Psalms 49:11
I know all the fowls of the air: and with me is the beauty of the field.
Open Psalms 49:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cognovi omnia volatilia cæli, et pulchritudo agri mecum est.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἔγνωκα πάντα τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, καὶ ὡραιότης ἀγροῦ μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἐστιν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 50:11
- יָ֭דַעְתִּי כָּל ע֣וֹף הָרִ֑ים וְזִ֥יז שָׂ֝דַ֗י עִמָּדִֽי
Haydock's commentary
I know your number, and have absolute dominion over all, Isaias xxxvii. 28. (Calmet)
Field. Ripe fruits. (St. Cyril) (Alexandrian)
With God all things are present. (St. Augustine; Lombard, 1 dist. 35.; F.; Amama)
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
18. “I know all the winged creatures of heaven” ( ver. 11 ). How doth He know? He hath weighed them, hath counted. Which of us knoweth all the winged creatures of heaven? But even though to some man God give knowledge of all the winged creatures of heaven, He doth not Himself know in the same manner as He giveth man to know. One thing is God’s knowledge, another man’s: in like manner as there is one possession of God’s, another of man’s: that is, God’s possessing is one thing, man’s another. For what thou possessest thou hast not wholly in thy power, or else thy ox, so long as it liveth, is in thy power; so as that it either die not, or be not to be fed. With whom there is the highest power, there is highest and most secret cognition. Let us ascribe this to God, while praising God. …
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.”