Psalms 142:3
For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath brought down my life to the earth. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been dead of old:
Open Psalms 142:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quia persecutus est inimicus animam meam ; humiliavit in terra vitam meam ; collocavit me in obscuris, sicut mortuos sæculi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐταπείνωσεν εἰς τὴν γῆν τὴν ζωήν μου· ἐκάθισέν με ἐν σκοτεινοῖς ὡς νεκροὺς αἰῶνος·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 143:3
- כִּ֥י רָ֘דַ֤ף אוֹיֵ֨ב נַפְשִׁ֗י דִּכָּ֣א לָ֭אָרֶץ חַיָּתִ֑י הוֹשִׁיבַ֥נִי בְ֝מַחֲשַׁכִּ֗ים כְּמֵתֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם
Haydock's commentary
Of old. Literally, "of an age," (Haydock) who are quite forgotten, Lamentations iii. 6. (Calmet)
The devil had violently tempted me, by means of temporal and spiritual calamities. (Worthington)
The greatest darkness is that of the heart, Ephesians iv. 17. (Haydock)
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 CXLIII
4. “For the enemy hath persecuted my soul: he hath humbled my life on the earth” ( ver. 3 ). Here we speak, here our Head speaketh for us. Manifestly both the devil persecuted the Soul of Christ and Judas the Soul of his Master: and now too the same devil remaineth to persecute the Body of Christ, and one Judas succeedeth another. There lacketh not then of whom the Body too may say, “For the enemy hath persecuted my soul.” For what doth each one who persecuteth us endeavour save to make us abandon our heavenly hope, and savour of the earth, yield to our persecutor, and love earthly things? “They have laid me in dark places, as the dead of the world.” This ye hear more readily from the Head; this ye perceive more readily in the Head. …