Psalms 118:97
O how have I loved thy law, O Lord! it is my meditation all the day.
Open Psalms 118:97 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Mem Quomodo dilexi legem tuam, Domine ! tota die meditatio mea est.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ὡς ἠγάπησα τὸν νόμον σου, Κύριε· ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν μελέτη μού ἐστιν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 119:97
- מָֽה אָהַ֥בְתִּי תוֹרָתֶ֑ךָ כָּל הַ֝יּ֗וֹם הִ֣יא שִׂיחָתִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Loved. Constraint takes away all merit. (St. Hilary)
Son, give me thy heart, Proverbs xxiii. 26. (Haydock)
The just man wonders that he should feel such love, as he knows it is not of his own growth, but a gift of God. (Worthington)
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, Mem
97. We have frequently admonished you, that love was to be understood by that praiseworthy breadth, by means of which, while we do the commandments of God, we feel no straitness. On this account also after saying above in this great Psalm, “Thy commandment is exceeding broad:” in the following verse he showeth wherefore it is broad: “what love have I unto Thy law, O Lord!” ( ver. 97 ). Love is therefore the breadth of the commandment. For how can it be that what God commandeth to be loved, be loved, and yet the commandment itself be not loved? For this itself is the law; “in all the day,” he saith, “is my study in it.” Behold how I have loved it, that in the whole day my study is in it; or rather, as the Greek hath it, “all the day long,” which more fully expresses the continuance of meditation. Now that is to be understood through all time; which is, for ever. …