Psalms 147:17
He sendeth his crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of his cold?
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine) shown from Psalms 147:6
- Mittit crystallum suam sicut buccellas : ante faciem frigoris ejus quis sustinebit ?
- Septuagint (Swete) shown from Psalms 147:6
- βάλλοντος κρύσταλλον αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ ψωμούς, κατὰ πρόσωπον ψύχους αὐτοῦ τίς ὑποστήσεται;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מַשְׁלִ֣יךְ קַֽרְח֣וֹ כְפִתִּ֑ים לִפְנֵ֥י קָ֝רָת֗וֹ מִ֣י יַעֲמֹֽד
Haydock's commentary
His chrystal. Some understand it of hail, which is as it were ice, divided into bits, or morsels. (Challoner) (Ecclesiasticus xliii. 22.) (Calmet)
In summer and winter God sends proper moisture for the earth. (Tirinus)
The most hardened are sometimes converted: but this must be the effect of grace. (Worthington)
Cold. If it were to continue, all would perish. He therefore sends the warm (Calmet) "south wind." (Syriac)
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 Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm CXLVII
26. “Who sendeth His crystal like morsels of bread” ( ver. 17 ). We need not spend our toil again in saying what crystal is. We have already said it, and I do not think that ye, beloved, have forgotten it. What is then, “He sendeth His crystal like morsels of bread”? What is “crystal”? It is very hard, it is very tightly congealed; it can not, like snow, be easily melted. Snow, hardened by many years’ duration, and by the succession of ages, is called “crystal,” and this “He send eth like morsels of bread.” What meaneth this? They were too hard, no longer fit to be compared to snow, but to crystal; but they too are predestinated and called, and some of them even so as to feed others, to be useful to others also. …