Psalms 3:2
Why, O Lord, are they multiplied that afflict me? Many are they who rise up against me.
Open Psalms 3:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Domine, quid multiplicati sunt qui tribulant me ? Multi insurgunt adversum me ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Κύριε, τί ἐπληθύνθησαν οἱ θλίβοντές με; πολλοὶ ἐπανίστανται ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ·
- Hebrew (WLC)
- יְ֭הוָה מָֽה רַבּ֣וּ צָרָ֑י רַ֝בִּ֗ים קָמִ֥ים עָלָֽי
Haydock's commentary
Why. Let me know the enormity of my sins. All Israel follows Absalom, 2 Kings xv. 13. So all rose up against Christ. (Worthington)
The Church was assailed on all sides, (Calmet) and every soul must live in expectation of battle from innumerable enemies. Hebrew also, (Haydock) "How are they multiplied." (Houbigant)
David is surprised at the sudden change, and adores the depth of God's judgments, which had been denounced unto him, 1 Kings xii. 10. (Calmet)
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
Tertullian Against Praxeas, The Identity of the Father and the Son, as Praxeas Held It, Shown to Be Full of Perplexity and Absurdity. Many Scriptures Quoted in Proof of the Distinction of the Divine Persons of the Trinity
It will be your duty, however, to adduce your proofs out of the Scriptures as plainly as we do, when we prove that He made His Word a Son to Himself. For if He calls Him Son, and if the Son is none other than He who has proceeded from the Father Himself, and if the Word has proceeded from the Father Himself, He will then be the Son, and not Himself from whom He proceeded. For the Father Himself did not proceed from Himself. Now, you who say that the Father is the same as the Son, do really make the same Person both to have sent forth from Himself (and at the same time to have gone out from Himself as) that Being which is God. If it was possible for Him to have done this, He at all events did not do it. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm III
2. “O Lord, how are they multiplied that trouble me!” ( ver. 1 ). So multiplied indeed were they, that one even from the number of His disciples was not wanting, who was added to the number of His persecutors. “Many rise up against me; many say unto my soul, There is no salvation for him in his God” ( ver. 2 ). It is clear that if they had had any idea that He would rise again, assuredly they would not have slain Him. To this end are those speeches, “Let Him come down from the cross, if He be the Son of God;” and again, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” Therefore, neither would Judas have betrayed Him, if he had not been of the number of those who despised Christ, saying, “There is no salvation for Him in His God.”