Psalms 114:3
The sorrows of death have encompassed me: and the perils of hell have found me. I met with trouble and sorrow:
Open Psalms 114:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Circumdederunt me dolores mortis ; et pericula inferni invenerunt me. Tribulationem et dolorem inveni,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- περιέσχον με ὠδῖνες θανάτου, κίνδυνοι ᾅδου εὕροσάν με· θλίψιν καὶ ὀδύνην εὗρον.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 116:3
- אֲפָפ֤וּנִי חֶבְלֵי מָ֗וֶת וּמְצָרֵ֣י שְׁא֣וֹל מְצָא֑וּנִי צָרָ֖ה וְיָג֣וֹן אֶמְצָֽא
Haydock's commentary
Sorrows. Hebrew, "bands."
Perils. Hebrew, "the straitness of the grave, (Calmet) the fortifications of hell." (St. Jerome) (Haydock)
I am like one buried after the manner of the Egyptians, who bound up the dead, and laid them in small holes cut out of a rock. David uses similar expressions to denote the dangers to which he had been exposed, 1 Kings xxi. 12., and Psalm xvii. 6. (Calmet)
They may be applicable to all the just. (Berthier)
When I offended, death and hell, which are due to sin, threatened me unawares; affliction opened my eyes, and I thereupon prayed to thee. (Worthington)
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 LI
4. He admonisheth, moreover, by such an example, that no one ought to lift himself up in prosperous circumstances. For many fear adverse circumstances, fear not prosperous circumstances. Prosperity is more perilous to soul than adversity to body. First, prosperity doth corrupt, in order that adversity may find something to break. My brethren, stricter watch must be kept against felicity. Wherefore, see ye after what manner the saying of God amid our own felicity doth take from us security: “Serve ye,” He saith, “the Lord in fear, and exult unto Him with trembling.” In exultation, in order that we may render thanks; in trembling, lest we fall. This sin did not David, when he was suffering Saul for persecutor. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXXIV
5. If therefore thou feelest the passions of this world, even when thou art happy, thou understandest now that thou art in the winepress.…If therefore the world smile upon thee with happiness, imagine thyself in the winepress, and say, “I found trouble and heaviness, and I did call upon the name of the Lord.” He said not, I found trouble, without meaning, of such a kind as was hidden: for some troubles are hidden from some in this world, who think they are happy while they are absent from God. “For as long as we are in the body,” he saith, “we are absent from the Lord.” If thou wert absent from thy father, thou wouldest be unhappy: art thou absent from the Lord, and happy? There are then some who think it is well with them. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXVI
3. And what are thy days, since thou hast said, “In my days I have called upon Him”? Are they those perchance, in which “the fulness of time came,” and “God sent His Son,” who had already said, “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee”?…I may rather call my days the days of my misery, the days of my mortality, the days according to Adam, full of toil and sweat, the days according to the ancient corruption. “For I lying, stuck fast in the deep mire,” in another Psalm also have cried out, “Behold, Thou hast made my days old;” in these days of mine have I called upon Thee. For my days are different from the days of my Lord. …