Numbers 25:4
Said to Moses: Take all the princes of the people, and hang them up on gibbets against the sun: that my fury may be turned away from Israel.
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- Vulgate (Clementine)
- ait ad Moysen : Tolle cunctos principes populi, et suspende eos contra solem in patibulis, ut avertatur furor meus ab Israël.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπεν Κύριος τῷ Μωυσῇ Λάβε πάντας τοὺς ἀρχηγοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ καὶ παραδειγμάτισον αὐτοὺς Κυρίῳ ἀπέναντι τοῦ ἡλίου, καὶ ἀποστραφήσεται ὀργὴ Κυρίου ἀπὸ Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יְהוָ֜ה אֶל מֹשֶׁ֗ה קַ֚ח אֶת כָּל רָאשֵׁ֣י הָעָ֔ם וְהוֹקַ֥ע אוֹתָ֛ם לַיהוָ֖ה נֶ֣גֶד הַשָּׁ֑מֶשׁ וְיָשֹׁ֛ב חֲר֥וֹן אַף יְהוָ֖ה מִיִּשְׂרָאֵֽל
Haydock's commentary
People. Assemble the judges, and by their sentence, hang them who have been most guilty. (Onkelos)
If any of the judges, or princes themselves, have gone astray, let them not be spared. (Haydock)
The Jews assert, that the malefactor was always killed before his body was hung on a gibbet; and that crucifixion was not known among them. But the contrary is asserted by many. It is not clear whether these criminals were hung by the neck, or crucified, after they had been first stoned, as guilty of idolatry, or whether they were fastened to the gibbet alive, for greater torment and disgrace. (Calmet)
Sun; publicly. See 2 Kings xii. 11. (Menochius)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion 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).
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 Modesty, Chapter VI
Plainly, if you show by what patronages of heavenly precedents and precepts it is that you open to adultery alone, and therein to fornication also, the gate of repentance, at this very line our hostile encounter will forthwith cross swords. Yet I must necessarily prescribe you a law, not to stretch out your hand after the old things, not to look backwards: for “the old things are passed away,” according to Isaiah; and “a renewing hath been renewed,” according to Jeremiah; and “forgetful of former things, we are reaching forward,” according to the apostle; and “the law and the prophets (were) until John,” according to the Lord. …