Psalms 17:34
Who hath made my feet like the feet of harts: and who setteth me upon high places.
Open Psalms 17:34 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- qui perfecit pedes meos tamquam cervorum, et super excelsa statuens me ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὁ καταρτιζόμενος τοὺς πόδας μου ὡς ἐλάφου, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ ὑψηλὰ ἱστῶν με·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 18:34
- מְשַׁוֶּ֣ה רַ֭גְלַי כָּאַיָּל֑וֹת וְעַ֥ל בָּ֝מֹתַ֗י יַעֲמִידֵֽנִי
Haydock's commentary
Harts. Protestants, "hinds." (Haydock)
The Hebrews generally prefer to specify the female. Harts are remarkably swift, and this quality was greatly esteemed in a warrior. Asael is praised for it; (2 Kings ii. 18.) and Homer styles his hero "the swift-footed Achilles." (Calmet)
As harts trample serpents under their feet, says Theodoret, so I treat my enemies.
High. Hebrew, "my high places," where I have so often baffled the efforts of my persecutors. (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 XVIII
34. “Who hath made my feet perfect like harts’ feet” ( ver. 33 ). Who hath made my love perfect to surmount the thorny and dark entanglements of this world. “And will set me up on high.” And will fix my aim on the heavenly habitation, that “I may be filled with all the fulness of God.”
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CIV
25. What then followeth? “The loftiest hills are for the stags” ( ver. 18 ). The stags are mighty, spiritual, passing in their course over all the thorny places of the thickets and woods. “He maketh my feet like harts’ feet, and setteth me up on high.” Let them hold to the lofty hills, the lofty commandments of God; let them think on sublime subjects, let them hold those which stand forth most in the Scriptures, let them be justified in the highest: for those loftiest hills are for the stags. What of the humble beasts? what of the hare? what of the hedgehog? The hare is a small and weak animal: the hedgehog is also prickly: the one is a timid animal, the other is covered with prickles. What do the prickles signify, except sinners? He who sinneth daily, although not great sins, is covered over with the smallest prickles. …
St Gregory Nazianzen In Defence of His Flight to Pontus, and His Return, After His Ordination to the Priesthood, with an Exposition of the Character of the Priestly Office
95. Since then I knew these things, and that no one is worthy of the mightiness of God, and the sacrifice, and priesthood, who has not first presented himself to God, a living, holy sacrifice, and set forth the reasonable, well-pleasing service, and sacrificed to God the sacrifice of praise and the contrite spirit, which is the only sacrifice required of us by the Giver of all; how could I dare to offer to Him the external sacrifice, the antitype of the great mysteries, or clothe myself with the garb and name of priest, before my hands had been consecrated by holy works; before my eyes had been accustomed to gaze safely upon created things, with wonder only for the Creator, and without injury to the creature; before my ear had been sufficiently opened to the instruction of the Lord, and He had opened mine ear to hear without heaviness, and had set a golden earring with precious sardius, …
St Basil The Letters, To the Cæsareans. A defence of his withdrawal, and concerning the faith
The inner man consists of nothing but contemplation. The kingdom of the heavens, then, must be contemplation. Now we behold their shadows as in a glass; hereafter, set free from this earthly body, clad in the incorruptible and the immortal, we shall behold their archetypes, we shall see them, that is, if we have steered our own life’s course aright, and if we have heeded the right faith, for otherwise none shall see the Lord. For, it is said, into a malicious soul Wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin. And let no one urge in objection that, while I am ignoring what is before our eyes, I am philosophizing to them about bodiless and immaterial being. It seems to me perfectly absurd, while the senses are allowed free action in relation to their proper matter, to exclude mind alone from its peculiar operation. …