Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by your power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.
Read Chapter 59
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
17. "My God, the mercy of Him shall come before me" (ver. 10). Behold what is, "My strength, to Thee I will keep:" on myself I will in no ways at all rely. For what good thing have I brought, that thou shouldest have mercy on me, and shouldest justify me? What in me hast Thou found, save sins alone? Of Thine there is nothing else but the nature which Thou hast created: the other things are mine own evil things which Thou hast blotted out. I have not first risen up to Thee, but to awake me Thou hast come: for "His mercy shall come before me." Before that anything of good I shall do, "His mercy shall come before me." What answer here shall the unhappy Pelagius make? "My God hath shown to me among mine enemies" (ver. 11). How great mercy He hath put forth concerning me, among mine enemies He hath showed. Let one gathered compare himself with men forsaken, and one elect with men rejected: let the vessel of mercy compare itself with the vessels of wrath; and let it see how out of one lump G...
Over. St. Jerome, "my spies. "(Haydock)
Forget. Let them suffer a long time, (Menochius) that their punishment may be a greater warning. The ancients read, "thy law "instead of people, and apply this to the Jews, (Calmet) who still preserve the law, and bear witness throughout the world that the prophecies were not a fabrication of Christians. (Haydock)
Their exemplary chastisement and continuance, may serve to caution all not to follow their example. Judæi testes iniquitatis suæ et veritatis nostræ. (St. Augustine) (Eusebius)
"If all the Jews had been converted, we should have had only suspicious witnesses; and if all had been exterminated, we hould have had none. "God permits our spiritual adversaries to remain for our trial, (Tertullian) that we may not forget ourselves in prosperity. (Worthington)
We may also translate Al, "O God, (as well as not) slay them, that they may attack my people no more "(see 2 Esdras iv. 4.) for what reason could Nehemias have to beg that they might ...
Concerning the Jews.
For this reason, even up to our day, though they see the boundaries (of their country), and go round about them, they stand afar off. And therefore have they no longer king or high priest or prophet, nor even scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees among them. He does not, however, say that they are to be cut off; wherefore their race still subsists, and the succession of their children is continued. For they have not been cut off nor consumed from among men— but they are and exist still— yet only as those who have been rejected and cast down from the honour of which of old they were deemed worthy by God. But again, Scatter them, he says. by Your power; which word has also come to pass. For they are scattered throughout the whole earth, in servitude everywhere, and engaging in the lowest and most servile occupations, and doing any unseemly work for hunger's sake.
For if they were destroyed from among men, and remained nowhere among the living, they could not see my ...
