Psalms 139:9
Give me not up, O Lord, from my desire to the wicked: they have plotted against me; do not thou forsake me, lest they should triumph.
Open Psalms 139:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Ne tradas me, Domine, a desiderio meo peccatori : cogitaverunt contra me ; ne derelinquas me, ne forte exaltentur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- μὴ παραδῷς με, Κύριε, ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας μου ἁμαρτωλῷ· διελογίσαντο κατ᾽ ἐμοῦ, μὴ ἐγκαταλίπῃς με, μή ποτε ὑψωθῶσιν. διάψαλμα.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 140:9
- אַל תִּתֵּ֣ן יְ֭הוָה מַאֲוַיֵּ֣י רָשָׁ֑ע זְמָמ֥וֹ אַל תָּ֝פֵ֗ק יָר֥וּמוּ סֶֽלָה
Haydock's commentary
Desire. If I yield to my passions, (St. Augustine) or after I have expressed my request, contrary to my desire, &c. Hebrew, "Grant not the desire of the sinner, complete not his thought. They will be elated." Some supply, "lest they be." The ancients seem not to have read in the same manner. (Berthier)
Abandon not my soul, which is all my care, (Psalm xxi. 21.) to the sinner. (Calmet)
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 A Work on the Proceedings of Pelagius, The Same Continued
As for the passage from the psalm, “He loved cursing, and it shall come upon him; and he willed not blessing, so it shall be far removed from him,” which he quoted in the same book of Chapters, as if to prove that “all men are ruled by their own will,” who can be ignorant that this is a fault not of nature as God created it, but of human will which departed from God? The fact indeed is, that even if he had not loved cursing, and had willed blessing, he would in this very case, too, deny that his will had received any assistance from God; in his ingratitude and impiety, moreover, he would submit himself to be ruled by himself, until he found out by his penalties that, sunk as he was into ruin, without God to govern him he was utterly unable to direct his own self. …
St Augustine A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Of His Own Will a Man Forsakes God, So that He is Deservedly Forsaken of Him
But, on the other hand, “of his own will a man forsakes God, so as to be deservedly forsaken by God.” Who would deny this? But it is for that reason we ask not to be led into temptation, so that this may not happen. And if we are heard, certainly it does not happen, because God does not allow it to happen. For nothing comes to pass except what either He Himself does, or Himself allows to be done. Therefore He is powerful both to turn wills from evil to good, and to convert those that are inclined to fall, or to direct them into a way pleasing to Himself. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXL
11. “Deliver me not over, O Lord, by my own longing to the sinner” ( ver. 8 ). Behold to what end Thy overshadowing shall avail for me, that I suffer not heat from myself. And what could that “sinner” do to me, rage as he would? For wicked men raged against the martyrs, dragged them away, bound them with chains, shut them up in prisons, slew them with the sword, exposed them to wild beasts, consumed them with fire: all this they did; yet did not God deliver them over to the sinners, because they were not delivered over by their own longing. This then pray with all thy might, that God “delivered thee not over by thine own longing to the sinner.” For thou by thine own longing givest place to the devil. …