Psalms 48:5
I will incline my ear to a parable; I will open my proposition on the psaltery.
Open Psalms 48:5 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Inclinabo in parabolam aurem meam ; aperiam in psalterio propositionem meam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κλινῶ εἰς παραβολὴν τὸ οὖς μου, ἀνοίξω ἐν ψαλτηρίῳ τὸ πρόβλημά μου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 49:5
- אַטֶּ֣ה לְמָשָׁ֣ל אָזְנִ֑י אֶפְתַּ֥ח בְּ֝כִנּ֗וֹר חִידָתִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Proposition. Hebrew, "riddle." (Berthier)
The ancients delighted in parables, which required attention to discern the meaning, and thus people had the pleasures of ingenuity. Music often accompanied their precepts. (Strabo i. 12.) (Calmet)
Utile dulci. (Haydock)
The psalmist intimates, that he had attended the best masters, (Calmet) even the Holy Ghost. (St. Chrysostom)
He delivers the instructions which he had received from God, on the instrument of ten strings, to imply that we must keep the ten commandments. (Worthington)
He listens if the instrument be in tune. (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 Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Part 1
5. “I will incline mine ear to the parable, I will show my proposition upon the harp” ( ver. 4 ).…And why “to a parable”? Because “now we see through a glass darkly,” as saith the Apostle; “whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” For our vision is not yet that face to face, where there are no longer parables, where there no longer are riddles and comparisons. Whatever now we understand we behold through riddles. A riddle is a dark parable which it is hard to understand. Howsoever a man may cultivate his heart and apply himself to apprehend mysteries, so long as we see through the corruption of this flesh, we see but in part.…But as He was seen by those who believed, and by those who crucified Him, when He was judged; so will He be seen, when He shall have begun to be judge, both by those whom He shall condemn, and by those whom He shall crown. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily IV
11. And first of all, let us discipline our tongue to be the minister of the grace of the Spirit, expelling from the mouth all virulence and malignity, and the practice of using disgraceful words. For it is in our power to make each one of our members an instrument of wickedness, or of righteousness. Hear then how men make the tongue an instrument, some of sin, others of righteousness! “Their tongue is a sharp sword.” But another speaks thus of his own tongue: “My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” The former wrought destruction; the latter wrote the divine law. Thus was one a sword, the other a pen, not according to its own nature, but according to the choice of those who employed it. For the nature of this tongue and of that was the same, but the operation was not the same. And again, as to the mouth likewise, we may see this same thing. …