Psalms 37:9
I am afflicted and humbled exceedingly: I roared with the groaning of my heart.
Open Psalms 37:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Afflictus sum, et humiliatus sum nimis ; rugiebam a gemitu cordis mei.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐκακώθην καὶ ἐταπεινώθην ἕως σφόδρα, ὠρυόμην ἀπὸ στεναγμοῦ τῆς καρδίας μου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 38:9
- נְפוּג֣וֹתִי וְנִדְכֵּ֣יתִי עַד מְאֹ֑ד שָׁ֝אַ֗גְתִּי מִֽנַּהֲמַ֥ת לִבִּֽי
Haydock's commentary
Heart. I give vent to my inward grief by loud lamentations.
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
11. “I am become feeble, and am bowed down greatly” ( ver. 8 ). He who calls to mind the transcendent height of the Sabbath, sees how “greatly” he is himself “bowed down.” For he who cannot conceive what is that height of rest, sees not where he is at present. Therefore another Psalm hath said, “I said in my trance, I am cast out of the sight of Thine eyes.” For his mind being taken up thither, he beheld something sublime; and was not yet entirely there, where what he beheld was; and a kind of flash, as it were, if one may so speak, of the Eternal Light having glanced upon him, when he perceived that he was not yet arrived at this, which he was able after a sort to understand, he saw where he himself was, and how he was cramped and “bowed down” by human infirmities. …
St Jerome Against the Pelagians, Book II
Ps. xxxviii. 8 . Vulgate. My loins are filled with deceits.
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter VIII. Christ, so far as He is true Son of God, has no Lord, but only so far as He is Man; as is shown by His words in which He addressed at one time the Father, at another the Lord. How many heresies are silenced by one verse of Scripture! We must distinguish between the things that belong to Christ as Son of God or as Son of David. For under the latter title only must we ascribe it to Him that He was a servant. Lastly, he points out that many passages cannot be taken except as referring to the Incarnation
108. Learn, then, what this means: “He took upon Him the form of a servant.” It means that He took upon Him all the perfections of humanity in their completeness, and obedience in its completeness. And so it says in the thirtieth Psalm: “Thou hast set my feet in a large room. I am made a reproach above all mine enemies. Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant.” “Servant” means the Man in whom He was sanctified; it means the Man in whom He was anointed; it means the Man in whom He was made under the law, made of the Virgin; and, to put it briefly, it means the Man in whose person He has a mother, as it is written: “O Lord, I am Thy Servant, I am Thy Servant, and the Son of Thy hand-maid;” and again: “I am cast down and sore humbled.”
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, What manner of man ought not to come to rule
Wherefore let every one measure himself wisely, lest he venture to assume a place of rule, while in himself vice still reigns unto condemnation; lest one whom his own guilt depraves desire to become an intercessor for the faults of others. For on this account it is said to Moses by the supernal voice, Speak unto Aaron; Whosoever he be of thy seed throughout their generations that hath a blemish, he shall not offer loaves of bread to the Lord his God ( Lev. xxi. 17 ). And it is also immediately subjoined; If he be blind, if he be lame, if he have either a small or a large and crooked nose, if he be brokenfooted or brokenhanded, if he be hunchbacked, if he be bleareyed (lippus), if he have a white speck (albuginem) in his eye, if chronic scabies, if impetigo in his body, or if he be ruptured (ponderosus) ( Ibid. 18 ). …