Genesis 32:11
Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am greatly afraid of him: lest perhaps he come, and kill the mother with the children.
Open Genesis 32:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Erue me de manu fratris mei Esau, quia valde eum timeo : ne forte veniens percutiat matrem cum filiis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐξελοῦ με ἐκ χειρὸς τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μου Ἠσαύ· ὅτι φοβοῦμαι ἐγὼ αὐτόν, μή ποτε ἐλθὼν πατάξῃ με καὶ μητέρα ἐπὶ τέκνοις.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Genesis 32:12
- הַצִּילֵ֥נִי נָ֛א מִיַּ֥ד אָחִ֖י מִיַּ֣ד עֵשָׂ֑ו כִּֽי יָרֵ֤א אָנֹכִי֙ אֹת֔וֹ פֶּן יָב֣וֹא וְהִכַּ֔נִי אֵ֖ם עַל בָּנִֽים
Haydock's commentary
The children; sparing neither sex nor age, but destroying all. (Calmet)
Jacob insists on the promises of God; yet fears lest he should, by some offence, have deserved to forfeit his protection; particularly, as he had been living 20 years among idolaters. He acts with all prudence. (Worthington)
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 Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), Texts Explained; Ninthly, John x. 30; xvii. 11, &c. Arian explanation, that the Son is one with the Father in will and judgment; but so are all good men, nay things inanimate; contrast of the Son. Oneness between Them is in nature, because oneness in operation. Angels not objects of prayer, because they do not work together with God, but the Son; texts quoted. Seeing an Angel, is not seeing God. Arians in fact hold two Gods, and tend to Gentile polytheism. Arian explanation that the Father and Son are one as we are one with Christ, is put aside by the Regula Fidei, and shewn invalid by the usage of Scripture in illustrations; the true force of the comparison; force of the terms used. Force of 'in us;' force of 'as;' confirmed by S. John. In what sense we are 'in God' and His 'sons.'
12. For if there were no unity, nor the Word the own Offspring of the Father’s Essence, as the radiance of the light, but the Son were divided in nature from the Father, it were sufficient that the Father alone should give, since none of originate things is a partner with his Maker in His givings; but, as it is, such a mode of giving shews the oneness of the Father and the Son. No one, for instance, would pray to receive from God and the Angels, or from any other creature, nor would any one say, ‘May God and the Angel give thee;’ but from Father and the Son, because of Their oneness and the oneness of Their giving. For through the Son is given what is given; and there is nothing but the Father operates it through the Son; for thus is grace secure to him who receives it. …