Psalms 77:57
And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.
Open Psalms 77:57 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et averterunt se, et non servaverunt pactum : quemadmodum patres eorum, conversi sunt in arcum pravum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐπέστρεψαν καὶ ἠσυνθέτησαν καθὼς καὶ οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν καὶ μετεστράφησαν εἰς τόξον στρεβλόν·
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 78:57
- וַיִּסֹּ֣גוּ וַֽ֭יִּבְגְּדוּ כַּאֲבוֹתָ֑ם נֶ֝הְפְּכ֗וּ כְּקֶ֣שֶׁת רְמִיָּֽה
Haydock's commentary
The covenant, is omitted in many Greek and Latin copies, as well as in Hebrew. (St. Jerome, ad Sun.)
Yet it is found in the Vatican edition, (Calmet) as well as in the Alexandrian, esunthetesan. (Haydock)
Bow, which hits not the mark. It alludes to the faithless Israelites, (Calmet) particularly to Ephraim, ver. 9., Osee vii. 6., and Jeremias ix. 3. The bow of Jonathan was not such, 2 Kings i. 22. (Calmet)
A bad bow misses the aim, or breaking, wounds the person who uses it. (Menochius)
These people hurt themselves by their treachery. (Worthington)
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 LXXVIII
31. “And He made to dwell in their tabernacles the tribes of Israel.” In the tabernacles, he saith, of the Gentiles He made the tribes of Israel to dwell, which I think can better be explained spiritually, inasmuch as unto celestial glory, whence sinning angels have been cast forth and cast down, by Christ’s grace we are being uplifted. For that generation crooked and embittering, inasmuch as for these corporal blessings they put not off the coat of oldness, “Did tempt” yet, “and provoked the high God, and His testimonies they kept not ( ver. 56 ): and they turned them away, and they kept not the covenant, like their fathers” ( ver. 57 ). …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Rusticus
19. Men such as these you must never look at or associate with. Nor must you turn aside your heart unto words of evil lest the psalmist say to you: “Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son,” and lest you become as “the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrows,” and as the man whose “words were softer than oil yet were they drawn swords.” The Preacher expresses this more clearly still when he says: “Surely the serpent will bite where there is no enchantment, and the slan derer is no better.” But you will say, ‘I am not given to detraction, but how can I check others who are?’ If we put forward such a plea as this it can only be that we may “practise wicked works with men that work iniquity.” Yet Christ is not deceived by this device. …