Leviticus 26:13
I am the Lord your God: who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, that you should not serve them, and who have broken the chains of your necks, that you might go upright.
Open Leviticus 26:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ego Dominus Deus vester, qui eduxi vos de terra Ægyptiorum, ne serviretis eis : et qui confregi catenas cervicum vestrarum, ut incederetis erecti.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐγώ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν ὁ ἐξαγαγὼν ὑμᾶς ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, ὄντων ὑμῶν δούλων, καὶ συνέτριψα τὸν δεσμὸν τοῦ ζυγοῦ ὑμῶν καὶ ἤγαγον ὑμᾶς μετὰ παρρησίας.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אֲנִ֞י יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֗ם אֲשֶׁ֨ר הוֹצֵ֤אתִי אֶתְכֶם֙ מֵאֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם מִֽהְיֹ֥ת לָהֶ֖ם עֲבָדִ֑ים וָאֶשְׁבֹּר֙ מֹטֹ֣ת עֻלְּכֶ֔ם וָאוֹלֵ֥ךְ אֶתְכֶ֖ם קֽוֹמְמִיּֽוּת
Haydock's commentary
Upright; and be no longer bowed down with a heavy yoke, like oxen. "I have broken the locks of your prison, and have set you at liberty," Arabic. (Calmet)
A Greek proverb says, "Never was a slave's head right, but always crooked, like his neck." (Menochius)
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 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter I. 15-18
19. Expel, therefore, from your hearts carnal thoughts, that you may be really under grace, that you may belong to the New Testament. Therefore is life eternal promised in the New Testament. Read the Old Testament, and see that the same things were enjoined upon a people yet carnal as upon us. For to worship one God is also enjoined upon us. “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” is also enjoined upon us, which is the second commandment. “Observe the Sabbath-day” is enjoined on us more than on them, because it is commanded to be spiritually observed. For the Jews observe the Sabbath in a servile manner, using it for luxuriousness and drunkenness. How much better would their women be employed in spinning wool than in dancing on that day in the balconies? God forbid, brethren, that we should call that an observance of the Sabbath. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).