Psalms 138:23
Prove me, O God, and know my heart: examine me, and know my paths.
Open Psalms 138:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Proba me, Deus, et scito cor meum ; interroga me, et cognosce semitas meas.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- δοκίμασόν με, ὁ θεός, καὶ γνῶθι τὴν καρδίαν μου· ἔτασόν με καὶ γνῶθι τὰς τρίβους μου·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 139:23
- חָקְרֵ֣נִי אֵ֭ל וְדַ֣ע לְבָבִ֑י בְּ֝חָנֵ֗נִי וְדַ֣ע שַׂרְעַפָּֽי
Haydock's commentary
Paths. No one knowing, without a special revelation, whether he be worthy of love or hatred, (Ecclesiastes ix.) the just submit to God's examination.
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
Tertullian A Treatise on the Soul, The Soul's Vitality and Intelligence. Its Character and Seat in Man
In the first place, (we must determine) whether there be in the soul some supreme principle of vitality and intelligence which they call “the ruling power of the soul”, τὸ ἡγεμονικόν for if this be not admitted, the whole condition of the soul is put in jeopardy. Indeed, those men who say that there is no such directing faculty, have begun by supposing that the soul itself is simply a nonentity. One Dicæarchus, a Messenian, and amongst the medical profession Andreas and Asclepiades, have thus destroyed the (soul’s) directing power, by actually placing in the mind the senses, for which they claim the ruling faculty. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXXXIX
19. Since then the Body of Christ is in the end to be severed in body also from the unholy and wicked, but now meanwhile groaneth among them, what doeth the “love of Christ among the daughters, as the lily among thorns”? What are her words? what her conscience? what is the “appearance of the king’s daughter within”? Lo, hear what she saith. “Prove me, O God, and know my heart” ( ver. 23 ). Do Thou, O God, Thou prove me, Thou know; not man, not an heretic, who neither knoweth how to prove, nor can know my heart, whereas Thou provest, and knowest that I consent not to the deeds of the wicked, while they think that I can be defiled by the sins of others; so that, while I in my long wandering do what I mourn in another Psalm, that is, while I “labour for peace among them that hate peace,” until I come to that Vision of peace, which is called Jerusalem, “which is the mother of us all,” the ci …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV, Chapter XIV. The answer on their remedies
John : For those who are anxious for the cure of their ailments a saving remedy is sure not to be wanting, and therefore remedies should be sought by the same means that the signs of each fault are discovered. For as we have said that the faults of men’s ordinary life are not wanting to solitaries, so we do not deny that all zeal for virtue, and all the means of healing are at the disposal of all those who are cut off from men’s ordinary life. When then anyone discovers by those signs which we described above, that he is attacked by outbreaks of impatience or anger, he should always practise himself in the opposite and contrary things, and by setting before himself all sorts of injuries and wrongs, as if offered to him by somebody else, accustom his mind to submit with perfect humility to everything that wickedness can bring upon him; and by often representing to himself all kinds of rou …