Psalms — Chapter 44
ERUCTAVIT COR MEUM VERBUM BONUM. Lapide: Psalm 44 — the royal wedding psalm, the most explicitly Messianic love-poem in the Psalter. "My heart hath uttered a good word: I speak my works to the King." Lapide: the "good word" = the eternal Word (Verbum), the Son of God. The psalmist's heart "eructates" (belches forth) the Word — a vivid image from the belly, suggesting both fullness and spontaneous overflow. The King of the psalm is the divine Messiah; the Queen (v.10) is the Church, the Bride of Christ. Lapide gives an extended typological commentary drawing on the Song of Songs.
Verse 10
Adstitit regina a dextris tuis in vestitu deaurato
Lapide gives an extended Marian application: the 'Queen standing at thy right hand' is primarily the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, exalted above all angels and saints at Christ's right hand. He cites the Fathers: Jerome, Augustine, Cassiodorus, and especially Bernard of Clairvaux on Mary's queenly intercession. The 'vestitu deaurato' (golden garment) signifies her fullness of grace — she who was full of grace (Luke 1:28) is clothed in the glory of the virtues. Secondarily the Queen may signify the Church, but Lapide insists the primary, literal sense is the Virgin Mother of God glorified in heaven, to whom this psalm is directed as a nuptial hymn.