Psalms 48:12
And their sepulchres shall be their houses for ever. Their dwelling places to all generations: they have called their lands by their names.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- et sepulchra eorum domus illorum in æternum ; tabernacula eorum in progenie et progenie : vocaverunt nomina sua in terris suis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ οἱ τάφοι αὐτῶν οἰκίαι αὐτῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, σκηνώματα αὐτῶν εἰς γενεὰν καὶ γενεάν· ἐπεκαλέσαντο τὰ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τῶν γαιῶν αὐτῶν·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 49:12
- קִרְבָּ֤ם בָּתֵּ֨ימוֹ לְֽעוֹלָ֗ם מִ֭שְׁכְּנֹתָם לְדֹ֣ר וָדֹ֑ר קָֽרְא֥וּ בִ֝שְׁמוֹתָ֗ם עֲלֵ֣י אֲדָמֽוֹת
Haydock's commentary
Sepulchres. Hebrew Kobrom is better than the present Kirbam, their "interior," and is adopted by the Chaldean, Syriac, &c. (Calmet)
"Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever." (Protestants) (Haydock)
Called. That is, they have left their names on their graves, which alone remain of their lands, (Challoner) or, they have called cities and countries by their own names, as Alexander and Romulus did, Alexandria, (Haydock) and Rome. (Menochius, &c.)
They have spread their fame throughout the world. (Calmet)
Scarcely two translate the four last verses alike. (Berthier)
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, Why It is That, as Soon as Cain’s Son Enoch Has Been Named, the Genealogy is Forthwith Continued as Far as the Deluge, While After the Mention of Enos, Seth’s Son, the Narrative Returns Again to the Creation of Man
We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain’s posterity, after Enoch, in whose name the city was built, has been first of all mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated down to that terminus of which I have spoken, and at which that race and the whole line was destroyed in the deluge; while, after Enos the son of Seth, has been mentioned, the rest are not at once named down to the deluge, but a clause is inserted to the following effect: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Part 1
14. But do those same aliens indeed serve them who are called their own? Hear in what they serve them, observe how they are ridiculed: why hath he said, “to strangers”? Because they can do them no good. Nevertheless, wherein do they seem to themselves to do good? “And their tombs shall be their house for ever” ( ver. 11 ). Now because these tombs are erected, the tombs are a house. For often thou hearest a rich man saying, I have a house of marble which I must quit, and I think not for myself of an eternal house, where I shall alway be. When he thinketh to make for himself a monument of marble or of sculpture, he is deeming as it were of an eternal house: as if therein this rich man would abide! If he would abide there, he would not burn in hell. …