Psalms 9:13
For requiring their blood he hath remembered them: he hath not forgotten the cry of the poor.
Open Psalms 9:13 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- quoniam requirens sanguinem eorum recordatus est ; non est oblitus clamorem pauperum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὅτι ἐκζητῶν τὰ αἵματα αὐτῶν ἐμνήσθη, οὐκ ἐπελάθετο τῆς δεήσεως τῶν πενήτων.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- כִּֽי דֹרֵ֣שׁ דָּ֭מִים אוֹתָ֣ם זָכָ֑ר לֹֽא שָׁ֝כַ֗ח צַעֲקַ֥ת עניים
Haydock's commentary
Their, may be omitted, as it would seem to refer to the Gentiles. God declares that he will demand the blood of all that shed it without authority, Genesis ix. 5. (Haydock)
He had punished the Chanaanites, &c., for their cruelty, as he did afterwards the persecutors of his Church. If the names of Herod, Nero, &c., be infamous in history for their sanquinary proceedings, they are not less so on account of the judgments which God exercised upon them, even in this world. (Calmet) See Lact. de Mort. Persec. (Haydock)
God avengeth the blood of his martyrs. (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 Irenaeus Against Heresies: Book III, Chapter XVIII. Continuation of the
5. If, however, He was Himself not to suffer, but should fly away from Jesus, why did He exhort His disciples to take up the cross and follow Him, that cross which these men represent Him as not having taken up, but [speak of Him] as having relinquished the dispensation of suffering? For that He did not say this with reference to the acknowledging of the Stauros (cross) above, as some among them venture to expound, but with respect to the suffering which He should Himself undergo, and that His disciples should endure, He implies when He says, “For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose, shall find it.” And that His disciples must suffer for His sake, He [implied when He] said to the Jews, “Behold, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify.” And to the disciples He was wont to say, “And ye shall stand before go …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm IX
13. “For requiring their blood He hath remembered” ( ver. 12 ). As if they, who were sent to preach the Gospel, should make answer to that injunction which has been mentioned, “Show forth His wonders among the heathen,” and should say, “O Lord, who hath believed our report?” and again, “For Thy sake we are killed all the day long;” the Psalmist suitably goes on to say, That Christians not without great reward of eternity will die in persecution, “for requiring their blood He hath remembered.” But why did he choose to say, “their blood”? Was it, as if one of imperfect knowledge and less faith should ask, How will they “show them forth,” seeing that the infidelity of the heathen will rage against them; and he should be answered, “For requiring their blood He hath remembered,” that is, the last judgment will come, in which both the glory of the slain and the punishment of the slayers shall …
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).