Psalms 9:4
When my enemy shall be turned back: they shall be weakened and perish before thy face.
Open Psalms 9:4 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- In convertendo inimicum meum retrorsum ; infirmabuntur, et peribunt a facie tua.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἐν τῷ ἀποστραφῆναι τὸν ἐχθρὸν μου εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω, ἀσθενήσουσιν καὶ ἀπολοῦνται ἀπὸ προσώπου σου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- בְּשׁוּב אוֹיְבַ֥י אָח֑וֹר יִכָּשְׁל֥וּ וְ֝יֹאבְד֗וּ מִפָּנֶֽיךָ
Haydock's commentary
Back; routed. After Saul's family was taken off, none durst oppose David. They saw that the Lord had set him on the throne. (Calmet)
Only after his sin, rebels began to molest him. (Haydock)
The Fathers explain this of the devil and his agents. (St. Jerome)
God repelleth the enemy, when man is not able to resist. (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 Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm IX
5. “They will be weakened, and perish from Thy face” ( ver. 3 ). Who will be weakened and perish, but the unrighteous and ungodly? “They will be weakened,” while they shall avail nothing; “and they shall perish,” because the ungodly will not be; “from the face” of God, that is, from the knowledge of God, as he perished who said, “But now I live not, but Christ liveth in me.” But why will the ungodly “be weakened and perish from thy face?” “Because,” he saith, “Thou hast made my judgment, and my cause:” that is, the judgment in which I seemed to be judged, Thou hast made mine; and the cause in which men condemned me just and innocent, Thou hast made mine. For such things served Him for our deliverance: as sailors too call the wind theirs, which they take advantage of for prosperous sailing.