Psalms 54:3
Be attentive to me and hear me. I am grieved in my exercise; and am troubled,
Open Psalms 54:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- intende mihi, et exaudi me. Contristatus sum in exercitatione mea, et conturbatus sum
- Septuagint (Swete)
- πρόσχες μοι καὶ εἰσάκουσόν μου. ἐλυπήθην ἐν τῇ ἀδολεσχίᾳ μου, καὶ ἐταράχθην
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 55:3
- הַקְשִׁ֣יבָה לִּ֣י וַעֲנֵ֑נִי אָרִ֖יד בְּשִׂיחִ֣י וְאָהִֽימָה
Haydock's commentary
Hear me. He repeats the same petition four times, (Haydock) to testify his fervour, and humility, Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 21.
Exercise, among the wicked, (St. Augustine) or while I consider the sufferings of Christ. (Eusebius)
David was perplexed what course to take, when he first heard of his son's revolt. Our Saviour was sorrowful unto death, Matthew xxvi. 37. (Calmet)
This life is a warfare. (Worthington)
Ldoleschia. Hebrew sichi, denotes serious (Haydock) meditation, Genesis xxiv. 63. (Menochius)
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 LV
4. “Hear Thou, O God, my entreaty, and despise not my prayer: give heed unto me, and hearken unto me” ( ver. 1 ). Of one earnest, anxious, of one set in tribulation, are these words. He is praying, suffering many things, from evil yearning to be delivered: it remaineth that we hear in what evil he is, and when he beginneth to speak, let us acknowledge there ourselves to be; in order that the tribulation being shared, we may conjoin prayer. “I have been made sad in my exercise, and have been troubled” ( ver. 2 ). Where made sad, where troubled? “In my exercise,” he saith. Of evil men, whom he suffereth, he hath made mention, and the same suffering of evil men he hath called his “exercise.” Think ye not that without profit there are evil men in this world, and that no good God maketh of them. …
St Gregory of Nyssa Answer to Eunomius' Second Book
Well, then, if God did not exist formerly, or if there be a time when He will not exist, He cannot be called either unending or without beginning; and so also neither inalterable, nor incorporeal, nor imperishable, if there is any suspicion of body, or destruction, or alteration with regard to Him. But if it be part of our religion to attribute to Him none of these things, then it is a sacred duty to use of Him names privative of the things abhorrent to His Nature, and to say all that we have so often enumerated already, viz. that He is imperishable, and unending, and ungenerate, and the other terms of that class, where the sense inherent in each only informs us of the privation of that which is obvious to our perception, but does not interpret the actual nature of that which is thus removed from those abhorrent conditions. …