Psalms 63:4
For they have whetted their tongues like a sword; they have bent their bow a bitter thing,
Open Psalms 63:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quia exacuerunt ut gladium linguas suas ; intenderunt arcum rem amaram,
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οἵτινες ἠκόνησαν ὡς ῥομφαίαν τὰς γλώσσας αὐτῶν, ἐνέτειναν τόξον πρᾶγμα πικρόν,
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 64:4
- אֲשֶׁ֤ר שָׁנְנ֣וּ כַחֶ֣רֶב לְשׁוֹנָ֑ם דָּרְכ֥וּ חִ֝צָּ֗ם דָּבָ֥ר מָֽר
Haydock's commentary
Thing, or discourse. This describes the poisonous insinuations of heretics, (Eusebius) or the calumnies of the Jews against Christ. (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 LXIV
4. “For they have whet like a sword their tongues” ( ver. 3 ). Which saith another Psalm also, “Sons of men; their teeth are arms and arrows, and their tongue is a sharp sword.” Let not the Jews say, we have not killed Christ. For to this end they gave Him to Pilate the judge, in order that they themselves might seem as it were guiltless of His death.…But if he is guilty because he did it though unwillingly, are they innocent who compelled him to do it? By no means. But he gave sentence against Him, and commanded Him to be crucified: and in a manner himself killed Him; ye also, O ye Jews, killed Him. Whence did ye kill Him? With the sword of the tongue: for ye did whet your tongues. And when did ye smite, except when ye cried out, “Crucify, Crucify”?
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).