Leviticus 16:29
And this shall be to you an everlasting ordinance: The seventh month, the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and shall do no work, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you.
Open Leviticus 16:29 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Eritque vobis hoc legitimum sempiternum : mense septimo, decima die mensis, affligetis animas vestras, nullumque opus facietis, sive indigena, sive advena qui peregrinatur inter vos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἔσται τοῦτο ὑμῖν νόμιμον αἰώνιον· ἐν τῷ μηνὶ τῷ ἑβδόμῳ ταπεινώσατε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν καὶ πᾶν ἔργον οὐ ποιήσετε, ὁ αὐτόχθων καὶ ὁ προσήλυτος ὁ προσκείμενος ἐν ὑμῖν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְהָיְתָ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם לְחֻקַּ֣ת עוֹלָ֑ם בַּחֹ֣דֶשׁ הַ֠שְּׁבִיעִי בֶּֽעָשׂ֨וֹר לַחֹ֜דֶשׁ תְּעַנּ֣וּ אֶת נַפְשֹֽׁתֵיכֶ֗ם וְכָל מְלָאכָה֙ לֹ֣א תַעֲשׂ֔וּ הָֽאֶזְרָ֔ח וְהַגֵּ֖ר הַגָּ֥ר בְּתוֹכְכֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
Tenth. Beginning on the evening of the ninth Tisri, which corresponds with part of our September and October, and is the first month of the civil year, chap. xxxiii. 32. Afflict, by a rigid abstinence from all that might give delight to the body. Children of seven years old begin to join in this mortification. Boys of 13, and girls of 11 years old complete, were obliged to fast. See ver. 6. The Samaritans pray all the day, and give no food even to infants during the 24 hours. (Calmet)
Moses was the first who shewed them the example; and this was the only day which he prescribed to be kept as a fast. The Jews afterwards appointed many more. (Haydock)
Maimonides says, this festival was instituted in memory of the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai the third time, when he came to announce to the people that God had pardoned their idolatry. Usher thinks it was in memory of Adam's fall. The Jews still observe it in some degree. As they are not allowed to sacrifice, they kill a white cock, and the women a hen, on the 9th at evening. Those with child kill both. They confess their sins, receive 39 lashes, ask pardon of those whom they have offended, and generally spend the fore part of this month in acts of piety and of penance. (Buxtorf, Syn. 20.)
Stranger; a proselyte of justice, such as were bound to observe the law.
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
Tertullian On Fasting, Chapter II
For, so far as pertains to fasts, they oppose to us the definite days appointed by God: as when, in Leviticus, the Lord enjoins upon Moses the tenth day of the seventh month (as) a day of atonement, saying, “Holy shall be to you the day, and ye shall vex your souls; and every soul which shall not have been vexed in that day shall be exterminated from his people.” At all events, in the Gospel they think that those days were definitely appointed for fasts in which “the Bridegroom was taken away;” and that these are now the only legitimate days for Christian fasts, the legal and prophetical antiquities having been abolished: for wherever it suits their wishes, they recognise what is the meaning of “the Law and the prophets until John.” Accordingly, (they think) that, with regard to the future, fasting was to be indifferently observed, by the New Discipline, of choice, not of command, accord …
Origen Origen Against Celsus, Chapter XXIII
But the majority of those who are accounted believers are not of this advanced class; but from being either unable or unwilling to keep every day in this manner, they require some sensible memorials to prevent spiritual things from passing altogether away from their minds. It is to this practice of setting apart some days distinct from others, that Paul seems to me to refer in the expression, “part of the feast;” and by these words he indicates that a life in accordance with the divine word consists not “in a part of the feast,” but in one entire and never ceasing festival. Again, compare the festivals, observed among us as these have been described above, with the public feasts of Celsus and the heathen, and say if the former are not much more sacred observances than those feasts in which the lust of the flesh runs riot, and leads to drunkenness and debauchery. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book II
17. My opponent has dared to maintain that our Lord was called by the Pharisees a wine-bibber and a glutton: and from the fact of His going to marriage feasts and from His not despising the banquets of sinners, I am to infer His wishes respecting ourselves. That Lord, so you suppose, is a glutton who fasted forty days to hallow Christian fasting;who calls them blessed that hunger and thirst;who says that He has food, not that which the disciples surmised, but such as would not perish for ever;who forbids us to think of the morrow; who, though He is said to have hungered and thirsted, and to have gone frequently to various meals, except in celebrating the mystery whereby He represented His passion, orin proving the reality of His body is nowhere described as ministering to His appetite;who tells of purple-clad Dives in hell for his feasting, and says that poor Lazarus for his abstinence w …