Psalms 72:18
But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Verumtamen propter dolos posuisti eis ; dejecisti eos dum allevarentur.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- πλὴν διὰ τὰς δολιότητας ἔθου αὐτοῖς.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 73:18
- אַ֣ךְ בַּ֭חֲלָקוֹת תָּשִׁ֣ית לָ֑מוֹ הִ֝פַּלְתָּ֗ם לְמַשּׁוּאֽוֹת
Haydock's commentary
Thou hast put it to them. In punishment of their deceits, or for deceiving them, thou hast brought evils upon them in their last end, which in their prosperity they never apprehended. (Challoner)
Septuagint, &c., add, "thou hast placed evils." St. Ambrose reads, "goods." (Calmet)
Dolos, seems to form part of both sentences, "for deceits thou hast put deceits." (Berthier)
With the perverse, thou wilt be perverted, Psalm xvii. 27. Protestants, "surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou calledst them down into destruction;" (Haydock) or, "when they were lifted up." Do the rich think, that their prosperity may be an effect of God's indignation? (Calmet)
We are here informed, in general, that evils are prepared to punish sins. (Worthington)
The wicked have risen by their crimes to such a slippery situation. (Menochius)
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 City of God, That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act
Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For “pride is the beginning of sin.” And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXIII
18. To wit, “because of deceitfulness Thou hast set upon them” ( ver. 18 ). Because deceitful they are, that is fraudulent; because deceitful they are, they suffer deceits. What is this, because fraudulent they are they suffer a fraud? They desire to play a fraud upon mankind in all their naughtinesses, they themselves also suffer a fraud, in choosing earthly good things, and in forsaking the eternal. Therefore, brethren, in their very playing off a fraud they suffer a fraud. …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, How those are to be admonished with whom everything succeeds according to their wish, and those with whom nothing does
Those who prosper in this world are to be admonished to consider wisely how that prosperity in the present life is sometimes given to provoke people to a better life, but sometimes to condemn them more fully for ever. For hence it is that to the people of Israel the land of Canaan is promised, that they may be provoked at some time or other to hope for eternal things. For that rude nation would not have believed the promises of God afar off, had they not received also something nigh at hand from Him that promised. In order, therefore, that they may be the more surely strengthened unto faith in eternal things, they are drawn on, not only by hope to realities, but also by realities to hope. …
St Gregory the Great Register of the Epistles of St. Gregory the Great, To Theoctista, Sister of the Emperor
With how great devotion my mind prostrates itself before your Venerableness I cannot fully express in words; nor yet do I labour to give utterance to it, since, even though I were silent, you read in your heart your own sense of my devotion. I wonder, however, that you withdrew your countenance, till of late bestowed on me, from this my recent engagement in the pastoral office; wherein, under colour of episcopacy, I have been brought back to the world; in which I am involved in such great earthly cares as I do not at all remember having been subjected to even in a lay state of life. For I have lost the deep joys of my quiet, and seem to have risen outwardly while inwardly falling down. Whence I grieve to find myself banished far from the face of my Maker. …
St Gregory the Great Book IX, To Leander, Bishop of Hispalis (Seville)
I have the epistle of thy Holiness, written with the pen of charity alone. For what the tongue transferred to the paper had got its tincture from the heart. Good and wise men were present when it was read, and at once their bowels were stirred with emotion. Everyone began to seize thee in his heart with the hand of love, for that in that epistle the sweetness of thy disposition was not to be heard, but seen. All severally were inflamed, and all admired, and the very fire of the hearers shewed what had been the ardour of the speaker. For, unless torches burn themselves, they will not kindle others. We saw, then, with how great charity thy mind was aflame, seeing that it so kindled others also. Your life indeed, which I always remember with great reverence, they did not know; but the loftiness of your heart was manifest to them from the lowliness of your language. …