Psalms 40:9
They determined against me an unjust word: shall he that sleepeth rise again no more?
Open Psalms 40:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Verbum iniquum constituerunt adversum me : Numquid qui dormit non adjiciet ut resurgat ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- λόγον παράνομον κατέθεντο κατ᾽ ἐμοῦ Μὴ ὁ κοιμώμενος οὐχὶ προσθήσει τοῦ ἀναστῆναι;
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 41:9
- דְּֽבַר בְּ֭לִיַּעַל יָצ֣וּק בּ֑וֹ וַאֲשֶׁ֥ר שָׁ֝כַ֗ב לֹא יוֹסִ֥יף לָקֽוּם
Haydock's commentary
Word of affecting the regal power, &c. (St. Ambrose)
No more? Jesus Christ speaks. They have unjustly condemned me: But can I not rise again? or the words may be put in the mouth of his enemies. Shall we have any thing to fear from the dead? If we were to confine him only, he might perhaps escape. (Calmet)
Hebrew, "an evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more." (Protestants)
"The word of the devil they poured out against themselves; he who hath slept, shall rise no more." (St. Jerome)
Yet lo may be explained, an non, "shall not he," &c. Septuagint have seen this insulting interrogation of the Jews who ridiculed what Christ had said of his future resurrection. (Berthier)
They determined to put him to death; but they could not prevent his glorious (Worthington) appearance again on the third day. (Haydock)
Those who explain this of David, say, that the sleep denotes a mortal illness, or a grievous fault, for which it was expected, that the king would die. (Kimchi; Munster, &c.)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion 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).
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
9. “An ungodly word do they set forth against Me” ( ver. 8 ). What sort of ungodly word? Listen to the Head Itself. “Come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Fools! How shall the inheritance be yours? Because ye killed Him? Lo! ye even killed Him; yet shall not the inheritance be yours. “Shall not He that sleepeth add this also, that He rise again”? When ye exulted that ye had slain Him, He slept; for He saith in another Psalm, “I slept.” They raged and would slay Me; “I slept.” If I had not willed, I had not even slept. “I slept,” because “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again.” “I laid Me down and slept, and rose up again.” Rage then the Jews; be “the earth given into the hands of the wicked,” be the flesh left to the hands of persecutors, let them on wood suspend it, with nails transfix it, with a spear pierce it. …
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).