Psalms 101:15
For the stones thereof have pleased thy servants: and they shall have pity on the earth thereof.
Open Psalms 101:15 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quoniam placuerunt servis tuis lapides ejus, et terræ ejus miserebuntur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι εὐδόκησαν οἱ δοῦλοί σου τοὺς λίθους αὐτῆς, καὶ τὸν χοῦν αὐτῆς οἰκτειρήσουσιν·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 102:15
- כִּֽי רָצ֣וּ עֲ֭בָדֶיךָ אֶת אֲבָנֶ֑יהָ וְֽאֶת עֲפָרָ֥הּ יְחֹנֵֽנוּ
Haydock's commentary
Thereof. They had a great regard for the very soil, 4 Kings v. 17. (Calmet)
Hebrew, "dust," as it was then uncultivated. (Berthier)
Esdras, &c., repaired the ruins of Sion, as Christ and his apostles established the Church. (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
St Augustine Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter I. 34-51
6. My brethren, if we acknowledge our price, that it is the blood of the Lamb, who are they who this day celebrate the festival of the blood of I know not what woman, and how ungrateful are they! The gold was snatched, they say, from the ear of a woman, and the blood ran, and the gold was placed on a pair of scales or on a balance, and the advantage was much on the side of the blood. If the blood of a woman was sufficiently weighty to outweigh the gold, what power to outweigh the world has the blood of the Lamb by whom the world was made? And, indeed, that spirit, I know not who, was pacified by the blood that he should depress the weight. Impure spirits knew that Jesus Christ would come, they had heard of His coming from the angels, they had heard of it from the prophets, and they expected it. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CII
15. Here therefore what saith he? “For thy servants take pleasure in her stones” ( ver. 14 ). In whose stones? In the stones of Sion? But there are those there that are not stones. Not stones of what? What then followeth? “and pity the dust thereof.” I understand by the stones of Sion all the Prophets: there was the voice of preaching sent before, thence the ministry of the Gospel assumed, through their preaching Christ became known. Therefore thy servants have taken pleasure in the stones of Sion. But those faithless apostates from God, who offended their Creator by their evil deeds, have returned to the earth, whence they were taken. They have become dust, they have become ungodly. But wait, Lord; bear with us, Lord; be long-suffering, O Lord: let not the wind rush in, and sweep away this dust from the face of the earth. …