Psalms 80:13
So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions.
Open Psalms 80:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et dimisi eos secundum desideria cordis eorum ; ibunt in adinventionibus suis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐξαπέστειλα αὐτοὺς κατὰ τὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν, πορεύσονται ἐν τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύμασιν αὐτῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 81:13
- וָֽ֭אֲשַׁלְּחֵהוּ בִּשְׁרִיר֣וּת לִבָּ֑ם יֵ֝לְכ֗וּ בְּֽמוֹעֲצוֹתֵיהֶֽם
Haydock's commentary
Inventions. Ancient psalters read, "wills." This is the greatest (Calmet) of God's judgments, Romans i. 24. (Menochius)
He sometimes permits a person to go on, that he may be disgusted with sin. Ut saturati vitiis vel sic agant pœnitentiam. (St. Jerome)
We ought all to dread this root of bitterness, (Hebrews xii. 15.) which may cause us to resist God's grace, and to be abandoned by him, as the Israelites seemed to be, before their ruin came on. (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 LXXXI
16. “And I let them go according to the affections of their heart” ( ver. 12 ). Behold the press: the orifices are open, the lees run. “And I let them go,” not according to the healthfulness of My commands; but, according to the affections of their heart: I gave them up to themselves. The Apostle also saith, “God gave them up to the desires of their own hearts.” “I let them go according to the affection of their heart, they shall go in their own affections.” There is what ye shudder at, if at least ye are straining out into the hidden vats of the Lord, if at least ye have conceived a hearty love for His storehouses, there is what ye shudder at. Some stand up for the circus, some for the amphitheatre, some for the booths in the streets some for the theatres, some for this, some for that, some finally for their “new gods;” “they shall go in their own affections.”
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XX. That nothing can be done in this world without God
But it is right for us to hold with unswerving faith that nothing whatever is done in this world without God. For we must acknowledge that everything is done either by His will or by His permission, i.e., we must believe that whatever is good is carried out by the will of God and by His aid, and whatever is the reverse is done by His permission, when the Divine Protection is withdrawn from us for our sins and the hardness of our hearts, and suffers the devil and the shameful passions of the body to lord it over us. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XXI. An objection on the power of free will
Germanus : This passage very clearly shows the freedom of the will, where it is said “If My people would have hearkened unto Me,” and elsewhere “But My people would not hear My voice.” For when He says “If they would have heard” He shows that the decision to yield or not to yield lay in their own power. How then is it true that our salvation does not depend upon ourselves, if God Himself has given us the power either to hearken or not to hearken?