Prefer childlessness with virtue over sin 1 O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory: for the memory thereof is immortal: because it is known both with God and with men. 2 When it is present, they imitate it: and they desire it when it has withdrawn itself, and it triumphs crowned for ever, winning the reward of undefiled conflicts.
The children of the wicked will not prosper 3 But the multiplied brood of the wicked shall not thrive, and bastard slips shall not take deep root, nor any fast foundation. 4 And if they flourish in branches for a time, yet standing not fast, they shall be shaken with the wind, and through the force of winds they shall be rooted out. 5 For the branches not being perfect, shall be broken, and their fruits shall be unprofitable, and sour to eat, and fit for nothing. 6 For the children that are born of unlawful beds, are witnesses of wickedness against their parents in their trial.
Death is a blessing to the just 7 But the just man, if he be prevented with death, shall be in rest. 8 For venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years: but the understanding of a man is grey hairs. 9 And a spotless life is old age. 10 He pleased God and was beloved, and living among sinners he was translated. 11 He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul. 12 For the bewitching of vanity obscures good things, and the wandering of concupiscence overturns the innocent mind. 13 Being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled a long time: 14 For his soul pleased God: therefore he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities: but the people see this, and understand not, nor lay up such things in their hearts:
The wicked do not understand until they die 15 That the grace of God, and his mercy is with his saints, and that he has respect to his chosen. 16 But the just that is dead, condemns the wicked that are living, and youth soon ended, the long life of the unjust. 17 For they shall see the end of the wise man, and shall not understand what God has designed for him, and why the Lord has set him in safety. 18 They shall see him, and shall despise him: but the Lord shall laugh them to scorn. 19 And they shall fall after this without honour, and be a reproach among the dead for ever: for he shall burst them puffed up and speechless, and shall shake them from the foundations, and they shall be utterly laid waste: they shall be in sorrow, and their memory shall perish. 20 They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins, and their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them.
Commentary on Wisdom 4
4:2 There will be no sorrow over a completed struggle because the reward overcomes the enormity of the persecutions. (Rabanus Maurus)
4:3 bastard slips: Bastard means the same as ignoble or degenerate; so bastard slips, that is, plants that are deteriorating or are unnatural, and plants from adultery, that is, wicked generations, born from spiritual adultery, namely, by a propagation from a multiple wickedness. (St. Bonaventure) Multiplied indeed yet the multiple teaching of heretics shall not thrive but is harmful; nor do the abundance of their arguments, represented by bastard slips, have a root of truth, and so they do not have the strength of a foundation, but by a wind of persecutions or struck by an examination of a strict judge, they fall quickly from their fastness; and so there follows: And if they flourish in branches for a time. Branches stand for the opinions of the perverse writings, and the fruits for the meaning of these opinions; the children are the disciples of the wicked etc. (Rabanus Maurus)
4:7 God sometimes takes a man in death when young, so he may not be perverted. (Fr. William Most)
4:8 The age of the body does not affect the soul. Consequently even in childhood man can attain to the perfection of spiritual age. And so it is that many children, by reason of the strength of the Holy Spirit which they had received, fought bravely for Christ even to the shedding of their blood. (St. Thomas Aquinas Sum Theo 72.8)
4:11 There is a taking of Saints during their life; so 2 Corinthians 12:2 says: ‘I know a man in Christ Jesus above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of |
the body, I know not, God knows) such a one caught up to the third heaven’. (St. Bonaventure)
4:12 This growing fat of the soul, which was loved before it grew fat, indicates absorption in this joy of creatures. And hence arises the first degree of this evil, namely the going backward; which is a certain blunting of the mind with regard to God, an obscuring of the blessings of God like the obscuring of the air by mist, so that it cannot be clearly illumined by the light of the sun. For, precisely when the spiritual person sets his rejoicing upon anything, and gives rein to his desire for foolish things, he becomes blind as to God, and the simple intelligence of his judgment becomes clouded. Concupiscence and rejoicing in creatures suffice of themselves to create in the soul the first degree of this evil, which is the blunting of the mind and the darkening of the judgment, by which the truth is understood and each thing honestly judged as it is. (St. John of the Cross As Mt Car 19.3)
4:17 what God has designed for him: Namely, that eternal life will be given to him. (Interlinear Gloss)
4:18 they shall see him: that is, to die. (Interlinear Gloss)
4:19 the dead: that is, those damned to eternal punishment. (Interlinear Gloss) he shall burst them: The Lord shall bring down those puffed up with pride, without a voice of rejoicing, so that they may then be without excuse in everything. (Rabanus Maurus)
4:20 The impious shall come to judgment afraid in conscience of their sins, because their thoughts accuse them. (Rabanus Maurus) |
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