Psalms 119:2
O Lord, deliver my soul from wicked lips, and a deceitful tongue.
Open Psalms 119:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Domine, libera animam meam a labiis iniquis et a lingua dolosa.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Κύριε, ῥῦσαι τὴν ψυχήν μου ἀπὸ χειλέων ἀδίκων καὶ ἀπὸ γλώσσης δολίας.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 120:2
- יְֽהוָ֗ה הַצִּ֣ילָה נַ֭פְשִׁי מִשְּׂפַת שֶׁ֑קֶר מִלָּשׁ֥וֹן רְמִיָּֽה
Haydock's commentary
Tongue. From the Babylonians, who seek to delude me, (Calmet) and from detraction, which is most dangerous. (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 CXX
3. “Deliver my soul, O Lord, from unrighteous lips, and from a deceitful tongue” ( ver. 2 ). What is a deceitful tongue? A treacherous tongue, one that hath the semblance of counsel, and the bane of real mischief. Such are those who say, And wilt thou do this, that nobody doth? Wilt thou be the only Christian?…Some deter by dissuasion, others discourage yet more by their praise. For since such is the life that hath for some time been diffused over the world, so great is the authority of Christ, that not even a pagan ventureth to blame Christ. He who cannot be censured is read. They cannot contradict Christ, they cannot contradict the Gospel, Christ cannot be censured; the deceitful tongue turneth itself to praise as an hindrance. If thou praisest, exhort. …
St Leo the Great Sermons, On the Fast of the Tenth Month
But at all these acts of godliness, dearly-beloved, which commend us more and more to God , there is no doubt that our enemy, who is so eager and so skilled in harming us, is aroused with keener stings of hatred, that under a false profession of the Christian name he may corrupt those whom he is not allowed to attack with open and bloody persecutions, and for this work he has heretics in his service whom he has led astray from the catholic Faith, subjected to himself, and forced under divers errors to serve in his camp. And as for the deception of primitive man he used the services of a serpent, so to mislead the minds of the upright he has armed these men’s tongues with the poison of his falsehoods. But these treacherous designs, dearly beloved, with a shepherd’s care, and so far as the Lord vouchsafes His aid, we will defeat. …