Deuteronomy 32:2
Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass.
Open Deuteronomy 32:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Concrescat ut pluvia doctrina mea, fluat ut ros eloquium meum, quasi imber super herbam, et quasi stillæ super gramina.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- προσδοκάσθω ὡς ὑετὸς τὸ ἀπόφθεγμά μου, καὶ καταβήτω ὡς δρόσος τὰ ῥήματά μου· ὡσεὶ ὄμβρος ἐπ᾽ ἄγρωστιν, καὶ ὡσεὶ νιφετὸς ἐπὶ χόρτον.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- יַעֲרֹ֤ף כַּמָּטָר֙ לִקְחִ֔י תִּזַּ֥ל כַּטַּ֖ל אִמְרָתִ֑י כִּשְׂעִירִ֣ם עֲלֵי דֶ֔שֶׁא וְכִרְבִיבִ֖ים עֲלֵי עֵֽשֶׂב
Haydock's commentary
Gather, as rain does from vapours; (Menochius) so let the sum of what I have taught you be collected into this short canticle, and penetrate your hearts. (Haydock)
Chaldean, "may my discourse be as delightful as the rain." Septuagint, "may my apophthegm (or sententious discourse, Calmet) be expected with earnestness, like rain," when the soil is thirsty. (Haydock)
Preachers are compared to clouds, and their speech to rain, Isaias lx. 8., and Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 4.
Drops. Some explain this and the former term in the original, of "a stormy and vehement shower," while others attach this idea only to the last part of the sentence. (Calmet)
The lawgiver wishes to engage the hearts of his audience by mildness, though he is forced also to thunder, in order to rouse their attention, ver. 15. (Haydock)
Sound doctrine produces much fruit in good dispositions, as rain causeth the seed to push forth which has been sown in an excellent soil. (Worthington)
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
Tertullian On Repentance, Baptism Not to Be Presumptously Received. It Requires Preceding Repentance, Manifested by Amendment of Life
Whatever, then, our poor ability has attempted to suggest with reference to laying hold of repentance once for all, and perpetually retaining it, does indeed bear upon all who are given up to the Lord, as being all competitors for salvation in earning the favour of God; but is chiefly urgent in the case of those young novices who are only just beginning to bedew their ears with divine discourses, and who, as whelps in yet early infancy, and with eyes not yet perfect, creep about uncertainly, and say indeed that they renounce their former deed, and assume (the profession of) repentance, but neglect to complete it. For the very end of desiring importunes them to desire somewhat of their former deeds ; just as fruits, when they are already beginning to turn into the sourness or bitterness of age, do yet still in some part flatter their own loveliness. …