Zacharias 4:7
Who art thou, O great mountain, before Zorobabel? thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring out the chief stone, and shall give equal grace to the grace thereof.
In the palace
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quis tu, mons magne, coram Zorobabel ? In planum : et educet lapidem primarium, et exæquabit gratiam gratiæ ejus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τίς εἶ σύ, τὸ ὄρος τὸ μέγα τὸ πρὸ προσώπου Ζοροβαβέλ, τοῦ κατορθῶσαι; καὶ ἐξοίσω τὸν λίθον τῆς κληρονομίας ἰσότητα χάριτος χάριτα αὐτῆς.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מִֽי אַתָּ֧ה הַֽר הַגָּד֛וֹל לִפְנֵ֥י זְרֻבָּבֶ֖ל לְמִישֹׁ֑ר וְהוֹצִיא֙ אֶת הָאֶ֣בֶן הָרֹאשָׁ֔ה תְּשֻׁא֕וֹת חֵ֥ן חֵ֖ן לָֽהּ
Haydock's commentary
Great mountain. So he calls the opposition made by the enemies of God's people; which, nevertheless, without any army or might on their side, was quashed by divine Providence. (Challoner)
It may also mean Sion covered with ruins.
Chief; either the first or the last stone. (Calmet)
Equal grace. Shall add grace to grace, or beauty to beauty. (Challoner)
He shall greatly adorn it. Hebrew, "when they shall lift it (the stone) up, they will exclaim: Let it be agreeable and loved." (Calmet)
Protestants, "He shall bring forth the head-stone thereof with shoutings, crying: Grace, grace unto it." The people filled the air with their cries, when the temple was founded fourteen years before. (Haydock)
This second attempt shall be more successful. The temple was finished in four years, 1 Esdras v. 16., and vi. 16. (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 Gregory Nazianzen Oration on the Holy Lights
XVI. But further, Jesus goeth up out of the water…for with Himself He carries up the world…and sees the heaven opened which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity, as the gates of Paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to His Godhead, for he descends upon One that is like Him, as does the Voice from Heaven (for He to Whom the witness is borne came from thence), and like a Dove, for He honours the Body (for this also was God, through its union with God) by being seen in a bodily form; and moreover, the Dove has from distant ages been wont to proclaim the end of the Deluge. …