Psalms 37:7
I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end: I walked sorrowful all the day long.
Open Psalms 37:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Miser factus sum et curvatus sum usque in finem ; tota die contristatus ingrediebar.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐταλαιπώρησα καὶ κατεκάμφθην ἕως τέλους, ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν σκυθρωπάζων ἐπορευόμην·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 38:7
- נַעֲוֵ֣יתִי שַׁחֹ֣תִי עַד מְאֹ֑ד כָּל הַ֝יּ֗וֹם קֹדֵ֥ר הִלָּֽכְתִּי
Haydock's commentary
End. Hebrew, "exceedingly," while a person feels his state is not desperate. (Berthier)
Sorrowful. Hebrew, "in black," which may refer either to the mourning attire, (Calmet) or to the "countenance." (Symmachus)
Grief will allow me to take no rest. (Origen)
I dare not look up to heaven, (Calmet) nor can I walk straight, to perform any good work (Worthington) of myself. (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 Hippolytus On the Psalms, Section III
And, moreover, the ark made of imperishable wood was the Saviour Himself. For by this was signified the imperishable and incorruptible tabernacle of (the Lord) Himself, which gendered no corruption of sin. For the sinner, indeed, makes this confession: “My wounds stank, and were corrupt, because of my foolishness.” But the Lord was without sin, made of imperishable wood, as regards His humanity; that is, of the virgin and the Holy Ghost inwardly, and outwardly of the word of God, like an ark overlaid with purest gold.
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XXXVIII
9. “I am troubled, I am bowed down even unto the end” ( ver. 6 ). Wherefore was he “bowed down”? Because he had been “lifted up.” If thou art “humble, thou shalt be exalted;” if thou exaltest thyself, thou shalt be “bowed down;” for God will be at no loss to find a weight wherewith to bow thee down.…Let him groan on these things; that he may receive the other; let him “call the Sabbath to remembrance,” that he may deserve to arrive at it. For that which the Jews used to celebrate was but a sign. Of what thing was it the sign? Of that which he calls to remembrance, who saith, “I am troubled, and am bowed down even unto the end.” What is meant by even “unto the end”? Even to death.
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter VIII. Of our very own possessions in which the beauty of the soul is seen or its foulness
We ought then to take the utmost care that our inner man as well may cast off and make away with all those possessions of its sins, which it acquired in its former life: which as they continually cling to body and soul are our very own, and, unless we reject them and cut them off while we are still in the flesh, will not cease to accompany us after death. For as good qualities, or charity itself which is their source, may be gained in this world, and after the close of this life make the man who loves it lovely and glorious, so our faults transmit to that eternal remembrance a mind darkened and stained with foul colours. …
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).