Proverbs 21:9
It is better to sit in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman, and in a common house.
Open Proverbs 21:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Melius est sedere in angulo domatis, quam cum muliere litigiosa, et in domo communi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κρεῖσσον οἰκεῖν ἐπὶ γωνίας ὑπαίθρου ἢ ἐν κεκονιαμένοις μετὰ ἀδικίας καὶ ἐν οἴκῳ κοινῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- ט֗וֹב לָשֶׁ֥בֶת עַל פִּנַּת גָּ֑ג מֵאֵ֥שֶׁת מִ֝דְיָנִ֗ים וּבֵ֥ית חָֽבֶר
Haydock's commentary
Top, (domatis) as the roofs in Palestine were flat. (St. Jerome, ad Sun.)
Any inconvenience had better be endured, than to live with the quarrelsome. (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
The Apostolic Constitutions Book I. Concerning the Laity, Sec. III. Commandments to Women
VIII. Let the wife be obedient to her own proper husband, because “the husband is the head of the wife.” But Christ is the head of that husband who walks in the way of righteousness; and “the head of Christ is God,” even His Father. Therefore, O wife, next after the Almighty, our God and Father, the Lord of the present world and of the world to come, the Maker of everything that breathes, and of every power; and after His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ , through whom glory be to God, do thou fear thy husband, and reverence him, pleasing him alone, rendering thyself acceptable to him in the several affairs of life, that so on thy account thy husband may be called blessed, according to the Wisdom of Solomon , which thus speaks: “Who can find a virtuous woman? for such a one is more precious than costly stones. …
St Jerome Against Jovinianus, Book I
28. Above, in passing, when our opponent adduced Solomon, who, although he had many wives, nevertheless built the temple, I briefly replied that it was my intention to run over the remaining points. Now that he may not cry out that both Solomon and others under the law, prophets and holy men, have been dishonoured by us, let us show what this very man with his many wives and concubines thought of marriage. For no one can know better than he who suffered through them, what a wife or woman is. Well then, he says in the Proverbs:“The foolish and bold woman comes to want bread.” What bread? Surely that bread which cometh down from heaven: and he immediately adds “The earth-born perish in her house, rush into the depths of hell.” Who are the earth-born that perish in her house? They of course who follow the first Adam, who is of the earth, and not the second, who is from heaven. …