Bible Commentaries

Psalms 70:1 — and of those who were first carried away into captivity. (Challoner) --- This first captivity happened under Joakim, in the year of the world 3398, the second, under Jechonias, 3405, and the last, when the city was destroyed and Sedecias ws taken, 34016. (Usher) --- The Rechabites entered Jerusalem a little before the first of these events, and set the people an example of obedience by submitting to Nabuchodonosor, as Jeremias directed. (Bellarmine) (Menochius) --- St. Jerome considers their being

Song of Solomon 5:1 — are the wine of angels, because in them is the odour of life." (St. Bernard, ser. 30.) --- Inebriated. Not so as to lose reason, Genesis xliii. 34. (Calmet) --- Protestants marginal note, "be drunk with loves." (Haydock) (Proverbs v. 19., and vii. 18. This wine of love, is the blessed Eucharist, which maketh virgins to spring forth, (Zacharias ix. 17.) and is a foretaste of heaven, Psalm xxxv. 9. It makes us forget the old man, (Calmet) and raise the mind to God. (St. Cyprian, ep.

Jeremiah 25:25-26 — and be destroyed herself. (Challoner) --- The Chaldeans are not expressed, to avoid their resentment. The sh in sheshac, is at the same distance from the end as b in Babel is from the beginning of the alphabet. See St. Jerome. (Haydock) (2 Timothy iv. 17.) --- Yet they are not elsewhere spared, chap. xlix., &c. Sesac was probably the idol, "anais or the moon." (Calmet) --- The Sacean feasts were very dissolute, like the saturnalia at Rome. (Dio. Chrys.[St. Chrysostom?] iv.; Strabo xi.)

Micah 5:5 — God’s Church, and the defenders of the faith. The number seven, in Scripture; is taken to signify many; and when eight is joined with it, we are to understand that the number will be very great. (Challoner) --- See Ecclesiastes xi. 2., and Ruth iv. 16. (Calmet) --- Christ always preserves a great number, not withstanding the attacks of persecutors enabling bishops to feed them with a power which the people must revere, Hebrews xiii. (Worthington) --- Eight. Eschylus places Artaphanes between Smerdis

Zechariah 8:19 — Fast. They fasted on the ninth day of the fourth month, because on that day Nabuchodonosor took Jerusalem, Jeremias lii. 6. On the tenth day of the fifth month, because on that day the temple was burnt, Jeremias lii. 12. On the third day of the seventh month, for the murder of Godolias, Jeremias xli. 2. And on the tenth day of the tenth month, because on that day the Chaldeans began to besiege Jerusalem, 4 Kings xxv. 1. All these fasts, if they will be obedient for

Matthew 20:14 — called to the service of their God, and to a life of virtue, from their infancy, whilst others, by a powerful call from above, are converted late in life, that the former may have no occasion to glory in themselves, or to despise those who, even in the 11th hour, enter upon the path of rectitude; and that all might learn that there is time sufficient, however short, left them to repair by their diligence and fervour their past losses. (St. John Chrysostom, hom. lxv.) --- Jesus Christ does not count

Matthew 27:1 — the question to Jesus, and commanded him to tell them if he were the Christ, and Son of God? He owned he was. (Luke xxii. 70.) --- Upon this they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor: literally, the president. This they did, 1. because being a festival day, they apprehended a tumult among the people. 2. To make him die a more infamous death on the cross; otherwise they might perhaps have stoned him to death, as they afterwards did St. Stephen. 3. The power of death being

Matthew 3:17 — salvation, through this God-man, Christ the Lord. But if it here be asked, why Jesus Christ, who was innocence itself, yes, and the very essence of sanctity, condescended so far as to be baptized with sinners, we answer, with the Holy Fathers, that it was, 1. to sanction the baptism and ministry of his precursor; 2. not to lose this opportunity of teaching humility, by placing himself among sinners, as if he had stood in need of the baptism of penance for the remission of sins; and lastly, with St. Ambrose,

Mark 1:2 — read in the prophets, not naming either Isaias or Malachias. The words seem taken partly out of one, and partly out of the other. These words, behold I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare the way before thee, are found Malachias iii. ver. 1. And the following words, a voice of one crying in the desert: prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths, are is Isaias, chap. xl, ver. 3. (Witham) --- In the beginning of his gospel, St. Mark alleges the authority of the prophets, that

Mark 12:1 — angels; the place dug for the wine-vat is the law; the tower, the temple; and Moses, the prophets and the priests, whom the Jews afflicted and persecuted are the husbandmen or servants. (St. Jerome) --- This same parable was employed by Isaias, (v. 1.) where speaking of Christ, he says: My beloved had a vineyard, and he fenced it in. (Tirinus) --- He went into a far country, not by change of place, for he is every where, but by leaving the workmen the power of free-will, either to work or not to

John 20:22 — divine Spirit, should likewise possess the power of forgiving sins, and of retaining such as they judged expedient; that Holy Spirit, according to his good pleasure, forgiving and retaining, through the ministry of men." (In Joan. lib. xii. chap. 1.)

Acts 25:26 — not be easy for us to guess; certainly not from Scripture, in which the word Dominus or Lord, applied to man, occurs almost as frequently as King. Certainly not from our Saviour’s words, who give both himself and others this title, (Mark xiv. 14. and other places.) nor from St. Paul’s doctrine, who also uses this word indiscriminately through his epistles, Galatians iv. 1; Ephesians vi. v.; &c. Hence we are justified in retaining this practice, in opposition to their cavils; and

Romans 3:5-6 — known his divine perfections, yet this will not excuse them from being justly condemned, and punished, when God shall judge the wicked world; for if that were a sufficient plea, God could not judge and condemn the wicked: so that as St. John Chrysostom [1] observes, that apostle resolves their question, by asking another, and shews their reasoning absurd, by taking notice of another absurdity that follows from it. 2ndly. He tells them, they slander him, and his doctrine, by only telling them, they deserve

Romans 7:17-18 — (Witham) --- The apostle here means to say, that he knew by experience that evil and not good dwelt within him, according to the flesh. He does not contradict this passage when he says elsewhere, that our members are the temples of the Holy Ghost: (1 Corinthians iii. 6. &c.) for good cannot be found in our flesh, inasmuch as it is corrupted by sin;; whence our Saviour says, "What is born of flesh, is flesh." (John iii.) But good is in our body, when our members under the influence

1 Corinthians 15:13-23 — He brings many reasons to convince them of the resurrection. 1. If there be no resurrection for others, Christ is not risen again: but his resurrection (as he tells them ver. 4) was foretold in the Scriptures. 2. And if Christ be not risen again,...your faith is also in vain, this being one of the chief articles

Ephesians 5:3 — Covetousness.[1] The Latin word is generally taken for a coveting or immoderate desire of money and riches. St. Jerome and others observe, that the Greek word in this an divers other places in the New Testament may signify any unsatiable desire, or the lusts of sensual

Colossians 2:8 — Jewish ceremonies, which are called weak and poor elements, or rudiments. (Galatians iv. 9.) This is neither to condemn in general the use of philosophy, which St. Augustine commends, and made use of, nor all traditions delivered by the apostles. See 1 Corinthians xi. and 2. Thessalonians ii. 14. (Witham) =============================== [BIBLIOGRAPHY] Decipiat, Greek: sulagogon, prædam furtive abducens. See St. John Chrysostom, Greek: log. st. p. 118.

1 Timothy 3:2 — A bishop (the same name then comprehended priest) to be blameless, as to life and conversation, adorned, (says St. John Chrysostom) with all virtues. See also St. Jerome in his letter to Oceanus. --- The [1] husband of one wife. It does not signify, that to be a bishop or priest he must be a married man; nor that he must be a man who has but one wife at a time; but that he must be a man who has never been married but once, or to one wife: because to be

Judith 16:31 — in the Jews’ Calendar, (Calmet) though no one can doubt but it once was kept. (Du Hamel) --- It probably ceased during the captivity; as that, in memory of the victory over Nicanor, (which was kept in the days of Josephus, [Antiquities?] xii. 16.) has been long since abolished, (Calmet) with many others. (Du Hamel) --- Many suppose (Calmet) that the feast of Judith concurred with that of the new fire, when the temple was renewed under Judas the Machabee, on the 25th of Casleu, (Salien, &c.)

Judith 5:22 — captivity of Babylon; and this many Catholics allow. But the proof is not conclusive, as all this might be verified under Manasses: (Calmet) "the temple was trampled on," (Syriac, Greek: egennethe eis edaphos) and profaned. See chap. iv. 2., and 1 Machabees iii. 51., and Luke xxi. 24. It had been pillaged by Sesac and the Assyrians, and had stood in need of great repairs under Ezechias, Josias, &c. Several of the Israelites had escaped from the hands of their oppressors, (2 Paralipomenon