Exodus 15:9
The enemy said: I will pursue and overtake, I will divide the spoils, my soul shall have its fill: I will draw my sword, my hand shall slay them.
Open Exodus 15:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Dixit inimicus : Persequar et comprehendam, dividam spolia, implebitur anima mea : evaginabo gladium meum, interficiet eos manus mea.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εἶπεν ὁ ἐχθρός Διώξας καταλήμψομαι· μεριῶ σκῦλα, ἐμπλήσω ψυχήν μου, ἀνελῶ τῇ μαχαίρῃ μου, κυριεύσει ἡ χείρ μου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אָמַ֥ר אוֹיֵ֛ב אֶרְדֹּ֥ף אַשִּׂ֖יג אֲחַלֵּ֣ק שָׁלָ֑ל תִּמְלָאֵ֣מוֹ נַפְשִׁ֔י אָרִ֣יק חַרְבִּ֔י תּוֹרִישֵׁ֖מוֹ יָדִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Enemy. Miracles make but small impression upon the wicked. They pursue their schemes of destruction, which end in their own ruin!
Slay. Hebrew, "despoil." Septuagint, "bring them into subjection." (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 Athanasius Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.), His address to monks, rendered from Coptic, exhorting them to perseverance, and encouraging them against the wiles of Satan
24. ‘And he said they often appeared as the Lord revealed the devil to Job, saying, “His eyes are as the morning star. From his mouth proceed burning lamps and hearths of fire are cast forth. The smoke of a furnace blazing with the fire of coals proceeds from his nostrils. His breath is coals and from his mouth issues flame.” When the prince of the demons appears in this wise, the crafty one, as I said before, strikes terror by speaking great things, as again the Lord convicted him saying to Job, for “he counteth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood, yea he counteth the sea as a pot of ointment, and the depth of the abyss as a captive, and the abyss as a covered walk.” And by the prophet, “the enemy said, I will pursue and overtake,” and again by another, “I will grasp the whole world in my hand as a nest, and take it up as eggs that have been left.” Such, in a word, are their boasts …
St Athanasius Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.), Persecution is from the Devil
Seeing therefore that such are the commands of our Saviour, and that such is the conduct of the Saints, let these persons, to whom one cannot give a name suitable to their character, let them, I say, tell us, from whom they learnt to persecute? They cannot say, from the Saints. No, but from the Devil (that is the only answer which is left to them); from him who says, ‘I will persue, I will overtake.’ Our Lord commanded to flee, and the saints fled: but persecution is a device of the Devil, and one which he desires to exercise against all. …