Psalms 118:8
I will keep thy justifications: O! do not thou utterly forsake me.
Open Psalms 118:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Justificationes tuas custodiam ; non me derelinquas usquequaque.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τὰ δικαιώματά σου φυλάξω, μή με ἐνκαταλίπῃς ἕως σφόδρα.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 119:8
- אֶת חֻקֶּ֥יךָ אֶשְׁמֹ֑ר אַֽל תַּעַזְבֵ֥נִי עַד מְאֹֽד
Haydock's commentary
Utterly. Hebrew nimis, as ver. 4. (Haydock)
It may be advantageous to us to be left awhile, that we may know our own weakness. (St. Gregory, Mor. xx. 21.) (Worthington)
He does not beg never to be tempted, or in tribulation; (Haydock) but only that he may not yield to sin. (St. Hilary)
He may always at least have recourse to prayer, 1 Thessalonians v. 17.
The neglect of this duty occasions so many falls. (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, Aleph
8. Next he addeth: “I will keep Thy ordinances” ( ver. 8 ).…But what is it that followeth? “O forsake me not even exceedingly!” or, as some copies have it, “even too much,” instead of, “even exceedingly.” But since God had left the world to the desert of sins, He would have forsaken it “even exceedingly,” if so powerful a cure had not supported it, that is, the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ; but now, according to this prayer of the body of Christ, He forsook it not “even exceedingly;” for, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.”…
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter VI. How it is sometimes to our advantage to be left by God
But the blessed David recognizes that sometimes this departure of which we have spoken, and (as it were) desertion by God may be to some extent to our advantage, so that he was unwilling to pray, not that he might not be absolutely forsaken by God in anything (for he was aware that this would have been disadvantageous both to himself and to human nature in its course towards perfection) but he rather entreated that it might be in measure and degree, saying “Forsake me not utterly” as if to say in other words: I know that thou dost forsake thy saints to their advantage, in order to prove them, for in no other way could they be tempted by the devil, unless they were for a little forsaken by Thee. …