Latter-day
Saints sometimes (errantly) appeal to Psa 85:11 (84:12 in the LXX and Vulgate)
as a prophecy of the Book of Mormon (on this, see: Psalm 85:11: A Prophecy of the Book of Mormon?). Interestingly, Robert
Bellarmine (1542-1621), perhaps my favourite Catholic theologian (he produced a
lot of great work against the Protestant heresies that, sadly, still persist
today) understood the text to be a prophecy of both the Incarnation of Jesus
and of the Virgin Mary (Bellarmine had a very high Mariology, even holding to
the belief, later dogmatised in 1854, that Mary was immaculately conceived). I
will reproduce his comments here for those who are curious:
11 He now touches on the mystery of the
Incarnation, making use of the past for the future tense, as is usual with the
prophets. “Truth is sprung out of the earth.” Christ, who is truth, will be born
of the Virgin Mary, “and justice hath looked down from heaven.” Then also
justice from heaven will be made manifest, because, on the birth of Christ,
true justice began to come down from heaven, and man began to be justified by
faith in Christ; as also, because by the coming of Christ, “The wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice,” for the extent of God’s
anger and hatred of sin would never have been thoroughly known, had not God
decreed that it should be expiated by the death of his only Son; and, even, we
should never have known the extent of God’s anger to the sinner on the day of
judgment, had we not seen the amount and extent of Christ’s sufferings in atoning
for the sins of others, “For if in the green wood they do these things, what
shall be done in the dry?” says our Lord, Luke 23.
12 he still treats of the mystery of the Incarnation,
showing that truth could spring out of the earth; not in the manner of the seed
that we sow and cultivate, but in the manner of the natural flowers that grow
spontaneously, with no other culture than the beams of the sun, and the rains
of heaven. “For the Lord will give goodness,” he will send his Holy Spirit from
heaven, who will overshadow a virgin, and thus our land, which was never
ploughed nor sown, and was altogether an untouched virgin, will yield her
fruit. Hence, he say, in the canticle of canticles, “I am the flower of the
field, and the lily of the valleys.” (Robert
Bellarmine, A Commentary on the Book of
Psalms [trans. John O’Sullivan; Dublin: James Duffy and Co., 1866; repr.,
Aeterna Press, 2015], 388)
