Psalms 88:28
And I will make him my firstborn, high above the kings of the earth.
Open Psalms 88:28 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Et ego primogenitum ponam illum, excelsum præ regibus terræ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- κἀγὼ πρωτότοκον θήσομαι αὐτόν, ὑψηλὸν παρὰ τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν τῆς γῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 89:28
- אַף אָ֭נִי בְּכ֣וֹר אֶתְּנֵ֑הוּ עֶ֝לְי֗וֹן לְמַלְכֵי אָֽרֶץ
Haydock's commentary
First-born. Or favourite, Exodus iv. 22., and Jeremias xxxi. 9. What king could be preferred to David for piety, riches, &c.? Yet he was only a feeble type of our Saviour, who surpasses all kings, as much as the reality does a shadow. (Calmet) (Colossians i. 15., Romans viii. 29., and Apocalypse i. 5.) (Berthier)
High. Hebrew helyon, which is one of the titles of God, and belongs to Christ, (Haydock) who is King of kings, and heir of all, Hebrews i. (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 Cyprian Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, That Christ is the First-born, and that He is the Wisdom of God, by whom all things were made
In Solomon in the Proverbs: “The Lord established me in the beginning of His ways, into His works: before the world He founded me. In the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He appointed the abysses, before the fountains of waters gushed forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills, the Lord begot me. He made the countries, and the uninhabitable places, and the uninhabitable bounds under heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was present with Him; and when He set apart His seat. …
St Augustine City of God, How Like the Prophecy About Christ in the 89th Psalm is to the Things Promised in Nathan’s Prophecy in the Books of Samuel
Wherefore also in the 89th Psalm, of which the title is, “An instruction for himself by Ethan the Israelite,” mention is made of the promises God made to king David, and some things are there added similar to those found in the Book of Samuel, such as this, “I have sworn to David my servant that I will prepare his seed for ever.” And again, “Then thou spakest in vision to thy sons, and saidst, I have laid help upon the mighty One, and have exalted the chosen One out of my people. I have found David my servant, and with my holy oil I have anointed him. For mine hand shall help him, and mine arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not prevail against him, and the son of iniquity shall harm him no more. And I will beat down his foes from before his face, and those that hate him will I put to flight. And my truth and my mercy shall be with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXXIX
“And I will make Him my first-born; higher than the kings of the earth” ( ver. 27 ). Our Martyrs, whose birthdays we are celebrating, shed their blood on account of these things, which were believed though not yet seen; how much more brave ought we to be, as we see what they believed? For they had not yet seen Christ raised on high among the kings of the earth: as yet princes were taking counsel together against the Lord and His Anointed: what follows in the same Psalm was not then fulfilled, “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be learned, ye that are judges of the earth.” Now indeed Christ has been exalted among the kings of the earth.
Theodoret Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus, The Immutable
Orth. After making many promises about this seed that it should be Lord both by sea and land and higher than the kings of the earth and be called the first begotten of God, and should boldly call God, Father God also added this, “My mercy will I keep for him for evermore and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure for ever and his throne as the days of heaven.”
St Cyril of Jerusalem The Father
2. For thus shall we raise our thoughts higher than the Jews, who admit indeed by their doctrines that there is One God, (for what if they often denied even this by their idolatries?); but that He is also the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they admit not; being of a contrary mind to their own Prophets, who in the Divine Scriptures affirm, The Lord said unto me, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee . And to this day they rage and gather themselves together against the Lord, and against His Anointed , thinking that it is possible to be made friends of the Father apart from devotion towards the Son, being ignorant that no man cometh unto the Father but by the Son, who saith, I am the Door, and I am the Way . …
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).