Psalms 76:5
My eyes prevented the watches: I was troubled, and I spoke not.
Open Psalms 76:5 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Anticipaverunt vigilias oculi mei ; turbatus sum, et non sum locutus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- προκατελάβοντο φυλακὰς οἱ ἐχθροί μου· ἐταράχθην καὶ οὐκ ἐλάλησα.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 77:5
- אָ֭חַזְתָּ שְׁמֻר֣וֹת עֵינָ֑י נִ֝פְעַ֗מְתִּי וְלֹ֣א אֲדַבֵּֽר
Haydock's commentary
My eyes. Vatican Septuagint, Arabic, and St. Augustine read, "my enemies," but our Vulgate follows the edition of Aldus and Complutensian (Berthier) very frequently, which here agree better with the Hebrew, "I hindered my eyes from looking up;" (St. Jerome; Symmachus) or, "thou hast kept the watches of my eyes," (Aquila) hindering me from sleeping; (Haydock) so that I did not watch three hours only, like the sentinels, but all night. (Calmet)
The sudden address to God seems incorrect. (Berthier)
I rose before the usual time, yet did not utter my sentiments, (Worthington) being quite oppressed both with grief and joy. (Haydock)
I durst not speak, as I was convinced that thy judgments were right. (Menochius)
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
6. With weariness he had pined away; by calling to mind God, he had been delighted, again in babbling he had fainted: what followeth? “All mine enemies have anticipated watches” ( ver. 4 ). All mine enemies have kept watch over me; they have exceeded in keeping watch over me; in watching they have been beforehand with me. Where do they not lay traps? Have not mine enemies anticipated all watches? For who are these enemies, but they of whom the Apostle saith, “Ye have not wrestling against flesh and blood.”…Against the devil and his angels we are waging hostilities. Rulers of the world he hath called them, because they do themselves rule the lovers of the world. For they do not rule the world, as if they were rulers of heaven and earth: but he is calling sinners the world.…With the devil and his angels there is no concord. They do themselves grudge us the kingdom of Heaven. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Salvina
To the same effect in different words the prophet says: “I am so troubled that I cannot speak,” and in the same book, “Be ye angry and sin not.” So Archytas of Tarentum once said to a careless steward: “I should have flogged you to death had I not been in a passion.” For “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” Now what is here said of one form of perturbation may be applied to all. Just as anger is human and the repression of it Christian, so it is with other passions. The flesh always lusts after the things of the flesh, and by its allurements draws the soul to partake of deadly pleasures; but it is for us Christians to restrain the desire for sensual indulgence by an intenser love for Christ. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Eustochium
19. In her frequent sicknesses and infirmities she used to say, “when I am weak, then am I strong:” “we have our treasure in earthen vessels” until “this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality” and again “as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ:” and then as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation. In sorrow she used to sing: “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God.” In the hour of danger she used to say: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me:” and again “whosoever will save his life shall lose it,” and “whosoever will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it.” When the exhaust …