Commentaria in Josue
The third circuit belongs to those who were under the law: with what care they ought to separate themselves from the society of the wicked, the law itself shows. The Prophets, to whom the fourth circuit belongs, so far despised and reproved the sins of princes and impious men that for this some of them were stoned, some slain, some died by the slaughter of the sword. The Apostles, and those who believed from among the Jews, to whom the fifth circuit belongs, with what zeal they separated themselves from the counsel and works of the unbelieving Jews, Luke narrates in the Acts of the Apostles. The Gentiles, to whom the sixth circuit belongs, with what ardour they disjoined themselves from the society of the impious, let the martyrs, when asked, say. The seventh circuit belongs to those who shall be in the times of Antichrist; but how those also will refute the perfidy of Antichrist and his ministers, this book makes manifest. On the seventh day, therefore, as the priests with the ark went round Jericho and shouted, the walls of Jericho fell, and all the people with their king were slain: because when the preachers of the truth at the end of the world preach and announce the end of the world, suddenly the end of the world will come, and all the city of the devil will be destroyed, and with its head the devil himself will be condemned to perpetual death.” Or he proclaimed by heralds, as is wont to be done in camps. Or finally “he said” to the twelve princes of the twelve tribes, each of whom said the same to the several heads of families in his tribe, and these in turn to single fathers, and these to all their sons and servants.
17. AND LET THIS CITY BE AN ANATHEMA.—The Hebrew cherem, that is, a thing devoted to God alone, and in his honour (that just vengeance may be taken on the wicked who have wronged him, and so by it this expiation be made to divine justice, by which the honour of God taken away may be as it were restored) assigned to death and destruction, either real or civil. For cherem and anathemas are both those which are dedicated to God for ever, and cannot return to profane uses, as here the gold, silver, brass, iron, etc., and those which are burnt to God as a holocaust, or destroyed by iron and fire. See what was said on Leviticus xxvii, 28, and Numbers xxi. Whereas, besides the law of Deuteronomy xx, 16, by which it is commanded only that none of the Chanaanites be spared, but all be slain, here in addition it is commanded that the city of Jericho itself be burned, which we do not read done in the other cities of the Chanaanites afterwards taken by Josue, there were three reasons.
The first, that God demanded Jericho, the first hostile city, for himself as the firstfruits of Chanaan: and firstfruits ought to be paid to God whole. So Josephus, Theodoret, Question vi, and the Hebrews.
The second, that the victory was won here, and Jericho taken, by the power of God alone, whereas in subduing the other cities the Hebrews fought keenly, and overcame them by military assault.
The third, that God willed to set an example of severe vengeance in the first city, Jericho, for the other cities of Chanaan, and to strike terror into them, and at the same time to call them to penance for their most wicked life.
Moreover it is right to believe that Josue did this by God’s instinct, or the Angel’s warning, although Scripture does not express it, from what was said in chapter i and at the end of chapter v, and chapter vi, verse 9. So the Romans devoted hostile cities with curses and anathema by a fixed form of words. Livy, book viii, relates that the consul Decius, in the war against the Latins, devoted himself together with the enemies to the anathema, with this prayer: “Janus, Jupiter, Father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, I pray you to prosper the might and victory of the Roman people; and to visit the enemies of the Roman people with terror and death; as I have pronounced in words, so for the Republic and the Roman people I devote with myself the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy to the divine Manes and the Earth.”
18. BUT BEWARE YOU TOUCH NOTHING OF THOSE THINGS THAT ARE COMMANDED, LEST YOU BE GUILTY OF TRANSGRESSION.—In Hebrew: Only keep yourselves from the anathema, lest perhaps you anathematize (lay upon yourselves the guilt and penalty of anathema) and take of the anathema (Masius renders more clearly: Lest perhaps you anathematize, that is, take of the anathema; for “and” is explanatory, and has the force of “that is”), and put the camp of Israel under anathema, so that on account of the anathema, a sacrilege taken from God, the camp itself becomes anathema, that is, is by a just vengeance assigned by God to destruction; which our Vulgate renders: “And all the camp of Israel be under sin and be troubled,” namely lest one who should steal something from Jericho, by the contagion and communion of his sin and anathema, involve and contaminate the whole camp with sin, and with the penalty of his sin and theft. For the camp was reckoned one political body, or one people; wherefore what one of them had sinned, God by a hidden judgment had decreed to avenge on all, and subject all to anathema, that is destruction. The sense is, as if to say: Beware lest you steal anything from Jericho assigned to anathema, lest you be the cause of anathema and perdition, not only of yourselves, but of the whole camp of Israel. A similar phrase is in the next chapter, verses 4 and 11; Matthew xxvi, 8; John xii, 4; Deuteronomy xxi, 8. For this reason too it is so often repeated in Scripture: “Take away the evil from the midst of you,” of which more in the next chapter.
Moreover for tacharimu, that is, you anathematize, the Septuagint render a word meaning “taking into your mind,” “thinking,” as if they had read for tacharimu the Hebrew tachmodu, that is, “desire, covet,” says Masius; or certainly, as Serarius thinks, the Septuagint took a word meaning “putting in anger,” namely subjecting yourselves to the anger and vengeance of God, and calling it upon you: for the Greek thymos signifies not only mind but also anger.
19. WHATSOEVER GOLD AND SILVER THERE SHALL BE, AND VESSELS OF BRASS AND IRON, LET IT BE CONSECRATED TO THE LORD.—In Hebrew: it is holiness to the Lord himself, that is, let it be consecrated to God as a holy and sacred thing; hence, as such, “let it be laid up in his treasures.” The Chaldee: let it be brought into the treasury of the house of the sanctuary of the Lord, namely into the tabernacle, which was as it were the movable temple of the Hebrews, for its use and ornament. For Jericho had been made cherem, that is anathema: the whole of it, therefore, was to fall to God alone, namely the city by burning, but the gold, silver and brass (understand under these tin, steel, lead and the other metals, whose use in the tabernacle was rarer) by offering in the tabernacle: but nothing of it could be turned to private or profane uses.
Tropologically Procopius: Men of God, he says, ought not to be desirous of riches, nor of glory, nor of power, nor of secular wisdom. Now gold is the figure or image of riches; silver represents glory, brass the talkativeness of wisdom, iron strength and power. God destroyed with Achan his relatives also, because they were privy to his crime. He indeed pays the penalty; but the people are rendered more instructed in piety, the warning against sacrilege, as against a pestilent thing, entering into them.
20. SO ALL THE PEOPLE MAKING A GREAT SHOUT, AND THE TRUMPETS SOUNDING.—The Hebrew is, and the people shouted, and they sounded with the trumpets. First the priests sounded the trumpets, then the people, roused by this blast, joined their shout to the blast. Hence Vatablus renders, The people therefore shouted together, after they had sounded the horns. So Masius also. And clearly the Septuagint in the Roman edition: And the Priests sounded with the trumpets; and when the people heard the trumpets, all the people raised a jubilee with a great jubilation. For the Hebrew tariu, which our Vulgate renders, “They cried out,” “they shouted,” the Septuagint render “jubilated”; for the Greek word means to jubilate, to shout, to cry, to howl. See what was said on verse 10, where note that the word signifies two things: first, to utter a military cry for engaging, such as soldiers utter before the fight when about to join battle with the line drawn up, to whet their spirits and anger against the enemy. Hence Masius renders, howl; second, to jubilate, or exult and sing a triumph for a victory already won; although Varro asserts that jubilate properly signifies the complaint, or outcry, of countrymen imploring the help of others. Both suit this place. For the Hebrews cried out before the fight, as about to invade Jericho; and at the same time jubilated, as sure from God’s promise of victory and its destruction. Moreover the Emperor Leo in the Tactics, chapter xx, number 204, ordains thus concerning the shouting of soldiers: “To put strength into the army, command that if the enemy come against thine with a shout, thine at once advance in silence and quiet: but if they walk silent and quiet, then thine shall attack them with shouting and the clash of arms.”