And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him that girds on his armor boast himself as he that puts it off.
Read Chapter 20
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Let not the girded Let him not boast before the victory: it will then be time to glory when he putteth off his armour, having overcome his adversary. (Challoner)
"Let not him who goes to battle, though well armed, boast; but the man who returns victorious. "(Chaldean) "Enough: let not the man with a crooked back boast, as one that is upright. "(Septuagint) "Let not him that girdeth, (Haydock) or is bound "(Hebrew) or rather "shutteth up, boast, as he that openeth. "(Syriac) It is easy to besiege: but the city does not always fall. Neither people in arms, nor the unarmed, have reason to boast; as the former are often made prisoners, as soon as the latter. (Calmet)
A despised enemy sometimes proves most dangerous. (Haydock)
Those who distrust in themselves, and place their confidence in God, prevail: a necessary lesson both in temporal and spiritual warfare. (Worthington)
The fortune of war is very doubtful. (Tirinus)
For a hump is, as it were, to think or to do something base of soul, and it is a kind of twisted deformity of mind always to incline toward unclean things and to be withdrawn from the holy threshold of the church by worldly concerns. Hence it seems to me that the prophet, when he spoke spiritually of this bodily deformity, alluded instead to a moral hideousness when he said, “Let no one who is crooked boast as if he were upright.” It is as if he were saying, “Let not the sinner boast who is distorted by the wickedness of his vices, as the righteous boasts who is made upright by the sincerity of a good conscience.” For although, O sinner, you rejoice in your tall stature, although you are glad because of the straightness of your shoulders, nonetheless your soul is deformed by your evil way of life. Rightly, then, is a rich person compared with a camel, since bodily ungainliness prevents the one from passing through a needle, while concern for his property hinders the other from entering...
