1 Kings 2:3
Do not multiply to speak lofty things, boasting: let old matters depart from your mouth: for the Lord is a God of all knowledge, and to him are thoughts prepared.
Open 1 Kings 2:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Nolite multiplicare loqui sublimia gloriantes ; recedant vetera de ore vestro : quia Deus scientiarum Dominus est, et ipsi præparantur cogitationes.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- μὴ καυχᾶσθε καὶ μὴ λαλεῖτε ὑψηλά, μὴ ἐξελθάτω μεγαλορημοσύνη ἐκ τοῦ στόματος ὑμῶν· ὅτι θεὸς γνώσεως Κύριος, καὶ θεὸς ἑτοιμάζων ἐπιτηδεύματα αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אַל תַּרְבּ֤וּ תְדַבְּרוּ֙ גְּבֹהָ֣ה גְבֹהָ֔ה יֵצֵ֥א עָתָ֖ק מִפִּיכֶ֑ם כִּ֣י אֵ֤ל דֵּעוֹת֙ יְהוָ֔ה ולא נִתְכְּנ֖וּ עֲלִלֽוֹת
Haydock's commentary
Old. Hebrew hathak means also, "hard things." (Du Hamel)
"Let arrogance come out of your mouth," to return no more. Yet most people supply the negation from the former member; "Let not arrogance or hard things." Chaldean, "blasphemy," &c. (Calmet)
Cease to praise idols, as you have done. (Worthington)
Use not the malevolent language to which you have been accustomed.
Knowledge. The secrets of hearts are open to him.
And to him. Hebrew, "and by him actions are weighed," as in scales; (Haydock) or, "thoughts (and actions) are not established." (Symmachus) The Syriac and Arabic also read the negation, "there are not pretexts before him;" or, "are not actions founded upon him?" Will he not execute what he has wisely designed, in spite of opposition? (Haydock)
Septuagint, "and God prepares his thought;" (Calmet) (epitedeumata autou) or, "what is convenient for him." (Haydock)
They have read lu, "of him," instead of la, "not," as they are authorized to do by the Keri, (or various readings in the margin) and by several Hebrew manuscripts. The Protestants think rightly, and suppose that la, "not," has been omitted, "Let not arrogancy;" because we find it in Chaldean, Septuagint, Syriac and Arabic versions. Lu is substituted for la, ver. 16. When some have been pressed with the argument of variations, called Keri, they have said that they were rather explanations of obscure words in the text: but is there any obscurity in lu, "to him," and la, "not;" or can they explain each other? Leusden answers in the affirmative, ver. 16! (Kennicott)
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
St Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, Testimony IV
In the Gospel according to John: “No one can receive anything, except it were given him from heaven.” Also in the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “For what hast thou that thou hast not received? But if thou hast received it, why boastest thou, as if thou hadst not received it?” Also in the first of Kings: “Boast not, neither speak lofty things, and let not great speeches proceed out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge.” Also in the same place: “The bow of the mighty men has been made weak, and the weak are girt about with strength.” Of this same thing in the Maccabees: “It is just to be subjected to God, and that a mortal should not think things equal to God.” Also in the same place: “And fear not the words of a man that is a sinner, because his glory shall be filth and worms. …
St Augustine City of God, About the Prefigured Change of the Israelitic Kingdom and Priesthood, and About the Things Hannah the Mother of Samuel Prophesied, Personating the Church
Therefore the advance of the city of God, where it reached the times of the kings, yielded a figure, when, on the rejection of Saul, David first obtained the kingdom on such a footing that thenceforth his descendants should reign in the earthly Jerusalem in continual succession; for the course of affairs signified and foretold, what is not to be passed by in silence, concerning the change of things to come, what belongs to both Testaments, the Old and the New, where the priesthood and kingdom are changed by one who is a priest, and at the same time a king, new and everlasting, even Christ Jesus. For both the substitution in the ministry of God, on Eli’s rejection as priest, of Samuel, who executed at once the office of priest and judge, and the establishment of David in the kingdom, when Saul was rejected, typified this of which I speak. …