Psalms 56:7
They prepared a snare for my feet; and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, and they are fallen into it.
Open Psalms 56:7 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Laqueum paraverunt pedibus meis, et incurvaverunt animam meam. Foderunt ante faciem meam foveam, et inciderunt in eam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- παγίδας ἡτοίμασαν τοῖς ποσίν μου, καὶ κατέκαμψαν τὴν ψυχήν μου· ὤρυξαν πρὸ προσώπου μου βόθρον, καὶ ἐνέπεσαν εἰς αὐτόν. διάψαλμα.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 57:7
- רֶ֤שֶׁת הֵכִ֣ינוּ לִפְעָמַי֮ כָּפַ֪ף נַ֫פְשִׁ֥י כָּר֣וּ לְפָנַ֣י שִׁיחָ֑ה נָפְל֖וּ בְתוֹכָ֣הּ סֶֽלָה
Haydock's commentary
Down. Hebrew, "my soul was bowed down," (Berthier) or "to bow down my soul." (St. Jerome) (Haydock)
Saul strove many ways to destroy his rival, sending him to fight the Philistines, who, nevertheless, proved the ruin of Saul, 1 Kings xviii. 17., and xxxi. 1. (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 On the Holy Trinity, The Ratio of the Single to the Double Comes from the Perfection of the Senary Number. The Perfection of The Senary Number is Commended in the Scriptures. The Year Abounds in The Senary Number
7. Now this ratio of the single to the double arises, no doubt, from the ternary number, since one added to two makes three; but the whole which these make reaches to the senary, for one and two and three make six. And this number is on that account called perfect, because it is completed in its own parts: for it has these three, sixth, third, and half; nor is there any other part found in it, which we can call an aliquot part. The sixth part of it, then, is one; the third part, two; the half, three. But one and two and three complete the same six. And Holy Scripture commends to us the perfection of this number, especially in this, that God finished His works in six days, and on the sixth day man was made in the image of God. And the Son of God came and was made the Son of man, that He might re-create us after the image of God, in the sixth age of the human race. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LI
15. “A clean heart create in me, O God” ( ver. 10 ). “Create”, he meant to say, “as it were begin something new.” But, because repentant he was praying (that had committed some sin, which before he had committed, he was more innocent), after what manner he hath said “create” he showeth. “And a right spirit renew in my inner parts.” By my doing, he saith, the uprightness of my spirit hath been made old and bowed. For he saith in another Psalm, “They have bowed my soul.” And when a man doth make himself stoop unto earthly lusts, he is “bowed” in a manner, but when he is made erect for things above, upright is his heart made, in order that God may be good to him. For, “How good is the God of Israel to the upright of heart!” Moreover, brethren, listen. Sometimes God in this world chastiseth for his sin him that He pardoneth in the world to come. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LVII
11. And what have they done to Thee, O Lord? Let the Prophet here exult! For above, all those verses the Lord was speaking: a Prophet indeed, but in the person of the Lord, because in the Prophet is the Lord.…“Be exalted,” he saith, “above the Heavens, O God.” Man on the Cross, and above the Heavens, God. Let them continue on the earth raging, Thou in Heaven be judging. Where are they that were raging? where are their teeth, the arms and arrows? Have not “the stripes of them been made the arrows of infants”? For in another place a Psalm this saith, desiring to prove them vainly to have raged, and vainly unto frenzies to have been driven headlong: for nothing they were able to do to Christ when for the time crucified, and afterwards when He was rising again, and in Heaven was sitting. …
St Jerome The Dialogue Against the Luciferians
O. Lo! what the prophet said is fulfilled:“They have digged a pit before me, they have fallen into the midst thereof themselves.”