Psalms 36:9
For the evildoers shall be cut off: but they that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the land.
Open Psalms 36:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam qui malignantur exterminabuntur ; sustinentes autem Dominum, ipsi hæreditabunt terram.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι οἱ πονηρευόμενοι ἐξολοθρευθήσονται, οἱ δὲ ὑπομένοντες τὸν κύριον αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσιν τὴν γῆν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 37:9
- כִּֽי מְ֭רֵעִים יִכָּרֵת֑וּן וְקֹוֵ֥י יְ֝הוָ֗ה הֵ֣מָּה יִֽירְשׁוּ אָֽרֶץ
Haydock's commentary
Land of the living. (Worthington)
David knew that many truly pious people would never obtain riches in the land of Chanaan, even though they might have remained there, if the nation had been faithful. He therefore comforts them with the prospect of a better land. If this were not the meaning, the Church would put these canticles in the mouth of her children to little purpose. (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
Origen Origen Against Celsus, Chapter XXIX
If, then, the whole earth has been cursed in the deeds of Adam and of those who died in him, it is plain that all parts of the earth share in the curse, and among others the land of Judea; so that the words, “a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey, cannot apply to it, although we may say of it, that both Judea and Jerusalem were the shadow and figure of that pure land, goodly and large, in the pure region of heaven, in which is the heavenly Jerusalem. And it is in reference to this Jerusalem that the apostle spoke, as one who, “being risen with Christ, and seeking those things which are above,” had found a truth which formed no part of the Jewish mythology. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Part 1
“For evil-doers shall be cut off” ( ver. 9 ). “But I see their prosperity.” Believe Him who saith, “they shall be cut off;” Him who seeth better than thou, since His eye anger cannot cloud. “For evil-doers shall be cut off. But those that wait upon the Lord,”, not upon any one that can deceive them; but verily on Him who is the Truth itself, “But those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the land.” What “land,” but that Jerusalem, with the love of which whosoever is inflamed, shall come to peace at the last.
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).