The interpretation timeline

Ps 11:4

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

2 Patristic · 1 Catholic

Ps 11:4 · Douay-Rheims
“May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
407
A.D.
John Chrysostom Patristic
A.D. 347–407
“"Our lips are our own; who is our master?" These are words of insane and deranged people. For this very reason Paul says the opposite to them in the words, "You are not your own; you were bought at a price," and bids them not to live for themselves. Your lips are not yours, he is saying, but the Lord's. He it was, in fact, who made them, who fitted you together, who breathed life into you. But you—what do you have? Not all that we have, by contrast, is ours; for even the possessions we have others have entrusted to us, and the land we lease others have given to us. Exactly so has God let these things out on lease to you, not for you to bear thorns but to convert the seed into something useful; not for you to make folly flourish by them, not for deceit but for humility, benediction and love. He gave you eyes, not to indulge in unrestrained gazing but to embellish them with temperance; and hands, not for striking but for giving alms.”
Source
430
A.D.
Augustine of Hippo Patristic
A.D. 354–430
“"Who have said, We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own, who is Lord over us?" [Psalm 12:4]. Proud hypocrites are meant, putting confidence in their speech to deceive men, and not submitting themselves to God.”
1,419 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900
1849
A.D.
1774–1849
“Lips. “The saints do not curse, but foretell what will happen.” (St. Jerome) — Hebrew, “the Lord will destroy” the deceitful, (Berthier) who mean to injure men; (Haydock) and the proud, who attack God and religion, which they pretend they can prove (Berthier) to be a mere fiction, by their superior eloquence! (Haydock)”
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.