A watcher. A vigilant angel, perhaps the guardian of Israel. (Challoner)
Chaldean hir; (Haydock) whence Iris the messenger of the gods, is derived. (St. Jerome)
Theodotion retains eir. See St. Jerome in Psalm lxxvi. 4. The scholiast (Rom. ed.) says: "the Septuagint render it an angel, the rest a watcher. "These supernatural agents (Haydock) and saints are represented as judges, ver. 14. (Calmet)
It was not only of Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Chaldeans, but also of all impious men that the prophet says: "I beheld the impious man highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon" (Ps. 36:35). [This is Ps. 37:35 in the English Bible, and preserves a different reading, taken over from the Septuagint, rather than the Hebrew reading: "... and spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil."] Such men are lifted up, not by the greatness of their virtues, but by their own pride; and for that reason they are cut down and fall into ruin. (647) Therefore it is good to follow the teaching of our Lord in the Gospel: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29). But as for the fact that, according to Theodotion (p. 515), he mentions his kutos or height ---- or else his kureia (A), as he himself later renders it, that is to say, his dominion (a word we have translated as "his appearance") ---- those same detractors of the historicity of this passage slanderousl...
