Psalms 40:7
And if he came in to see me, he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out and spoke to the same purpose.
Open Psalms 40:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et si ingrediebatur ut videret, vana loquebatur ; cor ejus congregavit iniquitatem sibi. Egrediebatur foras et loquebatur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ εἰ εἰσεπορεύετο τοῦ ἰδεῖν, μάτην ἐλάλει· ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ συνήγαγεν ἀνομίαν ἑαυτῷ, ἐξεπορεύετο ἔξω καὶ ἐλάλει
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 41:7
- וְאִם בָּ֤א לִרְא֨וֹת שָׁ֤וְא יְדַבֵּ֗ר לִבּ֗וֹ יִקְבָּץ אָ֥וֶן ל֑וֹ יֵצֵ֖א לַח֣וּץ יְדַבֵּֽר
Haydock's commentary
If he, any one among my enemies. (Haydock)
The Scriptures often pass from the plural to the singular, (Berthier) to comprise every one distinctly. (Haydock)
Yet St. Augustine, &c., read "they came," &c., omitting if, as some of the Septuagint editions do likewise: though inaccurately, according to St. Jerome and Sun. (Calmet)
It occurs in the Roman copy, and Grabe inserts it in a smaller type. The sense is not altered. (Haydock)
The conspirators affected to shew David some marks of civility, to obtain their ends. The Jews often strove to entangle Jesus, by their questions, (Matthew xix. 3., and xxii. 17, 24., and John viii. 3.) while Judas continued in his company, to gratify his own avarice, and to betray him. (Calmet)
Such were their vain projects. (Haydock)
Those who came maliciously to hear Christ, blamed him as an enemy to the law, or as one who cast out devils by Beelzebub. (Worthington)
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 City of God, Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied
About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent. For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, “I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord shall sustain me?” Is there perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something great that He had slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the resurrection, which behoved to be thus prophesied concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to come, since these things which were yet to come were in the predestination and foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because they were certain. …
St Augustine Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen, Section 7
7. “Give heed unto me,” the Church says unto you; give heed unto me, whom ye see, although to see ye be unwilling. For the faithful, who were in those times in the land of Judæa, were present at, and learnt as present, Christ’s wonderful birth of a virgin, and His passion, resurrection, ascension; all His divine words and deeds. These things ye have not seen, and therefore ye refuse to believe. Therefore behold these things, fix your eyes on these things, these things which ye see reflect on, which are not told you as things past, nor foretold you as things future, but are shown you as things present. What? seemeth it to you a vain or a light thing. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XLI
7. “And entered in to see” ( ver. 6 ). What Christ suffered, that suffereth also the Church; what the Head suffered, that suffer also the Members. “For the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord.”…