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The Motif Searcher: one word across the Douay, the Latin, the Greek and the Hebrew.

Proverbs 2:4

If thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure:

Open Proverbs 2:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →

The verse in its languages

Vulgate (Clementine)
si quæsieris eam quasi pecuniam, et sicut thesauros effoderis illam :
Septuagint (Swete)
καὶ ἐὰν ζητήσῃς αὐτὴν ὡς ἀργύριον καὶ ὡς θησαυροὺς ἐξεραυνήσῃς αὐτήν·
Hebrew (WLC)
אִם תְּבַקְשֶׁ֥נָּה כַכָּ֑סֶף וְֽכַמַּטְמוֹנִ֥ים תַּחְפְּשֶֽׂנָּה

The Fathers on this verse

Clement of Alexandria The Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter IV. Human Arts as Well as Divine Knowledge Proceed from God

"For if thou call on wisdom and knowledge with a loud voice, and seek it as treasures of silver, and eagerly track it out, thou shalt understand godliness and find divine knowledge.” The prophet says this in contradiction to the knowledge according to philosophy, which teaches us to investigate in a magnanimous and noble manner, for our progress in piety. He opposes, therefore, to it the knowledge which is occupied with piety, when referring to knowledge, when he speaks as follows: “For God gives wisdom out of His own mouth, and knowledge along with understanding, and treasures up help for the righteous.” For to those who have been justified by philosophy, the knowledge which leads to piety is laid up as a help.

St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John, John 1.18

[1.] God will not have us listen to the words and sentences contained in the Scriptures carelessly, but with much attention. This is why the blessed David hath prefixed in many places to his Psalms the title “for understanding,” and hath said, “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy Law.” ( Ps. xxxii. 42, &c.; Ps. cxix. 18 .) And after him his son again shows that we ought to “seek out wisdom as silver, and to make merchandise of her rather than of gold.” ( Prov. ii. 4 and iii. 14 [partially quoted]; John v. 39 .) And the Lord when He exhorts the Jews to “search the Scriptures,” the more urges us to the enquiry, for He would not thus have spoken if it were possible to comprehend them immediately at the first reading. …

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).