1 Give ear to the word which the Lord says to you, O people of Israel:
Jerome · AD 420 (Chapter 10, Verse 1) Hear the word that the Lord has spoken to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: Do not learn the ways of the nations or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens, for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity.
2 This is what the Lord has said: Do not go in the way of the nations; have no fear of the signs of heaven, for the nations go in fear of them.
3 For that which is feared by the people is foolish: it is the work of the hands of the workman; for a tree is cut down by him out of the woods with his axe.
Jerome · AD 420 (v. 3.) Because it was cut down from the forest, the work of a craftsman with an axe. Description of the idols that the nations worship. He said that he cut down the wood from the forest. Therefore, the material of idols is cheap and perishable: the work of a craftsman's hands. Since the craftsman is mortal, the things he makes are also mortal.
4 They make it beautiful with silver and gold; they make it strong with nails and hammers, so that it may not be moved.
Jerome · AD 420 (v. 4.) Decorated with silver and gold, fastened with nails and hammers, so that it would not be dissolved (or moved). He decorated it with silver and gold, to deceive the simple-minded with the splendor of both materials. This error has also passed to us, so that we consider wealth as a religion.
5 It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.
Jerome · AD 420 (v. 5.) They are made in the likeness of a palm tree and do not speak: they are carried and brought, because they cannot walk. Therefore, do not fear them, because they cannot do evil, nor can they do good.
6 There is no one like you, O Lord; you are great and your name is great in power.
Ambrose of Milan · AD 397 These tokens so declare the nature of the Son, that by them you may know both that the Father is eternal, and that the Son is not diverse from Him; for the source of generation is He Who is, and as begotten of the Eternal, He is God; coming forth from the Father, He is the Son; from God, He is the Word; He is the radiance of the Father's glory, the expression of His substance,…
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 6.) There is none like you, O Lord: you are great, and your name is great in power. These are not found in the Septuagint, but were added in many places from Theodotion's Edition, and although they seem clear according to the letter, they present a great difficulty according to allegory.
Bonaventure · AD 1257 The fear of God arises in us from the consideration of divine power. Whence in Jeremiah: "There is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might: who would not fear thee, O king of nations?" He sets forth first the magnitude of divine power, when he says: "There is none like unto thee, O Lord"; whence in the book of Wisdom: "As a drop of morning de…
7 Who would not have fear of you, O King of the nations? for it is your right: for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 7.) Who will not fear you, O king of the nations? Yours is the glory among all the wise of the nations, and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. All will fear him, for he is the king of the nations. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. IX, 10): and from it we advance to true charity. 'The glory is yours,' he says.
Bonaventure · AD 1257 The fear of God arises in us from the consideration of divine power. "Who would not fear thee, O king of nations? For thine is the glory: among all the wise men of the nations and in all their kingdoms, who is like unto thee?" Therefore who would not fear thee, unless he be impious and foolish?
8 But they are together like beasts and foolish: the teaching of false gods is wood.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 8.) Both fools and wise men will be proved, their teaching is empty as a wooden idol. Both the wise and the foolish exist together. Their education, depending on the quality of their intelligence, is either cheap and compared to wood, or similar to silver because of the elegance of their speech.
9 Silver hammered into plates is sent from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the expert workman and of the hands of the gold-worker; blue and purple is their clothing, all the work of expert men.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 9.) Silver brought from Tarshish is plated (or brought) and gold from Ophaz, the work of an artist and the hand of a craftsman. Hyacinthus and their purple garment: the work of craftsmen (or wise men) all these things. It is brought from Tharsis.
10 But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and an eternal king: when he is angry, the earth is shaking with fear, and the nations give way before his wrath.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 10.) But the Lord God is true: this God is living and everlasting king. The earth will be moved from his indignation, and the nations will not be able to withstand his threat. But our Lord God, the true God, is. Therefore, all those things are lies. And He is the living God: therefore, those things that are feigned are dead. And He is the eternal king.
11 This is what you are to say to them: The gods who have not made the heavens and the earth will be cut off from the earth and from under the heavens.
Ambrose of Milan · AD 397 Who would doubt that God has made these things, who spoke through the Prophet, saying: 'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or who has been his counselor or instructed Him…
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 11) So you shall say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth, let them perish from the earth and from those things that are under the heavens. These things must be said about false gods and those that are artificially composed. For they neither made the heavens nor the earth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 In reading what is said in this Psalm of Christ and of the Church, he would find that what is there foretold is fulfilled in the present state of the world.
12 He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 The prophet of God, having taken up as it were three excellences of His—His strength, His wisdom, and His understanding—assigns to each of them a work proper to it: to the strength the earth, to the wisdom the inhabited world, and to the understanding the heaven.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 12.) The one who made the earth in his strength, who established the world in his wisdom, and who stretched out the heavens in his understanding. He who makes the earth by His power, He is God the Father. But He also makes by His power the Lord the Savior. For Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).
13 At the sound of his voice there is a massing of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain, and sends out the wind from his store-houses.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 "And He brought up clouds from the end of the earth." This saying fell to us recently also in the psalm, and we were saying how God "brought up clouds from the end of the earth." Which things it is necessary to take up again—for those who know, for the clarification and reminder of what has been said, but for those who have forgotten or were not present, for the plain understan…
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 13.) By his voice, he gives a multitude of waters in the sky, and he lifts up the clouds from the ends of the earth. He made lightning for rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. He gives a multitude of waters in the heavens at his voice.
14 Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 "Every man was made foolish from knowledge." If every man was made foolish from knowledge, and Paul too is a man, Paul was made foolish from knowledge; for "knowing in part and prophesying in part," he was made foolish from knowledge; "seeing through a mirror," seeing in an enigma, seeing and grasping a small fraction, and, if one may say so, an infinitesimal fraction of things…
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But haply for a time as the false gods. For because they can be called gods, but cannot be so, for a time they are even called so. For what saith the Prophet, or what warneth He to be said to them?
Bonaventure · AD 1257 The first brightness, namely that of philosophical knowledge, is great according to the opinion of worldly men: but it is easily eclipsed, unless a man guards himself from the head and tail of the dragon. If anything is interposed between him and the sun of justice, he suffers an eclipse of foolishness.
15 They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 15.) They are worthless and fit only for ridicule. They will perish at the time of their visitation. They are vain and worthy of laughter. For who would not laugh when they see the images of heretics?
16 The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 16.) It is not like these, the portion of Jacob. For He who formed all things, He is, and Israel is the rod of His inheritance; the Lord of hosts is His name. There is no one like these people of Jacob: those who have supplanted the Jews and destroy heretics every day. But the part of God is the Saints: of whom the prophet says: My part, O Lord.
17 Get your goods together and go out of the land, O you who are shut up in the walled town.
Jerome · AD 420 (Vers. 17, 18.) Gather from the land your confusion, you who dwell in siege; for thus says the Lord: Behold, I will cast far away the inhabitants of the earth this time, and I will afflict them that they may be found. LXX: It has gathered from outside its substance, which dwells in the fortified place.
18 For the Lord has said, I will send the people in flight like a stone from the land at this time, troubling them so that they will be conscious of it.
19 Sorrow is mine for I am wounded! my wound may not be made well; and I said, Cruel is my disease, I may not be free from it.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 19.) Woe is me for my brokenness, my grievous wound. LXX: Woe is you for your brokenness, your grievous wound. According to the Hebrew text, Jerusalem itself speaks, expressing that it has been heavily afflicted and endures an incurable wound. However, according to the LXX, it is the Prophet who speaks to Jerusalem and laments over its brokenness and its wound.
20 My tent is pulled down and all my cords are broken: my children have gone from me, and they are not: no longer is there anyone to give help in stretching out my tent and hanging up my curtains.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 20.) My tent has been devastated, all my ropes have been torn (or all my skins have been ripped), my sons have left me (or my sheep), and there is no one left ((Alternatively: remaining)): there is no one to extend my tent any further (or there is no place beyond my tent) and to set up my skins.
21 For the keepers of the sheep have become like beasts, not looking to the Lord for directions: so they have not done wisely and all their flocks have been put to flight.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 21.) Because the shepherds acted foolishly and did not seek the Lord: therefore, they did not understand, and the whole flock was scattered. Through the fault and dispersal of the shepherds and sheep, the culpability and scattering of the people is described.
Cyril of Alexandria · AD 444 The Lord protested against their wickedness through the voice of the prophet, saying, "Alas for the shepherds, who destroy and scatter the sheep of my inheritance," and again, "The shepherds have become foolish and have not sought the Lord. Therefore did none of the flock understand and were scattered." Such, then, was their state.
Theodoret of Cyrus · AD 458 He refers to the kings and priests as [stupid] shepherds because they were the guardians of this wandering people.
22 News is going about, see, it is coming, a great shaking is coming from the north country, so that the towns of Judah may be made waste and become the living-place of jackals.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 22) A voice of the cry, behold it comes, and a great commotion from the land of the North: to make the cities of Judah desolate, a habitation of dragons (or a den of ostriches). And as Symmachus has interpreted, of sirens: for which in Hebrew, Thannim () is put.
23 O Lord, I am conscious that a man's way is not in himself: man has no power of guiding his steps.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 23) I know, Lord, that it is not in man to direct his own steps: nor is it in man, to walk and guide his own footsteps. Let the new preachers be ashamed, who say that each one is ruled by his own will, when even the Prophet says: It is not in man to direct his own steps (Psalm 36:23).
Prosper of Aquitaine · AD 455 Jeremiah, explaining that humankind receives wisdom from God, states, "I know, O Lord, that the way of a person is not his. Neither is it of a person … to direct his way." Again the Lord proclaims through the same prophet that God effects the conversion of a heart to him and says, "I will bring them again into this land. And I will build them up again and not pull them down.
Theodoret of Cyrus · AD 458 It is clear, therefore, from what was said at first and what was added, that the verse "I know, Lord, that the people's way is not their own," neither subjects our free will to nature's enslavement nor submits our affairs to an ordained necessity. Instead, it expressly teaches us that the Lord God keeps his hand on the tiller of the universe and wisely directs it.
24 O Lord, put me right, but with wise purpose; not in your wrath, or you will make me small.
Jerome · AD 420 (Verse 24, 25.) Rebuke me, O Lord, but with justice, not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing. Pour out your indignation on the nations that do not know you, and on the provinces (or generations) that have not invoked your name, for they have devoured Jacob and consumed his dwelling place, and they have scattered (or reduced to desolation) his glory (or pasture).
Theodoret of Cyrus · AD 458 The inspired author knows the usefulness of discipline and understands that the Lord is exercising loving-kindness in applying it to human beings. This is the reason he asks to have a share in it. God exercises goodness in applying correction, and correction produces knowledge.
25 Let your wrath be let loose on the nations which have no knowledge of you, and on the families who give no worship to your name: for they have made a meal of Jacob, truly they have made a meal of him and put an end to him and made his fields a waste.