Deuteronomy 28:23
Be the heaven, that is over thee, of brass: and the ground thou treadest on, of iron.
Open Deuteronomy 28:23 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Sit cælum, quod supra te est, æneum : et terra, quam calcas, ferrea.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἔσται σοι ὁ οὐρανὸς ὁ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς σου χαλκοῦς, καὶ ἡ γῆ ἡ ὑποκάτω σου σιδηρᾶ.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְהָי֥וּ שָׁמֶ֛יךָ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עַל רֹאשְׁךָ֖ נְחֹ֑שֶׁת וְהָאָ֥רֶץ אֲשֶׁר תַּחְתֶּ֖יךָ בַּרְזֶֽל
Haydock's commentary
Of brass, and yield no rain. (Menochius)
Pindar says, (Pyth. x.) "The heaven of brass they never can ascend." See Leviticus xxvi. 19.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXXIX
A drought once overtook our city, and all were trembling for the last of evils, and were beseeching God to rid them of this fear. And one might see then that which was spoken of by Moses; ( Deut. xxviii. 23 .) “the heavens become brass,” and a death, of all deaths the most horrible, waited for every day. But afterwards, when it seemed good to the merciful God, beyond all expectation there was wafted down from heaven a great and plentiful rain, and thenceforth all were in holiday and feasting, as having come up from the very gates of death. …
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 8.1,2
[A covenant] is then said to be “new,” when it is different and shows some advantage over the old. “Nay surely,” says one, “it is new also when part of it has been taken away, and part not. For instance, when an old house is ready to fall down, if a person leaving the whole, has patched up the foundation, straightway we say, he has made it new, when he has taken some parts away, and brought others into their place. For even the heaven also is thus called ‘new,’ when it is no longer ‘of brass,’ but gives rain; and the earth likewise is new when it is not un fruitful, not when it has been changed; and the house is likewise new, when portions of it have been taken away, and portions remain. And thus, he says, he hath well termed it ‘a New Covenant.’”
St Basil The Hexæmeron, On the Firmament
8. “ And God called the firmament heaven .” The nature of right belongs to another, and the firmament only shares it on account of its resemblance to heaven. We often find the visible region called heaven, on account of the density and continuity of the air within our ken, and deriving its name “heaven” from the word which means to see. It is of it that Scripture says, “The fowl of the air,” “Fowl that may fly…in the open firmament of heaven;” and, elsewhere, “They mount up to heaven.” Moses, blessing the tribe of Joseph, desires for it the fruits and the dews of heaven, of the suns of summer and the conjunctions of the moon, and blessings from the tops of the mountains and from the everlasting hills, in one word, from all which fertilises the earth. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII, Chapter III. The answer that without God's help not only perfect chastity but all good of every kind cannot be performed
Chæremon : By this very instance which you bring forward we can still more clearly prove that the exertions of the worker can do nothing without God’s aid. For neither can the husbandman, when he has spent the utmost pains in cultivating the ground, forthwith ascribe the produce of the crops and the rich fruits to his own exertions, as he finds that these are often in vain unless opportune rains and a quiet and calm winter aids them, so that we have often seen fruits already ripe and set and thoroughly matured snatched as it were from the hands of those who were grasping them; and their continuous and earnest efforts were of no use to the workers because they were not under the guidance of the Lord’s assistance. …