Psalms 108:23
I am taken away like the shadow when it declineth: and I am shaken off as locusts.
Open Psalms 108:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Sicut umbra cum declinat ablatus sum, et excussus sum sicut locustæ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὡσεὶ σκιὰ ἐν τῷ ἐκκλῖναι αὐτὴν ἀντανῃρέθη, ἐξετινάχθην, ὡσεὶ ἀκρίδες.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 109:23
- כְּצֵל כִּנְטוֹת֥וֹ נֶהֱלָ֑כְתִּי נִ֝נְעַ֗רְתִּי כָּֽאַרְבֶּֽה
Haydock's commentary
Locusts. David was forced to wander about. Christ continually sought after the lost sheep, (Calmet) and was hurried to different tribunals. (Menochius)
St. Jerome applies this to the Jews, and St. Augustine to Christians under persecution. (Calmet)
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 CIX
23. “My knees are weak through fasting” ( ver. 23 ). We read, that our Lord Christ underwent a fast of forty days: but had fasting so great power over Him, that His knees were weakened? Or is this more suitably understood of His members, that is, of His saints? “And my flesh is changed because of the oil;” because of spiritual grace. Whence Christ was so called from the Greek word, chrisma, which signifies unction. But the flesh was changed through the oil, not for the worse, but for the better, that is, rising from the dishonour of death to the glory of immortality.…His flesh was not yet changed. But whether the Holy Spirit be represented by water through the notion of ablution or irrigation, or by oil through that of exultation and the inflaming of charity; It doth not differ from Itself, because Its types are different. …