The Benedictine
Editor thinks that in calling the place “woody” Cyril
refers to a grove planted by Hadrian in honour of Adonis, which had
been destroyed about sixteen years before, when Helena built the Church
at Bethlehem: see Eusebius, Life of Constantine, III.
43. But Cyril evidently means that the wood of which the Psalmist
speaks had remained till a few years before. Ephrâthah is
the ancient name of Bethlehem (Gen. xxxv. 19; xlviii. 7), and by “the fields of the
wood” is probably meant Kirjath-Jearim, “the city of
woods,” where the Ark was found by David (2 Sam vi. 2; 1 Chron. xiii. 6).