Friday, March 11, 2016

Blessings for Fearing the Lord

Continuing my posts of patristic texts coinciding with this Sunday’s Psalm study.



Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
    within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
    around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
    who fears the Lᴏʀᴅ.  (Ps 128:3-4)


Next comes “Your sons as olive plants round about your table.”  Wisdom as wife is rightly said to have sons and not daughters.  The male sex usually denotes mental strength: in other cases, when the male sex is referenced, it embraces both male and female.  When the psalmist says elsewhere, “Blessed is the man that fears the Lord,” it is not just the man who fears the Lord that is blessed; the woman too who fears the Lord is blessed.

Cassiodorus

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