Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, else they come not near unto you.
Read Chapter 32
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
9. "Be not ye like unto horse or mule, which have no understanding:" and therefore would govern themselves. But saith the Prophet, "Hold in their jaws with bit and bridle." Do Thou then, O God, unto them "that will not come nigh Thee" (ver. 9), what man doth to horse and mule, that by scourges Thou make them to bear Thy rule.
Do not. This may be spoken by God, or by the psalmist; as an admonition to hear the counsel of those divinely commissioned. (Calmet)
Who come. Protestants, "lest they come near "(Haydock) and threaten to bite or to run over thee. (Calmet)
But the Hebrew may have the sense of the Vulgate, qui non accedunt. (St. Jerome)
It may be a prayer, that God would offer a sort of violence to restrain the sallies of the sinner, (Haydock) and to convert him; (Worthington) or God threatens the obstinate with rigour of his justice. Many delude themselves, thinking that he will always treat them with lenity, and be ready to receive them. (Berthier) (Isaias xxxvii. 29.) But the prophet admonishes them not to follow their senses alone, nor to imitate brute beasts, as he had done with regard to Baths bee and Urias. (Menochius)
The bit (camus) was a sort of muzzle, "to hinder horses from biting. "(Xenophon)
