Deuteronomy 32:24
They shall be consumed with famine, and birds shall devour them with a most bitter bite: I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon the ground, and of serpents.
Open Deuteronomy 32:24 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Consumentur fame, et devorabunt eos aves morsu amarissimo : dentes bestiarum immittam in eos, cum furore trahentium super terram, atque serpentium.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τηκόμενοι λιμῷ καὶ βρώσει ὀρνέων, καὶ ὀπισθότονος ἀνίατος· ὀδόντας θηρίων ἀποστελῶ εἰς αὐτούς, μετὰ θυμοῦ συρόντων ἐπὶ γῆν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מְזֵ֥י רָעָ֛ב וּלְחֻ֥מֵי רֶ֖שֶׁף וְקֶ֣טֶב מְרִירִ֑י וְשֶׁן בְּהֵמוֹת֙ אֲשַׁלַּח בָּ֔ם עִם חֲמַ֖ת זֹחֲלֵ֥י עָפָֽר
Haydock's commentary
Birds. This refers in a particular manner to those who are deprived of sepulture, and hung on a gibbet, chap. xxvii. 26. Josephus (Jewish Wars vi. 12,) informs us, that the multitude of Jews who were to be crucified, was so great, that sufficient wood could not be procured to make crosses for them, nor was there place for them to stand. Hebrew, "they shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat;" (Haydock) or with the disease called the carbuncle. (Calmet)
But the Septuagint and Chaldean explain it of "birds." (Haydock)
Bite. Septuagint, "with a painful contraction of the nerves." Chaldean, "infested with evil spirits."
Beasts. Thus God forced the people of Samaria to obey his law, 4 Kings xvii. 25.
Fury, "venom." (Pagnin) (Menochius)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).
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
Clement of Alexandria The Instructor, Chapter VIII. Against Those Who Think that What is Just is Not Good
God, then, is good. And the Lord speaks many a time and oft before He proceeds to act. “For my arrows,” He says, “will make an end of them; they shall be consumed with hunger, and be eaten by birds; and there shall be incurable tetanic incurvature. I will send the teeth of wild beasts upon them, with the rage of serpents creeping on the earth. Without, the sword shall make them childless; and out of their chambers shall be fear.” For the Divine Being is not angry in the way that some think; but often restrains, and always exhorts humanity, and shows what ought to be done. And this is a good device, to terrify lest we sin. “For the fear of the Lord drives away sins, and he that is without fear cannot be justified,” says the Scripture. And God does not inflict punishment from wrath, but for the ends of justice; since it is not expedient that justice should be neglected on our account. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XI. Of the two kinds of trials, which come upon us in a three-fold way
Well then, though we say that trial is twofold, i.e., in prosperity and in adversity, yet you must know that all men are tried in three different ways. Often for their probation, sometimes for their improvement, and in some cases because their sins deserve it. For their probation indeed, as we read that the blessed Abraham and Job and many of the saints endured countless tribulations; or this which is said to the people in Deuteronomy by Moses: “And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the desert, to afflict thee and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep His Commandments or no:” and this which we find in the Psalms: “I proved thee at the waters of strife.” To Job also: “Thinkest thou that I have spoken for any other cause than that thou mightest be seen t …