Psalms 68:11
And I covered my soul in fasting: and it was made a reproach to me.
Open Psalms 68:11 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et operui in jejunio animam meam, et factum est in opprobrium mihi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ συνέκαμψα ἐν νηστίᾳ τὴν ψυχήν μου, καὶ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὀνειδισμὸν ἐμοί·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 69:11
- וָאֶבְכֶּ֣ה בַצּ֣וֹם נַפְשִׁ֑י וַתְּהִ֖י לַחֲרָפ֣וֹת לִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Covered. Retiring from society. (Berthier)
Roman Septuagint and Houbigant, "I humbled." Hebrew, "I bewailed my soul in fasting," (Aquila) as if death were inevitable; and this practice was derided, as the fasts of the Church, (Haydock) and mortification, (Worthington) are still by unbelievers. (Haydock)
The Jews seemed to scoff at the thirst of Christ, when they gave him vinegar; and the devil took occasion from his 40 days' fast to tempt him. (Berthier)
Where a note speaks of the Jewish people, the Church teaches that the Passion 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).
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 City of God, Of the Birth of Our Saviour, Whereby the Word Was Made Flesh; And of the Dispersion of the Jews Among All Nations, as Had Been Prophesied
While Herod, therefore, reigned in Judea, and Cæsar Augustus was emperor at Rome, the state of the republic being already changed, and the world being set at peace by him, Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judah, man manifest out of a human virgin, God hidden out of God the Father. For so had the prophet foretold: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and bring forth a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which, being interpreted, is, God with us.” He did many miracles that He might commend God in Himself, some of which, even as many as seemed sufficient to proclaim Him, are contained in the evangelic Scripture. The first of these is, that He was so wonderfully born, and the last, that with His body raised up again from the dead He ascended into heaven. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXIX
13. “And I have covered in fasting My Soul, and it became to Me for a reviling” ( ver. 10 ). His fasting was, when there fell away all they that had believed in Him; because also it was His hunger, that men should believe in Him: because also it was His thirst, when He said to the woman, I thirst, “give Me to drink:” yea for her faith He was thirsting. And from the Cross when He was saying, “I thirst,” He was seeking the faith of them for whom He had said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But what did those men give to drink to Him thirsty? Vinegar. Vinegar is also called old . With reason of the old man they gave to drink, because they willed not to be new. Why willed they not to become new? Because to the title of this Psalm whereon is written, “For them that shall be changed,” they belonged not. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Demetrius
10. After you have paid the most careful attention to your thoughts, you must then put on the armour of fasting and sing with David: “I chastened my soul with fasting,” and “I have eaten ashes like bread,” and “as for me when they troubled me my clothing was sackcloth.” Eve was expelled from paradise because she had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Elijah on the other hand after forty days of fasting was carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. For forty days and forty nights Moses lived by the intimate converse which he had with God, thus proving in his own case the complete truth of the saying, “man doth not live by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” The Saviour of the world, who in His virtues and His mode of life has left us an example to follow, was, immediately after His baptism, taken up by the spirit that He might contend with the devil, and a …