Commentaria in Josue
Third, because the guile here was not harmful but advantageous to the Hebrews. For what would the slaughter and death of the Gabaonites have profited them, unless to win among all nations a reputation and infamy of barbarous cruelty, for having slain those who sought peace? But their life profited the Hebrews much, because they used them as servants for cutting wood and carrying water. Therefore this guile did not vitiate the covenant, nor make the Hebrews unwilling parties; for a little after, the guile being known, they voluntarily approved the covenant entered into.
Fourth, the Gabaonites as suppliants sought only life, offering themselves to all servitude; who but a barbarian would have refused it to them, and slaughtered them?
Certainly Tamerlane did not do so, nor Amurath, nor the Ottoman, nor any other however cruel and tyrannical.
Fifth, Josue could and ought, and therefore would have wished, to spare them, if they, confessing without guile that they were Chanaanites, had submitted themselves to him and given themselves over as servants. For this was the mind of God, as I have just shown. Therefore, since they now do the same, he ought to spare them, even though some guile intervened: whence also in fact, the guile being known, he spared them.
Sixth, they themselves here expressly confess and assert it: “We have sworn to them,” they say, “by the Lord the God of Israel” (whose faith and worship they acknowledge and desire to embrace); “and therefore we may not touch them.” And presently: “Lest the wrath of the Lord be stirred up against us, if we should forswear ourselves.” Note “we have sworn,” namely in the past; they speak, therefore, of the oath not renewed after the guile was recognized, but given at first before the guile was known, and they assert that they are bound by it. The same is plain from the violation of this oath, which God avenged by the crucifixion of the posterity of Saul, 2 Kings 21. Hence the answer to the arguments of the contrary opinion is evident. Finally, it is probable that the high priest Eleazar, the guile being known, consulted God (for God had commanded this, Numbers 27:21) as to what must be done in so grave and perplexing a matter; or at least that Josue prayed to God and heard from him that he should spare the Gabaonites and preserve both their bodies and their souls through the profession of the true religion.
You will say: The Chanaanites were most wicked and corrupt men, and therefore God commanded them all to be destroyed, lest they communicate their vices to the Hebrews. Therefore although the Gabaonites, through fear of death, promised an amendment of their morals and vices, yet the Hebrews ought not to have believed them, but to have feared that a little after they would relapse into their former crimes, and so to have destroyed them all, as God had commanded. I answer that commonly this was true, but not in the Gabaonites, who so earnestly offered themselves as servants prepared for everything and for the worship of the true God. Add that their mind and constancy were to be tested, and masters of religion were to be assigned them, and likewise overseers, who, if they relapsed into idols, should report it to Josue, whose office it was to chastise and exterminate them, as is now done with Moors and Jews converted to Christ; and there is no doubt that Josue did this. But the event taught that the Gabaonites were constant in the faith and in Judaism, and therefore God so gravely avenged their slaughter upon the posterity of Saul. There was here no danger of rebellion, because the Gabaonites were few, dispersed and distributed among the Hebrews, so that they could not meet together and conspire against them.
Learn here how sacredly faith, especially when sworn, is to be kept with an enemy, even an impious and unbelieving one, such as the Gabaonites were. The same Emperor expressly teaches and ordains in his Tactics, or on the arrangement of the battle line. For when faith is taken away, every contract and society of men is overthrown, which is as it were upheld by faith, so that men would seem no longer men but lions, tigers and wild beasts.
21. BUT LET THEM LIVE, SO AS TO BE HEWERS OF WOOD AND CARRIERS OF WATER FOR ALL THE MULTITUDE.—The princes here grant the Gabaonites life, but condemn them to servitude, and that justly: both because they had promised and sworn them life only; and because the Gabaonites had practised guile and extorted the oath by fraud; and because they were Chanaanites, whom God willed to be slain, and, if any were spared on account of surrender, to be made subject to servitude. Mild, therefore, was this their punishment, which at length became the honoured lot and condition of serving the temple, as will appear in the last verse.
WHILE THEY WERE SAYING THESE THINGS, JOSUE CALLED THE GABAONITES,—in order, approving the sentence of the princes, to promulgate it as the supreme prince and judge to the Gabaonites. The interpreter rightly renders the sense of what in Hebrew literally reads thus: When the princes had spoken of them, Josue called them, etc. For in Hebrew ka’asher signifies not only “as,” but also “when” or “at the time that.”
23. THEREFORE YOU SHALL BE UNDER A CURSE,—namely under servitude and the burden of cutting wood and drawing water. For burdensome servitude is a kind of curse, that is, of ill-doing and chastisement.
27. AND HE DECREED IN THAT DAY THAT THEY SHOULD BE IN THE SERVICE OF ALL THE PEOPLE AND OF THE ALTAR OF THE LORD.—Twofold, therefore, was the burden and office of the Gabaonites: the first, to carry wood and water to all the camps of the Hebrews. Hence by Josephus, book 11 of the Antiquities, chapters 3 and 5, they are called hierodouloi, that is, public servants.
The second, to carry the same to the tabernacle, and afterwards to the temple, to which almost alone they were assigned after the division of the camp and the tribes and the possession of the promised land, especially in the time of Solomon, and that by the prescription and more exact distribution of the offices of the temple made by David, who, it is probable, called them Nathineans; that these were Nathineans not only the more recent writers teach, such as Lyranus, Masius, R. Solomon, Sigonius, book 5 On the Republic of the Hebrews, chapter 7; Ribera, book 3 On the Temple, chapter 4; Villalpando in the Apparatus, part 1, book 2, chapter 7; but also St. Jerome (if indeed he is the author) in the Hebrew Traditions on 1 Paralipomenon: “The Nathineans,” he says, “that is, the given (from the root nathan, that is, he gave), are the Gabaonites, because they were given to serve at the temple of the Lord”; given, namely, first by Josue here, whence ’etten, that is, he gave them (whence the name Nathineans) to the tabernacle; then by David: given, I say, to be subservient to the priests and Levites, not immediately as subdeacons to deacons, as Sigonius would have it, but remotely, as laymen, and as extern persons to the sacred persons sprung from Levi; and Scripture indicates this, Esdras 8:20, and 1 Paralipomenon 9:2. Whence it is also very probable that the Gabaonites were initiated into the Jewish rites, and passed into Judaism by circumcision, as Abulensis well proves. And for this reason Josephus calls them sacred servants, that is, servants of the sacred temple. Nathineus therefore in Hebrew is the same as Deodatus (God-given). So among the Carthusians and others, lay brothers are called donati or oblati, namely to the order and to God. These are therefore like the Nathineans of old, and can rightly be called Nathineans.
You will say: Solomon built in the temple a brazen sea filled with water, and likewise aqueducts and channels through which water flowed into the temple. There was besides a pool near the temple for washing the victims to be sacrificed to God. The Hebrews also offered wood to the temple and brought it to it; therefore for neither duty was there need of Nathineans. I answer by denying the consequence. For Solomon by so many aqueducts lightened indeed the burden of the Nathineans, but did not wholly remove it. For the Nathineans had to carry water from the aqueducts, not only to the altar, but also to all the priests’ kitchens near the altar. I say the same of the wood. Moreover, the priests used the Nathineans for any services of the temple, as we use sacristans and their assistants. For the temple was very vast, like a city, and daily very many, and at times thousands (as Solomon did), of sheep, calves and oxen were sacrificed in it, for whose washing, cooking and burning an immense quantity of water was required. Wherefore, as the priests and Levites served the temple in turns, and then dwelt in the temple, so also did the Nathineans; otherwise it is probable that they dwelt scattered in the cities assigned to the priests, and served them. Finally, Solomon in building the temple used the Nathineans among other workmen, as Villalpando and others teach.
IN THE PLACE WHICH THE LORD SHOULD CHOOSE,—for placing in it the tabernacle with the ark of the covenant, the Cherubim and the Propitiatory, and consequently for his veneration, worship, sacrifices and adoration. This place was first at Galgal, then at Silo, third at Nobe, fourth at Gabaa, and finally in the temple, when Solomon built it. Moreover the ark remained at Galgal for the whole seven years in which Josue subdued the Chanaanites: for the ark was in the camp, and the camp was at Galgal, as is plain from chapter 10, last verse. The seven years’ wars being finished, in the eighth year of his leadership Josue transferred the ark from Galgal to Silo, as will appear in chapter 18, verse 1.