1 Kings 2:17
Wherefore the sin of the young men was exceeding great before the Lord: because they withdrew men from the sacrifice of the Lord.
Open 1 Kings 2:17 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Erat ergo peccatum puerorum grande nimis coram Domino : quia retrahebant homines a sacrificio Domini.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἦν ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐνώπιον Κυρίου τῶν παιδαρίων μεγάλη σφόδρα, ὅτι ἠθέτουν τὴν θυσίαν Κυρίου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתְּהִ֨י חַטַּ֧את הַנְּעָרִ֛ים גְּדוֹלָ֥ה מְאֹ֖ד אֶת פְּנֵ֣י יְהוָ֑ה כִּ֤י נִֽאֲצוּ֙ הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔ים אֵ֖ת מִנְחַ֥ת יְהוָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Lord. People, seeing that the law was not observed, refrained from presenting victims. (Menochius)
They are but too apt to follow the bad example of their teachers. (Haydock)
Hence God punishes the smallest faults of his ministers, with great severity, since they withdraw people from his service, by their scandalous behaviour, and are guilty of a more horrid sacrilege than those who laid violent hands on the Lord of majesty. (St. Bernard, ser. i.) Nothing brings a greater discredit on religion. (Calmet)
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
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter XVI
For even if He does prefer “the works of righteousness,” still not without a sacrifice, which is a soul afflicted with fasts. He, at all events, is the God to whom neither a People incontinent of appetite, nor a priest, nor a prophet, was pleasing. To this day the “monuments of concupiscence” remain, where the People, greedy of “flesh,” till, by devouring without digesting the quails, they brought on cholera, were buried. Eli breaks his neck before the temple doors, his sons fall in battle, his daughter-in-law expires in child-birth: for such was the blow which had been deserved at the hand of God by the shameless house, the defrauder of the fleshly sacrifices. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Oceanus
9. We have learned what we ought to be: let us now learn what priests ought not to be. Indulgence in wine is the fault of diners out and revellers. When the body is heated with drink it soon boils over with lust. Wine drinking means self-indulgence, self-indulgence means sensual gratification, sensual gratification means a breach of chastity. He that lives in pleasure is dead while he lives, and he that drinks himself drunk is not only dead but buried. One hour’s debauch makes Noah uncover his nakedness which through sixty years of sobriety he had kept covered. Lot in a fit of intoxication unwittingly adds incest to incontinence, and wine overcomes the man whom Sodom failed to conquer. A bishop that is a striker is condemned by Him who gave His back to the smiters, and when He was reviled reviled not again. “But moderate”; one good thing is set over against two evil things. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Sabinianus
10. But possibly you flatter yourself that since the bishop who has made you a deacon is a holy man, his merits will atone for your transgressions. I have already told you that the father is not punished for the son nor the son for the father. “The soul that sinneth it shall die.” Samuel too had sons who forsook the fear of the Lord and “turned aside after lucre” and iniquity. Eli also was a holy priest, but he had sons of whom we read in the Hebrew that they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of God, and that like you they shamelessly claimed for themselves the right to minister in His sanctuary. Wherefore the tabernacle itself was overthrown and the holy place made desolate by reason of the sins of those who were God’s priests. …