Psalms 45:10
Making wars to cease even to the end of the earth. He shall destroy the bow, and break the weapons: and the shield he shall burn in the fire.
Open Psalms 45:10 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- auferens bella usque ad finem terræ. Arcum conteret, et confringet arma, et scuta comburet igni.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἀνταναιρῶν πολέμους μέχρι τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς, τόξον συντρίψει καὶ συνκλάσει ὅπλον, καὶ θυρεοὺς κατακαύσει ἐν πυρί.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 46:10
- מַשְׁבִּ֥ית מִלְחָמוֹת֮ עַד קְצֵ֪ה הָ֫אָ֥רֶץ קֶ֣שֶׁת יְ֭שַׁבֵּר וְקִצֵּ֣ץ חֲנִ֑ית עֲ֝גָל֗וֹת יִשְׂרֹ֥ף בָּאֵֽשׁ
Haydock's commentary
Shields. Hebrew, "the round things," which some explain, "chariots," without need. (Berthier)
Fire. The Fathers apply this to the peace which reigned at the birth of Christ, or to that which Constantine gave to the Church. (Calmet)
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 Answer to the Letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Chapter 71
158. Augustin answered: It is you that say this to us, not the prophet. We therefore answer you: If you ask where peace is to be found, open your eyes, and see of whom it is said, "He maketh wars to cease in all the world." If you ask where peace is to be found, open your eyes to see that city which cannot be hidden, because it is built upon a hill; open your eyes to see the mountain itself, and let Daniel show it to you, growing out of a small stone, and filling the whole earth. But when the prophet says to you, "Peace, peace; and where is there peace?" what will you show? Will you show the party of Donatus, unknown to the countless nations to whom Christ is known? It is surely not the city which cannot be hid; and whence is this, except that it is not founded on the mountain? "For He is our peace, who hath made both one,"not Donatus, who has made one into two.
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XLVI
12. “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth” ( ver. 9 ). This not yet see we fulfilled: yet are there wars, wars among nations for sovereignty; among sects, among Jews, Pagans, Christians, heretics, are wars, frequent wars, some for the truth, some for falsehood contending. Not yet then is this fulfilled, “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth;” but haply it shall be fulfilled. Or is it now also fulfilled? In some it is fulfilled; in the wheat it is fulfilled, in the tares it is not yet fulfilled. What is this then, “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth”? Wars He calleth whereby it is warred against God. But who warreth against God? Ungodliness. And what to God can ungodliness do? Nothing. …
Eusebius The Church History of Eusebius, The Peace granted us by God
5. But they, hastening on, obtained far better things, being carried to heaven and the paradise of divine pleasure. But, acknowledging that even these things are greater than we deserve, we have been astonished at the grace manifested by the author of the great gifts, and rightly do we admire him, worshiping him with the whole power of our souls, and testifying to the truth of those recorded utterances, in which it is said, “Come and see the works of the Lord, the wonders which he hath done upon the earth; he removeth wars to the ends of the world, he shall break the bow and snap the spear in sunder, and shall burn the shields with fire.”
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).