Psalms 90:6

Verse 6. Day. Neither open attacks, nor unforeseen accidents prevail. Calmet.—Business. Hebrew dabar, “thing,” verse 3. “the pestilence.” Saint Jerome Bible.—The Hebrews suppose, that one angel presides over death in the daytime, and another during the night; or that various demons send maladies at these different times.—Invasion. Septuagint and old Italic, have, “ruin.”—Saint Jerome after Aquila, “from the bite of him who rageth, δαμονιζοντος, at noon. Keteb, ( Bible.) according to the ancient tradition of the Jews, denotes one of the bolder devils, who attacks in open day, and seeks no aid from nocturnal craft. Geneb. The psalmist may allude to those popular notions, (Theod. Saint Jerome) which were prevalent among the pagans. Theocrit. Idyl. i. Lucan iii. Calmet.—Thou shalt fear no danger of the day or night, (Bellar.) nor any which disturbs the life of man. Scalig. ep. i. p. 95.—This author mistakes, when he supposes that Keteb is rendered devil. Amama.—He might also ask how the Chal. Aquila, and Symmachus came to discover, that the devil is here mentioned, as well as the Sept.? Bert.—These seem to have read ussod, “and the devil,” instead of issud, “from destruction which ravages,” (Amama) vastabit. Mont. Bible.—But allowing that the Septuagint and so forth are accurate what is meant by this devil? Saint Peter seems to explain the idea, when he exhorts us to sobriety. 1 Peter 5:8. Bert.—Violent temptations of sloth, (Saint Athanasius) or impurity, (Theod.) or the persecutions against the faithful, may be meant. Four different sorts of attacks seem to be designated. 1. Such as assult the ignorant with the fears of the night, tempting them to secure their temporal estates, while they think not of eternal woe impending. 2. Others are attacked with the arrows in the day, and threatened with death, which they know they ought rather to endure, than abandon their faith. 3. The business, and so forth imitates some grievous but latent temptation, as when the faithful are persuaded to take some unlawful oath. 4. But the greatest and most manifest attack, is styled, invasion, and so forth when persecutors assail those who adhere to the true faith with a succession of torments, and subtle arguments, which have been the occasion of the fall of many, who had resisted the former attacks. Yet none of these yield, but by their own fault, trusting in themselves, and not in God. Saint Augustine Worthington.—Noon day. Grotius explains this of the heat of the sun, which is very dangerous to travellers in Palestine. Calmet.