The wicked prowl on every side, when vile men are exalted.
Read Chapter 12
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
9. "The ungodly walk in a circle round about" (ver. 8): that is, in the desire of things temporal, which revolves as a wheel in a repeated circle of seven days; and therefore they do not arrive at the eighth, that is, at eternity, for which this Psalm is entitled. So too it is said by Solomon, "For the wise king is the winnower of the ungodly, and he bringeth on them the wheel of the wicked.-After Thine height Thou hast multiplied the sons of men." For there is in temporal things too a multiplication, which turns away from the unity of God. Hence "the corruptible body weigheth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle presseth down the mind that museth upon many things." But the righteous are multiplied "after the height of God," when "they shall go from strength to strength."
About. Their life is a circle of relapses; or rather they continually attack the just, (Calmet) but their designs are made subservient to their advancement in virtue, by the power of God. (Tirinus)
Hebrew, "They (the just) shall go round the wicked, when baseness shall have raised herself up, on account of the children of men. "When God shall have restored the Jews to liberty, the Babylonians shall be, in their turn, oppressed by Cyrus and the Persians, whom they now despise: or, when the miserable shall be placed in power, the wicked shall not dare to approach them. (Calmet)
"The wicked shall walk round about, when the vilest of the sons of men shall be exalted. "(St. Jerome) (Haydock)
The former have spent their life in vanity, and shall be kept for ever out of the kingdom of heaven; as the error of the Platonists, who assert that all things will come to pass again, the world being compared to a wheel, is manifestly refuted by Scripture, which assures us that God will preserve the...
