Psalms 48:11
He shall not see destruction, when he shall see the wise dying: the senseless and the fool shall perish together: And they shall leave their riches to strangers:
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Non videbit interitum, cum viderit sapientes morientes : simul insipiens et stultus peribunt. Et relinquent alienis divitias suas,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅταν ἴδῃ σοφοὺς ἀποθνήσκοντας. ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἄνους καὶ ἄφρων ἀπολοῦνται, καὶ καταλείψουσιν ἀλλοτρίοις τὸν πλοῦτον αὐτῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 49:11
- כִּ֤י יִרְאֶ֨ה חֲכָ֘מִ֤ים יָמ֗וּתוּ יַ֤חַד כְּסִ֣יל וָבַ֣עַר יֹאבֵ֑דוּ וְעָזְב֖וּ לַאֲחֵרִ֣ים חֵילָֽם
Haydock's commentary
He shall not see destruction, &c., or shall he not see destruction? As much as to say, however thoughtless may be of his death, he must not expect to escape: when even the wise and the good are not exempt from dying. (Challoner)
Strangers. This is very distressing. (Pindar. Olym. x.) (Ecclesiastes ii. 18.)
The endeavours of the wicked to establish their families, will be vain, while they themselves shall never more return from the graves hither. (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
Origen Origen Against Celsus, Chapter XIII
According to the foregoing, then, the one kind of wisdom is human, and the other divine. Now the “human” wisdom is that which is termed by us the wisdom of the “world,” which is “foolishness with God;” whereas the “divine”, being different from the “human,” because it is “divine”, comes, through the grace of God who bestows it, to those who have evinced their capacity for receiving it, and especially to those who, from knowing the difference between either kind of wisdom, say, in their prayers to God, “Even if one among the sons of men be perfect, while the wisdom is wanting that comes from Thee, he shall be accounted as nothing.” We maintain, indeed, that “human” wisdom is an exercise for the soul, but that “divine” wisdom is the “end,” being also termed the “strong” meat of the soul by him who has said that “strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect, even those who by reason of us …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Part 1
11. “For he shall not see death, though he shall have seen wise men dying” ( ver. 10 ). The man who laboured for ever and shall live till the end, “shall not see death, though he shall have seen wise men dying.” What is this? He shall not comprehend what death is, whenever he shall have seen wise men dying. For he saith to himself, “this fellow, for all he was wise and dwelled with wisdom and worshipped God with piety, is he not dead? Therefore I will enjoy myself while I live; for if they that are wise in other respects, could do anything, they would not have died.” Just as the Jews saw Christ hanging on the Cross and despised Him, saying, “If this Man were the Son of God, He would come down from the Cross:” not seeing what death is. If they had seen what death is; if they had seen, I say. …
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).