Psalms 117:27
The Lord is God, and he hath shone upon us. Appoint a solemn day, with shady boughs, even to the horn of the altar.
Open Psalms 117:27 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Deus Dominus, et illuxit nobis. Constituite diem solemnem in condensis, usque ad cornu altaris.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- θεὸς Κύριος καὶ ἐπέφανεν ἡμῖν· συστήσασθε ἑορτὴν ἐν τοῖς πυκάζουσιν ἕως τῶν κεράτων τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 118:27
- אֵ֤ל יְהוָה֮ וַיָּ֪אֶר לָ֥נוּ אִסְרוּ חַ֥ג בַּעֲבֹתִ֑ים עַד קַ֝רְנ֗וֹת הַמִּזְבֵּֽחַ
Haydock's commentary
Us. Christ, who comes in the name of the Lord, "is himself God," our instructor. (St. Augustine) (Titus ii. 11.) (Berthier)
Day. The feast of tabernacles, for which this psalm was probably composed. The Jews dwelt under tents. (Calmet) (Leviticus xxiii. 40., and 2 Esdras vii. 15.)
Altar. Hebrew, "Bind a festival with cords unto the horns," &c. To make sense, the Chaldean inserts, bind the lamb for the festival. But this Houbigant ridicules, and he believes that the solemn entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem is here foretold. Scarcely any prediction in the Old Testament is more clearly verified in the new, Matthew xxi. 8. Hebrew Bahabothim certainly means, "in ramis opacis," and St. Jerome translates, "frequent the solemnity in shady boughs." (Berthier)
The victims were never tied to the altar, but slain in the porch of the northern gate, Ezechiel xl. 39. (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXVIII
21. “God is the Lord, who hath showed us light” ( ver. 27 ). That Lord, who came in the Lord’s Name, whom the builders refused, and who became the head Stone of the corner, that “Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ,” is God, He is equal with the Father, He hath showed us light, that we might understand what we believed, and declare it to you who understand it not as yet, but already believe it. But that ye also may understand, “Declare a holy day in full assemblies, even unto the horns of the altar;” that is, even unto the inner house of God, from which we have blessed you, where are the high places of the altar. “Declare a holy day,” not in a slothful manner, but “in full assemblies” ( ver. 28 ). …
St Gregory of Nyssa On the Soul and the Resurrection, Argument
Before answering objections to the Scriptural doctrine of the Resurrection, the passages that contain it are mentioned: especially Psalm cxviii. 27 (LXX.).
St John Cassian The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius, Chapter XIII. He explains who are those in whose person the Prophet Isaiah says: “Thou art our God, and we knew Thee not.”
“ Thou art then,” he says, “our God, and we knew Thee not, O God of Israel the Saviour.” Who do you imagine chiefly say this; and in whose mouths are such words specially suitable, Jews or Gentiles? If you say Jews: certainly the Jews did not know Christ, as it is said, “But Israel hath not known Me, My people have not considered;” and, “The world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” But if you say Gentiles, it is clear that the Gentile world was given over to idols, and knew not Christ, though it knew not the Father any more; but still if it has now come to know Him, it is only through Christ. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).