4 Kings 8:13
And Hazael said: But what am I thy servant a dog, that I should do this great thing? And Eliseus said: The Lord hath shewn me that thou shalt be king of Syria.
Open 4 Kings 8:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dixitque Hazaël : Quid enim sum servus tuus canis, ut faciam rem istam magnam ? Et ait Eliseus : Ostendit mihi Dominus te regem Syriæ fore.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Ἁζαήλ Τίς ἐστιν ὁ δοῦλός σου, ὁ κύων ὁ τεθνηκώς, ὅτι ποιήσει τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο; καὶ εἶπεν Ἐλεισαῖε Ἔδειξέν μοι Κύριός σε βασιλεύοντα ἐπὶ Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֣אמֶר חֲזָהאֵ֔ל כִּ֣י מָ֤ה עַבְדְּךָ֙ הַכֶּ֔לֶב כִּ֣י יַעֲשֶׂ֔ה הַדָּבָ֥ר הַגָּד֖וֹל הַזֶּ֑ה וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלִישָׁ֔ע הִרְאַ֧נִי יְהוָ֛ה אֹתְךָ֖ מֶ֥לֶךְ עַל אֲרָֽם
Haydock's commentary
A dog. He speaks with indignation, as if he could not be so brutal; (Tirinus) or he could not yet think that he should be king. (Calmet)
He afterwards proved as cruel as the prophet had signified, chap. x. 32., and Amos i. 3. (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
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily IX
Whom then will ye that we should portray first? The covetous and rapacious? And what more shameless than those eyes? What more immodest, more like a greedy dog? For no dog keeps his ground with such shameless impudence as he when he is grasping at all men’s goods. What more polluted than those hands? What more audacious than that mouth, swallowing all down and not satisfied? Nay, look not on the countenance and the eyes as being a man’s. For such looks belong not to the eyes of men. He seeth not men as men; he seeth not the heaven as heaven. He does not even lift up his head unto the Lord; but all is money in his account. The eyes of men are wont to look upon poor persons in affliction, and to be softened; but these of the rapacious man, at sight of the poor, glare like wild beasts’. …