Psalms 32:4
For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done with faithfulness.
Open Psalms 32:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quia rectum est verbum Domini, et omnia opera ejus in fide.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι εὐθὴς ὁ λόγος τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ ἐν πίστει·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 33:4
- כִּֽי יָשָׁ֥ר דְּבַר יְהוָ֑ה וְכָל מַ֝עֲשֵׂ֗הוּ בֶּאֱמוּנָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Faithfulness. He always fulfils his promises, and his laws are just; (Worthington) therefore he deserves our praise. (Calmet) (Psalm cxliv. 13.)
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 XXXIII
4. “For the Word of the Lord is right:” for the Word of the Lord is right, to make you that which of yourselves ye cannot be. “And all His works are done in faith” ( ver. 4 ): lest any think that by the merit of works he hath arrived at faith, when in faith are done all the works which God Himself loveth.
St Athanasius Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be 'created,' or the works to be 'begotten.' 'In the beginning' means in the case of the works 'from the beginning.' Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of 'First-born of the dead;' of 'First-born among many brethren;' of 'First-born of all creation,' contrasted with 'Only-begotten.' Further interpretation of 'beginning of ways,' and 'for the works.' Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works
71. The Word then is neither creature nor work; for creature, thing made, work, are all one; and were He creature and thing made, He would also be work. Accordingly He has not said, ‘He created Me a work,’ nor ‘He made Me with the works,’ lest He should appear to be in nature and essence a creature; nor, ‘He created Me to make works,’ lest, on the other hand, according to the perverseness of the irreligious, He should seem as an instrument made for our sake. Nor again has He declared, ‘He created Me before the works,’ lest, as He really is before all, as an Offspring, so, if created also before the works, He should give ‘Offspring’ and ‘He created’ the same meaning. But He has said with exact discrimination, ‘for the works;’ as much as to say, ‘The Father has made Me, into flesh, that I might be man,’ which again shews that He is not a work but an offspring. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XII. Further objections to the Godhead of the Son are met by the same answer--to wit, that they may equally be urged against the Father also. The Father, then, being in no way confined by time, place, or anything else created, no such limitation is to be imposed upon the Son, Whose marvellous generation is not only of the Father, but of the Virgin also, and therefore, since in His generation of the Father no distinction of sex, or the like, was involved, neither was it in His generation of the Virgin
78. If, then, the common order of human generation was not found in the case of the Virgin Mary, how can you demand that God the Father should beget in such wise as you were begotten in? Surely the common order is determined by difference of sex; for this is implanted in the nature of our flesh, but where flesh is not, how can you expect to find the infirmity of flesh? No man calls in question one who is better than he is: to believe is enjoined upon you, without permission to question. …