Proverbs 20:22
Say not: I will return evil: wait for the Lord and he will deliver thee.
Open Proverbs 20:22 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ne dicas : Reddam malum : exspecta Dominum, et liberabit te.
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Proverbs 20:12
- μὴ εἴπῃς Τίσομαι τὸν ἐχθρόν· ἀλλὰ ὑπόμεινον τὸν κύριον, ἵνα σοι βοηθήσῃ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- אַל תֹּאמַ֥ר אֲשַׁלְּמָה רָ֑ע קַוֵּ֥ה לַֽ֝יהוָ֗ה וְיֹ֣שַֽׁע לָֽךְ
Haydock's commentary
Evil. And revenge myself. This belongs to the Lord, Deuteronomy xxxii. 35. Man would be too favourable to himself, and would also pronounce his own condemnation, as he is also a sinner.
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 Cyprian Treatise V
17. For this reason it is that none of us, when he is apprehended, makes resistance, nor avenges himself against your unrighteous violence, although our people are numerous and plentiful. Our certainty of a vengeance to follow makes us patient. The innocent give place to the guilty; the harmless acquiesce in punishments and tortures, sure and confident that whatsoever we suffer will not remain unavenged, and that in proportion to the greatness of the injustice of our persecution so will be the justice and the severity of the vengeance exacted for those persecutions. Nor does the wickedness of the impious ever rise up against the name we bear, without immediate vengeance from above attending it. …
The Apostolic Constitutions Book I. Concerning the Laity, Sec. I. General Commandments
II . But if any one curse thee, do thou bless him. For it is written in the book of Numbers: “He that blesseth thee is blessed, and he that curseth thee is cursed.” In the same manner it is written in the Gospel: “Bless them that curse you.” Being injured, do not avenge yourselves, but bear it with patience; for the Scripture speaks thus: “Say not thou, I will avenge myself on my enemy for what injuries he has offered me; but acquiesce under them, that the Lord may right thee, and bring vengeance upon him who injures thee.” For so says He again in the Gospel: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; and ye shall be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and raineth on the just and unjust.” Let us therefore, beloved, attend to these commandments, t …