Commentaria in Josue
Chapter 18
The casting of lots of the tribes, begun at Galgal but interrupted, is by the command of Josue resumed at Silo. He sends, therefore, surveyors to measure more exactly the rest of Chanaan, still undivided, and to divide it into seven regions for the seven remaining tribes. Wherefore the tribe of Benjamin first occupies by lot one of the seven, verse 11, whose cities and limits are then described.
1. And all the children of Israel assembled together at Silo, and there they set up the tabernacle of the testimony, and the land was subdued before them. 2. And there remained seven tribes of the children of Israel, which as yet had not received their possessions. 3. And Josue said to them: How long are you indolent and slack, and go not in to take possession of the land which the Lord the God of your fathers hath given you? 4. Choose of every tribe three men, that I may send them, and they may go and compass the land, and mark it out according to the number of every multitude: and bring back to me what they have marked out. 5. Divide to yourselves the land into seven parts: let Juda be in his bounds on the south side, and the house of Joseph on the north. 6. The land in the midst between these, divide ye into seven parts: and here you shall come to me, that I may cast lots for you before the Lord your God. 7. For there is no part among you of the Levites, but the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad and Ruben, and the half tribe of Manasses, had already received their possessions beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them. 8. And when the men were risen up to go to mark out the land, Josue commanded them, saying: Go round the land, and mark it out, and return to me: that here before the Lord in Silo I may cast lots for you. 9. So they went, and surveying it, divided it into seven parts, writing it in a book; and they returned to Josue to the camp of Silo. 10. Who cast lots before the Lord in Silo, and divided the land to the children of Israel into seven parts. 11. And the first lot came up of the children of Benjamin by their families, to possess the land between the children of Juda and the children of Joseph. 12. And their border toward the north began from the Jordan: going along by the side of Jericho on the north side, and going up from thence to the mountains westward, and reaching to the wilderness of Bethaven: 13. and passing along by Luza southward, the same is Bethel: and it goeth down into Ataroth-addar, to the mountain that is on the south of the nether Beth-horon: 14. and it turneth and compasseth toward the sea, to the south of the mountain which looketh upon Beth-horon to the southwest: and the goings out thereof are into Cariath-baal, which is also called Cariathiarim, a city of the children of Juda. This is the quarter toward the sea, westward. 15. But on the south side, from Cariathiarim the border goeth out toward the sea, and cometh to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoa. 16. And it goeth down into that part of the mountain which looketh upon the valley of the children of Ennom, and is over against the north quarter in the uttermost part of the valley of Raphaim. And it goeth down into Geennom (that is, the valley of Ennom) by the side of the Jebusite to the south, and cometh to the fountain of Rogel, 17. passing to the north, and going out to Ensemes, that is, the fountain of the sun: 18. and it passeth on to the hills that are over against the ascent of Adommim: and goeth down to Abenboen, that is, the stone of Boen the son of Ruben, and passeth on the north side to the plains: and goeth down into the plain, 19. and passeth by Beth-hagla toward the north: and the goings out thereof are toward the bay of the most salt sea at the north, at the end of the Jordan to the south: 20. which is the border thereof on the east side. This is the possession of the children of Benjamin by their borders round about, and their families. 21. And the cities thereof were Jericho, and Beth-hagla, and the vale of Casis, 22. Beth-araba, and Samaraim, and Bethel, 23. and Avim, and Aphara, and Ophera, 24. the village Emona, and Ophni, and Gabee: twelve cities, Recem, Jarephel and Tharela, 28. and Sela, Eleph and Jebus, which is Jerusalem, Gabaath and Cariath: fourteen cities, and their villages. This is the possession of the children of Benjamin according to their families.
AND ALL THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL ASSEMBLED TOGETHER AT SILO (Silo is a very high mountain, and a city on the mountain), AND THERE THEY SET UP THE TABERNACLE OF THE TESTIMONY;—in which, namely, was the testimony, that is, the tables of the law with the ark and the Cherubim. Hence it is plain that the ark, and with the ark the camp of the Hebrews, was transferred from Galgal to Silo, which was in the tribe of Ephraim, of which Josue was the leader. For it was fitting that the ark should be in the tribe of the leader, and that the people should follow the leader, especially because Silo was near Jerusalem (for it was distant from it only two leagues or hours), in which God had decreed to establish his seat and temple. The ark remained in Silo three hundred and fifty years and more, from Josue to Samuel, 1 Kings 14:3. The Rabbis think this transfer of the ark from Galgal was made in the year 14 of the leadership of Josue, and from this they compute the Jubilee years, which they number as 17, namely 850 years, in which they assert that the Hebrews occupied the promised land; but they err in many things. Torniellus and others more truly think that this transfer of the ark was made after the seven years’ wars, namely in the eighth year of Josue’s leadership.
For then Josue peacefully possessed the Chanaan subdued by him, and distributed it among the twelve tribes; wherefore then individuals began to inhabit houses and to cultivate vineyards and fields. Then, therefore, the laws and ceremonies prescribed by God through Moses were likewise brought in at hand, and consequently the rites of the seventh year, and likewise of the fiftieth year, or Jubilee.
The eighth year of Josue, therefore (not the first, in which, entering Chanaan, he stormed Jericho, as some will have it), was the beginning of these years: for from it began to be numbered the years both Sabbatical and Jubilee, according to the law ordained by God, Leviticus 25:9 and following, as I showed there.
2. AND THERE REMAINED SEVEN TRIBES OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, WHICH AS YET HAD NOT RECEIVED THEIR POSSESSIONS.—This happened partly from the torpor and sloth of the seven tribes, for Josue charges them with this in the following verse; partly because a suspicion had arisen among them that the former measurement of the holy land had not been made equitably enough, and that an error had been committed in it by the surveyors; for in order that this might be amended, Josue sends again new describers, to measure more exactly for the seven tribes the remaining land and to distribute it into seven regions.
3. AND JOSUE SAID TO THEM: HOW LONG ARE YOU INDOLENT AND
SLACK? etc.—Drowsiness and torpor are wont to seize those wearied with labour; so here sloth seized the Israelites, tired out by the seven years’ war, as to sending geometers to divide the remaining Chanaan into seven equal parts for the seven tribes. Josue does not here signify, therefore, that much time, namely seven years, intervened between the former and the latter division of Chanaan, as the Rabbis will have it, and Masius and Magalhaes who follow them: for neither Josue nor the Hebrews would have borne so great a delay and sloth. For who would have fed them, so numerous (for there were more than a million men in these seven tribes), unless each of them had ploughed, sown and tilled the land which had fallen to him by lot? He only urges them, therefore, that, surveyors being sent at once, they divide the land, that when divided it may be distributed by lot to the seven tribes; lest they stir up strife with the other tribes, which already possessed their lots, or invade their boundaries and plunder them. For idleness is the cause of want, want is the cause of theft and rapine.
4. AND MARK IT OUT ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF EVERY MULTITUDE,—that is, according to the number of the tribes, so that they describe the land for seven tribes and divide it into as many portions or regions, but in such a way that a greater or stronger portion of land may be assigned to the more numerous tribe. So he explains himself in the following verse: for the lots were cast according to the size of the tribe, so that if it were great, the region could by lot be enlarged; if small, the region could be narrowed.
DIVIDE.—The words “in the midst between these” are not in the Hebrew, Chaldean and Septuagint; for even beyond the lot of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasses the lot of the seven tribes extended as far as Libanus. Whence some suspect that there is an error here, and that it must be corrected thus, “the rest among you.” And indeed “the midst” must be explained as “the remainder.” For the remaining part of the land was in the midst, either between the Jews and the Josephites, or between the Josephites and Libanus, or between the Jews and the Idumeans. For these were the limits of the land promised to the Hebrews, set by God.
7. BUT THE PRIESTHOOD OF THE LORD IS THEIR INHERITANCE.—“Priesthood,” that is, priestly revenues, namely offerings, victims, first-fruits, vows, which by the law had to be given to the priests, were as it were the inheritance of the Levites; for from these they lived, because they had no portion of land, like the other tribes.
9. AND THEY RETURNED TO JOSUE TO THE CAMP OF SILO.—Josephus says that they were occupied seven months in this description of the land, and returned in the seventh month to Josue at Silo.
is delineated, is figured with some inclination and bend. Whence Masius translates, it wheeled round; the Zurich version, it turns back.
16. AND IT GOETH DOWN INTO THAT PART OF THE MOUNTAIN WHICH LOOKETH UPON THE VALLEY OF THE CHILDREN OF ENNOM.—“Of the mountain,” namely Moria, as I said on chapter 15, verse 8.
18. AND IT PASSETH ON TO THE HILLS.—Hebrew, as far as Geliloth, which our version translates hills. The word “hills” is therefore here the proper name of a city, or of a place so called from heaps or hillocks of sand or stones, etc. See what is said above on chapter 15, verse 7.
21. THE VALE OF CASIS.—Hebrew keziz, a word which signifies cutting off or end. It is the proper name of a valley and of a city situated in it, because it was divided and as it were cut through. Whence Masius translates, the broken valley, or the severed plain. Others translate: the valley of incision, because in it balsam was cut not with iron but with sharp glass, bone or stone; for if it be cut with iron, the shrub dies, says Pliny, book 12, chapter 25, and Josephus, book 14 of the Antiquities, chapter 4. For this valley was not far from Jericho, which alone bore balsam, as Josephus teaches in the same place.