1883 Haydock Douay Rheims Bible
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| Deuteronomy 21:23 | His body shall not remain upon the tree, but shall be buried the same day: *for he is accursed of God that hangeth on a tree: and thou shalt not defile thy land, which the Lord thy God shall give thee in possession. Galatians 3:13. | Of God. Chaldean, "he has been fixed on the gibbet for sinning against God." Symmachus and Arabic, "he has blasphemed the Lord." Syriac, "the man who has blasphemed shall be hung." Only people accused of great crimes, such as blasphemy and idolatry, were condemned to this reproachful death, and prayers were not said for them in the synagogue, as they were for other persons, during the 11 months following their decease. (Calmet) --- They are not to be remembered before God. Their dead bodies are to be buried before sunset, that the country may not be defiled. The punishment itself is extremely infamous, and the name of God is often used by the Jews, to express something in the highest degree, as the cedars of God, etc. (Haydock) --- Some understand this passage, as if the body were not to be left on the gibbet, because man, being created to the likeness of God, he will not allow the body to be insulted. Homer (Iliad xxiv.) says that Achilles offered an insult to the earth, when he dragged the dead body of Hector round the walls of Troy. Others think, that the criminal having been treated with due severity, as accursed of God, his corpse must not be deprived of decent burial. Res sacra miser. The Jews refused this privilege to none but suicides, (Josephus, Jewish Wars 3:25,) while the Egyptians and Phoenicians suffered the bodies to rot upon the gibbet, whose inhumanity God here reproves. St. Paul reads this verse in a different manner both from the Hebrew and Septuagint, leaving out of God, and substituting, with the Septuagint, the words every one, and on a tree. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, Galatians 3:13. St. Jerome remarks, that on this as well as on other occasions, he adheres to the sense, without following the express words of Scripture. He also observes, with Tertullian, that only those are declared accursed by the law, who are hung for their crimes; and as Jesus Christ suffered, not for any fault of his own, but being willing to appear in the character of one accursed, he has procured for us all blessings. (Calmet) --- In a mystical sense, that man is accursed who is obstinate in sin, hanging as it were on the tree, which was the occasion of our first parents' transgression. (Worthington) --- St. Jerome seems to think that the Jews have inserted of God, to intimate that Christ was accursed of him. (Haydock) |