Psalms 128:3
The wicked have wrought upon my back: they have lengthened their iniquity.
Open Psalms 128:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Supra dorsum meum fabricaverunt peccatores ; prolongaverunt iniquitatem suam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐπὶ τοῦ νώτου μου ἐτέκταινον οἱ ἁμαρτωλοί, ἐμάκρυναν τὴν ἀνομίαν αὐτῶν·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 129:3
- עַל גַּ֭בִּי חָרְשׁ֣וּ חֹרְשִׁ֑ים הֶ֝אֱרִ֗יכוּ למענותם
Haydock's commentary
Back. Hebrew, "labourers have laboured on my neck," (St. Jerome) or "back." They have made me bear the yoke, or have ploughed up my back. This proverbial expression shews the cruelty of the Babylonians, (Calmet) and of the enemies of Christ, (Isaias l. 6.) and the martyrs. (Theodoret)
Hebrew charash, means also to work like a blacksmith, Genesis iv. 22. (Berthier)
The Church bears patiently all crosses. Sinners build on her, or even on God's back, when they go on in their wicked ways, presuming that they will be saved at last by the sacraments, &c. (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 CXXIX
4. “Upon my back have sinners built; they have done their iniquity afar off” ( ver. 3 ). Why have they fought against me? Because “they could not prevail upon me.” What is this? They could not build upon me. I consented not with them unto sin. For every wicked man persecuteth the good on this account, because the good man consenteth not with him to evil. Suppose he do some evil, and the Bishop censure him not, the Bishop is a good man: suppose the Bishop censure him, the Bishop is a bad man. Suppose he carry off anything, let the man robbed be silent, he is a good man: let him only speak and rebuke, even though he doth not reclaim his goods, he is everything bad. He is bad then who blameth the robber, and he is good who robbeth!…Heed not that such an one speaketh to thee: it is a wicked man through whom It speaketh to thee; but the word of God, that speaketh to thee, is not wicked. …
St John Chrysostom Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons, Homily I. Against Those Who Say that Demons Govern Human Affairs
Dost thou see how those perished on account of their sin, and the rest did not escape on account of their righteousness, but in order that they might become better by the punishment of the others? Were not then the chastened unjustly dealt with says one? For they could without being chastened themselves become better by the punishment of others. But if He had known that they would become better from penitence God would not have chastened them. For if when he foresaw that many would profit nothing from his longsuffering, he nevertheless bears with them, with much tolerance, fulfilling his own part, and affording them an opportunity of coming out of their own senselessness to their sober senses one day; how could he deprive those who were about to become better from the punishment of others, of the benefit of repentance? So that they are in no way unjustly treated, both their evil being cu …
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
84. Sinners are planning upon our backs; and what we devise against each other, they turn against us all: and we have become a new spectacle, not to angels and men, as says Paul, that bravest of athletes, in his contest with principalities and powers, but to almost all wicked men, and at every time and place, in the public squares, at carousals, at festivities, and times of sorrow. Nay, we have already, I can scarcely speak of it without tears, been represented on the stage, amid the laughter of the most licentious, and the most popular of all dialogues and scenes is the caricature of a Christian.