When it is said
It is not a prayer of the Church’s services but a passage of Augustine’s Confessions.
It can be said before any reading of the Bible, alone or with others.
Where it comes from
Author known
Where it comes from
St Augustine of Hippo wrote his Confessions about AD 400. Near the start of Book 11 he prays at length that God would lead him to the truth through the Holy Scriptures. Then he begins to explain the Bible’s first words, on how God made heaven and earth. These lines come from the middle of that prayer, which goes on to say that it is Christ he looks for in God’s books.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Saint Augustine”; Confessions, Book 11, translated by J. G. Pilkington (1886)
A bishop short of time
Just before the prayer, Augustine says he has long been eager to meditate on God’s law. He does not want the free hours left over from caring for his body and mind, and from serving others, to drain away into anything else. Like other bishops of his day, he lost much of his time settling people’s worldly disputes. Elsewhere he wrote that he would rather have worked with his hands, as monks did, than bear all that turmoil.
Confessions, Book 11, translated by J. G. Pilkington (1886), with the editor’s notes
What the words mean
The forests and the deer
Augustine’s Latin psalter had a line about “the voice of the Lord perfecting the deer”. When he explained it, he made the dark forest stand for the hard places of Scripture, and the deer chewing the cud for a Christian who ponders them. In this prayer he asks God to make him perfect too and open those forests to him.
The editor’s note on this passage, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1886)
“Not deceived in them”
Augustine was careful to tell the plain teaching of Scripture apart from its hard places. He held that everything about faith and how to live is plainly set down in it. On the dark passages he was slow to make up his mind, so that he would not be deceived in them or mislead others with them.
The editor’s note on this passage, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1886)
The Scripture in it
Out of the depths I cry to You, O LORD!
The day is Yours, and also the night; You established the moon and the sun.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.
Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Latin
sint castae deliciae meae scripturae Tuae, nec fallar in eis nec fallam ex eis.
Domine, attende et miserere, Domine Deus meus, lux caecorum et virtus infirmorum statimque lux videntium et virtus fortium, attende animam meam et audi clamantem de profundo.
nam nisi adsint et in profundo aures Tuae, quo ibimus? quo clamabimus?
Tuus est dies et Tua est nox; ad nutum Tuum momenta transvolant.
largire inde spatium meditationibus nostris in abdita legis Tuae, neque adversus pulsantes claudas eam.
neque enim frustra scribi voluisti tot paginarum opaca secreta, aut non habent illae silvae cervos suos, recipientes se in eas et resumentes, ambulantes et pascentes, recumbentes et ruminantes.
o Domine, perfice me et revela mihi eas.
ecce vox Tua gaudium meum, vox Tua super affluentiam voluptatum.
da quod amo: amo enim, et hoc Tu dedisti.
ne dona Tua deseras nec herbam Tuam spernas sitientem.
confitear Tibi quidquid invenero in libris Tuis et audiam vocem laudis, et Te bibam et considerem mirabilia de lege Tua ab usque principio in quo fecisti caelum et terram usque ad regnum Tecum perpetuum sanctae civitatis Tuae.
From Confessions, Book 11, as printed by The Latin Library, with capitals for God.