Psalms 67:16
The mountain of God is a fat mountain. A curdled mountain, a fat mountain.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Mons Dei, mons pinguis : mons coagulatus, mons pinguis.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ὄρος τοῦ θεοῦ ὄρος πῖον, ὄρος τετυρωμένον, ὄρος πῖον.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Psalms 68:16
- הַר אֱ֭לֹהִים הַר בָּשָׁ֑ן הַ֥ר גַּ֝בְנֻנִּ֗ים הַר בָּשָֽׁן
Haydock's commentary
The mountain of God. The Church, which (Isaias ii. 2.) is called, The mountain of the house of the Lord upon the top of mountains. It is here called a fat and a curdled mountain; that is to say, most fruitful, and enriched by the spiritual gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost. (Challoner)
Fat. Hebrew, "as the hill of Basha," (Protestants) which was very fertile: the very name signifying "fat." (St. Jerome) (Haydock)
The psalmist apostrophizes the mountains of Chanaan, which were very high, and those of Basan, where Og ruled; (Calmet) or he insinuates, that the latter could not vie with Sion, where the ark was now to be placed. (Berthier)
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 LXVIII
19. But this mountain he calleth the “mountain of God, a mountain fruitful, a mountain full of curds” ( ver. 15 ), or “a mountain fat.” But here what else would he call fat but fruitful? For there is also a mountain called by that name, that is to say, Selmon. But what mountain ought we to understand by “the mountain of God, a mountain fruitful, a mountain full of curds,” but the same Lord Christ? Of whom also another Prophet saith, “There shall be manifest in the last times the mountain of the Lord prepared on the top of the mountains”? He is Himself the “Mountain full of curds,” because of the babes to be fed with grace as though it were with milk; a mountain rich to strengthen and enrich them by the excellence of the gifts; for even the milk itself whence curd is made, in a wonderful manner signifieth grace; for it floweth out of the overflowing of the mother’s bowels, and of a sweet …