Psalms 36:16
Better is a little to the just, than the great riches of the wicked.
Open Psalms 36:16 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Melius est modicum justo, super divitias peccatorum multas :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κρεῖσσον ὀλίγον τῷ δικαίῳ ὑπὲρ πλοῦτον ἁμαρτωλῶν πολύν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 37:16
- טוֹב מְ֭עַט לַצַּדִּ֑יק מֵ֝הֲמ֗וֹן רְשָׁעִ֥ים רַבִּֽים
Haydock's commentary
Wicked. Hebrew, "of many wicked," or "of the impious great ones." (Haydock)
What the just man hath, is preferable to the immense riches of sinners, acquired by injustice. In this sense Hesiod and Psittacus said, "half is more than all." The wicked are never satisfied, Ecclesiastes iv. 6., and Proverbs xiii. 25. Riches are a dangerous temptation, (Calmet) and the sentence is generally true, "every rich person is either unjust or the heir of one who has been such," (Haydock) aut hæres injusti. (St. Jerome)
It is difficult for the rich to enter heaven; and the unjust are certainly excluded. Yet if we confined our views to this world, it is evident that the rich may better procure the sweets of life. (Berthier)
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
The Apostolic Constitutions Book IV, Sec. I. On Helping the Poor
VI . Now the bishop ought to know whose oblations he ought to receive, and whose he ought not. For he is to avoid corrupt dealers, and not receive their gifts. “For, a corrupt dealer shall not be justified from sin.” For of them it was that Isaiah reproached Israel, and said, “Thy corrupt dealers mingle wine with water.” He is also to avoid fornicators, for “thou shall not offer the hire of an harlot to the Lord.” He is also to avoid extortioners, and such as covet other men’s goods, and adulterers; for the sacrifices of such as these are abominable with God. Also those that oppress the widow and overbear the orphan, and fill prisons with the innocent, and abuse their own servants wickedly, I mean with stripes, and hunger, and hard service, nay, destroy whole cities; do thou, O bishop, avoid such as these, and their odious oblations. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Part 2
3. “And their bows shall be broken.” What is meant by, “And their bows shall be broken”? Their plots shall be frustrated. For above He had said, “The wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their bows.” By the “drawing out of the sword” he would have understood open hostility; but by the“ bending of the bow,” secret conspiracies. See! His sword destroys himself, and his laying of snares is frustrated. What is meant by frustrated? That it does no mischief to the righteous. How then, for instance (you ask), did it do no mischief to the man, whom it thus stripped of his goods, whom it reduced to straitened circumstances by taking away his possessions? He has still cause to sing, “A little that a righteous man hath, is better than great riches of the ungodly” ( ver. 16 ).
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part III. Containing Conferences XVIII.-XXIV, Chapter XIII. A story of a barber's payments, introduced for the sake of recognizing the devil's illusions
For as you hope that you can save others also, and are eager to return to your country with the hope of greater gain, hear also on this subject a story of Abbot Macarius, very neatly and prettily invented, which he also gave to a man in a tumult of similar desires, to cure him by a most appropriate story. “There was,” said he, “in a certain city a very clever barber, who used to shave everybody for three pence and by getting this poor and wretched sum for his work, out of this same amount used to procure what was required for his daily food, and after having taken all care of his body, used every day to put a hundred pence into his pocket. But while he was diligently amassing this gain, he heard that in a city a long way off each man paid the barber a shilling as his pay. …