Genesis 23:7
Abraham rose up, and bowed down to the people of the land, to wit the children of Heth:
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Surrexit Abraham, et adoravit populum terræ, filios videlicet Heth :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἀναστὰς δὲ Ἀβραὰμ προσεκύνησεν τῷ λαῷ τῆς γῆς, τοῖς υἱοῖς Χέτ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיָּ֧קָם אַבְרָהָ֛ם וַיִּשְׁתַּ֥חוּ לְעַם הָאָ֖רֶץ לִבְנֵי חֵֽת
Haydock's commentary
Bowed down to the people. Adoravit, literally, adored. But this word here, as well as in many other places in the Latin Scriptures, is used to signify only an inferior honour and reverence paid to men, expressed by a bowing down of the body.
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 Gregory of Nyssa On the Holy Spirit
But you will say, “When I think of the Father it is the Son (alone) that I have included as well in that term.” But tell me; when you have grasped the notion of the Son have you not admitted therein that of the Holy Spirit too? For how can you confess the Son except by the Holy Spirit? At what moment, then, is the Spirit in a state of separation from the Son, so that when the Father is being worshipped, the worship of the Spirit is not included along with that of the Son? And as regards their worship itself, what in the world do they reckon it to be? They bestow it, as some exquisite piece of honour, upon the God over all, and convey it over, sometimes, so as to reach the Only-begotten also; but the Holy Spirit they regard as unworthy of such a privilege. …