Psalms 140:6
Their judges falling upon the rock have been swallowed up. They shall hear my words, for they have prevailed:
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- absorpti sunt juncti petræ judices eorum. Audient verba mea, quoniam potuerunt.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κατεπόθησαν ἐχόμενα πέτρας οἱ κραταιοὶ αὐτῶν· ἀκούσονται τὰ ῥήματά μου, ὅτι ἠδυνήθησαν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 141:6
- נִשְׁמְט֣וּ בִֽידֵי סֶ֭לַע שֹׁפְטֵיהֶ֑ם וְשָׁמְע֥וּ אֲ֝מָרַ֗י כִּ֣י נָעֵֽמוּ
Haydock's commentary
Their judges, &c. Their rulers, or chiefs, quickly vanish and perish, like ships dashed against the rocks, and swallowed up by the waves. Let them then hear my words, for they are powerful and will prevail; or, as it is in the Hebrew, for they are sweet. (Challoner)
The Israelites were long governed by judges, and the supreme magistrates at Carthage had the same title. (Calmet)
Septuagint, "their strong ones" have or shall become victims of the divine justice. (Haydock)
They shall know that the prayers of the Church are effectual, and obtain the grace of constancy for her children, whom she instructs in the doctrines of peace, which cannot injure the commonwealth. (Worthington)
Prevailed. Or, "been able" to hear. Israel submitted to David, after Saul's death. (Berthier)
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 CIII
9. “The Lord executeth mercy and judgment for all them that are oppressed with wrong” ( ver. 6 ).…An adulterous woman is brought forward to be stoned according to the Law, but she is brought before the Lawgiver Himself.…Our Lord, at the time she was brought before Him, bending His Head, began writing on the earth. When He bent Himself down upon the earth, He then wrote on the earth: before He bent upon the earth, He wrote not on the earth, but on stone. The earth was now something fertile, ready to bring forth from the Lord’s letters. On the stone He had written the Law, intimating the hardness of the Jews: He wrote on the earth, signifying the productiveness of Christians. Then they who were leading the adulteress came, like raging waves against a rock: but they were dashed to pieces by His answer. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXLI
8. Thou sayest to me, What am I doing? I am beset with flatterers; they cease not to besiege me; they praise in me what I would not, that praise in me what I hold in little esteem; what I hold dear they blame in me; flatterers, treacherous, deceivers. For instance, “Gaiuseius is a great man, great, learned, wise; but why is he a Christian? For great is his learning, great his reading, great his wisdom.” If great is his wisdom, approve of his being a Christian; if great his learning, learnedly hath he chosen. In fine, what thou revilest, that pleaseth him whom thou praisest. But what? That praise sweeteneth not: it is “the oil of a sinner.” Yet ceaseth he not to speak so. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
Numb. xx. 10, 12 . Moses is punished for his sin at Meribah. This is the meaning of Ps. cxli. 6 . Vulgate. Their judges were swallowed up, joined to the Rock, etc.
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).