3 Kings 21:20
And Achab said to Elias: Hast thou found me thy enemy? He said: I have found thee, because thou art sold, to do evil in the sight of the Lord.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et ait Achab ad Eliam : Num invenisti me inimicum tibi ? Qui dixit : Inveni, eo quod venundatus sis, ut faceres malum in conspectu Domini.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from 3 Kings 20:20
- καὶ εἶπεν Ἀχαὰβ πρὸς Ἠλειού Εἰ εὕρηκάς με, ὁ ἐχθρός μου; καὶ εἶπεν Εὕρηκα, διότι μάτην πέπρασαι ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον Κυρίου, παροργίσαι αὐτόν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אַחְאָב֙ אֶל אֵ֣לִיָּ֔הוּ הַֽמְצָאתַ֖נִי אֹיְבִ֑י וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מָצָ֔אתִי יַ֚עַן הִתְמַכֶּרְךָ֔ לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת הָרַ֖ע בְּעֵינֵ֥י יְהוָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Thy enemy. Have I done thee any harm, whenever thou hast appeared before me? Hebrew and Septuagint, "O my enemy." (Haydock)
To find, often means to attack or take by surprise. Art thou come thus, to fall upon me on the road? (Calmet)
Sold. That is, so addicted to evil, as if thou hadst sold thyself to the devil, to be his slave to work all kind of evil. (Challoner) (Worthington) (St. Gregory, in Ezec. hom. 10.)
The expression strongly marks the empire of the passions. Achab was sovereignly wicked, without any restraint. (Calmet)
So Vitellius was: Luxui saginæque mancipatus, emptusque. (Tacitus, Hist. ii.)
Sold, or "abandoned," are used in the same sense, Psalm xliii. 13.
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 John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXVIII
[3.] For nothing is purer than virtue, nothing uncleaner than vice; for the one is brighter than the sun, the other more stinking than mire. And to this they will themselves bear witness, who are wallowing in that mire and living in that darkness; at any rate, when one prepares them a little to see clearly. For as long as they are by themselves, and inebriate with the passion, just as if living in darkness they lie in unseemly wise to their much infamy, conscious even then where they are, although not fully; but after they have seen any of those who live in virtue reproving them or even showing himself, then they understand their own wretchedness more clearly; and as if a sunbeam had darted upon them, they cover up their own unseemliness and blush before those who know of their doings, yea, though the one be a slave and the other free, though the one be a king and the other a subject. …
St Athanasius Arian History. (Historia Arianorum ad Monachos.), Persecution in Egypt
Ahab himself did not act so cruelly towards the priests of God, as this man has acted towards the Bishops. For he was at least pricked in his conscience, when Naboth had been murdered, and was afraid at the sight of Elijah, but this man neither reverenced the great Hosius, nor was wearied or pricked in conscience, after banishing so many Bishops; but like another Pharaoh, the more he is afflicted, the more he is hardened, and imagines greater wickedness day by day. And the most extraordinary instance of his iniquity was the following. It happened that when the Bishops were condemned to banishment, certain other persons also received their sentence on charges of murder or sedition or theft, each according to the quality of his offence. …