Psalms 53:3
Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me in thy strength.
Open Psalms 53:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Deus, in nomine tuo salvum me fac, et in virtute tua judica me.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ὁ θεός, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου σῶσόν με, καὶ ἐν τῇ δυνάμει σου κρῖνόν με.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 54:3
- אֱ֭לֹהִים בְּשִׁמְךָ֣ הוֹשִׁיעֵ֑נִי וּבִגְבוּרָתְךָ֥ תְדִינֵֽנִי
Haydock's commentary
Name, which is a strong tower, (Proverbs xviii. 10.; Calmet) event thyself. Hence it is so criminal to take it in vain. (Berthier)
Judge. Ancient psalters have, "deliver." Saul and the Zipheans persecute me unjustly. I commit my cause to thee. (Haydock)
Defend me for the justice of my cause. (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
St Augustine The Enchiridion, The Expression, ‘Christ Shall Judge the Quick and the Dead,’ May Be Understood in Either of Two Senses
Now the expression, “to judge the quick and the dead,” may be interpreted in two ways: either we may understand by the “quick” those who at His advent shall not yet have died, but whom He shall find alive in the flesh, and by the “dead” those who have departed from the body, or who shall have departed before His coming; or we may understand the “quick” to mean the righteous, and the “dead” the unrighteous; for the righteous shall be judged as well as others. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LIV
4. “O God, in Thy name make me safe, and in Thy virtue judge me” ( ver. 1 ). Let the Church say this, hiding amid the Ziphites. Let the Christian body say this, keeping secret the good of its morals, expecting in secret the reward of its merits, let it say this: “In Thy virtue judge me.” Thou hast come, O Christ, humble Thou hast appeared, despised Thou hast been, scourged hast been, crucified hast been, slain hast been; but, on the third day hast risen, on the fortieth day into Heaven hast ascended: Thou sittest at the right hand of the Father, and no one seeth: Thy Spirit thence Thou hast sent, which men that were worthy have received; fulfilled with Thy love, the praise of that very humility of Thine throughout the world and nations they have preached: Thy name I see to excel among mankind, but nevertheless as weak to us hast Thou been preached. …
St Athanasius Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), Texts Explained; And First, Phil. II. 9, 10. Various texts which are alleged against the Catholic doctrine: e.g. Phil. ii. 9, 10. Whether the words 'Wherefore God hath highly exalted' prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word 'Son;' which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of 'highly exalted,' and 'gave,' and 'wherefore;' viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord's manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word's 'exaltation' through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word
40. Hitherto we have met their irrational conceits with the true conceptions implied in the Word ‘Son,’ as the Lord Himself has given us. But it will be well next to cite the divine oracles, that the unalterableness of the Son and His unchangeable nature, which is the Father’s, as well as their perverseness, may be still more fully proved. The Apostle then, writing to the Philippians, says, ‘Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. …