Judges 5:22
The hoofs of the horses were broken whilst the stoutest of the enemies fled amain, and fell headlong down.
Open Judges 5:22 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ungulæ equorum ceciderunt, fugientibus impetu, et per præceps ruentibus fortissimis hostium.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τότε ἐνεποδίσθησαν πτέρναι ἵππου, σπουδῇ ἔσπευσαν ἰσχυροὶ αὐτοῦ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אָ֥ז הָלְמ֖וּ עִקְּבֵי ס֑וּס מִֽדַּהֲר֖וֹת דַּהֲר֥וֹת אַבִּירָֽיו
Haydock's commentary
Broken (ceciderunt) "fell off," the hoofs being fractured by the hard road, while the riders galloped full speed. (Haydock)
Some translate the Hebrew, "the hoofs of the horses made a sound like that of a hammer beating an anvil, on account of the hurry of the strong ones who push them forward." Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungulâ campum, as Virgil attempts to imitate the sound in verse. Others, "the hoof....was broken by the precipitation (Calmet) (Protestants, prancings, the prancings of the mighty ones; Haydock) of those who fled." Formerly, Xenophon observes, the horses were not usually shod with iron. The feet of Bucephalus were consequently much worn. Yet some took the precaution to defend the feet of their horses with brass, (Homer) or iron, in the shape of crescents. (Eustathius)
Nero shod his mules with silver; (Suetonius) and Poppea, his wife, had shoes of gold for her more delicate beasts. Soleas ex auro quoque induere solebat. (Pliny, [Natural History?] xxxiii. 11.)
Yet many excellent horses in Arabia and Tartary are never shod. (Tavern. T. i. B. ii. 5.)
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.