Psalms 149:8
To bind their kings with fetters, and their nobles with manacles of iron.
Open Psalms 149:8 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- ad alligandos reges eorum in compedibus, et nobiles eorum in manicis ferreis ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τοῦ δῆσαι τοὺς βασιλεῖς αὐτῶν ἐν πέδαις καὶ τοὺς ἐνδόξους αὐτῶν ἐν χειροπέδαις σιδηραῖς,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- לֶאְסֹ֣ר מַלְכֵיהֶ֣ם בְּזִקִּ֑ים וְ֝נִכְבְּדֵיהֶ֗ם בְּכַבְלֵ֥י בַרְזֶֽל
Haydock's commentary
Iron. These poetical expressions denote victory. The Machabees made great conquests, and the Jews expect greater under the Messias. But this has been verified in the conversion of nations to Christ, Isaias xlix. 23., and lx. 14. (Calmet)
The victories of the Machabees were of short duration. (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 CXLIX
10. “That they may bind their kings in fetters, and their nobles in bonds of iron” ( ver. 8 ). “To execute upon them the judgment written” ( ver. 9 ). The kings of the Gentiles are to be bound in fetters, “and their nobles in fetters,” and that “of iron.”…For these verses which we are beginning to explain are obscure. For for this purpose God willed to set down some of His verses obscurely, not that anything new should be dug out of them, but that what was already well known, might be made new by being obscurely set forth. We know that kings have been made Christians; we know that the nobles of the Gentiles have been made Christians. They are being made so at this day; they have been, they shall be; the “swords twice sharpened” are not idle in the hands of the saints. …