1 Kings 2:9
He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, because no man shall prevail by his own strength.
Open 1 Kings 2:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Pedes sanctorum suorum servabit, et impii in tenebris conticescent : quia non in fortitudine sua roborabitur vir.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι οὐκ ἐν ἰσχύι δυνατὸς ἀνήρ·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- רַגְלֵ֤י חסידו יִשְׁמֹ֔ר וּרְשָׁעִ֖ים בַּחֹ֣שֶׁךְ יִדָּ֑מּוּ כִּֽי לֹ֥א בְכֹ֖חַ יִגְבַּר אִֽישׁ
Haydock's commentary
Saints. Hebrew, "kind, merciful, pious ones;" (Calmet) those to whom he shews mercy, and who comply with his will in assisting others. Septuagint, "Granting their petition to those who ask him, and he has blessed the years of the just, because man is not strong by his own strength." (Haydock)
Silent: condemned to death. Mox etiam Lemures animas dixere silentes. (Ovid, Fast. v.) Loca nocte silentia late. (Virgil, [Æneid?] vi.) Unable to act as they had done, and ashamed of themselves, (Calmet) they seek for the most obscure retreat, where they may not behold the glory of those whom they have despised. They will pray that the hills would fall upon them, and hide them from the indignation of the Lamb. (Haydock)
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 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. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XV. That the understanding, by means of which we can recognize God's commands, and the performance of a good will are both gifts from the Lord
Further the blessed David asks of the Lord that he may gain that very understanding, by which he can recognize God’s com mands which, he well knew, were written in the book of the law, and he says “I am Thy servant: O give me understanding that I may learn Thy commandments.” Certainly he was in possession of understanding, which had been granted to him by nature, and also had at his fingers’ ends a knowledge of God’s commands which were preserved in writing in the law: and still he prayed the Lord that he might learn this more thoroughly as he knew that what came to him by nature would never be sufficient for him, unless his understanding was enlightened by the Lord by a daily illumination from Him, to understand the law spiritually and to recognize His commands more clearly, as the “chosen vessel” also declares very plainly this which we are insisting on. …