Psalms 67:26
Princes went before joined with singers, in the midst of young damsels playing on timbrels.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Prævenerunt principes conjuncti psallentibus, in medio juvencularum tympanistriarum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- προέφθασαν ἄρχοντες ἐχόμενοι ψαλλόντων, ἐν μέσῳ νεανίδων τυμπανιστριῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 68:26
- קִדְּמ֣וּ שָׁ֭רִים אַחַ֣ר נֹגְנִ֑ים בְּת֥וֹךְ עֲ֝לָמ֗וֹת תּוֹפֵפֽוֹת
Haydock's commentary
Princes. The apostles, the first converters of nations: attended by numbers of perfect souls, singing the divine praises, and virgins consecrated to God. (Challoner)
St. Paul exhorts the faithful to sing hymns, Ephesians v. 19. (Berthier)
Moses and Mary[Miriam] had sung a canticle, after the passage of the Red Sea, Exodus xv. (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
Tertullian The Five Books Against Marcion, From St. Luke's Eleventh Chapter Other Evidence that Christ Comes from the Creator. The Lord's Prayer and Other Words of Christ. The Dumb Spirit and Christ's Discourse on Occasion of the Expulsion. The Exclamation of the Woman in the Crowd
When in a certain place he had been praying to that Father above, looking up with insolent and audacious eyes to the heaven of the Creator, by whom in His rough and cruel nature he might have been crushed with hail and lightning, just as it was by Him contrived that he was (afterwards) attached to a cross at Jerusalem, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Master, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” This he said, forsooth, because he thought that different prayers were required for different gods! Now, he who had advanced such a conjecture as this should first show that another god had been proclaimed by Christ. For nobody would have wanted to know how to pray, before he had learned whom he was to pray to. If, however, he had already learned this, prove it. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXVIII
31. But in order that those steps might be seen, “there went before princes conjoined with men psalming, in the midst of damsels players on timbrels” ( ver. 25 ). The princes are the Apostles: for they went before, that the peoples might come in multitudes. “They went before” proclaiming the New Testament: “conjoined with men psalming,” by whose good works that were even visible, as it were with instruments of praise, God was glorified. But those same princes are “in the midst of damsels players on timbrels,” to wit, in an honourable ministry: for thus in the midst are ministers set over new Churches; for this is “damsels:” with flesh subdued praising God; for this is “players on timbrels,” because timbrels are made of skin dried and stretched.