Psalms 49:10
For all the beasts of the woods are mine: the cattle on the hills, and the oxen.
Open Psalms 49:10 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quoniam meæ sunt omnes feræ silvarum, jumenta in montibus, et boves.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ἐμά ἐστιν πάντα τὰ θηρία τοῦ δρυμοῦ, κτήνη ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσιν καὶ βόες·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 50:10
- כִּי לִ֥י כָל חַיְתוֹ יָ֑עַר בְּ֝הֵמ֗וֹת בְּהַרְרֵי אָֽלֶף
Haydock's commentary
Oxen. St. Jerome and Protestants, "the cattle upon a thousand hills." But our version is very good, and adopted by the Syriac, Ferrand, &c. (Calmet)
Aleph means an ox as well as a thousand; and i may have been added to the preceding word, instead of u, at the beginning of this. (Berthier)
We find u here improperly in either, "beast." (Houbigant)
No mention is made of fishes, because they were not used as victims. (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, Psalm L
17. “For mine are all the beasts of the wood” ( ver. 10 ). Why should I ask of thee what I have made? Is it more thine, to whom I have given it to possess, than Mine, who have made it? “For mine are all the beasts of the wood.” But perchance that Israel saith, The beasts are God’s, those wild beasts which I enclose not in my pen, which I bind not to my stall; but this ox and sheep and he-goat, these are mine own. “Cattle on the mountain, and oxen.” Mine are those which thou possessest not, Mine are these which thou possessest. For if thou art My servant, the whole of thy property is Mine. For it cannot be, that is the property of the master which the servant hath gotten to himself, and yet that not be the property of the Master which the Master Himself hath created for the servant. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Matthew IX. 9
But to His disciples not so, but He puts them in mind of His signs, saying on this wise, “Do ye not yet remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?” Not so however with these, but He reminds them of our common infirmity, and signifies them at any rate to be of the number of the infirm; who did not so much as know the Scriptures, but making light of the rest of virtue, laid all the stress on their sacrifices; which thing He is also earnestly intimating unto them, when He sets down in brief what had been affirmed by all the prophets,saying, “Learn ye what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.”