Psalms 55:5
In God I will praise my words, in God I have put my trust: I will not fear what flesh can do against me.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- In Deo laudabo sermones meos ; in Deo speravi : non timebo quid faciat mihi caro.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἐπαινέσω τοὺς λόγους μου ὅλην τὴν ἡμέραν· ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἤλπισα, οὐ φοβηθήσομαι τί ποιήσει μοι σάρξ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 56:5
- בֵּאלֹהִים֮ אֲהַלֵּ֪ל דְּבָ֫ר֥וֹ בֵּאלֹהִ֣ים בָּ֭טַחְתִּי לֹ֣א אִירָ֑א מַה יַּעֲשֶׂ֖ה בָשָׂ֣ר לִֽי
Haydock's commentary
My words. The words or promises God has made in my favour. (Challoner)
Praising God (Haydock) removed the dejection of David. (Eusebius)
Detested. Protestants, "wrest." They put an evil construction upon what I say, (Haydock) and make me their laughing-stock, Psalm xxxvii. 13. (Calmet)
But I cease not to proclaim what God has declared in my favour, (Haydock) or what good I have been enabled to effect by his grace. My enemies may meet to devise my ruin, and to supplant me; yet all in vain. (Worthington)
Haydock wrote amid the controversies of his day. The Church teaches that those born into communities separated from her cannot be charged with the sin of separation, and embraces them as brothers (CCC 818).
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 LVI
7. “In God I will praise my discourses, in God I have hoped: I will not fear what flesh doeth to me” ( ver. 4 ). Wherefore? Because in God I will praise my discourses. If in thyself thou praisest thy discourses: I say not that thou art not to fear; it is impossible that thou have not to fear. For thy discourses either false thou wilt have, and therefore thine own, because false: or if thy discourses shall be true, and thou shalt deem thyself not to have them from God but of thyself to speak; true they will be, but thou wilt be false: but if thou shalt have known that thou canst say nothing true in the wisdom of God, in the faith of the Truth, save that which from Him thou hast received, of whom is said, “For what hast thou which thou hast not received?” Then in God thou art praising thy discourses, in order that in God thou mayest be praised by the discourses of God.…“In God I have hoped …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Eustochium
6. But if even real virgins, when they have other failings, are not saved by their physical virginity, what shall become of those who have prostituted the members of Christ, and have changed the temple of the Holy Ghost into a brothel? Straightway shall they hear the words: “Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground; there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldæans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. …
St Ambrose On the Holy Spirit, Chapter VIII. St. Ambrose examines and refutes the heretical argument that because God is said to be glorified in the Spirit, and not with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is therefore inferior to the Father. He shows that the particle in can be also used of the Son and even of the Father, and that on the other hand with may be said of creatures without any infringement on the prerogatives of the Godhead; and that in reality these prepositions simply imply the connection of the Three Divine Persons
76. But let them learn that it is also said of God the Father: “In the Lord I will praise the word;” and elsewhere: “In God we will do mighty deeds;” and “My remembrance shall be ever in Thee;” and “In Thy Name will we rejoice;” and again in another place: “That his deeds may be manifested, that they are wrought in God;” and Paul: “In God Who created all things;” and again: “Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ;” and in the Gospel: “I in the Father and the Father in Me,” and “the Father that dwelleth in Me.” It is also written: “He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord;” and in another place: “Our life is hid with Christ in God.” Did he here ascribe more to the Son than to the Father in saying that we are with Christ in God? or does our state avail more than the grace of the Spirit, so that we can be with Christ …