Job 6:4
For the arrows of the Lord are in me, the rage whereof drinketh up my spirit, and the terrors of the Lord war against me.
Open Job 6:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quia sagittæ Domini in me sunt, quarum indignatio ebibit spiritum meum ; et terrores Domini militant contra me.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- βέλη γὰρ Κυρίου ἐν τῷ σώματί μού ἐστιν, ὧν ὁ θυμὸς αὐτῶν ἐκπίνει μου τὸ αἷμα, ὅταν ἄρξωμαι λαλεῖν κεντοῦσί με.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כִּ֤י חִצֵּ֪י שַׁדַּ֡י עִמָּדִ֗י אֲשֶׁ֣ר חֲ֭מָתָם שֹׁתָ֣ה רוּחִ֑י בִּעוּתֵ֖י אֱל֣וֹהַּ יַֽעַרְכֽוּנִי
Haydock's commentary
Rage. Hebrew, "poison," (Haydock) or "venom;" (Chaldean; Menochius) as it was customary to use poisoned arrows. (Calmet)
Septuagint, "When I begin to speak, they pierce me. For what! Does the wild ass continually bray, except when he is in quest of food?" (Haydock)
It is easy for those to be silent who suffer nothing. The wild asses were so common in those parts, (Calmet) that Herod sometimes slew 40 in a hunt. (Josephus, Jewish Wars i. 16.)
Many fabulous accounts have been given of them. Some are still found in Ethiopia resembling a mule, except in the ears, and beautifully striped with grey, black, and reddish colours. (Bernier)
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 Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XXXVIII
4. “For Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me sore” ( ver. 2 ). “There is no soundness in my flesh, from the face of Thine anger” ( ver. 3 ). He has now begun telling these evils, which he is suffering here: and yet even this already was from the wrath of the Lord, because it was of the vengeance of the Lord. “Of what vengeance?” That which He took upon Adam. For think not that punishment was not inflicted upon him, or that God had said to no purpose, “Thou shalt surely die;” or that we suffer anything in this life, except from that death which we earned by the original sin.…Whence then do His “arrows stick fast in” him? The very punishment, the very vengeance, and haply the pains both of mind and of body, which it is necessary for us to suffer here, these he describes by these self-same “arrows.” For of these arrows holy Job also made mention, and said that the arrows …