Psalm 116:1-2

New Catholic Bible

Footnotes

1. Psalm 116:1 Countless are the distresses of human beings and countless too are the deliverances worked by God. This psalm adapts itself to diverse situations; every believer knows the mortal dangers from which the Lord has extricated him in order to bring him to the joy of his presence. In a praying community, all can give thanks. In thanking the divinity it was the custom in the ancient East to pour a cup as a libation, i.e., the “cup of salvation” (that has been granted) (v. 13). The Jews certainly practiced a similar rite during the “peace offerings” (see Lev 7:11ff). By this act of thanksgiving, the Israelites publicly bore witness that God had saved them; this is the loftiest expression of their religion.
   It is also the loftiest expression of the Christian religion. It was certainly in this spirit that Jesus recited this psalm with his disciples after having instituted the Eucharist (see Mt 26:30). Who else could have fully relied on God even through the moment of his death? Once this psalm became the prayer of Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed, it proclaimed the hope of a life and a joy that are everlasting. The priest who mystically offers the divine victim anew still says: “We offer to you, God of glory and majesty . . . the cup of eternal salvation” (Eucharistic Prayer I) and “We offer you, Father, . . . this saving cup” (Eucharistic Prayer II).
   In the Hebrew text, this psalm is a single psalm, as the sense requires; in the Septuagint and Vulgate, it is two distinct psalms: Pss 114 (comprising vv. 1-9); 115 (comprising vv. 10-19).
2. Psalm 116:1 The psalmist expresses love for God who has heard his prayer. For a similar expression of God’s care and people’s love of him, see 1 Jn 4:19: “We love because [God] first loved us.”
3. Psalm 116:2 On the day when I called out to him: see Pss 4:4; 31:23; 34:5; 138:3. Another possible translation is: “I will call on him as long as I live.”