Psalms 53:5
For strangers have risen up against me; and the mighty have sought after my soul: and they have not set God before their eyes.
Open Psalms 53:5 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam alieni insurrexerunt adversum me, et fortes quæsierunt animam meam, et non proposuerunt Deum ante conspectum suum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ἀλλότριοι ἐπανέστησαν ἐπ᾽ ἐμέ, καὶ κραταιοὶ ἐζήτησαν τὴν ψυχήν μου· οὐ προέθεντο τὸν θεὸν ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν. διάψαλμα.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 54:5
- כִּ֤י זָרִ֨ים קָ֤מוּ עָלַ֗י וְֽ֭עָרִיצִים בִּקְשׁ֣וּ נַפְשִׁ֑י לֹ֤א שָׂ֨מוּ אֱלֹהִ֖ים לְנֶגְדָּ֣ם סֶֽלָה
Haydock's commentary
Strangers. Barbarous, (Worthington) enemies, though of the same tribe. (Calmet)
Hostis dicebatur quem nunc peregrinum dicimus. (Cicero, Off. i.)
The devil and our passions, as well as the world, are such to us. (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 Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LIV
6. “For aliens have risen up against me” ( ver. 3 ). What “aliens”? Was not David himself a Jew of the tribe of Judah? But the very place Ziph belonged to the tribe of Judah; it was of the Jews. How then “aliens”? Not in city, not in tribe, not in kindred, but in flower.…But see the Ziphites, see them for a time flourishing. With reason “alien” sons. Thou amid the Ziphites hiding saidst what? “Blessed the people whereof the Lord is its God.” Out of this affection this prayer is being sent forth into the ears of the Lord, when it is said, “for aliens have risen up against me.”
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How the rude in sacred learning, and those who are learned but not humble, are to be admonished
But, on the other hand, those who understand indeed aright the words of the Law, but speak them not humbly, are to be admonished that, in divine discourses, before they put them forth to others, they should examine themselves; lest, in following up the deeds of others, they leave themselves behind; and lest, while thinking rightly of all the rest of Holy Scripture, this only thing they attend not to, what is said in it against the proud. For he is indeed a poor and unskilful physician, who would fain heal another’s disease while ignorant of that from which he himself is suffering. Those, then, who speak not the words of God humbly should certainly be admonished, that, when they apply medicines to the sick, they see to the poison of their own infection, lest in healing others they die themselves. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).