Ambrose of Milan : He who needs and apprehends much is filled, he who hath been filled waters others, and therefore Scripture saith, If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth. — Letter II, To Constantius Didymus the Blind : This sentence obviously is meant in a figurative and spiritual sense.…The south is in many ways distinguished from the north geographically, but also in a spiritual sense: The bride in the Song of Songs says, "Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind!" So she sends the evil power away. The evil power was within her. When the evil was active, that is, the evil regarding faith and vocation, then she had the north wind living within. When she "turned away from evil" and went to the doing of good, she called for the south wind. Pay attention to the occasion: "Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be wafted abroad," [she says to the south wind]; the north wind does not do this. She uses the terms in a quite physical sense, since the "cold wind" is called "north wind." The cold wind closes the openings of the trees, the so-called invisible pores, so that the elements of fragrance are kept inside. But when the warm south wind blows through the garden of the soul, … then the pores are widened. — COMMENTARY ON Ecclesiastes 321:1 Jerome : "If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be. "Keep the commandments that have been taught to you above so that the clouds above you will break open in rain. For wherever you have made your home and seat for the future, whether to the east or facing the north, when you die you will remain there. Differently: as I have said above 'send your bread over the water and divide it to all who ask'. Since when the clouds are full they pour their riches down on mortals, and you are as a tree: however aged you may be, you will not live forever, but one day suddenly struck by the storm of death like a storm of winds, there where you fall you will lie forever. The time of your end will come whether you may be stiff and savage, or mild and merciful. Differently: God is addressed in the Psalms: "you are truth up to the clouds" [Ps. 35, 6.], and in Isaiah God warns the sinner of the vineyard, "I will command the clouds not to rain down" [Is. 5, 6.]. Therefore the clouds are as prophets or holy men, who have amassed many talents in their mind, so that he can rain his teachings of doctrine down on others and say, "their speech should be awaited just as rain, and they will pour out rain across the earth" [Deut. 32, 2.], to which is replied, "let the earth hear the words of my mouth" [Deut. 32, 1.]. But this follows: "and if a tree falls to the east, or to the north, in the place where it falls, there it will remain." We can take the example of the book of Hebrews, in which is written, "God will come to Teyma" [Heb. 3,3.], which some interpreters have taken to mean that God will come from the south, and when I come to think about it the south is always used in a good context. This can be seen in Song of Songs: "arise oh north" that is 'return' and 'go away'; "and come O south wind" [Cant. 4, 16.]. Therefore a tree, if in this life it falls and is cut in its state of mortality, either must sin before while it stands and is then placed in the north afterwards, or if the south winds takes away all its worthy fruit, it will lie wounded in the south. The text does not mean any tree, but only if it lies to the north or south. This means the same as that which is written: "I will say to the north wind, come, and to the south wind, do not hold back" [Is. 43, 6.]. Nowhere teaches about the south wind and the east wind together, saying that they blow, since it is fitting for them to be among those regions, because they are blown afterwards to the south and east. Therefore it blows from the north to the south and the south wind blows its inhabitants to the east. And they are not able to blow out if they remain in their ancient palaces. — Commentary on Ecclesiastes