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Psalms 28:6

And shall reduce them to pieces, as a calf of Libanus, and as the beloved son of unicorns.

Challoner: Shall reduce them to piecesIn Hebrew, shall make them to skip like a calf. The psalmist here describes the effects of thunder (which he calls the voice of the Lord) which sometimes breaks down the tallest and strongest trees; and makes their broken branches skip, etc. All this is to be understood mystically of the powerful voice of God's word in his church; which has broken the pride of the great ones of this world, and brought many of them meekly and joyfully to submit their necks to the sweet yoke of Christ.

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The verse in its languages

Vulgate (Clementine): et comminuet eas, tamquam vitulum Libani, et dilectus quemadmodum filius unicornium.
Septuagint (Swete): καὶ λεπτυνεῖ αὐτὰς ὡς τὸν μόσχον τὸν Λίβανον· καὶ ὁ ἠγαπημένος ὡς υἱὸς μονοκερώτων.
Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 29:6: וַיַּרְקִידֵ֥ם כְּמוֹ עֵ֑גֶל לְבָנ֥וֹן וְ֝שִׂרְיֹ֗ן כְּמ֣וֹ בֶן רְאֵמִֽים

Haydock's commentary

Shall reduce them to pieces, &c. In Hebrew, shall make them to skip like a calf. The psalmist here describes the effects of thunder, (which he calls the voice of the Lord) which sometimes breaks down the tallest and strongest trees; and makes their broken branches skip, &c. All this is to be understood mystically, of the powerful voice of God's word in his Church; which has broke the pride of the great ones of this world, and brought many of them meekly and joyfully to submit their necks to the sweet yoke of Christ. (Challoner)

Calf, or "branch," as the Greek word also implies. But Hebrew seems more naturally to signify "a calf; Libanus and Sirion, (or Sarion.; Deuteronomy iii. 9.) as the son of the unicorn." These two mountains are represented jolting together. (Calmet)

The violence of an earthquake has sometimes produced such effects. (Pliny, [Natural History?] ii. 83.) See Psalm cxiii. 4., Judges v. 5., and Habacuc iii. 10. (Calmet)

And as. The construction & dilectus, seems rather to make this another nominative, "the Lord shall, &c., and the beloved, (Haydock) the Messias, like the son of the unicorn," shall perform the like wonders. It seems probable that the Septuagint have read Jeshurun for Shirion, (Berthier) or vissron, instead of ussriun; as i would only be a little transposed. (Haydock)

Jeshurun is a title of Israel, (Deuteronomy xxxii. 15., and xxxiii. 5, 26.) who was a figure of the Messias, the beloved of God. (Berthier)

"And he will scatter them as a calf would do; Libanus and Sarion, are in motion, like the son of the rhinoceros." (St. Jerome) (Haydock) The most powerful submit to Christ, who works these wonders. (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 XXIX

6. “And shall bruise them as the calf of Libanus” ( ver. 6 ). And when their proud exaltation hath been cut off, He will lay them low after the imitation of His Own humility, who like a calf was led to slaughter by the nobility of this world. “For the kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers agreed together against the Lord, and against His Christ.” “And the Beloved is as the young of the unicorns.” For even He the Beloved, and the Only One of the Father, “emptied Himself” of His glory; and was made man, like a child of the Jews, that were “ignorant of God’s righteousness,” and proudly boasting of their own righteousness as peculiarly theirs.

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).