Commentaria in Josue
6. AND THEY WENT TO JOSUE, WHO THEN ABODE IN THE CAMP OF GALGAL.—It is probable that Josue, after the overthrow of Jericho and Hai, returned to his first camp at Galgal, and therefore fixed and fortified his camp at Galgal against the incursions of the Chanaanites. For Galgal was near the Jordan, across which in the cities abode the two and a half tribes, Gad, Ruben and half Manasses, whom he could call to himself, or retire to their borders, if he were hard pressed by the Chanaanites. Hence from Galgal he set out to the taking of Jericho, Hai and the other cities, leaving the baggage and the unwarlike crowd at Galgal, as a place most strongly fortified by nature and art, especially on account of the nearness of the Jordan; and when the cities had been stormed and overthrown he returned to the camp at Galgal, and remained there until, at God’s bidding, he was called to other expeditions, as is gathered from Moses. Hear the Emperor Leo, giving to his generals the precepts about the place of a camp in his Tactics, or on Marshalling an Army, chapter 11, number 4:
“Fortify the camp (or the ditch—for a camp is properly the ditch of the whole army) as strongly as you can. If in spacious and open places you can conveniently pitch camp, do so; if not, pitch your camp not carelessly but diligently, firmly and compactly; and above all avoid those places which have something near them higher and more prominent, lest the enemy, anticipating you by night and in a body, bring many evils upon you from that place.” And chapter 20, number 27: “It is always safe to fortify a camp, even in times of friendship and peace. If you are near the enemy, draw a ditch around it, either of stones or of bricks, with a rampart, and so pitch your camp in safety. For if anything adverse should happen, it will be less worthy of a commander to say at some time: I had not thought.” The same precept is given by Vegetius, Aelian, Cyllenius, Lipsius, Valtrinus and others who have written on the military art. Leo adds that it is not expedient for a camp to remain long in the same place, on account of the filth and uncleanness which are daily cast out by individuals in a narrow place, and therefore infect the air and breed diseases and pestilence, as we have experienced in Italy and elsewhere, and experience daily, when foreigners bring in the plague.
WE ARE COME FROM A VERY FAR COUNTRY.—They lie, but they thought this lawful for saving their own lives and those of their people; and although they knew this falsehood would soon be detected by the Hebrews, yet they hoped to be spared on account of the sanctity of the oath which they extorted.
7. LEST PERHAPS YOU DWELL IN THE LAND WHICH WAS GIVEN TO US BY LOT.—The Hebrew has only: “perhaps in the midst of me” (that is, of my land, promised to me by God and to be divided among us by lot) “you dwell.” They touch the point and the truth of the matter, as if to say: If your land has been promised to us by God, we do not wish it to be occupied by you and taken from us. Whence God had forbidden the Hebrews to make a covenant with the inhabitants of Chanaan, but commanded them to slay them all. Deuteronomy 7:2; Exodus 34:12, and elsewhere.
8. BUT THEY SAID TO JOSUE: WE ARE THY SERVANTS.—They say this not merely in courtly fashion, as courtiers are wont to say to one another, “I am your servant,” but truly and sincerely. For they knew they would not be spared unless they submitted to them and made themselves servants. They desired, therefore, to redeem their life by servitude. Whence Josue also turned their natural death into a civil one, that is, into servitude. So Serarius and others. This will be clearer from their words in verse 9 and the following.
9. THEY ANSWERED.—In Hebrew, And the children of Israel said, that is, each Israelite, to the Hevite (the Gabaonites therefore were Hevites): Perhaps thou dwellest in the midst of me, and how shall I make a league with thee? For God had forbidden this, Deuteronomy 7:2.
THY SERVANTS ARE COME FROM A VERY FAR COUNTRY, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD.—In Hebrew, “at the name of the Lord thy God,” that is, roused by the fame of the power and prodigies of thy God, by which he smote in the desert Og and Sehon, the kings, your enemies. They are silent about the destruction of Jericho and Hai, because that was new and recent, and could not have flown so quickly to far-off peoples (such as they feign themselves to be). See here their cunning and their art of deceiving. Whence some think that the Italian words gabare and gabatore, that is, to deceive and a deceiver, are derived from Gabaon and the Gabaonites. Hence it is clear that the Gabaonites, struck with fear of the vengeance of the powerful God exercised upon the enemies of the Hebrews, recognized his majesty, power and divinity, and believed in him as the only true God, as though to believe in him and worship him, and offered themselves ready and prepared; and therefore God preserved them above the other Chanaanites, who were obstinate in their idolatry, and moved Josue and the Hebrews to spare them, to make them proselytes and unite them to his Church. They say, then: “We are come in the name of the Lord,” in Hebrew, at the name of the Lord, as if to say: We have come, roused by the name and fame of the admirable deeds of thy God, to be joined with you in the same fellowship. So St. Augustine, Lyranus, Cajetan, Arias. Elsewhere to come in the name of the Lord is to come by God’s help, power and virtue, as in Psalm 117: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” And John 17: “Holy Father, keep them in thy name,” that is, by thy power. “While I was with them, I kept them in thy name,” that is, by the power given me by thee; but to walk in the name of the Lord is to worship him, invoke him, hope in him, and undertake any matter.
14. THEY TOOK OF THEIR VICTUALS,—not to eat of them (for they had fresh bread from the fruits of the land), but either as a symbol of friendship and covenant, as Lyranus, Arias, Vatablus and Cajetan will have it: for to receive food, and to taste what has been first tasted by others, was anciently and very commonly among all nations a symbol of mutual communication, faith, friendship and hospitality, and is observed today also by the Orientals, as well as by the Irish; or, as Masius says, for the sake of testing, namely to test whether they spoke the truth, whether the loaves were truly dry and mouldy with age, as they themselves asserted. For this he opposes to what follows: they tested the poverty of the ambassadors and the length of their journey with their own eyes and hands, but did not consult the Lord through the high priest clothed with the Rational, in which were the Urim and Thummim. See what is said on Exodus 28:30; and so they erred and were deceived. There was therefore here a certain sin of the Hebrews: first, of inconsiderateness, in that, having God present, directing and answering them, they did not consult him in so grave a matter; second, of rashness and precipitation, in that they so quickly made a covenant with strangers and unknown persons, indeed suspected of lying, and confirmed it by oath, and did not first examine the matter more closely, whether any guile lay hid in it, as truly it did; but God permitted it, and withdrew his light from them, so that he might preserve and advance the Gabaonites, who now acknowledged him and feared him, both in life and in their acknowledgment, fear and worship of him. Wherefore the Emperor Leo thus instructs his general in his Tactics, chapter 20, number 9: “To deliberate slowly and circumspectly, and not to cast away what has been deliberated and decided by any delay or fear, is above all necessary; for fear is not only not safe, but is most adverse even to good things that have been devised.”
Morally, learn here in doubtful and arduous matters to consult God and implore his light, and to approach and hear learned and religious men, especially confessors and superiors, who hold the place of God. If you are wise, then, begin nothing great unless God has first been consulted and made propitious. So Judas Machabeus is read always to have invoked God before battle, and therefore by his help obtained so many and so great victories, except in the last battle, in which he is not read to have prayed, and therefore, though fighting bravely, he fell.
15. AND JOSUE MADE PEACE WITH THEM, AND ENTERING INTO A LEAGUE, PROMISED THAT THEY SHOULD NOT BE SLAIN.—In Hebrew, to give them life, that is, that he would preserve their life and not slay them. For this was the end of the peace and covenant sought by the Gabaonites. Hear St. Ambrose, book 3 On Duties: Josue, he says, because he was as yet ignorant of the places and unacquainted with the inhabitants, did not know their frauds; nor did he ask the Lord, but quickly believed. So holy was faith in those times that it seemed impossible for anyone to be deceived. Who would blame this in the saints, who judge others by their own disposition? And because truth is dear to them, they think no one lies, and know not what it is to deceive. They gladly believe what they themselves are, and cannot hold suspect what they are not.