Wisdom 4:3
But the multiplied brood of the wicked shall not thrive, and bastard slips shall not take deep root, nor any fast foundation.
Open Wisdom 4:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Multigena autem impiorum multitudo non erit utilis, et spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas, nec stabile firmamentum collocabunt.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- πολύγονον δὲ ἀσεβῶν πλῆθος οὐ χρησιμεύσει, καὶ ἐκ νόθων μοσχευμάτων οὐ δώσει ῥίζαν εἰς βάθος, οὐδὲ ἀσφαλῆ βάσιν ἑδράσει·
Haydock's commentary
Slips. Vitulamina, a word, to which the people were so habituated, that it could not be altered. (St. Augustine, de Doct. xii.)
Yet some read better (Calmet) plantationes. (St. Bonaventure) (Lyranus)
The offspring of the unchaste will not prosper, chap. iii. 16.
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 Methodius The Banquet of the Ten Virgins; or Concerning Chastity, Chapter III
If, however, any one should venture to find fault with our argument as destitute of Scripture proof, we will bring forward the writings of the prophets, and more fully demonstrate the truth of the statements already made. Now Abraham, when he first received the covenant of circumcision, seems to signify, by receiving circumcision in a member of his own body, nothing else than this, that one should no longer beget children with one born of the same parent; showing that every one should abstain from intercourse with his own sister, as his own flesh. …
St Augustine On Christian Doctrine, A Diversity of Interpretations is Useful. Errors Arising from Ambiguous Words
18. And very often a translator, to whom the meaning is not well known, is deceived by an ambiguity in the original language, and puts upon the passage a construction that is wholly alien to the sense of the writer. As for example, some texts read: “Their feet are sharp to shed blood;” for the word ὁζύς among the Greeks means both sharp and swift . And so he saw the true meaning who translated: “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” The other, taking the wrong sense of an ambiguous word, fell into error. Now translations such as this are not obscure, but false; and there is a wide difference between the two things. For we must learn not to interpret, but to correct texts of this sort. …