Psalms 21:12
Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me.
Open Psalms 21:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- ne discesseris a me, quoniam tribulatio proxima est, quoniam non est qui adjuvet.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ βοηθῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 22:12
- אַל תִּרְחַ֣ק מִ֭מֶּנִּי כִּי צָרָ֣ה קְרוֹבָ֑ה כִּי אֵ֥ין עוֹזֵֽר
Haydock's commentary
Help. This Christ might say a little before he expired, foreseeing the distress of his Church, (Calmet) or he might use these words in his agony; (St. Jerome) as this agrees with the sequel. (Calmet)
Almost all have abandoned me; and those who would, are not able to protect me. (Worthington)
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 XXII
12. “Thou art My God,” “depart not from Me; for trouble is hard at hand” ( ver. 11 ). Thou art, therefore, My God, depart not from Me; for trouble is nigh unto Me; for it is in My body. “For there is none to help.” For who helpeth, if Thou helpest not?
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Koph
148. “They draw nigh, that of malice persecute me:” or, as some copies read, “maliciously” ( ver. 150 ). Then they that persecute draw nigh, when they go the length of torturing and destroying the flesh: whence the twenty-first Psalm, wherein the Lord’s Passion is prophesied, saith, “O go not from me, for trouble is hard at hand;” where those things are spoken of which He suffered when His Passion was not imminent upon Him, but actually realized. “And are far from Thy law.” The nearer they drew to the persecuting the righteous, so much the farther were they from righteousness. But what harm did they do unto those, to whom they drew near by persecution; since the approach of their Lord is nearer unto their souls, by whom they no wise are forsaken?
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
77. Such and so great is the object of our longing zeal, and such a man should he be, who prepares and conducts souls to their espousals. For myself, I feared to be cast, bound hand and foot, from the bride-chamber, for not having on a wedding-garment, and for having rashly intruded among those who there sit at meat. And yet I had been invited from my youth, if I may speak of what most men know not, and had been cast upon Him from the womb, and presented by the promise of my mother, afterwards confirmed in the hour of danger: and my longing grew up with it, and my reason agreed to it, and I gave as an offering my all to Him Who had won me and saved me, my property, my fame, my health, my very words, from which I only gained the advantage of being able to despise them, and of having something in comparison of which I preferred Christ. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIV. That the Son of God is not a created being is proved by the following arguments: (1) That He commanded not that the Gospel should be preached to Himself; (2) that a created being is given over unto vanity; (3) that the Son has created all things; (4) that we read of Him as begotten; and (5) that the difference of generation and adoption has always been understood in those places where both natures--the divine and the human--are declared to co-exist in Him. All of which testimony is confirmed by the Apostle's interpretation
92. Everywhere, indeed, we have witness in the Scriptures to show that Christ, in naming God as His God, does so as man. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” And again: “From My mother’s womb Thou art My God.” In the former place He suffers as a man; in the latter it is a man who is brought forth from his mother’s womb. And so when He says, “From My mother’s womb Thou art My God,” He means that He Who was always His Father is His God from the moment when He was brought forth from His Mother’s womb.
St John Cassian The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius, Chapter V. That before His birth in time Christ was always called God by the prophets
He it is then of whom the Prophet says: “For in Thee is God, and there is no God beside Thee. For Thou art our God and we knew Thee not, O God of Israel the Saviour.” Who “afterwards appeared on earth and conversed with men.” Of whom and in whose Person the Prophet David also speaks: “From my mother’s womb Thou art my God:” showing clearly that He who was Lord and man was never separate from God: in whom even in the Virgin’s womb the fulness of the Godhead dwelt. …