Psalms 136:3
For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs. And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion.
Open Psalms 136:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui captivos duxerunt nos, verba cantionum ; et qui abduxerunt nos : Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis Sion.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ἐκεῖ ἠρώτησαν ἡμᾶς οἱ αἰχμαλωτεύσαντες ἡμᾶς λόγους ᾠδῶν, καὶ οἱ ἀπαγαγόντες ἡμᾶς Ὑμνήσατε ἡμῖν ἐκ τῶν ᾠδῶν Σιών.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 137:3
- כִּ֤י שָׁ֨ם שְֽׁאֵל֪וּנוּ שׁוֹבֵ֡ינוּ דִּבְרֵי שִׁ֭יר וְתוֹלָלֵ֣ינוּ שִׂמְחָ֑ה שִׁ֥ירוּ לָ֝֗נוּ מִשִּׁ֥יר צִיּֽוֹן
Haydock's commentary
Sion. The Levites were trained to singing from their infancy, at the expense of the nation. Under David, there were 288 masters, and 8,000 Levites who played on music, 1 Paralipomenon xv. The Babylonians wished to hear them, (Calmet) or (Worthington) spoke insultingly, (Theodoret) as the pagans asked what good Christ had done? (St. Augustine)
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 CXXXVII
6. “For there they that led us captive demanded of us words of songs, and they that led us away, an hymn” ( ver. 3 ). They demanded of us words of songs and an hymn, who led us captive.…We are tempted by the delights of earthly things, and we struggle daily with the suggestions of unlawful pleasures; scarce do we breathe freely even in prayer: we understand that we are captives. But who led us captive? what men? what race? what king? If we are redeemed, we once were captives. Who hath redeemed us? Christ. From whom hath He redeemed us? From the devil. The devil then and his angels led us captive: and they would not lead us, unless we consented.…
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Chromatius, Jovinus, and Eusebius
3. You tell me that Bonosus, like a true son of the Fish, has taken to the water. As for me who am still foul with my old stains, like the basilisk and the scorpion I haunt the dry places. Bonosus has his heel already on the serpent’s head, whilst I am still as food to the same serpent which by divine appointment devours the earth. He can scale already that ladder of which the psalms of degrees are a type; whilst I, still weeping on its first step, hardly know whether I shall ever be able to say: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Amid the threatening billows of the world he is sitting in the safe shelter of his island, that is, of the church’s pale, and it may be that even now, like John, he is being called to eat God’s book; whilst I, still lying in the sepulchre of my sins and bound with the chains of my iniquities, wait for the Lord’s command in th …