Psalms 113:5
What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou didst flee: and thou, O Jordan, that thou wast turned back?
Open Psalms 113:5 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quid est tibi, mare, quod fugisti ? et tu, Jordanis, quia conversus es retrorsum ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τί ἐστιν, θάλασσα, ὅτι ἔφυγες; καὶ σύ, Ἰορδάνη, ὅτι ἀνεχώρησας εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω;
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 114:5
- מַה לְּךָ֣ הַ֭יָּם כִּ֣י תָנ֑וּס הַ֝יַּרְדֵּ֗ן תִּסֹּ֥ב לְאָחֽוֹר
The Fathers on this verse
St Hippolytus The Discourse on the Holy Theophany
2. Nor is this the only thing that proves the dignity of the water. But there is also that which is more honourable than all, the fact that Christ, the Maker of all, came down as the rain, and was known as a spring, and diffused Himself as a river, and was baptized in the Jordan. For you have just heard how Jesus came to John, and was baptized by him in the Jordan. Oh things strange beyond compare! How should the boundless River that makes glad the city of God have been dipped in a little water! The illimitable Spring that bears life to all men, and has no end, was covered by poor and temporary waters! He who is present everywhere, and absent nowhere, who is incomprehensible to angels and invisible to men, comes to the baptism according to His own good pleasure. When you hear these things, beloved, take them not as if spoken literally, but accept them as presented in a figure. …
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXIV
2. “When Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from among the strange people” ( ver. 1 ), “Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion” ( ver. 2 ); “the sea saw that and fled, Jordan was driven back” ( ver. 3 ). Think not that past deeds are related unto us, but rather that the future is predicted; since, while those miracles also were going on in that people, things present indeed were happening, but not without an intimation of things future.…Some things he has related differently to what we have learnt and read there: that he might not truly be thought to be repeating past acts rather than to be prophesying future things. …
St John Damascene An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Concerning the Heaven
It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries are endowed with life. For they are inanimate and insensible. So that when the divine Scripture saith, Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad , it is the angels in heaven and the men on earth that are invited to rejoice. For the Scripture is familiar with the figure of personification, and is wont to speak of inanimate things as though they were animate: for example, The sea saw it and fled: Jordan was driven back . …