Psalms 118:17
Give bountifully to thy servant, enliven me: and I shall keep thy words.
Open Psalms 118:17 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ghimel Retribue servo tuo, vivifica me, et custodiam sermones tuos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἀνταπόδος τῷ δούλῳ σου· ζήσομαι, καὶ φυλάξω τοὺς λόγους σου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 119:17
- גְּמֹ֖ל עַֽל עַבְדְּךָ֥ אֶֽחְיֶ֗ה וְאֶשְׁמְרָ֥ה דְבָרֶֽךָ
Haydock's commentary
Give. Hebrew, "avenge," Psalm xii. 6., and cxxxvii. 9. Draw me from this state of oppression, (Calmet) or rather, give me abundant grace, (Berthier) and eternal life. (St. Hilary)
I cannot fulfil the law, without thy grace. (Worthington)
Enliven me. So the Septuagint of Aldus reads, though the Roman and Hebrew have, "I shall live," Deuteronomy xxx. 19. (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, Gimel
15. He had said, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Even by keeping Thy words.” Behold he now more openly asketh aid that he may do this: “Reward,” he saith, “Thy servant: let me live, and keep Thy word” ( ver. 17 )…It this reward that he asketh, who saith, “Reward Thy servant.” For there are four modes of reward: either evil for evil, as God will reward everlasting fire to the unrighteous; or good for good, as He will reward an everlasting kingdom to the righteous; or good for evil, as Christ by grace justifieth the ungodly; or evil for good, as Judas and the Jews through their wickedness persecuted Christ. Of these four modes of reward, the first two belong to justice, whereby evil is rewarded for evil, good for good; the third to mercy, whereby good is rewarded for evil; the fourth God knoweth not, for to none doth He reward evil for good. …
St Ambrose On the Holy Spirit, Chapter IV. The Holy Spirit gives life, not in a different way from the Father and the Son, nor by a different working
29. And what wonder is it the Spirit works Life, Who quickens as does the Father and as does the Son? And who can deny that quickening is the work of the Eternal Majesty? For it is written: “Quicken Thy servant.” He, then, is quickened who is a servant, that is, man, who before had not life, but received the privilege of having it.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).