Commentaria in Josue
Finally, Galilee was ennobled both by Josue, and still more by his antitype Jesus Christ. For here he himself was conceived and brought up: here he dwelt and was engaged the most: here he began first to sow the seed of the Gospel preaching, and to promulgate the Gospel, together with the Apostles, most of whom were Galileans, he went twice round the whole of Galilee, and passed through each of its cities and villages, teaching everywhere in the synagogues, casting out devils, and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people. And because of this upbringing and the life he led in Galilee, Christ was called a Galilean. Besides which reason, the Apostles, because most of them were born here, were also called Galileans. Wherefore, too, it was a favourite practice with the Emperor Julian the Apostate, as Eusebius and others often record, to call Christ the Galilean, and all Christians Galileans, both from Christ and from the Apostles. So Adrichomius in the Description of Galilee.
Tropologically, the Galilean is a prince, and with Josue subdues Galilee, who, taming the flesh and bravely subduing the passions, despises, and as it were treads under foot, the rotations, revolutions, changes, storms and whirlwinds of kingdoms, kings and states. For Galilee in Hebrew is the same as “rounded,” “revolving,” says Pagninus in the Hebrew Names. This is what the Church prays on the fourth Sunday after Easter: “That amid the changes of the world our hearts may be fixed there where true joys are.” For, as Paul says: “Our conversation is in heaven,” Philippians 3:20; and therefore we are not “strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and domestics of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone,” Ephesians 2:19.
3. FROM THE TROUBLED RIVER.—This is the Nile; for here it is called shichor, that is, troubled, muddy, because its water is muddy and black with the slime it carries. Whence by the Greeks also it is surnamed melas, that is, black. Hence Egypt also is called melamboloc, that is, black-soiled, and therefore rich and fertile. Wherefore the Nile is called neos ilys, that is, new slime. Whence the Mantuan poet:
The slime-bearing river waters Egypt once in the whole year:
namely in summer, when the sun is in Cancer: for then the Nile overflowing slimes, fattens and fertilizes the fields of Egypt. Hear Tibullus:
The fertile Nile abounds with summer water, So Lyranus, Vatablus, Arias, and St. Jerome in his epistle to Dardanus. See what is said on Jeremias 2:18. You will say: The promised land did not extend as far as Egypt, nor was its southern boundary the Nile, but a certain stream of the Nile, or torrent coming from the desert, which enters the sea between Rhinocolura and Pelusium, a city of Egypt. Whence elsewhere in Scripture it is called the torrent of Egypt, elsewhere the torrent of the desert. I answer that it is so, as Ribera rightly shows on Amos 6, number 13. Yet the Nile is put here as the limit and boundary of the promised land, both because that torrent of the desert, which is the limit of the land, is a stream of the Nile: whence many by the Nile here understand that stream of the Nile which is called the torrent of the desert; and because between this torrent and Rhinocolura and Pelusium there is desert, and useless and uninhabited land, which therefore is not reckoned, nor is account taken of it: wherefore the Nile, by which the land is cultivated and fertile, is rightly said to be the boundary of the promised land. Moreover that Rhinocolura toward the south is the boundary of Judea, Pliny teaches, book 5, chapter 13, and Strabo, book 16, and St. Augustine, book 16 On the City of God, chapter 24. This city was called Rhinocolura from the cut-off noses of criminals (for ris is a nose), because, as Strabo says, malefactors, having their noses cut off for their crimes by a certain king of the Ethiopians who had come into Egypt, were settled in it, as in exile, for the terror of others. Today some assert that it is called Pharamica.
Moreover the Nile by its overflow so fertilizes Egypt that it needs no rain, and it is the most fertile of all regions. Hear Cicero, book 2 On the Nature of the Gods: “The Nile waters Egypt, and when it has kept it covered and filled all the summer, then it recedes, and leaves the fields softened and slimed for sowing.” For the Nile rises on fixed days in a wonderful manner, and spreading over all Egypt, floats on most fruitfully. Whence the only hope of the Egyptians is in the Nile, says Seneca, book 4 of the Natural Questions, chapter 2. Hear Claudian, who in Epigram 6, 4, sings thus of the Nile:
Egypt, fertile without cloud, alone holds the clear showers; secure of the sky, in need of no wind, she rejoices in the waters which she herself carries, and overflows with the Nile.
Wherefore Pharao, proud, esteemed himself not so much king as god of Egypt, and therefore heard from God: “Behold I come against thee, Pharao king of Egypt, thou great dragon, that liest in the midst of thy rivers, and sayest: The river is mine, and I made myself. And I will put a bit in thy jaws,” etc., Ezechiel 29:3.
Scripture therefore mentions the Nile here to indicate that Judea, being its neighbour and bounded by it, shares its fertility, so as to be a fruitful land, flowing with milk and honey.
THE LAND OF CHANAAN, WHICH IS DIVIDED AMONG THE FIVE LORDS OF THE PHILISTINES, THE GAZITES, THE AZOTIANS, THE ASCALONITES, THE GETHITES AND THE ACCARONITES,—Instead of “the land of Chanaan,” the Hebrew is: it shall be reckoned to the Chanaanite; the Chaldean: it must be numbered the land of the Chanaanites, as if to say: Although the Philistines now occupy these five cities and satrapies of Palestine, yet they belong to the Chanaanites, who first dwelt there and were thence driven from their seats by the Philistines, or by the Caphtorim, that is, the Cappadocians, Deuteronomy 2:23; and therefore these cities are contained within the limits of Chanaan promised by God to the Hebrews: although the Hebrews through their sloth, crimes and fault never occupied them, as also several others, or at least only for a short time under David and Solomon. So St. Jerome to Dardanus. THE FIVE LORDS.—In Hebrew, five seranim. It is a Palestinian word signifying satraps, prefects, princes: it agrees with the Hebrew rozenim by the metathesis of a letter with s. The Chaldean translates turnaia (for the Chaldeans change the letter z into t), whence the name tyrant, by which kings were once reckoned, seems to be derived, says Arias: for, as Justin says, book 1 of the History: “Every city and nation had at the beginning the government of public affairs in the hands of kings (as it were rulers), whom to such a height of majesty not popular ambition but moderation proved among the good advanced, who were also called tyrants for their fortitude.” Whence Virgil, Aeneid 7:
It will be a part of peace for me to have touched the tyrant’s right hand.
Those who in Hebrew are rozenim, in Palestinian seranim, were in Persian called satraps, that is, prefects (whence satrapy is a region or prefecture), in Chaldean turnata. There were therefore five cities of the Philistines, each of which had its satrapy or prefecture, and its own satrap or prefect as a petty king, namely Gaza, Azotus, Ascalon, Geth and Accaron, which waged perpetual wars with the Hebrews.
4. BUT TOWARD THE SOUTH ARE THE HEVITES, ALL THE LAND OF CHANAAN,—that is, Phoenicia, says Masius. See what is said at the beginning of chapter 5.