1 Kings 8:3
And his sons walked not in his ways: but they turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
Open 1 Kings 8:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et non ambulaverunt filii illius in viis ejus : sed declinaverunt post avaritiam, acceperuntque munera, et perverterunt judicium.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ οὐκ ἐπορεύθησαν οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ ἐν ὁδῷ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξέκλιναν ὀπίσω τῆς συντελείας καὶ ἐλάμβανον δῶρα καὶ ἐξέκλινον δικαιώματα.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְלֹֽא הָלְכ֤וּ בָנָיו֙ בדרכו וַיִּטּ֖וּ אַחֲרֵ֣י הַבָּ֑צַע וַיִּ֨קְחוּ שֹׁ֔חַד וַיַּטּ֖וּ מִשְׁפָּֽט
Haydock's commentary
Judgment. Samuel was not to blame, and hence he was not punished like Heli. (Menochius)
However, the misconduct of the children of these two judges, in succession, (Haydock) gave occasion to the people to demand a king, who might not be tempted by bribes. (Worthington)
It is surprising that most of the great men who are mentioned in history, had degenerate children. (Calmet)
Such were some of David's sons, as well as Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, &c. (Haydock)
Was it because their fathers were too much taken up with the affairs of state, to watch over the education of their children? or rather, because these young men confided too much on the merits of their family, and took no pains to tread in the footsteps of their parents? (Calmet)
"We have here, says Josephus, a manifest proof that children do not always resemble their parents, but sometimes good men spring from the wicked; and on the contrary, the virtuous have an evil progeny."
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 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. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book I
48. When Theophrastus thus discourses, are there any of us, Christians, whose conversation is in heaven and who daily say “I long to be dissolved, and to be with Christ,” whom he does not put to the blush? Shall a joint-heir of Christ really long for human heirs? And shall he desire children and delight himself in a long line of descendants, who will perhaps fall into the clutches of Antichrist, when we read thatMoses andSamuel preferred other men to their own sons, and did not count as their children those whom they saw to be displeasing to God? When Cicero after divorcing Terentia was requested byHirtius to marry his sister, he set the matter altogether on one side, and said that he could not possibly devote himself to a wife and to philosophy. …