Psalms 34:7
For without cause they have hidden their net for me unto destruction: without cause they have upbraided my soul.
Open Psalms 34:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam gratis absconderunt mihi interitum laquei sui ; supervacue exprobraverunt animam meam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι δωρεὰν ἔκρυψάν μοι διαφθορὰν παγίδος αὐτῶν, μάτην ὠνείδισαν τὴν ψυχήν μου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 35:7
- כִּֽי חִנָּ֣ם טָֽמְנוּ לִ֭י שַׁ֣חַת רִשְׁתָּ֑ם חִ֝נָּ֗ם חָפְר֥וּ לְנַפְשִֽׁי
Haydock's commentary
Their. Literally, "the destruction of their net." (Haydock)
Some would translate shachath, "the pit of," &c. But the Septuagint is preferable; and chapheru means they have "covered with shame," as well as dug for my soul. (Berthier)
Pit ought to be removed to the latter part of the verse. Saul laid many falsehoods to the charge of David, (Calmet) and insidiously sought his ruin. (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 XXXV
7. But wherefore these so great evils? By what desert? Hear by what desert. “For without cause have they hid for me the corruption of their trap” ( ver. 7 ). For Him that is our Head, observe, the Jews did this: they hid the corruption of their trap. For whom hid they their trap? For Him who saw the hearts of those that hid. But yet was He among them like one ignorant, as though He were deceived, whereas they were in that deceived, that they thought Him to be deceived. For therefore was He as though deceived, living among them, because we among such as they were so to live, as to be without doubt deceived. He saw His betrayer, and chose him the more to a necessary work. By his evil He wrought a great good: and yet among the twelve was he chosen, lest even the small number of twelve should be without one evil. …
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).