Genesis 41:52
And he named the second Ephraim, saying: God hath made me to grow in the land of my poverty.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Nomen quoque secundi appellavit Ephraim, dicens : Crescere me fecit Deus in terra paupertatis meæ.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τὸ δὲ ὄνομα τοῦ δευτέρου ἐκάλεσεν Ἐφράιμ, Ὅτι ὕψωσέν με ὁ θεὸς ἐν γῇ ταπεινώσεώς μου.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וְאֵ֛ת שֵׁ֥ם הַשֵּׁנִ֖י קָרָ֣א אֶפְרָ֑יִם כִּֽי הִפְרַ֥נִי אֱלֹהִ֖ים בְּאֶ֥רֶץ עָנְיִֽי
Haydock's commentary
Ephraim. That is, fruitful, or growing. (Challoner)
Being in the plural number, it means "productions."
Poverty; where I have been poor and afflicted, though now advanced in honour. (Haydock)
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 Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Salvina
2. As the mother of Nebridius was sister to the empress and as he was brought up in the bosom of his aunt, another might perhaps praise him for having so much endeared himself to the unvanquished emperor. Theodosius, indeed, procured him from Africa a wife of the highest rank, who, as her native land at this time was distracted by civil wars, became a kind of hostage for its loyalty. I ought to say at the very outset that Nebridius seems to have had a presentiment that he would die early. For amid the splendour of the palace and in the high positions to which his rank and not his years entitled him he lived always as one who believed that he must soon go to meet Christ. …