Even by the God of your father, who shall help you; and by the Almighty, who shall bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
Read Chapter 49
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
But as to what Jacob says, “the blessing of the womb, the blessing of your father and mother,” if we should choose to interpret it as the womb only of Mary, the reason why he coupled the two blessings will escape our notice, for he could have spoken of the womb only of the mother. But I think it more appropriate that we should take it, according to the spiritual mystery, as the two begettings of the Lord Jesus, that according to the divinity and that according to the flesh, because he was begotten from the Father before all ages. For this reason also the Father says, “My heart has uttered a good Word,” because the Son has proceeded from the most profound and incomprehensible substance of the Father and is always in him. For this reason also the Evangelist says, “No one has at any time seen God, except the onlybegotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him.” “The bosom of the Father,” then, is to be understood in a spiritual sense, as a kind of innermost dwelling o...
And therefore, in that contemptible body, so to speak, “You prevailed by reason of the blessing of breasts and womb, the blessings of your father and mother.” Jacob spoke of the breasts, or the two Testaments, in one of which Christ was foretold and in the other revealed. And he did well to say “breasts,” because the Son nurtured us and offered us to the Father as people nourished on a kind of spiritual milk. Or else he is speaking of Mary’s breasts, which were truly blessed, for with them the holy Virgin gave milk to drink to the people of the Lord. This is the reason the woman in the Gospel says, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.”
By adding and saying “Because of the blessing of the womb of your father and your mother” the prophet proclaims in advance a spiritual mystery. He could have said, “Because of the blessing of the womb of your mother,” in order to indicate with this expression Mary, in whose womb the Word was borne for nine months. Well, this is not what he said; on the contrary he said, “Because of the blessing of the womb of your father and your mother.” By uniting these two things, he made them one, in order that it might be clearly understood that to this person belongs what is according to spirit and what is according to flesh. The Word took his origin from a father’s heart; … rightly the Father said through the prophet, “My heart has uttered a good Word.” On the other hand, according to flesh he took his origin in the latter times from a virginal womb after he was borne in it for nine months, so that he might appear to be visible as he was born a second time from a mother’s womb. And therefore he ...
