Bede, on Hab 3:3

“God will come from the south, and the holy one from mount Pharan: His glory covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise.”

“God will come from Lebanon and the Holy One from the dense and dark mountain. Lebanon is the highest mountain of Phoenicia, notable for its lofty, incorruptible, and aromatic trees, from which the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem was also made, as Scripture testifies; hence in the Scriptures, sometimes even the temple itself is designated by the name of Lebanon. Hence, for instance, Zechariah speaks about the coming of the Chaldean army against it: "Open, O Lebanon, your gates, and let fire consume your cedars" (Zech. XI, 1). Therefore, God comes from Lebanon, because the Lord appearing in the flesh sowed the first seeds of the Gospel in that very temple, and from there filled the entire world with the seed of His faith and truth. Hence, Isaiah says, "For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isaiah II, 3). He sprinkled there the first seeds of faith not only through the apostles, who, filled with the Holy Spirit after His passion and resurrection, laid the first foundations of the Church there by preaching, whose sound then went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world (Psalm XVIII, 5); but also through Himself, first in that very temple giving testimony of the faith to be had in Him, sitting in the midst of the doctors when He was of tender age, asking them questions as a mere boy, but answering those teaching as God of eternal majesty; where, being sought and found by His parents, He Himself indicated that He was God and God's Son by saying: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke II, 49). However, it should be noted that in the Hebrew truth this verse is as follows: "God will come from Teman," that is, from the South, which has an easy sense according to the letter, because Bethlehem, where the Lord was born, is situated to the south of Jerusalem. And when He was brought to Jerusalem by His parents on the fortieth day of His birth, that an offering might be made for Him according to the law, God indeed came from the South. And he says, "the Holy One from the dense and dark mountain." The Holy One, the same Mediator of God and men, who is plainly called God above, of whom Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mother said: "Therefore, the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke I, 35). The mountain from which the same Holy One is sung to come can be understood to mean the kingdom of the Jews, from which He took His fleshly origin. From which also Daniel saw the stone cut out without hands, that is, Christ begotten without the work of a man, who crushing the kingdoms of the world, would fill the whole world with the glory of His name (Dan. II, 45). This mountain is rightly called dense and dark; for it has many fruitful trees, that is, many holy men laden with the fruits of virtue, who both instruct our hunger with the sweetest taste of their doctrine, and with the shade of their intercession protect our frailty from being dried up by the heat of tribulations from the inner greenness of love. This fits figuratively with what the apostle Peter, certainly a distinguished tree of this mountain, not only refreshes the hungry and thirsty for righteousness with the fruit of doctrine but also saves the sick with the shadow of his body (Acts V, 15). These holy and sublime men can also be designated by the term "South," from whom God is said to come, on account of the fervent love with which they are usually enflamed in the Lord and the doctrine with which they enlighten men, from which South God came because He deigned to be incarnate from such men. From which South God comes daily, when, reading or hearing their words or examples, the love or knowledge of truth is more perfectly generated in our hearts.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.