Bede, on Hab 3:7

“I saw the tents of Ethiopia for their iniquity, the curtains of the land of Madian shall be troubled.”

“The tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian. For who does not know that the Ethiopians and Midianites are peoples of the nations? By whose names all the nations of the Gentiles are hinted, who, upon hearing the preaching of the gospel, would be shaken with a healthy fear, so that just as the prophet heard the future report of the Lord and feared, considered the future works of His incarnation, and trembled, so the nations, upon hearing the same report through the apostles, and with His works already accomplished, would begin to serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. And appropriately, he first mentioned the Ethiopians, who are at the ends of the world, to mystically indicate that the sound of the preachers would go out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world. In this mystery, the eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, as it is read in the Acts of the Apostles, the first fruits of the Gentiles, with Philip evangelizing, received the faith and sacraments of Christ. The people of the Midianites, however, descended from one of the sons of Abraham from Keturah, who was called Midian, and is in the desert of the Saracens towards the east of the Red Sea in Arabia. Therefore, let the Ethiopians fear the name of Christ, so that His faith may be signified as reaching the ends of the world. Let the Midianites also fear, thus indicating that the Mediterranean peoples too may be saved through this. But that he did not say: The Ethiopians and Midianites will be terrified, but the tents of the Ethiopians will be terrified, and the tents of the land of Midian, is said in that manner of speech, as it is said in the Gospel: And the whole city went out to meet Jesus; and in the psalm: And your cup intoxicating (Psalm 21:5), while it was not the city itself, but those who were in the city, who went out; nor was it the cup itself, but that which is in the cup that is accustomed to intoxicate: this figure of speech is called metonymy in Greek, that is, transnomination, when through that which contains, that which is contained is shown.”

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