Psalms 57:10
Before your thorns could know the brier; he swalloweth them up, as alive, in his wrath.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Priusquam intelligerent spinæ vestræ rhamnum, sicut viventes sic in ira absorbet eos.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- πρὸ τοῦ συνεῖναι τὰς ἀκάνθας ὑμῶν τὴν ῥάμνον, ὡσεὶ ζῶντας, ὡσεὶ ἐν ὀργῇ καταπίεται ὑμᾶς.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 58:10
- בְּטֶ֤רֶם יָבִ֣ינוּ סִּֽירֹתֵיכֶ֣ם אָטָ֑ד כְּמוֹ חַ֥י כְּמוֹ חָ֝ר֗וֹן יִשְׂעָרֶֽנּוּ
Haydock's commentary
Before your thorns, &c. That is, before your thorns grow up, so as to become strong briers, they shall be overtaken and consumed by divine justice, swallowing them up, as it were, alive in his wrath. (Challoner)
You shall be cut off when you least think of it. (Menochius) (Psalm liv. 24.) (Haydock)
David probably alludes to the proposal mentioned, (Judges ix. 14.) where the brier (rhammus) invites all the trees to come under its shade. Before you, my followers, shall fall under the oppression of our cruel persecutors, they shall be suddenly destroyed. (Berthier)
"Before your pots can feel the thorns, he shall take them away, as with a whirlwind, both living, and in his wrath." (Protestants)
This version of Pagnin is rejected by Montanus, who nearly follows the Vulgate. Sirothecem means, "your thorns, or pots," Ecclesiastes vii. 7. (Haydock)
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 LVIII
14. “Before that the bramble bringeth forth your thorns: as though living, as though in anger, it shall drink them up” ( ver. 9 ). What is the bramble? Of prickly plants it is a kind, upon which there are said to be certain of the closest thorns. At first it is a herb; and while it is a herb, soft and fair it is: but thereon there are nevertheless thorns to come forth. Now therefore sins are pleasant, and as it were they do not prick. A herb is the bramble; even now nevertheless there is a thorn. “Before that the bramble bringeth forth thorns:” is before that of miserable delights and pleasures the evident tortures come forth. Let them question themselves that love any object, and to it cannot attain; let them see if they are not racked with longing: and when they have attained to that which unlawfully they long for, let them mark if they are not racked with fear. …