| Psalms 28:1
| A psalm for David, at the finishing of the tabernacle.
| Finishing. Septuagint, exodiou or exodou, may also signify "the going out;" (Haydock) as if the sacred ministers exhorted their successors to perform their duty in the ensuing week, or on the last day of the feast of tabernacles, Leviticus 23:36. (Calmet) --- Hebrew has only "A canticle of David," (Haydock) and the rest was not in the Hexapla in the time of Theodoret, so that many pay no attention to it. The author seems to have supposed that the psalm was composed when David had finished the tabernacle, on Sion. (Calmet) (2 Kings vi., and 1 Paralipomenon xvi.) --- But the psalmist had in view things of far greater importance, the propagation of Christianity among many great potentates. (Worthington) --- The Fathers explain it in this sense, though it may literally allude (Calmet) to the storm procured by the prayer of Elias, 3 Kings 18:1, 41. (Haydock) --- It might be composed in a thunder-storm, and used on similar occasions, (Muis) when a person had to go from home. (Haydock) --- The seven voices may allude to the seven sacraments, or trumpets, Apocalypse 10:3. (Berthier) --- God. Septuagint seemed to have read Aleim, or they have taken elim in the same sense, as it signifies "the mighty" as well as "rams." On account of this ambiguity, a double translation is given either by the Septuagint, or rather by some later writer, who may have inserted the explanation, O ye children of God, bring ye to the Lord; (Haydock) which has crept from the margin into the text. (Amama) --- It is marked as superfluous by Grabe, (Haydock) not being found in the best Greek copies; or at least have an obel, (Eusebius) to insinuate that it was not in Hebrew, in which state it appears in the Gal. Psalter, published in St. Jerome's works. (Calmet) --- It is not contrary to the original, though more explicit, (Berthier) as the address is made to all the faithful, (Menochius) or to the priests and nobility. (Haydock) --- The apostles are styled rams, because they beat down error with the two Testaments; whence bishops' mitres have two horns. (Lombard; Amama) --- "Give praise to the Lord, ye troops of angels; render to the Lord glory and strength." (Chaldean) (Calmet) --- Be grateful for the favours which are here recounted. (Worthington) --- Most people now translate, "sons of the mighty." Yet St. Jerome and Houbigant have, "offspring of rams;" filios arietum. Bring lambs to the Lord, as the original may certainly mean; though many who are attached to the Hebrew allow also sons of God. (Berthier) --- Montfaucon says that Origen marked with a lemniscus, what he judged "a better reading," and thus obelized the first of these versions, and added the second with an asterisk. This liberty has been attended both with good and bad consequences. (Kennicott)
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