Genesis 25:8
And decaying he died in a good old age, and having lived a long time, and being full of days: and was gathered to his people.
Open Genesis 25:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et deficiens mortuus est in senectute bona, provectæque ætatis et plenus dierum : congregatusque est ad populum suum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐκλείπων ἀπέθανεν Ἀβραὰμ ἐν γήρει καλῷ πρεσβύτης καὶ πλήρης ἡμερῶν, καὶ προσετέθη πρὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּגְוַ֨ע וַיָּ֧מָת אַבְרָהָ֛ם בְּשֵׂיבָ֥ה טוֹבָ֖ה זָקֵ֣ן וְשָׂבֵ֑עַ וַיֵּאָ֖סֶף אֶל עַמָּֽיו
Haydock's commentary
Good old age. Because well spent: though he lived not so long as many of the wicked; decaying not by any violent disorder, but dropping off like a ripe apple.
Being full. The Hebrew does not express of what; but the Samaritan, Chaldean, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic agree with the Vulgate. See chap. xxxv. 29. (Haydock)
Days, not years, as Protestants wrongfully interpolate. (Kennicott)
His people, the saints of ancient days, in limbo; while his body was placed near the remains of his wife, by the pious attention of his two chief sons, attended by their other brethren. (Haydock)
The life of Abraham was a pattern of all virtues, but particularly of faith; and it was an abridgment of the law. His equal was no where found, Ecclesiasticus xliv. 20. (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 Athanasius Defence of His Flight. (Apologia de Fuga.), An hour and a time for all men
Now in so far as He was God and the Word of the Father, He had no time; for He is Himself the Creator of times. But being made man, He shews by speaking in this manner that there is a time allotted to every man; and that not by chance, as some of the Gentiles imagine in their fables, but a time which He, the Creator, has appointed to every one according to the will of the Father. This is written in the Scriptures, and is manifest to all men. For although it be hidden and unknown to all, what period of time is allotted to each, and how it is allotted; yet every one knows this, that as there is a time for spring and for summer, and for autumn and for winter, so, as it is written, there is a time to die, and a time to live. And so the time of the generation which lived in the days of Noah was cut short, and their years were contracted, because the time of all things was at hand. …