Psalms 105:20
And they changed their glory into the likeness of a calf that eateth grass.
Open Psalms 105:20 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et mutaverunt gloriam suam in similitudinem vituli comedentis fœnum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἠλλάξαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν ἐν ὁμοιώματι μόσχου ἔσθοντος χόρτον.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 106:20
- וַיָּמִ֥ירוּ אֶת כְּבוֹדָ֑ם בְּתַבְנִ֥ית שׁ֝֗וֹר אֹכֵ֥ל עֵֽשֶׂב
Haydock's commentary
Grass. This enhances their folly. God is often styled the glory of his people. (Calmet)
Osee (x. 5.) contemptuously calls the golden calf, the glory of Samaria. (Haydock)
This idolatry was truly blameable, (Romans i. 23.) and not the veneration paid by Catholics to the images of Christ, &c. (Worthington)
Those who pretend that the Hebrews meant to adore the true God, and not the idol Apis, are here clearly refuted; they forgot God, &c., Acts vii. 40. (Berthier)
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 Book VII, Chapter IX
15. And therefore also did I read there, that they had changed the glory of Thy incorruptible nature into idols and divers forms, “into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things,” namely, into that Egyptian food for which Esau lost his birthright; for that Thy first-born people worshipped the head of a four-footed beast instead of Thee, turning back in heart towards Egypt, and prostrating Thy image, their own soul, before the image “of an ox that eateth grass.” These things found I there; but I fed not on them. For it pleased Thee, O Lord, to take away the reproach of diminution from Jacob, that the elder should serve the younger; and Thou hast called the Gentiles into Thine inheritance. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXII
5. “I have run in thirst.” For they were rendering evil things for good things: for them was I thirsting: mine honour they thought to drive back: I was thirsting to bring them over into my body. For in drinking what do we, but send into our members liquor that is without, and suck it into our body? Thus did Moses in that head of the calf. The head of the calf is a great sacrament. For the head of the calf was the body of ungodly men, in the similitude of a calf eating hay, seeking earthly things: because all flesh is hay.…And what now is more evident, than that into that City Jerusalem, of which the people Israel was a type, by Baptism men were to be made to pass over? Therefore in water it was scattered, in order that for drink it might be given. For this even unto the end this man thirsteth; he runneth and thirsteth. For many men He drinketh, but never will He be without thirst. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CVI
17. “And they made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the graven image” ( ver. 19 ). “Thus they changed their glory, in the similitude of a calf that eateth hay” ( ver. 20 ). He saith not “into” the likeness, but “in” the likeness. It is such a form of speech as where he said “and they believed in His words.” With great effect in truth he saith not, they changed the glory of God when they did this; as the Apostle also saith, “They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man:” but “their glory.” For God was their glory, if they would abide His counsel, and hasten not.…