Psalms 106:40
Contempt was poured forth upon their princes: and he caused them to wander where there was no passing, and out of the way.
Open Psalms 106:40 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Effusa est contemptio super principes : et errare fecit eos in invio, et non in via.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐξεχύθη ἐξουδένωσις ἐπ᾽ ἄρχοντας, καὶ ἐπλάνησεν αὐτοὺς ἐν ἀβάτῳ καὶ οὐχ ὁδῷ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 107:40
- שֹׁפֵ֣ךְ בּ֭וּז עַל נְדִיבִ֑ים וַ֝יַּתְעֵ֗ם בְּתֹ֣הוּ לֹא דָֽרֶךְ
Haydock's commentary
Princes. Jechonias was humbled, (Haydock) and exalted, with Daniel, &c., 4 Kings xxv. 27. Others explain it of Nabuchodonosor and Baltasar, who were reduced to the state of ignominy and death. (Calmet)
The Jews experienced the greatest miseries at the last siege of Jerusalem. (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 Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CVII
9. “And they became few, and were vexed” ( ver. 39 ). Whence this? From athwart? Nay, from within. For that they should “become few,” “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” But therefore he speaketh as of these, of whom he spake before, that they may be discerned with understanding; because he speaketh as if of the same, because of the sacraments they have in common. For they belong to the people of God, though not by the virtue, yet surely by the appearance of piety: for concerning them we have heard the Apostle, “In the last times there shall come grievous times, for there shall be men lovers of themselves.” The first evil is, “lovers of themselves;” that is, as being pleased with themselves. Would that they were not pleasing to themselves, and were pleasing to God: would that they would cry out in their difficulties, and be freed from their distresses. …
Eusebius The Church History of Eusebius, The Destruction of the Churches
1. All these things were fulfilled in us, when we saw with our own eyes the houses of prayer thrown down to the very foundations, and the Divine and Sacred Scriptures committed to the flames in the midst of the market-places, and the shepherds of the churches basely hidden here and there, and some of them captured ignominiously, and mocked by their enemies. When also, according to another prophetic word, “Contempt was poured out upon rulers, and he caused them to wander in an untrodden and pathless way.”
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
78. One branch of philosophy is, however, too high for me, the commission to guide and govern souls, and before I have rightly learned to submit to a shepherd, or have had my soul duly cleansed, the charge of caring for a flock: especially in times like these, when a man, seeing everyone else rushing hither and thither in confusion, is content to flee from the melee and escape, in sheltered retirement, from the storm and gloom of the wicked one: when the members are at war with one another, and the slight remains of love, which once existed, have departed, and priest is a mere empty name, since, as it is said, contempt has been poured upon princes.