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1 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. 2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. 3 He shall send from heaven, and save from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. 4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. 5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth. 6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah. 7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise. 8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early. 9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations. 10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds. 11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.
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[AD 373] Athanasius of Alexandria on Psalms 57:1-4
One thing you can count on: Corruption does not save those who get into it. On the contrary, it sets itself up against them, tears them down and brings about their doom. Woe to those people against whom this prophecy is written! For the evil they pursue is sharper than a two-edged sword, and it will first slay those who lay hold of it. Even their own tongue, as the psalmist points out, “is a sharp sword, and their teeth are spears and arrows.”

Source: FESTAL LETTERS 9
[AD 407] John Chrysostom on Psalms 57:1-4
Casting away therefore all anxiety and superfluous care, let us return to ourselves; and let us adorn the body and the soul with the ornament of virtue; converting our bodily members into instruments of righteousness and not instruments of sin.And first of all, let us discipline our tongue to be the minister of the grace of the Spirit, expelling from the mouth all bitterness and malice and the practice of using disgraceful words. For it is in our power to make each one of our members an instrument of wickedness or of righteousness. Hear then how people make the tongue an instrument, some of sin, others of righteousness! “Their tongue is a sharp sword.” But another speaks thus of his own tongue: “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” The former worked destruction; the latter wrote the divine law. So one was a sword, the other a pen, not according to its own nature but according to the choice of those who employed it. For the nature of this tongue and of that was the same, but the operation was not the same.

Source: HOMILIES CONCERNING THE STATUES 4:10-11
[AD 411] Tyrannius Rufinus on Psalms 57:1-4
I have read the document sent from the East by our friend and good brother to a distinguished member of the Senate, Pammachius, which you have copied and forwarded to me. It brought to my mind the words of the prophet: “The sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” But for these wounds that people inflict on one another with the tongue we can hardly find a physician; so I have turned to Jesus, the heavenly physician, and he has brought out for me from the medicine chest of the gospel an antidote of sovereign power; he has assuaged the violence of my grief with the assurance of the righteous judgment that I shall have at his hands. The potion that our Lord dispensed to me was nothing else than these words: “Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Rejoice and leap for joy, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.” With this medicine I was content, and, as far as the matter concerned me, I had determined for the future to keep silence; for I said to myself, “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?” (that is, you and me, unworthy though we are). And, if it was said of him, “He is a deceiver, he deceives the people,” I must not be indignant if I hear that I am called a heretic and that the name of mole is applied to me because of the slowness of my mind or indeed my blindness. Christ who is my Lord, yes, and who is God over all, was called “a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of publicans and sinners.” How can I, then, be angry when I am called a carnal man who lives in luxury?

Source: APOLOGY 1:1
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:1-4
So let us call out to him what we have just been singing: “Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me because in you my soul has put its trust.” “Have mercy on me, God,” he says. Why? “Because in you my soul has put its trust.” This, he says, is the sacrifice I offer you, so that you may hear me: “because in you my soul has put its trust. Whoever hoped in the Lord and was left in the lurch?” Even great saints are subject to temptation, and however much progress we make in God, we live in need of pardon. Was it little lambs and not the rams of the flock that the Lord Jesus taught how to pray? It was his disciples, our apostles, the very leaders of the flock, whose children we are, of whom it is said, “Bring to the Lord the children of rams”;2 yes, it was these rams he was teaching to pray, when he told them to say, “Forgive us our debts.” If this is a daily prayer, then we live in need of pardon. All our sins were forgiven us in baptism, and we live in need of pardon. We make progress if our hope is nourished in God and strengthened by his aid to enable us to put a brake on all covetousness. Let us keep on fighting; our struggles are known to him, and he knows how to be both a spectator and a helper.

Source: SERMON 77A.1
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:1-4
You will not be able to move to the good place from the bad place unless you do good in the bad place. What sort of place is that other? One where nobody goes hungry. So if you want to live in the good place where nobody goes hungry, in this world “share your food with the hungry.” Because in that blessed place nobody is a foreigner, and all are living in their own native land; so if you wish to be in the good place, whenever in this bad place you find a foreigner who has nowhere to go, welcome him into your home. Show hospitality in the bad place, in order to get to the place where you cannot be a “guest worker.” In the good place nobody is in need of clothes; there is no cold weather there, nor hot weather. What need of shelter, what need of clothing? There will be no shelters there, but there will be protection; so in fact even there we find shelter: “under the shadow of your wings will I hope.” So in this bad place provide shelter for the person who has none, so that you may find yourself in the good place, where you can enjoy such shelter that you need never want to patch your thatched roof. After all, there are no showers of rain there but instead a perennial fountain of truth. But the shower from this [fountain] makes you glad, not wet; this shower is the fountain of life itself. What is the meaning of “Lord, with you is the fountain of life”? It means, “And the Word was with God.”

Source: SERMON 217:5
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:1-4
But if, after all these preceding actions of yours, you also shouted, “Crucify, crucify,” hear what the prophet also shouts against you, “The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, their tongue a sharpened sword.” See with what weapons, with what arrows, with what sword you have put to death a just man when you said that it was not lawful for you to put anyone to death. So it is that, although the chief priests had not come themselves but had sent others to arrest Jesus, the Evangelist Luke in the same place in his narrative said, “But Jesus said to those who had come to him,” namely, “the chief priests and the magistrates of the temple and the elders, ‘Have you come out, as it were, against a thief?’ ” and so on. Since, therefore, the chief priests [came] not themselves but in those whom they have sent for arresting Jesus, what else does it mean than that they themselves came in their power of giving the order? So all who shouted with ungodly voices for him to be crucified, they themselves killed him, not indeed by themselves but yet by him who was driven to this sacrilegious crime by their shouting.

Source: TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 114:4
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:1-4
See the kind of murder, brothers. The devil is called a murderer, not armed with a sword, not girded with a weapon; he came to humankind, he planted an evil word, and he killed him. Do not, then, think that you are not a murderer when you persuade your brother to do evils; if you persuade your brother to do evils, you kill him. And, that you may know that you kill him, hear the psalm: “The sons of men, their teeth are weapons and arrows, their tongue a sharp sword.”

Source: TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 42:11.2
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:1
"Have pity on me, O God, have pity on me, for in You has trusted my Soul" [Psalm 57:1]. Christ in the Passion says, "Have pity on Me, O God." To God, God says, "Have pity on Me!" He that with the Father has pity on you, in you cries, "Have pity on Me." For that part of Him which is crying, "Have pity on Me," is yours: from you this He received, for the sake of you, that you should be delivered, with Flesh He was clothed. The flesh itself cries: "Have pity on Me, O God, have pity on me:" Man himself, soul and flesh. For whole Man did the Word take upon Him, and whole Man the Word became. Let it not therefore be thought that there Soul was not, because the Evangelist thus says: "The Word was made flesh, and dwelled in us." [John 1:14] For man is called flesh, as in another place says the Scripture, "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God." Shall anywise flesh alone see, and shall Soul not be there?...You hear the Master praying, learn thou to pray. For to this end He prayed, in order that He might teach how to pray: because to this end He suffered, in order that He might teach how to suffer; to this end He rose again, in order that He might teach how to hope for rising again. "And in the shadow of Your wings I will hope, until iniquity pass over." This now evidently whole Christ does say: here is also our voice. For not yet has passed over, still rife is iniquity. And in the end our Lord Himself said there should be an abounding of iniquity: "And since iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold; but he that shall have persevered unto the end, the same shall be saved." [Matthew 24:12] But who shall persevere even unto the end, even until iniquity pass over? He that shall have been in the Body of Christ, he that shall have been in the members of Christ, and from the Head shall have learned the patience of persevering. Thou passest away, and behold passed are your temptations; and you go into another life whither have gone holy men, if holy you have been. Into another life have gone Martyrs; if Martyr you shall have been, you also go into another life. Because "you" have passed away hence, has by any means iniquity therefore passed away? There are born other unrighteous men, as there die some unrighteous men. In like manner therefore as some unrighteous men die and others are born: so some just men go, and others are born. Even unto the end of the world neither iniquity will be wanting to oppress, nor righteousness to suffer....

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:2
"I will cry to God most high" [Psalm 57:2]. If most high He is, how hears He you crying? Confidence has been engendered by experience: "to God," he says, "who had done good to me." If before that I was seeking Him, He did good to me, when I cry shall He not hearken to me? For good to us the Lord God has done in sending to us our Saviour Jesus Christ, that He might die for our offenses, and rise again for our justification. [Romans 4:25] For what sort of men has He willed His Son to die? For ungodly men. But ungodly men were not seeking God, and have been sought of God. For He is Most High in such sort, as that not far from Him is our misery and our groaning: because "near is the Lord to them that have bruised the heart." "God that has done good to me."

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:3
"He has sent from heaven and has saved me" [Psalm 57:3]. Now the Man Himself, now the Flesh Itself, now the Son of God after His partaking of ourselves, of Him it is manifest, how He was saved, and has sent from heaven the Father and has saved Him, has sent from heaven, and has raised Him again: but in order that you may know, that also the Lord Himself has raised again Himself; both truths are written in Scripture, both that the Father has raised Him again, and that Himself Himself has raised again. Hear ye how the Father has raised Him again: the Apostle says, "He has been made," he says, "obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross: wherefore God also has exalted Him, and has given Him a name which is above every name." [Philippians 2:8-9] You have heard of the Father raising again and exalting the Son; hear ye how that He too Himself His flesh has raised again. Under the figure of a temple He says to the Jews, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up." [John 2:19] But the Evangelist has explained to us what it was that He said: "But this," he says, "He spoke of the Temple of His Body." Now therefore out of the person of one praying, out of the person of a man, out of the person of the flesh, He says, "He has saved me. He has given unto reproach those that trampled on me." Them that have trampled on Him, that over Him dead have insulted, that Him as though man have crucified, because God they perceived not, them He has given unto reproach. See ye whether it has not been so done. The thing we do not believe as yet to come, but fulfilled we acknowledge it. The Jews raged against Christ, they were overbearing against Christ. Where? In the city of Jerusalem. For where they reigned, there they were puffed up, there their necks they lifted up. After the Passion of the Lord thence they were rooted out; and they lost the kingdom, wherein Christ for King they would not acknowledge. In what manner they have been given unto reproach, see ye: dispersed they have been throughout all nations, nowhere having a settlement, nowhere a sure abode. But for this reason still Jews they are, in order that our books they may carry to their confusion. For whenever we wish to show Christ prophesied of, we produce to the heathen these writings. And lest perchance men hard of belief should say that we Christians have composed these books, so that together with the Gospel which we have preached we have forged the Prophet, through whom there might seem to be foretold that which we preach: by this we convince them; namely, that all the very writings wherein Christ has been prophesied are with the Jews, all these very writings the Jews have. We produce documents from enemies, to confound other enemies. In what sort of reproach therefore are the Jews? A document the Jew carries, wherefrom a Christian may believe. Our librarians they have become, just as slaves are wont behind their masters to carry documents, in such sort that these faint in carrying, those profit by reading. Unto such a reproach have been given the Jews: and there has been fulfilled that which so long before has been foretold, "He has given unto reproach those that trampled on me." But how great a reproach it is, brethren, that this verse they should read, and themselves being blind should look upon their mirror! For in the same manner the Jews appear in the holy Scripture which they carry, as appears the face of a blind man in a mirror: by other men it is seen, by himself not seen.

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:4
"And has drawn out," he says, "my soul from the midst of the lions' whelps" [Psalm 57:4]. Why do you say, "And has drawn out my soul"? For what had you suffered, that your soul should be drawn out? "I have slept troubled." Christ has intimated His death....

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:5
Whence "troubled"? Who troubling? Let us see in what manner he brands an evil conscience upon the Jews, wishing to excuse themselves of the slaying of the Lord. For to this end, as the Gospel speaks, to the judge they delivered Him, that they might not themselves seem to have killed Him....Let us question Him, and say, since You have slept troubled, who have persecuted You? Who have slain You? Was it perchance Pilate, who to soldiers gave You, on the Tree to be hanged, with nails to be pierced? Hear who they were, "Sons of men" [Psalm 57:5]. Of them He speaks, whom for persecutors He suffered. But how did they slay, that steel bare not? They that sword drew not, that made no assault upon Him to slay; whence slew they? "Their teeth are arms and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." Do not consider the unarmed hands, but the mouth armed: from thence the sword proceeded, wherewith Christ was to be slain: in like manner also as from the mouth of Christ, that wherewith the Jews were to be slain. For He has a sword twice whetted: [Revelation 1:16] and rising again He has smitten them, and has severed from them those whom He would make His faithful people. They an evil sword, He a good sword: they evil arrows, He good arrows. For He has Himself also arrows good, words good, whence He pierces the faithful heart, in order that He may be loved. Therefore of one kind are their arrows, and of another kind their sword. "Sons of men, their teeth are arms and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sabre." Tongue of sons of men is a sharp sabre, and their teeth arms and arrows. When therefore did they smite, save when they clamoured, "Crucify, crucify"?

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:5
In the same way I too was having the truth about the catholic church, as it is spread throughout the whole world, dinned into me from every side by the words of the divine Scriptures; and the false accusations about the betrayers leveled against it by my relatives made me deaf. I am not comparing myself with Paul’s merits but with his sins. Even if I have not been found worthy to be as good as he was, still, before receiving the remedy of correction, I was not as bad. He failed to recognize the bridegroom in the books he read, and I failed to recognize the bride. The one who revealed to him what is written about Christ’s glorification, “Be exalted over the heavens, God,” also revealed to me what follows about the spread of the church: “over the whole earth your glory.” The evidence of both texts is plain to those who can see but hidden from the blind. It was the baptism of Christ that opened his eyes, the peace of Christ that opened mine. He was made new by the washing of the holy water; whereas it was charity that covered the multitude of my sins.

Source: SERMON 360
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:5
Call to mind the psalm. To whom was it said, “Be exalted above the heavens, O God”? Who was being spoken to? It would not be said to God the Father, would it, “be exalted,” seeing that he has never been brought low? No, you are exalted, you who were enclosed in your mother’s womb; you who were made in her whom you had made; you who lay in the manger; you, suckled at the breast as a baby, according to the very nature of flesh; you, holding up the world and being held by your mother; you, the baby acknowledged by Simeon the old man and praised as great; you, seen by the widow Anna being suckled and acknowledged as almighty; you, who were hungry for our sakes, thirsty for our sakes, tired along the road for our sakes—did you ever hear of bread being hungry, a fountain being thirsty, a road being tired?—you who endured all these things on our account; you who went to sleep, and yet you “slumber not, watching over Israel”; you, finally, whom Judas sold, whom the Jews bought and did not gain possession of; you, arrested, bound, scourged, crowned with thorns, hung on the tree, pierced with the lance, you dead, you buried: “be exalted above the heavens, O God.”

Source: SERMON 262:4
[AD 735] Bede on Psalms 57:5
Amos too speaks of the glory of the humanity [Christ] had assumed: “He who builds a means of ascent in heaven and founds his promise on earth.” He built a means of ascent in heaven when he created for himself a human body and soul in which he would be able to mount up to heaven. He founded his promise on earth when by sending the Spirit from above he filled all the ends of the earth with the gift of his faith, as he had promised. The psalmist, foreseeing in his spirit that the gift of this promise would come and desiring that it come quickly, said, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth!” Here he clearly means that before our Redeemer assumed a mortal body and demolished the kingdom of death, “God was known only in Judah, and in Israel was his name great.” But when the God-man arose from the dead and penetrated the heights of heaven, then the glory of his name was proclaimed and believed throughout the whole wide world.

Source: Homilies on the Gospels 2:15
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:6-8
We heard the apostle telling us, “We are ambassadors for Christ, exhorting you to be reconciled with God.” He would not be exhorting us to be reconciled unless we had been enemies. So the whole world was the Savior’s enemy, the captor’s friend; that is, God’s enemy, the devil’s friend. And the whole human race, like this woman, was bent over and bowed down to the ground. There is someone who already understands these enemies, and he cries out against them and says to God, “They have bowed my soul down.” The devil and his angels have bowed the souls of men and women down to the ground; that is, have bent them forward to be intent on temporal and earthly things and stop them from seeking the things that are above.

Source: SERMON 162B
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:6
And what have they done to You, O Lord? Let the Prophet here exult! For above, all those verses the Lord was speaking: a Prophet indeed, but in the person of the Lord, because in the Prophet is the Lord...."Be exalted," he says, "above the Heavens, O God." Man on the Cross, and above the Heavens, God. Let them continue on the earth raging, Thou in Heaven be judging. Where are they that were raging? Where are their teeth, the arms and arrows? Have not "the stripes of them been made the arrows of infants"? For in another place a Psalm this says, desiring to prove them vainly to have raged, and vainly unto frenzies to have been driven headlong: for nothing they were able to do to Christ when for the time crucified, and afterwards when He was rising again, and in Heaven was sitting. How do infants make to themselves arrows? Of reeds? But what arrows? Or what powers? Or what bows? Or what wound? "Be Thou exalted above the Heavens, O God, and above all the earth Your glory" [Psalm 57:6]. Wherefore exalted above the Heavens, O God? Brethren, God exalted above the Heavens we see not, but we believe: but above all the earth His glory to be not only we believe, but also see. But what kind of madness heretics are afflicted with, I pray you observe. They being cut off from the bond of the Church of Christ, and to a part holding, the whole losing, will not communicate with the whole earth, where is spread abroad the glory of Christ. But we Catholics are in all the earth, because with all the world we communicate, wherever the Glory of Christ is spread abroad. For we see that which then was sung, now fulfilled. There has been exalted above the Heavens our God, and above all the earth the Glory of the Same. O heretical insanity! That which you see not you believe with me, that which you see you deny; you believe with me in Christ exalted above the Heavens, a thing which we see not; and deniest His Glory over all the earth, a thing which we see.

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 542] Caesarius of Arles on Psalms 57:6-8
Our Lord Jesus Christ gave great assurance to his witnesses, that is, to the martyrs who, on account of their human weakness, were worried that perhaps they would perish after death if they died while confessing him. He did this by telling them, “Not a hair of your head will be harmed.” Are you, whose hair will not be harmed, afraid of perishing? If inconsequential things in your life are protected in this way, under how much protection is your soul? A hair, which you do not feel when it is cut, does not perish; does the soul, through which you feel, perish? To be sure, he foretold that they were going to suffer many difficult circumstances, in order that by his prediction he might make them stronger. They said, then, to him, “My heart is steadfast.” What does this mean, “My heart is steadfast,” except that my will is strong? In their martyrdom the martyrs had their will steadfast, but “their will was made steadfast by the Lord.” As they thought about the future harsh and difficult evils, he added, “By patient endurance you will save your lives.” By patient endurance, he said, for patient endurance would not be there if your will were not in it. “In patient endurance,” but where does ours come from? Both what we possess and what is given to us are ours, for if it were not ours, it would not be given to us. How do you give something to another, unless it comes to belong to the one to whom you are giving it? That confession is revealed: “Will not my soul be subject to God? For from him comes my patience.” He himself tells us, “In patient endurance.” Let us also say to him, “From him comes my hope.” He made it yours by giving it to you; do not be ungrateful by attributing it to yourself.

Source: SERMON 226:1
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:7
...Let your Love see the Lord speaking to us, and exhorting us by His example: "A trap they have prepared for My feet, and have bowed down My Soul" [Psalm 57:7]. They wished to bring It down as if from Heaven, and to the lower places to weigh It down: "They have bowed My Soul: they have dug before My face a pit and themselves have fallen into it." Me have they hurt, or themselves? Behold He has been exalted above the Heavens, God, and behold above all the earth the Glory of the Same: the kingdom of Christ we see, where is the kingdom of the Jews? Since therefore they did that which to have done they ought not, there has been done in their case that which to have suffered they ought: themselves have dug a ditch, and themselves have fallen into it. For their persecuting Christ, to Christ did no hurt, but to themselves did hurt. And do not suppose, brethren, that themselves alone has this befallen. Every one that prepares a pit for his brother, it must needs be that himself fall into it....

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:8
But the patience of good men with preparation of heart accepts the will of God: and glories in tribulations, saying that which follows: "Prepared is my heart, O God, I will sing and play" [Psalm 57:8]. What has he done to me? He has prepared a pit, my heart is prepared. He has prepared pit to deceive, shall I not prepare heart to suffer? He has prepared pit to oppress, shall I not prepare heart to endure? Therefore he shall fall into it, but I will sing and play. Hear the heart prepared in an Apostle, because he has imitated his Lord: "We glory," he says, "in tribulations: because tribulation works patience: patience probation, probation hope, but hope makes not ashamed: because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which has been given to us." [Romans 5:3] He was in oppressions, in chains, in prisons, in stripes, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, [2 Corinthians 11:27] in every wasting of toils and pains, and he was saying, "We glory in tribulations." Whence, but that prepared was his heart? Therefore he was singing and playing.

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:9
"Rise up, my glory" [Psalm 57:9]. He that had fled from the face of Saul into a cavern, says, "Rise up, my glory:" glorified be Jesus after His Passion. "Rise up, psaltery and harp." He calls upon what to rise? Two organs I see: but Body of Christ one I see, one flesh has risen again, and two organs have risen. The one organ then is the psaltery, the other the harp. Organs is the word used for all instruments of musicians. Not only is that called an organ, which is great, and blown into with bellows; but whatsoever is adapted to playing and is corporeal, whereof for an instrument the player makes use, is said to be an organ. But distinguished from one another are these organs.. ..What therefore do these two organs figure to us? For Christ the Lord our God is waking up His psaltery and His harp; and He says, "I will rise up at the dawn." I suppose that here ye now perceive the Lord rising. We have read thereof in the Gospel: [Mark 16:2] see the hour of the Resurrection. How long through shadows was Christ being sought? He has shone, be He acknowledged; "at the dawn" He rose again. But what is psaltery? What is harp? Through His flesh two kinds of deeds the Lord has wrought, miracles and sufferings: miracles from above have been, sufferings from below have been. But those miracles which He did were divine; but through Body He did them, through flesh He did them. The flesh therefore working things divine, is the psaltery: the flesh suffering things human is the harp. Let the psaltery sound, let the blind be enlightened, let the deaf hear, let the paralytics be braced to strength, the lame walk, the sick rise up, the dead rise again; this is the sound of the Psaltery. Let there sound also the harp, let Him hunger, thirst, sleep, be held, scourged, derided, crucified, buried. When therefore you see in that Flesh certain things to have sounded from above, certain things from the lower part, one flesh has risen again, and in one flesh we acknowledge both psaltery and harp. And these two kinds of things done have fulfilled the Gospel, and it is preached in the nations: for both the miracles and the sufferings of the Lord are preached.

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57
[AD 430] Augustine of Hippo on Psalms 57:10-11
Therefore there has risen psaltery and harp in the dawn, and he confesses to the Lord; and says what? "I will confess to You among the peoples, O Lord, and will play to You among the nations: for magnified even unto the Heavens has been Your mercy, and even unto the clouds Your truth" [Psalm 57:10]. Heavens above clouds, and clouds below heavens: and nevertheless to this nearest heaven belong clouds. But sometimes clouds rest upon the mountains, even so far in the nearest air are they rolled. But a Heaven above there is, the habitations of Angels, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Powers. This therefore may perchance seem to be what should have been said: "Unto the Heavens Your truth, and even unto the clouds Your mercy." For in Heaven Angels praise God, seeing the very form of truth, without any darkness of vision, without any admixture of unreality: they see, love, praise, are not wearied. There is truth: but here in our own misery surely there is mercy. For to a miserable one must be rendered mercy. For there is no need of mercy above, where is no miserable one. I have said this because that it seems as though it might have been more fittingly said, "Magnified even unto the Heavens has been Your truth, and even unto the clouds Your mercy." For "clouds" we understand to be preachers of truth, men bearing that flesh in a manner dark, whence God both gleams in miracles, and thunders in precepts.. ..Glory to our Lord, and to the Mercy of the Same, and to the Truth of the Same, because neither has He forsaken by mercy to make us blessed through His Grace, nor defrauded us of truth: because first Truth veiled in flesh came to us and healed through His flesh the interior eye of our heart, in order that hereafter face to face we may be able to see It. [1 Corinthians 13:12] Giving therefore to Him thanks, let us say with the same Psalm the last verses, which sometime since too I have said, "Be Thou exalted above the Heavens, O God, and above all the earth Your glory" [Psalm 57:11]. For this to Him the Prophet said so many years before; this now we see; this therefore let us also say.

Source: Exposition on Psalm 57