Commentaria in Josue
THE WALLS FELL.—In Hebrew, the wall fell down under itself. The Chaldee: the wall of the city sank, and was swallowed up under itself. Hear Cajetan: “By saying ‘under it,’ he makes manifest that the wall was to fall either into a ditch round about, or by a greater miracle under the earth, so that the Israelites should not be hindered by the ruins of the wall, but should have a free entrance all round into the city.” The Septuagint: the wall fell round about, the Angels, namely, driving the wall at this signal and sound, or God withdrawing his concurrence from the wall standing to stand. For as, when the sun withdraws its rays, light vanishes, so, when God withdraws his concurrence, the thing collapses and vanishes. Moreover God can withdraw his concurrence from a thing erect to stand, and so make the erect thing not stand but fall, and not withdraw it from existing, but preserve the thing in its existence. So he did here: for by withdrawing his concurrence from the erection of the wall he made it slip and fall; but by preserving it in the existence of the wall, he made the stones of the falling wall remain in their being, and not go to nothing, as they would assuredly have gone to nothing if God had withdrawn his concurrence from their existence. Besides this concurrence of God another was necessary, by which God concurs with the fall of the wall, that namely it should fall and collapse from on high to the ground.
For every thing, as in its creation, so in its preservation depends intimately on God; for preservation is as it were continual creation. So the voice of Christ cast down the armed cohort on the Mount of Olives, and Paul in the field of Damascus: the voice of the Lord broke the cedars of Libanus, the voice of Peter cast down Ananias and Saphira, and the heretical Britons were put to flight at the Alleluia chanted by command of St. Germanus, as Bede testifies, book i History, chapter xx. And the Albigenses at the words of the hymn: “Drive the enemy far away,” as the History of Simon of Montfort narrates.
Nay Robert, king of France, singing psalms with the priests, threw down the walls of the city of Avallon which he was besieging, and opened an entrance into it for his men, as Lipsius narrates in the Political Examples, chapter ii.
21. AND THEY KILLED ALL THAT WERE IN IT.—Hecherimu, that is, they anathematized, destroyed, cut off. For Jericho was cherem, that is, assigned to anathema and destruction.
Mystically Lyranus: “Jericho,” he says, “signifies the city of guilt, which self-love has made even to the contempt of God. This city is shut in by a triple wall, namely the wall of carnal concupiscence, of temporal abundance, and of worldly excellence.” And a little after: “This triple wall is overthrown by the sound of holy preaching, the devout cry of prayer, the going round of one’s own examination; which circuit ought to be made seven times, that is perfectly, because perfection is designated by the number seven. For he who is converted from guilt to grace ought diligently and perfectly to examine his own conscience. Whatever, moreover, is found in this city contrary to salvation ought to be put to death. But what is found there of gold, of philosophical wisdom, of silver, of eloquence, of vessels of brass, that is, of natural industry, which avails for many things, as also vessels of iron, that is, of bodily and temporal power, ought to be consecrated to the Lord, that is, henceforth to good actions be applied. Rahab with hers is saved for a work of piety, because according to the saying of the Saviour, Matthew chapter v: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
22. BRING OUT (Rahab) AND ALL THINGS THAT ARE HERS.—The Hebrew hotsiu, that is, lead her out, namely out of her house. For when the whole city was in flames, it would have burned with it too. For the whole of Jericho was assigned to anathema and fire. Some, however, from verse 25 think the house of Rahab was preserved from the common burning, and Rahab led out beyond the camp, of which in the next verse. Let the leader of war note here that he should keep the faith given to an enemy by his own, as Josue kept the faith given to Rahab by the spies. Hence Ambrose on Luke chapter x, verse 30: “This man (Josue),” he says, “more anxious to keep faith than to conquer, commands the safety of the harlot before the destruction of the city.”
Moreover Masius wrongly thinks this Rahab to be different from the Rahab who is placed in the genealogy of Christ, Matthew chapter i; Theophylact there inclines the same way. For St. Jerome and others generally teach that she is the same.
23. AND THE YOUNG MEN WENT IN.—In Hebrew, the young men the spies. Hence it is clear that they were not old men, but young, as most fit for such a feat. Wrongly, therefore, the Rabbis think these spies were Caleb and Phinees, who (they say), though old in age, were yet young in strength and vigour.
WITHOUT THE CAMP OF ISRAEL,—because that was holy by circumcision, by the public worship of the true God, by the ark of the covenant, by Josue, the priests, etc.; but Rahab was of an unbelieving and impious nation, and had not yet publicly given her name to Judaism: her kindred and relatives too were as yet unbelievers and idolaters; but a little after they were converted by Josue and the Hebrews to the faith and worship of the one God, and to Judaism, and therefore admitted among the camp of Israel. So Abulensis, Masius, Salianus and others.
25. AND HER FATHER’S HOUSE.—By “house” understand not the building, but the family, namely the brothers, kindred and relatives of Rahab. Hence Rabbi Simeon: Rahab, he says, obtained by her faith so great grace with God that even if she had had two hundred kinsmen joined to her, and they had contracted affinity with two hundred other families, all would have been saved by her grace.
Moreover Rahab afterwards married Salmon, prince of the tribe of Juda, if not as a first wife, at least as a second; for polygamy was then lawful. Tornielli and Salmeron think Rahab married Salmon in the fourteenth year of her age, the Hebrews in the fiftieth; more probably Salianus thinks that Rahab was twenty-five or twenty years old (for she had been a harlot), and Salmon nearly forty.
JOSUE SAVED ALIVE,—that is, he kept her safe and sound with all hers, preserved her in life; for this the Hebrew hechiyeh signifies. Less rightly, therefore, the Hebrews expound: he supplied her with the food necessary for life, though there is no doubt that Josue did this too.
26. JOSUE MADE AN IMPRECATION, SAYING: CURSED BE THE MAN, etc., THAT SHALL BUILD JERICHO.—This dire imprecation of Josue was made by God’s instinct, as it is right to believe, and to this end, that in the ruins of Jericho a perpetual monument might stand of the divine power and vengeance upon its impious citizens, and of kindness, truth and fidelity to the pious Israelites, which through all ages should strike terror and call all to the fear and worship of God. So Masius, Arias and the rest.
IN HIS FIRST-BORN.—Masius: May he lay its foundation in his first-born, and set its gates in his youngest, as if, casting stones into the foundation of Jericho, he should cast the same into his own, and stone and kill them with them. The sense is, as Masius says, as if to say: Whoever hereafter through future ages shall dare to restore Jericho, decreed by God anathema, he, when he has laid the first foundations of the city, shall lose the eldest of his sons, then during the building all the rest in order, and lastly the youngest of all, when the work being finished he has come to the hanging of the gates. So Rupert here, chapter xvi, who also shows that this punishment was fitted to the fault, saying: “That by courting the name of founder he might lose, with the effect, the honour of father,” as if to say: It is just that the founder of a forbidden city cease to be the father of offspring. So these curses were really incurred by the disobedient Hiel, who, rebuilding Jericho, lost his sons, as is clear from 3 Kings xvi, 34, where it is said: “In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; in Abiram his firstborn he laid the foundation thereof, and in his youngest son Segub he set up its gates, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of Josue the son of Nun.”
Tropologically, he destroys Jericho who renounces Satan and the pomps of the world; but he rebuilds it who turns to vices: he loses his first-born in the foundation, and his last in the setting of the gates, because he loses both the foundations of faith, from which the buildings of good virtues are begun, and the bars of good action. So Bede, and from him Angelomus; and Eucherius on 3 Kings xvi, 34.