Numbers 24:14
But yet going to my people, I will give thee counsel, what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days.
Open Numbers 24:14 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- verumtamen pergens ad populum meum, dabo consilium, quid populus tuus populo huic faciat extremo tempore.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ νῦν ἰδοὺ ἀποτρέχω εἰς τὸν τόπον μου· δεῦρο συμβουλεύσω σοι τί ποιήσει ὁ λαὸς οὗτος τὸν λαόν σου ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάτου τῶν ἡμερῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְעַתָּ֕ה הִנְנִ֥י הוֹלֵ֖ךְ לְעַמִּ֑י לְכָה֙ אִיעָ֣צְךָ֔ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יַעֲשֶׂ֜ה הָעָ֥ם הַזֶּ֛ה לְעַמְּךָ֖ בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Counsel, out of my own head. This he was going to do, (Calmet) that he might not lose his reward, when again he found himself impelled by the Lord to speak what was contrary to his temporal interest. After complying reluctantly, God ceased to strive, as it were, with his rebellious will any longer, and left him to follow the bent of his corrupt heart. Upon which he proceeded to give that infernal counsel which involved many of the Israelites and himself in utter destruction. (Haydock) (Chap. xxxi. 16., and Apocalypse ii. 4.)
Days. Hebrew, "Come, I will admonish thee what this people shall do to thy people," &c. Onkelos and Origen, (hom. 18. and 20.) give both senses. (Calmet)
Indeed, the transactions of both people were so blended, when they were fighting together, that to give the history of one, would be explaining the fortune of the other. (Haydock)
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 Athanasius The Incarnation of the Word, Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man
These things being so, and the Resurrection of His body and the victory gained over death by the Saviour being clearly proved, come now let us put to rebuke both the disbelief of the Jews and the scoffing of the Gentiles. 2. For these, perhaps, are the points where Jews express incredulity, while Gentiles laugh, finding fault with the unseemliness of the Cross, and of the Word of God becoming man. But our argument shall not delay to grapple with both especially as the proofs at our command against them are clear as day. 3. For Jews in their incredulity may be refuted from the Scriptures, which even themselves read; for this text and that, and, in a word, the whole inspired Scripture, cries aloud concerning these things, as even its express words abundantly shew. …
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).