Judges 6:40
And God did that night as he had requested: and it was dry on the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.
Open Judges 6:40 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Fecitque Deus nocte illa ut postulaverat : et fuit siccitas in solo vellere, et ros in omni terra.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἐποίησεν οὕτως ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ἐκείνῃ· καὶ ἐγένετο ξηρασία ἐπὶ τὸν πόκον μόνον, καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν ἐγενήθη δρόσος.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיַּ֧עַשׂ אֱלֹהִ֛ים כֵּ֖ן בַּלַּ֣יְלָה הַה֑וּא וַיְהִי חֹ֤רֶב אֶל הַגִּזָּה֙ לְבַדָּ֔הּ וְעַל כָּל הָאָ֖רֶץ הָ֥יָה טָֽל
Haydock's commentary
Ground. In these two miracles the Fathers observe, that the fleece represented the Jewish nation, favoured with so many graces, while the rest of the world was dry and barren; and that, when the latter was watered with dew from heaven, by the coming of Jesus Christ, the Synagogue was deprived of those favours. (Origen, hom. viii.; Theodoret, q. 14.; St. Jerome, ad Paulin.; St. Augustine; &c.)
In the first miracle we may also contemplate, the incarnation of our Saviour [Jesus Christ] in the womb of the most pure Virgin [Mary], Psalm lxxi. 6. (St. Bernard, serm.; St. Jerome, epist. Paul.) (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 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. …