Psalms 85:4
Give joy to the soul of thy servant, for to thee, O Lord, I have lifted up my soul.
Open Psalms 85:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- lætifica animam servi tui, quoniam ad te, Domine, animam meam levavi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- εὔφρανον τὴν ψυχὴν τοῦ δούλου σου, ὅτι πρὸς σέ, κύριε, ἦρα τὴν ψυχήν μου.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 86:4
- שַׂ֭מֵּחַ נֶ֣פֶשׁ עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֥י אֵלֶ֥יךָ אֲ֝דֹנָ֗י נַפְשִׁ֥י אֶשָּֽׂא
Haydock's commentary
Soul. I ardently desire to serve in thy temple, Jeremias xxii. 27. A holy importunity, (Luke xviii. 2.; Tertullian, Apol. 39.; Calmet) and fervour in prayer, (Haydock) with perseverance, attention, and a sense of God's infinite perfections, are requisite. (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 Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament, Of the words of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Chap. iii. 13, 'Then Jesus cometh from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.' Concerning the Trinity
3. What am I then about? See: The Son came separately in the Man; The Holy Spirit descended separately from heaven in the form of a Dove; The Voice of the Father sounded separately out of heaven, “This is My Son.” Where then is this inseparable Trinity? God hath made you attentive by my words. Pray for me, and open, as it were, the folds of your hearts, and may He grant you wherewith your hearts so opened may be filled. Share my travail with me. For you see what I have undertaken; and not only what, but who I am that have undertaken it, and of what I wish to speak, and where and what my position is, even in that “body which is corruptible, and presseth down the soul, and the earthly habitation weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.” When therefore I abstract my mind from the multiplicity of things, and gather it up into the One God, the inseparable Trinity, that so I may se …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXXVI
6. “Make glad the soul of Thy servant: for unto Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul” ( ver. 4 ). Make it glad, for unto Thee have I lifted it up. For it was on earth, and from the earth it felt bitterness: lest it should wither away in bitterness, lest it should lose all the sweetness of Thy grace, I lifted it up unto Thee: make Thou it glad with Thyself. For Thou alone art gladness: the whole world is full of bitterness. Surely with reason He admonishes His members to lift up their hearts. May they hear and do it: may they lift up unto Him what on earth is ill. There the heart decayeth not, if it be lifted up to God. If thou hadst corn in thy rooms below, thou wouldest take it up higher, lest it should grow rotten. Wouldest thou remove thy corn, and dost thou suffer thy heart to rot on the earth? Thou wouldest take thy corn up higher: lift up thy heart to heaven. …