Psalms 76:18
Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound. For thy arrows pass:
Open Psalms 76:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Multitudo sonitus aquarum ; vocem dederunt nubes. Etenim sagittæ tuæ transeunt ;
- Septuagint (Swete)
- πλῆθος ἠχοῦς ὕδατος· φωνὴν ἔδωκαν αἱ νεφέλαι, καὶ γὰρ τὰ βέλη σου διαπορεύονται·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 77:18
- זֹ֤רְמוּ מַ֨יִם עָב֗וֹת ק֭וֹל נָתְנ֣וּ שְׁחָקִ֑ים אַף חֲ֝צָצֶ֗יךָ יִתְהַלָּֽכוּ
Haydock's commentary
Waters. St. Jerome, "the clouds poured out waters," mayim, Septuagint may have read hamim, "sounds," and omit clouds, which come again in this verse. (Berthier)
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 LXXVII
18. In praises of God, in confessions of sins, in hymns and in songs, in prayers, “There is a multitude of the sound of waters. The clouds have uttered a voice” ( ver. 17 ). Thence that sound of waters, thence the troubling of the abysses, because “the clouds have uttered a voice.” What clouds? The preachers of the word of truth. What clouds? Those concerning which God doth menace a certain vineyard, which instead of grape had brought forth thorns and He saith, “I will command My clouds, that they rain no rain upon it.” In a word, the Apostles forsaking the Jews, went to the Gentiles: in preaching Christ among all nations, “the clouds have uttered a voice.” “For Thine arrows have gone through.” Those same voices of the clouds He hath again called arrows. For the words of the Evangelists were arrows. For these things are allegories. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it 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).