Psalms 37:3
For thy arrows are fastened in me: and thy hand hath been strong upon me.
Open Psalms 37:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quoniam sagittæ tuæ infixæ sunt mihi, et confirmasti super me manum tuam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι τὰ βέλη σου ἐνεπάγησάν μοι, καὶ ἐπεστήρισας ἐπ᾽ ἐμὲ τὴν χεῖρά σου·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 38:3
- כִּֽי חִ֭צֶּיךָ נִ֣חֲתוּ בִ֑י וַתִּנְחַ֖ת עָלַ֣י יָדֶֽךָ
Haydock's commentary
Arrows. Afflictions, (Worthington) or the word of God, which convert the sinner. (St. Augustine)
The admonition of Nathan had made the deepest impression on David. [2 Kings xii.] He was also visited by sickness, like Job vi. 4., and xix. 21.
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
4. “For Thine arrows stick fast in me, and Thy hand presseth me sore” ( ver. 2 ). “There is no soundness in my flesh, from the face of Thine anger” ( ver. 3 ). He has now begun telling these evils, which he is suffering here: and yet even this already was from the wrath of the Lord, because it was of the vengeance of the Lord. “Of what vengeance?” That which He took upon Adam. For think not that punishment was not inflicted upon him, or that God had said to no purpose, “Thou shalt surely die;” or that we suffer anything in this life, except from that death which we earned by the original sin.…Whence then do His “arrows stick fast in” him? The very punishment, the very vengeance, and haply the pains both of mind and of body, which it is necessary for us to suffer here, these he describes by these self-same “arrows.” For of these arrows holy Job also made mention, and said that the arrows …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Eustochium
40. Love finds nothing hard; no task is difficult to the eager. Think of all that Jacob bore for Rachel, the wife who had been promised to him. “Jacob,” the Scripture says, “served seven years for Rachel. And they seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had to her.” Afterwards he himself tells us what he had to undergo. “In the day the drought consumed me and the frost by night.” So we must love Christ and always seek His embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy; all things long we shall account short; and smitten with His arrows, we shall say every moment: “Woe is me that I have prolonged my pilgrimage.” For “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” For “tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope; and hope maketh not ashamed.” When your lot seems hard to bear read Pau …