Commentaria in Josue
But an easier and more convenient answer is, if we say that this is a hysteron proteron, and that the sending of the spies, and so the whole second chapter, is to be placed before this command of Josue: for Scripture wished to attach the prompt obedience and execution of Josue immediately to the words and command of the Lord, how namely he at once ordered the whole people to prepare for the crossing of the Jordan commanded and foretold by the Lord; and then in chapter two returns to what had gone before, by which Josue had forearmed this crossing in a particular way. These three days, therefore, of which mention is made here, are the same as those in chapter iii, verse 2, where it is said that Josue stayed with the Hebrews by the Jordan three days, and on the next day crossed the Jordan. So Abulensis. And indeed this opinion wins for the new leader Josue greater authority and favour among his people, which would have been much diminished if at his first leadership they had seen him mistaken or disappointed in his hope; and it better answers to the promise of God here in verse 9 and the rest.
This, then, was the order of events: Josue, the thirty days’ mourning for the death of Moses being over, on the third day of the first month Nisan, that is March, roused and strengthened by God, takes up the leadership of the people. Hence the same day from Setim, where he was staying, he sends two spies to explore Jericho, which, according to Josephus, was sixty stadia from Setim, that is seven Italian miles, making two and a half French leagues. A mile makes a thousand paces: a league is an hour’s journey. The spies in Jericho were received by Rahab, betrayed, and sought by the inhabitants, secretly let down by Rahab, and lay hid in the mountains three days: wherefore they returned to Josue toward the end of the sixth day of the same month Nisan; having heard them, Josue the following night moves the camp from Setim to the Jordan, where, staying three days, he orders the people to prepare provisions and the rest for the crossing of the Jordan; hence the next day, which was the tenth of Nisan, the Jordan being divided by God, he crosses dry-foot with the Hebrews, as is clear in the whole of chapter iii and in chapter iv, verse 19; and on the following eleventh of Nisan, Josue circumcises the people at Galgal, chapter v, verse 2. Soon on the fifteenth day at evening they celebrate the Pasch there, chapter v, verse 10; and as the fruits of the land now sufficed to feed the people, the manna ceased to fall, there, verse 12; on the fifteenth day of Nisan, Josue by God’s command goes round the walls of Jericho for seven days, and at last on the seventh day, which was the twenty-first of Nisan, at the blast of trumpets the walls of Jericho fall. The Hebrews entering it burn it, and decree an eternal anathema, and save Rahab, whom Salmon the son of Nahasson, prince of the tribe of Juda, took to himself as wife, chapter vi, verse 20 ff.
Mystically, St. Augustine, sermon 106 On the Season: “What else is it,” he says, “to say: Prepare you food for the third day, but, Receive the mystery of the Trinity? After this, the Jordan being crossed, as the mystery of Baptism completed, the people of Israel enter the land of promise.”
And Rupert here, chapter vii, holds that this was allegorically fulfilled in Jesus Christ, when rising on the third day he said to the Apostles: “Going, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” as if to say: I have risen from the dead on the third day, therefore in my death baptize ye with a threefold immersion in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that as I have risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so you also may walk in newness of life.
AND SHALL GO IN TO POSSESS THE LAND.—The Hebrew larescet, that is, to inherit, as ancestral estates and their own inheritance, that you may possess the land of Chanaan given you by God as by a kind of hereditary right. St. Augustine adds, sermon 105 On the Season, that God restored Chanaan to the Hebrews as a thing due by right, because, as tradition has it, in the division of the world it fell to Sem the son of Noe, but his posterity were driven out of it by the Chanaanites. Hence the Hebrews, descended from Sem, here claim it back again, as due to them from their forefather.
12. HE SAID ALSO TO THE RUBENITES AND THE GADITES, AND TO THE HALF TRIBE OF MANASSES.—These three tribes had asked of Moses a portion of land lying this side of the Jordan, and obtained it from him on this condition, that they should go with the other tribes beyond the Jordan and go before them armed to conquer the rest of Chanaan, that the other tribes might divide it among themselves. The three tribes promised this to Moses; Josue therefore here demands the promise of them. See what was said on Numbers chapter xxxi.
“Remember,” O threefold tribe, or, you ought to remember. It is an enallage, either of time or of number.
AND ALL THE LAND,—this, namely, on this side of the Jordan, on which we stand, which was of Og and Sehon, kings of the Amorrhites, which Moses gave you to possess.
14. CATTLE,—flocks and herds. For these in Hebrew are called mikneh, in the Septuagint ktene, that is possession, wealth, substance, which of old consisted chiefly in cattle.
PASS YE OVER ARMED BEFORE YOUR BRETHREN.—“Before,” that is, in the presence of the other tribes, says Masius. Others more simply, “before,” namely that ye may go in front of the other tribes, as our Vulgate renders chapter iv, verse 12. For thus you will give them courage to invade and possess the land beyond the Jordan, as you possess it on this side of the Jordan.
ALL THAT ARE STRONG OF HAND.—For although Moses required of all the men of these three tribes the promise of going before the other tribes beyond the Jordan, yet he allowed Josue his successor the liberty of calling out of them whom he would and as many as should be useful or necessary. Josue therefore called out of them only the stronger, because he did not need the rest, and the rest were to be left at home to guard the land on this side of the Jordan, lest it be invaded by the Chanaanites and other neighbours.
17. AS WE OBEYED MOSES IN ALL THINGS, SO WILL WE OBEY THEE.—Their fathers had often been rebels against Moses, and therefore were excluded from the promised land, and died in the desert; but their sons were more obedient to Moses, and therefore were brought into this land. Or certainly it was said by those who had obeyed Moses in all things; if others who had at times rebelled against Moses said the same, they lie indeed, yet they confess that they ought to have obeyed Moses in all things, and in like manner promise that they will henceforth obey Josue as a new leader.
ONLY BE THE LORD THY GOD WITH THEE, AS HE WAS WITH MOSES.—These are the wishes of the people, cheering with good omen their new commander, not conditions of the command, as if to say: As to us, we will obey thee in all things; but we wish that God, who chose thee as successor of Moses, may prosper all thy undertakings, as we know he did with Moses.
So it was done. Hence Josue was to the Hebrews as another Moses.
Let the leader and ruler, then, rely on the one God, and by prayer and piety, innocence and obedience be grateful and familiar to him. Hear the Emperor Leo giving his general golden precepts on this matter in the Tactics, in the Epilogue: “First, whatever thou art about to say or do, let it have its beginning from God, and let nothing be done without remembrance of him and prayer to him. For why should the beginning of things to be done not be taken from God, since God is our Father, maker and overseer of all words and deeds, judge of all thoughts and notions of the heart, and no creature is hidden before him, but all things are naked and open before his eyes, as the most divine Paul says? Therefore nothing is to be done by us apart from his will.
For we have a certain kinship with him, and such an affection as there ought to be toward a father. For by his gift we have come into the light and sight, for him we ought both to live and to die; by his kindness we are fed, in him we live, move and are: we obey him as much as subjects a prefect, servants a master, magistrates a king; we are all his who has all command; all things are subject to us through him, both animate and inanimate, and we worship him; the whole nature of beasts is governed by us, but we are fed by him, the prince of shepherds, who for our sake put on our nature.” See more, in which he establishes and impresses the same, and at last concludes his Tactics thus concerning God and with God: “Wherefore it is right, O Emperor, that thou always with a suppliant mind offer prayers to God, and in all things to the author of salvation, for what is most salutary, suppli-