Judges 9:13
And it answered them: Can I forsake my wine, that cheereth God and men, and be promoted among the other trees?
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quæ respondit eis : Numquid possum deserere vinum meum, quod lætificat Deum et homines, et inter ligna cetera promoveri ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ἡ ἄμπελος Μὴ ἀπολείψασα τὸν οἶνόν μου τὸν εὐφραίνοντα θεὸν καὶ ἀνθρώπους πορεύσομαι κινεῖσθαι ἐπὶ τῶν ξύλων;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַתֹּ֤אמֶר לָהֶם֙ הַגֶּ֔פֶן הֶחֳדַ֨לְתִּי֙ אֶת תִּ֣ירוֹשִׁ֔י הַֽמְשַׂמֵּ֥חַ אֱלֹהִ֖ים וַאֲנָשִׁ֑ים וְהָ֣לַכְתִּ֔י לָנ֖וּעַ עַל הָעֵצִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Cheereth God and men. Wine is here represented as agreeable to God, because he had appointed it to be offered up with his sacrifices. But we are not obliged to take these words, spoken by the trees in Joatham's parable, according to the strict rigour of divinity; but only in a sense accommodated to the design of the parable expressed in the conclusion of it. (Challoner)
The same word, Elohim, which is translated God may also signify any powerful man, as in ver. 9. (Haydock)
Yet wine may be said to cheer God, in the same figurative sense, as the odour of victims is sweet and delightful to him. (Calmet)
He is pleased with the devotion of men, and requires these things as a testimony of their love and fidelity. (Haydock)
Joatham might speak according to the notions of the idolaters, who thought that their gods really fed on ambrosia and nectar, and were pleased with the smell of victims and of perfumes. That wine cheereth the heart of man needs no proof, Psalm ciii. 15.
Tunc veniunt risus, tunc pauper cornua sumit.
Tunc dolor et curæ rugaque frontis abit. (Ovid)
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 Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter II
Chapter II. The Allegory of the Trees Demanding a King, in the Book of Judges, Explained.
St Augustine Against Lying, Section 28
28. Hence is also that which thou hast mentioned that they speak of, that the Lord Jesus, after He was risen, walked in the way with two disciples; and upon their drawing near to the village whither they were going, He made as though He would have gone farther: where the Evangelist, saying, “But He Himself feigned that He would go further,” hath put that very word in which liars too greatly delight, that they may with impunity lie: as if every thing that is feigned is a lie, whereas in a truthful way, for the sake of signifying one thing by another, so many things use to be feigned. If then there had been no other thing that Jesus signified, in that He feigned to be going further, with reason might it be judged to be a lie: but then if it be rightly understood and referred to that which He willed to signify, it is a mystery. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XX. St. Ambrose declares his desire that some angel would fly to him to purify him, as once the Seraph did to Isaiah--nay more, that Christ Himself would come to him, to the Emperor, and to his readers, and finally prays that Gratian and the rest of the faithful may be exalted by the power and spell of the Lord's Cup, which he describes in mystic language
135. Moreover, there is a Cup, wherewith Thou dost use to purify the hidden chambers of the soul, a Cup not of the old order, nor filled from a common Vine, a new Cup, brought down from heaven to earth, filled with wine pressed from the wondrous cluster, which hung in fleshly form upon the tree of the Cross, even as the grape hangs upon the Vine. From this Cluster, then, is the Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, uplifts the sorrowful, is fragrant with, pours into us, the ecstasy of faith, true devotion, and purity.