Psalms 7:3
Lest at any time he seize upon my soul like a lion, while there is no one to redeem me, nor to save.
Open Psalms 7:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- nequando rapiat ut leo animam meam, dum non est qui redimat, neque qui salvum faciat.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- μή ποτε ἁρπάσῃ ὡς λέων τὴν ψυχήν μου, μὴ ὄντος λυτρουμένου μηδὲ σώζοντος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- פֶּן יִטְרֹ֣ף כְּאַרְיֵ֣ה נַפְשִׁ֑י פֹּ֝רֵ֗ק וְאֵ֣ין מַצִּֽיל
Haydock's commentary
Lion. In a spiritual sense this is the devil, 1 Peter v. 8. (St. Augustine)
"Let him only see the sign of the cross, or the lamp continually burning before the altar, he will flee away. Should we wonder at this? the garments alone of Paul drove him from possessed person." [Acts xix. 12.] (St. Chrysostom)
Will modern sectaries still ridicule these things?
While. Hebrew, "tearing, and not snatching away." But there is a similar construction, (Lamentations v. 8.) which shews that we ought to follow the Vulgate. (Berthier)
Absalom, or any other enemy, may be this lion. (Worthington)
They threatened David with utter ruin, which he could never have escaped, without God's visible protection.
Haydock wrote amid the controversies of his day. The Church teaches that those born into communities separated from her cannot be charged with the sin of separation, and embraces them as brothers (CCC 818).
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 VII
2. “O Lord my God, in Thee have I hoped: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me” ( ver. 1 ). As one to whom, already perfected, all the war and enmity of vice being overcome, there remaineth no enemy but the envious devil, he says, “Save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me ( ver. 2 ): lest at any time he tear my soul as a lion.” The Apostle says, “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Therefore when the Psalmist said in the plural number, “Save me from all them that persecute me:” he afterwards introduced the singular, saying, “lest at any time he tear my soul as a lion.” For he does not say, lest at any time they tear: he knew what enemy and violent adversary of the perfect soul remained. “Whilst there be none to redeem, nor to save:” that is, lest he tear me, whilst Thou redeemest not, nor savest. …