THOMAS. That CHRIST, when He had suffered for us, was not left in hell. The voice of the Church. The voice of CHRIST to the FATHER, and of His members to their head. Through this whole Psalm the Person of the SAVIOUR is introduced. At its commencement, He speaks according to His humanity to the FATHER, beseeching that He may be preserved, because He hath ever set His hope on Him: He adds how His Saints are chosen, not by the desires of the flesh, but by the virtues of the SPIRIT: He affirms that everything that He endured was for the glory of His heritage. In the second part, He returns thanks to the same FATHER, Who, standing on His right hand, overcame the iniquity of this world by the power of His omnipotence: whence He affirms that His soul was set free from hell, and after the glory of His Resurrection, had its dwelling among the pleasures of GOD’s right hand.

VEN. BEDE. When all the headings of the Psalms may he called Inscriptions of Titles, I know not with what peculiar mystical signification this Psalm has this especial title. But since a title was written over our LORD when Crucified, “This is the King of the Jews,” not without reason in the Psalm in which that same King is about to speak of His Passion and Resurrection, is commemoration made of that inscription: for that which is added, to David himself, is not to be applied to any other person than to the LORD, the SAVIOUR to Whom it is sung.

EUSEBIUS of CÆSAREA. The election of the Church and the Resurrection of CHRIST.

ÆTHIOPIC PSALTER. The covenant of David which he proposed as peculiar to himself.