Psalms 37:21
They that render evil for good, have detracted me, because I followed goodness.
Open Psalms 37:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Qui retribuunt mala pro bonis detrahebant mihi, quoniam sequebar bonitatem.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οἱ ἀνταποδιδόντες κακὰ ἀντὶ ἀγαθῶν ἐνδιέβαλλόν με, ἐπεὶ κατεδίωκον δικαιοσύνην.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 38:21
- וּמְשַׁלְּמֵ֣י רָ֭עָה תַּ֣חַת טוֹבָ֑ה יִ֝שְׂטְנ֗וּנִי תַּ֣חַת רדופי טֽוֹב
Haydock's commentary
Detracted me, by insinuating that my repentance is hypocrisy. Another mode of detracting is by making known secret faults, (Worthington) as calumny imputes false ones. (Haydock)
Goodness. Septuagint, "justice." Many Greek and Latin copies add: "They have rejected me, the beloved, (Theodoret; Arabic) as one dead, as an abomination."
Forsake, ver. 22. (St. Ambrose) (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
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XXXVIII
25. “They also that render evil for good, were speaking evil of me, because I have pursued the thing that is just” ( ver. 20 ). There fore was it that I was requited evil for good. What is meant by “pursued after the thing that is just”? Not forsaken it. That you might not always understand persecutio in a bad sense, He means by persecutus pursued after, thoroughly followed. “Because I have followed the thing that is just.” Hear also our Head crying with a lamentable voice in His Passion: “And they cast Me forth, Thy Darling, even as a dead man in abomination.” Was it not enough that He was “dead”? wherefore “in abomination” also? Because He was crucified. …