Psalms 68:29
Let them be blotted out of the book of the living; and with the just let them not be written.
Open Psalms 68:29 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Deleantur de libro viventium, et cum justis non scribantur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐξαλειφθήτωσαν ἐκ βίβλου ζώντων, καὶ μετὰ δικαίων μὴ γραφήτωσαν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 69:29
- יִ֭מָּחֽוּ מִסֵּ֣פֶר חַיִּ֑ים וְעִ֥ם צַ֝דִּיקִ֗ים אַל יִכָּתֵֽבוּ
Haydock's commentary
Living. Let them die. (Grotius)
If we understand the book of the predestinate to life eternal, and not merely to present and mutable justice, (Tirinus) God never blots any out. But though they fall, he brings them to repentance. (St. Augustine; Estius; Bellarmine)
The reprobation of the obstinate Babylonians (Calmet) and Jews, is predicted. (Haydock)
The latter were effaced from the book of the living of the Old Testament, and were never written in that of the just, belonging to the New. (St. Jerome)
At death, the unbelieving Jews (Haydock) shall not find their expectations well founded. (Worthington)
Only the faithful are truly just. (Menochius)
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
Origen Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapter IV
4. I feel myself growing dizzy with all this, and wonder whether, in obeying you, I have not been obeying God, nor walking in the footsteps of the saints, unless it be that my too great love to you, and my unwillingness to cause you any pain, has led me astray and caused me to think of all these excuses. We started from the words of the preacher, where he says: “My son, beware of making many books.” With this I compare a saying from the Proverbs of the same Solomon, “In the multitude of words thou shalt not escape sin; but in sparing thy lips thou shalt be wise.” Here I ask whether speaking many words of whatever kind is a multitude of words (in the sense of the preacher), even if the many words a man speaks are sacred and connected with salvation. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXIX
28. “Lay Thou iniquity upon their iniquity” ( ver. 28 ). What is this? Who would not be afraid? To God is said, “Lay Thou iniquity upon their iniquity.” Whence shall God lay iniquity? For hath He iniquity to lay? For we know that to be true which hath been spoken through Paul the Apostle, “What then shall we say? Is there anywise iniquity with God? Far be it.” Whence then, “Lay Thou iniquity upon iniquity”? How must we understand this? May the Lord be with us, that we may speak, and because of your weariness may be able to speak briefly. Their iniquity was that they killed a just Man: there was added another, that they crucified the Son of God. …