1 Kings 2:23
And he said to them: Why do ye these kinds of things, which I hear, very wicked things, from all the people?
Open 1 Kings 2:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et dixit eis : Quare facitis res hujuscemodi quas ego audio, res pessimas, ab omni populo ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ἵνα τί ποιεῖτε κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο ὅ ἐγὼ ἀκούω ἐκ στόματος παντὸς τοῦ λαοῦ Κυρίου;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָהֶ֔ם לָ֥מָּה תַעֲשׂ֖וּן כַּדְּבָרִ֣ים הָאֵ֑לֶּה אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָנֹכִ֤י שֹׁמֵ֨עַ֙ אֶת דִּבְרֵיכֶ֣ם רָעִ֔ים מֵאֵ֖ת כָּל הָעָ֥ם אֵֽלֶּה
Haydock's commentary
People. They could not refrain from complaining of the iniquity of his children, how much soever they might revere him. Though he was not a witness himself of their abominations, such an uproar must have convinced him that they were guilty. (Haydock)
The Fathers in general blame the lenity of the high priest, who ought not only to have rebuked, but also to have put a stop to the crying sins of his sons, by the utmost severity. (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 Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
93. I hear again that Nadab and Abihu, for having merely offered incense with strange fire, were with strange fire destroyed, the instrument of their impiety being used for their punishment, and their destruction following at the very time and place of their sacrilege; and not even their father Aaron, who was next to Moses in the favor of God, could save them. I know also of Eli the priest, and a little later of Uzzah, the former made to pay the penalty for his sons’ transgression, in daring to violate the sacrifices by an untimely exaction of the first fruits of the cauldrons, although he did not condone their impiety, but frequently rebuked them; the other, because he only touched the ark, which was being thrown off the cart by the ox, and though he saved it, was himself destroyed, in God’s jealousy for the reverence due to the ark.