Psalms 138:11
And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me: and night shall be my light in my pleasures.
Open Psalms 138:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et dixi : Forsitan tenebræ conculcabunt me ; et nox illuminatio mea in deliciis meis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἶπα Ἄρα σκότος καταπατήσει με, καὶ νὺξ φωτισμὸς ἐν τῇ τρυφῇ μου·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 139:11
- וָ֭אֹמַר אַךְ חֹ֣שֶׁךְ יְשׁוּפֵ֑נִי וְ֝לַ֗יְלָה א֣וֹר בַּעֲדֵֽנִי
Haydock's commentary
Cover. Literally, tread me under foot," conculcabunt. (Haydock)
Hebrew, "shall cover or be my aurora." (Calmet)
Pleasures of the most secret kind. All is naked before God. (Haydock)
The prophet speaks in the name of all who are curious, that darkness itself cannot hide any thing from him. (Worthington)
He seems also to represent one who seeks to avoid being seen in his pleasures. (Berthier)
Hebrew, "around me." But it also has the former meaning, and shews that if we seek to indulge ourselves in darkness, it will be all in vain. (Menochius)
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 CXXXIX
10. And considering the length of the way, what said he to himself? “And I said, Peradventure the darkness shall overwhelm me” ( ver. 11 ). Lo, now I have believed in Christ, now am I wafted aloft on the wings of twofold love.…Regarding the length of the way, I said to myself, “And the night was light in my delight.” The night was made to me light, because in the night I despaired of being able to cross so great a sea, to surmount so long a journey, to reach the utmost parts by persevering to the end. Thanks to Him who sought me when a runaway, who smote my back with strokes of the scourge, who by calling me recalled me from destruction, who made my night light. For it is night so long as we are passing through this life. How was the night made light? Because Christ came down into the night.…
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Pammachius
I have said in the same treatise that David and they that were with him could not have lawfully eaten the shew-bread had they not made answer that for three days they had not been defiled with women, not, of course, with harlots, intercourse with whom was forbidden by the law, but with their own wives, to whom they were lawfully united. Moreover, when the people were about to receive the law on Mount Sinai they were commanded to keep away from their wives for three days. I know that at Rome it is customary for the faithful always to receive the body of Christ, a custom which I neither censure nor indorse. …