Commentaria in Josue
Thirdly, because to be taken by the Lord is to be taken by a lot commanded and directed by the Lord, as is clear from 1 Kings x.
Note from St. Thomas, 2–2, Question xcv, article 8, that lot is threefold. The first is divisory, by which some thing, for example an inheritance, is divided among heirs by lot: so the soldiers divided the garments of Christ among themselves by lot, John xix, 24. The second lot is consultatory, when by it in doubtful cases it is decided what is to be done, for example which of two you should help, if both are equally in need, and both equally near to you, and you cannot help both. The third lot is divinatory, by which a hidden or future truth of a thing is sought. The first two lots are lawful, as St. Augustine teaches, book ii On Christian Doctrine, chapter xxviii, and epistle 180 to Honoratus. The third lot, namely the divinatory, is unlawful and superstitious, unless it be cast at God’s open command or inward prompting, as was done here; and then it is not only lawful but certain and divine: for God, commanding or prompting to the lot, by that very act promises that he will direct the lot so that it fall truly on him who is sought. See what was said on Jonas i, and Acts i, on the lot of Jonas and of Matthias, and on Proverbs xvi.
16. JOSUE THEREFORE RISING IN THE MORNING, MADE ISRAEL COME BY THEIR TRIBES.—“Made come,” that is, brought to the lot, or gave them lots, and that before the Lord, that is before the ark of the covenant, because this casting of lots was done by God’s command, and because the promised direction of the lot was expected from God on him who was truly guilty of the hidden sacrilege committed.
19. AND JOSUE SAID TO ACHAN: MY SON, GIVE GLORY TO THE LORD THE GOD OF ISRAEL,—as if to say: Give the honour of truth, or truthfulness, to the first and eternal Truth, that is, to the divine judgment shown by this lot, by confessing namely that this judgment of God concerning thee is right and true, and that thou art truly guilty, criminal and a sacrilegious offender, that thou mayst consult and profit both us and all Israel, and thyself and thine eternal salvation, by penance and confession: confess therefore the truth, which is not at all hidden from God, and to me, who bear the place of God and question and bind thee judicially, tell what thou hast done: for so, if by confessing thou make manifest the truth and thy sacrilege, which lies hid, thou wilt glorify God. For thou wilt show that God has truly designated thee as guilty by the lot, and from him thou wilt easily obtain pardon of the fault and of the eternal penalty. Thou wilt likewise show that God is truly just and holy, and therefore the avenger of sacrileges and crimes, and faithful in promises: all which will redound to the great glory of God, and make all fear and revere him. Confession, therefore, of the guilty glorifies God whom he has offended. Hear St. Bernard, epistle 113 to the Virgin Sophia: “Love confession,” he says, “if you aim at beauty. With confession is joined comeliness, is joined beauty. Thou hast put on praise and beauty, Psalm ciii, 1. In truth where there is confession, there is beauty, there is comeliness. If there are sins, in confession they are washed: if good works, by confession they are commended. Confession is a good ornament of the soul, which both purges the sinner and makes the just purer. Without confession the just man is judged ungrateful, and the sinner is reckoned dead. Confession, therefore, is the life of the sinner, the glory of the just.” Hear also St. Augustine on Psalm xciv: “Why does it chiefly pertain to the praise of God when thou confessest thy sins? Because the physician is praised the more, the more the sick man is despaired of. Confess, therefore, thy sins: for the greater the exaggeration of the sins of the one confessing, the greater is the praise of him who pardons.”
20. INDEED I HAVE SINNED AGAINST THE LORD (against the Lord, violating his command about avoiding the anathema), AND THUS AND THUS HAVE I DONE,—namely I had stolen from Jericho, as follows. Achan seems therefore to have repented, and through penance and the satisfaction of stoning to have escaped eternal punishment, and come to salvation: for by bodily and temporal burning he redeemed the eternal burning of the soul in gehenna, like Ananias and Sapphira, Acts v. For he did not wish to hide himself and escape this burning, but courageously offered himself to it. Wherefore though Cassian and the Council of Aachen under Pippin assert him damned, yet the Rabbis, Cajetan, Masius, Serarius, Magalianus and Abulensis, Question lv, think him saved; hear him: “It does not seem,” he says, “that he was eternally damned, because for his sin he bore here a condign penalty; it did not seem, therefore, that he should be punished after death, chiefly because Achan seems to have grieved for his sin, and confessed it humbly, saying: Indeed I have sinned against the Lord the God of Israel.” St. Augustine, however, doubts, whose words I shall cite at verse 25.
Morally, learn here how great is the power of penance, of which Tertullian, book On Penance, chapter ix: “Confession,” he says, “lightens the offence as much as dissimulation heaps it up. For confession is the counsel of satisfaction, dissimulation of the contumacious. By satisfaction confession is arranged, by confession penance is born, by penance God is appeased. Thus exomologesis is a discipline of prostrating and humbling man, enjoining a manner of life that draws mercy.” St. Ambrose on Psalm xxxvii: “A modest confession,” he says, “very much helps the guilty, which we cannot avoid we lighten by shame.”
St. Augustine on Psalm xxxvi: “As the wounds of sins can never be wanting to us, so the medicines of confession ought not to be wanting. For God does not wish us to confess our sins because he himself cannot know them; but because the devil desires this, that he may find something to charge us with before the tribunal of the eternal Judge. Therefore God wishes that we rather defend than accuse our sins. On the contrary, our God, because he is merciful, wishes us to confess them in this world, that we be not confounded for them in the world to come. For if we confess, he spares; if we acknowledge, he pardons.”
In human judgments, he says, after confession come confusion and punishment, in the divine, virtue, justice, reward and absolution; therefore the Psalmist sighing for this very thing, lest anyone, fearing the penalty after confession, should deny his sins: “Give praise,” he says, “to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever,” Psalm cxvii. And the Prophet: “Tell thou first thy iniquities, that thou mayst be justified,” Isaias xliii, 26.
Origen, homily 9 on Psalm xxxvi: “As those,” he says, “who have undigested food shut up within them, or a quantity of humour or phlegm weighing heavily and troublesomely on the stomach, are relieved if they vomit: so also those who have sinned, if they conceal and keep the sin within themselves, are pressed inwardly, and almost suffocated by the phlegm or humour of sin: but if one become his own accuser, while he accuses and confesses himself, he vomits up at once both the offence, and digests the whole cause of the disease.” So Serapion by confession expiated not only his theft, but the desire of stealing, as Cassian narrates, Conference ii, chapter xi.
21. FOR I SAW AMONG THE SPOILS A SCARLET GARMENT.—The Hebrew has a mantle of Sennaar, that is, a Babylonian one; for Babylon was in the land of Sennaar, Genesis x, 10. So the Chaldee, Masius, Cajetan, Vatablus and others. Our Vulgate and some Hebrews render scarlet or purple. For that the Persians and neighbouring nations were wont to display their luxury in this is clear from the fact that, Susa being taken by Alexander the Great, ten thousand pounds, or talents, of Hermionian purple were found there, as Plutarch testifies in Alexander. Josephus calls it a royal chlamys, all woven with gold. For the garment of kings was purple.
AND A GOLDEN RULE OF FIFTY SICLES.—A golden tongue of fifty sicles, that is a golden plate, cast or beaten into the form of a tongue, which weighed and was worth two hundred gold pieces. For the golden sicle weighed four Attic drachmas, that is four gold pieces, or half an ounce of gold; as the silver sicle weighed four drachmas of silver, or four Roman julii, or four Spanish reals. Wherefore the golden sicle was worth twelve silver sicles, as is gathered from 1 Paralipomenon xxi, 25, compared with 2 Kings xxiv, 24. For gold is twelvefold silver, or one ounce of gold is worth twelve ounces of silver, as Plato teaches in the Hipparchus. The whole matter of Achan’s sacrilege, therefore, did not exceed the price of four hundred gold pieces, and yet it brought so great an offence and anger of God, and so great a calamity on public affairs.
Moreover what our Vilalpando thinks in the Apparatus, part ii, book ii, disputation iv, chapter xxii, and contends at length, that this rule or plate was the sword of some idol, for example of Mars, and that God therefore punished Achan so sharply for stealing it, is a conjecture resting on slight and uncertain indications.
Morally, learn here how greedy, avid and unbridled avarice is, and how much easier it was for Josue to stay the sun and moon than to restrain avarice. Hear St. Ambrose, book ii On Duties, chapter xxvi: “Jesus Nave,” he says, “who could stop the sun that it should not go forward, could not stop the avarice of men that it should not creep on. At his voice the sun stood still, avarice did not stand still. The sun therefore standing, Jesus finished his triumph; avarice advancing, he almost lost the victory.”
IN THE MIDST OF MY TENT.—In Hebrew, in the midst of my tent.
23. AND THREW THEM DOWN BEFORE THE LORD,—that is before the ark and the tabernacle, which was as it were the house and throne of God dwelling among the Hebrews. There, then, they threw down these sacrileges, that those might be restored to the Lord which the sacrilegious Achan had taken away and claimed for himself.