Judges 6:38
And it was so. And rising before day wringing the fleece, he filled a vessel with the dew.
Open Judges 6:38 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Factumque est ita. Et de nocte consurgens expresso vellere, concham rore implevit.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως· καὶ ὤρθρισεν τῇ ἐπαύριον καὶ ἐξεπίασεν τὸν πόκον, καὶ ἔσταξεν δρόσος ἀπὸ τοῦ πόκου, πλήρης λεκάνη ὕδατος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיְהִי כֵ֕ן וַיַּשְׁכֵּם֙ מִֽמָּחֳרָ֔ת וַיָּ֖זַר אֶת הַגִּזָּ֑ה וַיִּ֤מֶץ טַל֙ מִן הַגִּזָּ֔ה מְל֥וֹא הַסֵּ֖פֶל מָֽיִם
Haydock's commentary
So. Gedeon besought the Lord to confirm his mission, in order to raise the drooping spirits of his soldiers. If he had not believed that he was chosen for the purpose of rescuing Israel, he would never have exposed himself, by destroying the idol and grove of Baal, and by calling the people to arms. Yet he might fear at present, lest he might be destitute of some of the necessary qualifications, and might entertain some apprehensions, lest the promises of God might by only conditional. The readiness with which God grants his requests, shews that he was inspired to act as he did, and his faith is greatly commended, Hebrews xi. 32. Other great saints have asked for a miraculous confirmation of what was promised, Exodus iv. 1., Josue v. 13., and Luke i. 34. (Calmet)
Vessels. Hebrew sephel, Septuagint lecané, "a dish." Syriac, "a basin." The dew in Chanaan is very copious, resembling a shower of rain, insomuch that the roads are rendered extremely slippery. (Roger. i. 2.) (Calmet)
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 Augustine A Treatise on the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin, The Righteous Men Who Lived in the Time of the Law Were for All that Not Under the Law, But Under Grace. The Grace of the New Testament Hidden Under the Old
Death indeed reigned from Adam until Moses, because it was not possible even for the law given through Moses to overcome it: it was not given, in fact, as something able to give life; but as something that ought to show those that were dead and for whom grace was needed to give them life, that they were not only prostrated under the propagation and domination of sin, but also convicted by the additional guilt of breaking the law itself: not in order that any one might perish who in the mercy of God understood this even in that early age; but that, destined though he was to punishment, owing to the dominion of death, and manifested, too, as guilty through his own violation of the law, he might seek God’s help, and so where sin abounded, grace might much more abound, even the grace which alone delivers from the body of this death. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm XLVI
9. “The heathen are troubled” ( ver. 6 ). And how troubled? why troubled? To cast down the City of God, in the midst whereof is God? To overthrow the tabernacle sanctified, which God helpeth with His Countenance? No: with a wholesome trouble are the heathen now troubled. For what followeth? “And the kingdoms are bowed.” Bowed, saith He, are the kingdoms; not now erected that they may rage, but bowed that they may adore. When were the kingdoms bowed? When that came to pass which was predicted in another Psalm, “All kings shall fall down before Him, all nations shall serve Him.” What cause made the kingdoms to bow? Hear the cause. “The Most High gave His Voice, and the earth was moved.” The fanatics of idolatry, like frogs in the marshes, clamoured, the more tumultuously, the more sordidly, in filth and mire. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXXII
9. “And He shall come down like rain into a fleece, and like drops distilling upon the earth” ( ver. 6 ). He hath called to our minds and admonished us, that what was done by Gedeon the Judge, in Christ hath its end. For he asked a sign of the Lord, that a fleece laid on the floor should alone be rained upon, and the floor should be dry; and again, the fleece alone should be dry, and the floor should be rained upon; and so it came to pass. Which thing signified, that, being as it were on a floor in the midst of the whole round world, the dry fleece was the former people Israel. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Paulinus
3. In speaking thus I am not laying myself open to a charge of inconsistency or condemning the course which I have myself taken. It is not, I believe, for nothing that I, like Abraham, have left my home and people. But I do not presume to limit God’s omnipotence or to restrict to a narrow strip of earth Him whom the heaven cannot contain. Each believer is judged not by his residence in this place or in that but according to the deserts of his faith. …