Isaias 34:14
And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.
Open Isaias 34:14 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et occurrent dæmonia onocentauris, et pilosus clamabit alter ad alterum ; ibi cubavit lamia, et invenit sibi requiem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ συναντήσουσιν δαιμόνια ὀνοκενταύροις καὶ βοήσονται ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον, ἐκεῖ ἀναπαύσονται ὀνοκένταυροι εὑρόντες αὑτοῖς ἀνάπαυσιν·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וּפָגְשׁ֤וּ צִיִּים֙ אֶת אִיִּ֔ים וְשָׂעִ֖יר עַל רֵעֵ֣הוּ יִקְרָ֑א אַךְ שָׁם֙ הִרְגִּ֣יעָה לִּילִ֔ית וּמָצְאָ֥ה לָ֖הּ מָנֽוֹחַ
Haydock's commentary
Monsters. Literally, "Ass-centaurs." (Haydock)
Hebrew, "fishermen shall find islands," chap. xiii. 21.
Ones. Goats.
Lamia. Hebrew lilith. Chaldean, "owl," the bird of Minerva, or the Moon, which the Arabs style Alilat. (Calmet)
Dicodorus (20) relates that Lamia was an African queen, who having last her children, was changed into a beast, and destroyed all the children she could catch; and the Jews deal still more in fables, (Calmet0 asserting that Lilith was the first wife of Adam, &c. (Buxtorf. Syn. 2.)
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 Jerome Against Vigilantius
1. The world has given birth to many monsters; inIsaiah we read of centaurs and sirens, screech-owls and pelicans. Job, in mystic language, describes Leviathan and Behemoth; Cerberus and the birds of Stymphalus, the Erymanthian boar and the Nemean lion, the Chimæra and the many-headed Hydra, are told of in poetic fables. Virgil describes Cacus. Spain has produced Geryon, with his three bodies. Gaul alone has had no monsters, but has ever been rich in men of courage and great eloquence. All at once Vigilantius, or, more correctly, Dormitantius , has arisen, animated by an unclean spirit, to fight against the Spirit of Christ, and to deny that religious reverence is to be paid to the tombs of the martyrs. Vigils, he says, are to be condemned; Alleluia must never be sung except at Easter; continence is a heresy; chastity a hot-bed of lust. …