Psalms 84:7
Thou wilt turn, O God, and bring us to life: and thy people shall rejoice in thee.
Open Psalms 84:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Deus, tu conversus vivificabis nos, et plebs tua lætabitur in te.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὁ θεός, σὺ ἐπιστρέψας ζωώσεις ἡμᾶς, καὶ ὁ λαός σου εὐφρανθήσεται ἐπὶ σοί.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 85:7
- הֲֽלֹא אַ֭תָּה תָּשׁ֣וּב תְּחַיֵּ֑נוּ וְ֝עַמְּךָ֗ יִשְׂמְחוּ בָֽךְ
Haydock's commentary
Turn, conversus. The ancient psalters read convertens. "Converting, O God, thou wilt bring us to life," free us from captivity, and redeem us from sin by Jesus Christ, the conqueror of death. (Calmet)
Before their conversion sinners lie dead in guilt. (Worthington)
O God, thou wilt again restore us to life. (Du Hamel)
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 A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, Free Will and God’s Grace are Simultaneously Commended
When God says, “Turn ye unto me, and I will turn unto you,” one of these clauses, that which invites our return to God, evidently belongs to our will; while the other, which promises His return to us, belongs to His grace. Here, possibly, the Pelagians think they have a justification for their opinion which they so prominently advance, that God’s grace is given according to our merits. In the East, indeed, that is to say, in the province of Palestine, in which is the city of Jerusalem, Pelagius, when examined in person by the bishop, did not venture to affirm this. …
St Augustine A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Continuation of the Preceding
But why do we not in opposition to this, rather hear the words, “Who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to him again? since of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things.” And from whom, then, is that very beginning of our faith if not from Him? For this is not excepted when other things are spoken of as of Him; but “of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things.” But who can say that he who has already begun to believe deserves nothing from Him in whom he has believed? Whence it results that, to him who already deserves, other things are said to be added by a divine retribution, and thus that God’s grace is given according to our merits. And this assertion when put before him, Pelagius himself condemned, that he might not be condemned. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXXV
6. “O God, Thou shalt turn us again, and make us alive” ( ver. 6 ). Not as if we ourselves of our own accord, without Thy mercy, turn unto Thee, and then Thou shalt make us alive: but so that not only our being made alive is from Thee, but our very conversion, that we may be made alive. “And Thy people shall rejoice in Thee.” To their own evil they shall rejoice in themselves: to their own good they shall rejoice in Thee. For when they wished to have joy of themselves, they found in themselves woe: but now because God is all our joy, he that will rejoice securely, let him rejoice in Him who cannot perish. For why, my brethren, will ye rejoice in silver? Either thy silver perisheth, or thou: and no one knows which first: yet this is certain, that both shall perish; which first, is uncertain. …