Psalms 88:18
For thou art the glory of their strength: and in thy good pleasure shall our horn be exalted.
Open Psalms 88:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam gloria virtutis eorum tu es, et in beneplacito tuo exaltabitur cornu nostrum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι τὸ καύχημα τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτῶν εἶ σύ, καὶ ἐν τῇ εὐδοκίᾳ σου ὑψωθήσεται τὸ κέρας ἡμῶν.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 89:18
- כִּֽי תִפְאֶ֣רֶת עֻזָּ֣מוֹ אָ֑תָּה וּ֝בִרְצֹנְךָ֗ תרים קַרְנֵֽנוּ
Haydock's commentary
Horn. Power and kingdom. (Worthington)
He speaks like a virtuous Levite, who acknowledges that all good came from the Lord. (Haydock)
He cannot speak of temporal blessings alone. (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 Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John, Chapter XVI. 1-4
2. And then He expressly declares what they were to suffer: “They shall put you out of the synagogues.” But what harm was it for the apostles to be expelled from the Jewish synagogues, as if they were not to separate themselves therefrom, although no one expelled them? Doubtless He meant to announce with reprobation, that the Jews would refuse to receive Christ, from whom they as certainly would refuse to withdraw; and so it would come to pass that the latter, who could not exist without Him, would also be cast out along with Him by those who would not have Him as their place of abode. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXXIX
17. “For Thou art the glory of their strength: and in Thy good pleasure Thou shalt lift up our horns” ( ver. 17 ): because it has seemed good to Thee, not because we are worthy.
St Athanasius Against the Arians. (Orationes contra Arianos IV.), Texts Explained; And First, Phil. II. 9, 10. Various texts which are alleged against the Catholic doctrine: e.g. Phil. ii. 9, 10. Whether the words 'Wherefore God hath highly exalted' prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word 'Son;' which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of 'highly exalted,' and 'gave,' and 'wherefore;' viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord's manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word's 'exaltation' through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word
41. And if, as David says in the 71st Psalm, ‘His Name remaineth before the sun, and before the moon, from one generation to another,’ how did He receive what He had always, even before He now received it? or how is He exalted, being before His exaltation the Most High? or how did He receive the right of being worshipped, who before He now received it, was ever worshipped? It is not a dark saying but a divine mystery. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;’ but for our sakes afterwards the ‘Word was made flesh.’ And the term in question, ‘highly exalted,’ does not signify that the essence of the Word was exalted, for He was ever and is ‘equal to God,’ but the exaltation is of the manhood. …
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).