Lo, their prosperity is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
Read Chapter 21
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Because, is not in Hebrew. "Lo, their good is not. "They are not possessed of true riches, or of good sense. Alexandrian Septuagint, "For good things were in their hands: but the works of the impious are not pure. "No: the more they possess, the greater is their perversity. Grabe substitutes oukathora, for kathara; God "does not behold "the works, which is more conformable to the other editions; and thus the blasphemies of the impious are continued. (Haydock)
When we are not sensible of our wants and dependance, we think less on God. (Calmet)
Hand, or power, they are only the gifts of God; far be then such sentiments from me. (Calmet)
For it very often happens that people make it more their aim to serve their fellow creatures, whom they see with bodily sight, than to serve God, whom they do not see. For in all that they do, their eyes reach out only for what they can see. But they cannot stretch the eyes of the body to God. They become scornful of paying god homage. They grow weary. For, as has been said, they do not serve him whom they do not behold with bodily sight. If they would but seek God, the author of all things, in a spirit of humility, they would in themselves experience that something not seen is preferred to an object that is seen. For they themselves exist by virtue of an invisible soul and a visible body. But if that which is not seen is withdrawn from them, what is seen at once perishes. The eyes of the body indeed are open, but they cannot see or perceive anything, for the sense of sight is gone, because the indweller has quit, and the house of the flesh remains empty, since that invisible spirit ha...
54. He ‘holds his good things in his hand,’ who in despising temporal things, forces them under the dominion of the mind. For whoever loves them over much, subjects himself more to them, than them to himself. For many of the righteous were rich in this world; sustained by their substance, and by their honour, they seemed to possess many things; yet forasmuch as their mind was not possessed by the excessive enjoyment of these things, which were theirs, ‘their good things were in their hand,’ because they were held subordinate to the authority of the soul. But on the other hand the wicked so discharge themselves with all their hearts in aims at outward things, that they do not themselves so much hold the things possessed, but are holden with minds in bondage by the things they possess. Therefore because ‘their good things are not in their hand,’ it is rightly added, let their counsel be far from me. For what is ‘the counsel of the wicked,’ saving to seek earthly and neglect eternal...
