Here is a brief bio on Fr. de Muis from Wikipedia. Text in red are my additions.
Ezra, Kimchi, and others think that this psalm was composed by David after the place had been revealed to him in which the Temple was to be built (see 1 Chronicles 22:1). Kimchi says that he wrote this psalm to be sung when the Ark was to be brought into the Holy of Holies. The ancient Hebrew teachers thought the same, as Ezra notes on verse 7. I gladly subscribe to their opinion, since I see that all the words of this psalm, and especially verse 7 and those that follow, easily fit this subject. Yet I do not deny—indeed, who could deny it unless he were altogether alien to Christ—that David in this psalm also looked further and at the same time thought of Christ, of whom that ancient Ark was, as it were, a certain shadow. Thus this psalm ought to be understood more of Christ and his Church than of the Ark and Solomon’s Temple, which were only their shadows. The opening sentence of the paragraph is making reference to Ibn Ezra and David Kimchi, two famous Jewish scholars of the Medieval period.
This psalm has two parts. In the first, it teaches what sort of persons those must be who wish to approach the most holy Temple of the Lord or to join themselves to the Church of Christ. In the second, it suddenly passes to an exhortation, by which, through prosopopoeia (in this context, a figure of speech which personifies inanimate objects), addressing the very gates of the Temple—or rather the Church of Christ itself—it urges them to be opened wide, so that the Ark may enter, that is, so that Christ the glorious King may be received with honor.
Ps 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s,” etc. When he is about to say who belong to God in a special way, he first lays down, as it were by way of an exordium, this general thesis: that the whole world and all that it contains belong to God. Thus God himself says in Exodus 19:5, “You shall be my own possession,” for “all the earth is mine.” “The earth is the Lord’s,” etc. Kimchi observes that by the word ha’arets the whole earth is signified, namely both the inhabited and the uninhabited, as in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” But by the word tēbēl (תֵּבֵל), which is translated “the world,” the inhabited earth is usually meant. Hence in the former expression it is said, “and the fullness thereof,” that is, whatever it contains, while in the latter it is said, “and those who dwell therein.” Rashi understands “the earth” as the land of Israel, and “the world” as the rest of the lands; but this is rather subtle.
Ps 24:2 “For he founded it upon the seas,” etc. This is the reason by which he proves that God justly claims the whole earth as his own, since he alone is its author. But why is the earth said to be founded upon the seas and established upon the rivers? I answer: because, when the seas and rivers were driven back into their channels, the earth—although a heavier element—by God’s will rises above the waters so as to be fit for the habitation of human beings and other living creatures. The earth is not said to be founded upon the seas because the seas are subject to the earth; rather, the earth lies beneath the seas and waters, as a foundation, according to that saying of Psalm 102:26, “In the beginning you founded the earth.” But it is said so because the land that appears to our eyes is higher than the sea, while the sea and rivers lie lower, ever since God said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear” (Genesis 1:9).
Ezra agrees with us in explaining this verse thus: “The earth by its nature was created to be under the waters; but by the will of God it came about that part of it dried out, and this is the part which is uncovered and visible.” Rashi, who refers the first part of the verse to the land of Israel, easily frees himself from the difficulty which this passage might at first sight raise, by teaching that there are seven seas that surround the land of Israel and also four rivers, and therefore it is said to be founded upon the seas and rivers. Ezra notes that Rabbi Moses thinks that the word ‘al here does not mean “upon” but “near,” as in Exodus 35:22, and so also the son of Balaam understands this verse to mean that the land is situated not far from sea or river. But these interpretations are forced and strained.
Ps 24:3 “Who shall ascend?” etc. Join this with what precedes. Although the whole world belongs to God, and therefore all human beings belong to him, nevertheless not all belong to God in the same way, nor are all worthy to approach God or to enter his most holy Temple; nor are all to be reckoned in his household or Church, but only “the innocent in hands,” etc. “Who shall ascend?” etc., as if he said: But who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord? By “the mountain of the Lord” he understands either Mount Moriah, as the Hebrews think, or another mountain on which the Temple was to be built; and by “the holy place” (Hebrew fanctitas eius) he understands the Temple itself. By these things the Church of Christ is also very well signified, since those were its shadow and figure.
Ps 24:4 “Innocent in hands,” etc. This is a brief answer to the proposed question, showing not what sort of persons they are who are in the Church or who approach the Temple of the Lord, but what sort they ought to be. For many are in the Church by number and not by merit, as theologians say. In this verse three things are included, as Kimchi observes: the external work, signified by the hands; the thought, which must be understood by the heart; and speech, in which the whole perfection of man is placed—provided he be innocent in works, pure in thoughts, and faithful in words and speech.
“Who has not taken his soul in vain,” that is—as the following clause, which is an exegesis of the preceding, shows—who does not swear falsely by his soul; for it follows, “nor has sworn deceitfully,” but rather in truth and justice. Such an oath is not only lawful but commanded, for it is written in Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall fear the Lord your God, and him shall you serve, and by his name you shall swear,” namely, when you fear God and serve him, you shall swear by his name.
So almost Kimchi, who nevertheless also brings another interpretation, reading the text differently according to the decrees of the Masoretes. For when they found in the text nishō, they nevertheless noted it and indicated a variant reading, wishing it to be read nafshī (נַפְשִׁי), that is, “my soul.” Thus he himself reads: “who has not taken my soul in vain,” that is, my name—as if God himself were speaking. He cites a similar expression from Amos 6:8, “The Lord God has sworn by his soul,” that is, by himself or by his majesty; likewise Jeremiah 51:14. Thus Rashi, Ezra, and others have read it, and thus the Jews read it today. The Chaldean, older than the Masoretes, reads nafshō (נַפְשׁוֹ), “his soul,” for it has: “who does not swear falsely to bind his soul.” Elias Levita, a Jew, notes somewhere that those err who read nafshī, “my soul.”
In the margin of the Rabbinic Bibles it is written concerning this word that it is strange that in the great Masorah it is not numbered among those written at the end of the verse with a variant reading. I know this matters little to the sense; yet I do not see why God should be introduced as speaking in this verse, since the context does not require it. Nevertheless, I have deliberately been somewhat more prolix here, so that all may understand that not all Jews read this verse in the same way, nor are they always sufficiently agreed among themselves about the text of Scripture, since here they are at variance with one another, as I have shown. Hence we should not swear by their present reading as absolutely certain, especially if another sense, more suitable to our understanding, perhaps by a slight change, offers itself of its own accord—though this must be done very cautiously, so that we still keep close to the Hebrew text with the points as they now stand.
“Nor has sworn deceitfully.” The Greeks and Latins added “to his neighbor” for the sake of clearer explanation; by “neighbor” the same is to be understood as in Ps 15:3.
Ps 24:5 He shall receive a blessing from the Lord,’ namely a spiritual blessing, that is, grace. For just as the temporal blessing of God makes the earth fruitful, so the grace of the same God makes the soul fruitful unto eternal life. Grace, indeed, is the seed of glory, and the grace of God is eternal life, as the Apostle speaks in Romans 6. To this also belongs what immediately follows: ‘and righteousness from God,’ etc. By righteousness is meant the reward due by justice to those who, obeying the grace of God, have lived piously and justly, according to that saying of the Apostle in 2 Timothy 4: ‘There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day.’ Righteousness, therefore, is taken here for eternal glory and salvation; and for that reason it is not said simply ‘from God,’ but it is added, ‘from the God of his salvation.’
This blessing can also signify the inheritance itself, in which sense Christ says in Matthew 25: ‘Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ And Peter likewise (1 Peter 3:9): ‘To this you were called, that you might inherit a blessing.’ The Latin perhaps rendered mercy instead of righteousness, because the righteousness which comes to us from God is not mere justice but mercy. The Greek has ἐλεημοσύνην (eleēmosýnēn). Righteousness can here be taken, as often in Sacred Scripture, for that goodness and mercy by which God, according to a certain justice, deals with those who live uprightly; and this too will signify blessing. More simply, it should be understood as ‘from the God of his salvation,’ as if to say, from God, who is always solicitous for his salvation, both temporal and spiritual.
Ps 24:6 ‘Of those who seek your face.’ There is a sudden apostrophe to God: ‘O God of Jacob.’ Ezra observes that some supply ‘O God’ here, though he himself says it is not necessary. Rather, Jacob refers back to what precedes: ‘This is the generation,’ as if to say, ‘This, I say, is the generation of Jacob,’ that is, these are the true Jacobites and Israelites. Jacob is taken here as in Isaiah 44:2: ‘Fear not, my servant Jacob,’ that is, ‘Fear not, my servant Israel.’ The former interpretation is not unsuitable, and the Greek and Latin, correcting the apostrophe, translated: ‘of those who seek the face of the God of Jacob.’
Note that it does not say in this verse simply, ‘These are those who seek him,’ but rather, ‘This is the generation of those who seek him.’ I believe this was said to confront those who, because they were of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, persuaded themselves and commonly boasted that they were a holy generation, while in fact they were an adulterous generation—as if he were saying: This is the true generation of those who seek God, not that one which, apart from lineage and flesh, has nothing of the holiness of those patriarchs. Not all who are of Israel are Israelites, nor are all who are the seed of Abraham to be counted as sons of Abraham, unless they reflect the morals and piety of their ancestors and imitate their examples.
Ps 24:7 ‘Lift up, O gates,’ etc. There is a sudden exhortation by prosopopoeia to the gates of the Temple, that they lift up their lintels and make themselves more spacious, or—which comes to the same thing—that they open themselves fully, as widely and as high as possible, for the Ark entering the dwelling of the eternal God. But this exhortation, as has been said, is to be understood more of Christ than of the figure of Christ.
The word eternal is drawn from eternity or age. Before the Temple was built, the Ark had no fixed dwelling, but was transferred from place to place: from Gilgal to Shiloh, from Shiloh to the land of the Philistines, from there to Beth-shemesh, from Beth-shemesh to Kiriath-jearim, from Kiriath-jearim to the house of Obed-edom, from the house of Obed-edom to the City of David, and finally from the City of David into the Temple. For now, indeed, after many centuries, from the time of Solomon, it had a permanent and fixed dwelling, in which sense Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:13: ‘I have surely built you a house to dwell in, a place for you to inhabit forever’ (in the Vulgate: ‘your most firm dwelling forever’). Therefore David calls the gates of that Temple ‘the gates of the age’ or ‘eternal gates’; yet they are eternal only insofar as they then represented the Church of Christ and thus, in a certain way, endure in the Church of Christ which succeeded in their place. For the Temple itself has been destroyed. They may also be called ‘gates of the age’ because for a long time they endured together with the Temple.
The Hebrew word עוֹלָם (ʿolām) signifies both eternity and a long duration or age.
‘The King of glory,’ that is, God, who sat upon the Ark between the two cherubim with a special glory and majesty; for from there he gave oracles and manifested his power.
It should not be passed over in silence that, instead of ‘Lift up, O gates,’ the Greek rendered, ‘Lift up, O gates, your rulers’ (Ἄρατε πύλας οἱ ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν), and the Latin likewise translated ‘your princes.’ Eugubinus moreover has, ‘Lift up, O gates, your princes.’ Whence does this come? Unless because they judged rōʾšê (ראשי), which signifies ‘heads,’ to be taken metaphorically for ‘princes,’ as it sometimes is elsewhere; and the suffix -kem (‘your’) attached to gates, which in the accusative case seemed to them awkwardly expressed, they thought they could conveniently transfer. Whether it is permissible to detach the pronoun from the noun to which it is attached, anyone can easily judge—provided he is not wholly ignorant of the Hebrew language.
From the Greek οἱ ἄρχοντες ὑμῶν one may scarcely doubt that this verse was not translated literally by the Seventy, and for that reason is obscure. Certainly Jerome translates: ‘Lift up, O gates, your heads.’ The Syriac too, which Gabriel Sionita, our colleague and close friend, has recently rendered into Latin, has: ‘Lift up, O gates, your heads.’ The Chaldean paraphrases: ‘Lift up, O gates of the house of the sanctuary, your heads.’ Aquila translates: Ἄρατε πύλαι κεφαλὰς ὑμῶν. It would be long to list all those who have translated it thus; for all, except the Greek and Latin, rendered it this way from the Hebrew. I except, however, Symmachus, who translated: ‘Pass on, O gates, your rulers.’
Genebrard, a subtle investigator of figures, finds a hypallage in the Septuagint, by whose benefit—if it please God—the Greek and Latin may be reconciled with the Hebrew. Truly remarkable is the ingenuity of a man who knows how to reconcile such diverse things.
Cardinal Bellarmine openly adheres here to the Hebrew text, as those who consult his commentaries will see. He nevertheless strives to defend the Septuagint, but how well, let the reader judge from his work.
Ps 24:8 ‘Who is this?’ etc. If someone asks, ‘Who is this?’ etc., perhaps the gates themselves, by prosopopoeia, now ask this. ‘The Lord strong and mighty,’ etc.—fitting epithets and appropriate to the matter. For when the Ark was carried into battle, the Israelites were accustomed to carry off victory. Hence the elders of the Hebrews, after a notable defeat suffered at the hands of the Philistines, said among themselves (1 Samuel 4:3): ‘Why has the Lord struck us today before the Philistines? Let us bring to us from Shiloh the Ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it may come among us and save us from the hand of our enemies.’ Nor only the Hebrews: even the Philistines, when they heard that the Ark of the Lord had come into the camp—for the Hebrews had sent to the city of Shiloh to bring the Ark into battle—were afraid, saying: ‘God has come into the camp.’ And they groaned, saying: ‘Woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck Egypt with every plague in the wilderness’ (see 1 Samuel 4).
Ps 24:9 ‘Lift up, O gates,’ etc. This verse, which Ezra thinks pertains to the time of the Redeemer—that is, of the Messiah, the glory of God—namely that God would return, for he was not in the Second Temple, which was built after the Babylonian captivity and lasted until the time of Vespasian. We too think this, but we believe that Christ himself is that God of glory, whom the Church is exhorted to receive with honor.
‘Lift up,’ I say, and ‘lift up’ is repeated; ‘your heads.’ The Chaldean, Greek, and Latin have ‘be lifted up,’ in the same sense.
Ps 24:10 ‘Who is this?’ etc. Note that whereas in verse eight there is only mi zeh (מִי זֶה), ‘who is this?’, here it is mi hu zeh (מִי הוּא זֶה), ‘who is this one?’, which indeed has a greater emphasis and signifies something new, not previously seen or heard—such as it is to behold Christ, God and man.
Kimchi, who wishes these last two verses also to pertain to the Ark, observes that in this verse the phrase ‘mighty in battle’ is omitted, because after the Ark was brought into the Temple it was never again carried into battle as before. Ezra’s view is better: he thinks it is omitted because after the birth of the Messiah, to whose time he refers these two verses, ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,’ as in Isaiah 2:4.
Nor is it an objection that it is said ‘the Lord of hosts,’ for ‘hosts’ properly signifies the Lord of heaven and earth and of all things; for thus it is said in Genesis 2:1, ‘the hosts of them,’ that is, of all things contained in heaven and earth—not merely the Lord of military forces. For not only armies and military hosts serve God, but all things, both in heaven and on earth, which therefore are called hosts.
Indeed, Ezra here observes that God is called ‘the Lord of hosts’ on account of the host of heaven only, that is, the angels, and not on account of the host of the Israelites, as Haggai thinks. And he says that in this place God is called ‘the Lord of hosts’ because the people of that age—that is, after the coming of the Messiah—would be like the angels of God. Whether this last point is correct or not, I do not ask. It is enough for me to show that he himself thinks that ‘Lord of hosts’ does not signify only the Lord of military forces.
He himself, on Psalm 59:6, has: ‘And you, Lord God of hosts,’ that is, ‘You are God of the superior hosts in heaven and God of the inferior hosts,’ that is, of the Israelites. Kimchi says the same on verse 9 of chapter 1 of Isaiah. You see, therefore, that Ezra does not entirely agree with himself, since here he denies that God is called Lord of hosts because of the host of the Israelites, as was just noted, while elsewhere he affirms it. Yet he does not think that ‘Lord of hosts’ means only Lord of military forces.
For my part, I think that God is called Lord of hosts both on account of the angels and on account of all human beings throughout the world—indeed, on account of the whole created order—since all things, as it were, serve God as their leader and stand ready at his command. In this sense it is said in Wisdom 5:18 that ‘the Lord will arm creation to take vengeance on his enemies,’ and in verse 21, ‘the whole world will fight with him against the foolish.’
I know that many take ‘Lord of hosts’ as it commonly sounds; but in my judgment this meaning is far too narrow, especially since this name is often attributed to God where there is no mention of war and where it clearly has a broader sense—for example, in Malachi 2:7, where the priest is called ‘the angel, the messenger of the Lord of hosts,’ and elsewhere frequently.
That the Apostle John held this view is evident, who in Revelation 4, clearly alluding to Isaiah 6:3, ‘Holy, holy, holy, the Lord of hosts,’ renders it: ‘Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty’—in Greek, ὁ παντοκράτωρ (ho pantokratōr).
I say what I think; I decide nothing. Let each have freedom for his own judgment.
CONTINUE.
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