Commentaria in Josue
Chapter Twenty-two. Synopsis of the Chapter
Josue, with his blessing, sends the Rubenites, Gadites and half tribe of Manasses back to their seats on this side of the Jordan.
They build an altar there: whence the other tribes are roused to war, but, ambassadors being sent, they receive their excuse, namely that they had built the altar not for sacrifice but as a monument of fellowship,
1. At the same time Josue called the Rubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasses, 2. and said to them: You have done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: you have also obeyed me in all things. 3. Neither have you left your brethren a long time unto this present day, keeping the command of the Lord your God. 4. Therefore as the Lord your God hath given your brethren rest and peace, as he promised, return, and go to your dwellings, and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord delivered to you beyond the Jordan: 5. yet so that you observe attentively, and in deed fulfil the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: that you love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, and keep his commandments, and stick close to him, and serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul. 6. And Josue blessed them, and sent them away. And they returned to their dwellings. 7. Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasses Moses had given a possession in Basan: and therefore to the half that remained, Josue gave a lot among the rest of their brethren beyond the Jordan westward. And when he sent them away to their dwellings, and had blessed them, 8. he said to them: You return with much substance to your dwellings, with silver and gold, brass and iron, and with much apparel: divide the prey of the enemies with your brethren. 9. And the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Silo, which is in Chanaan, to go into Galaad, the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses. 10. And when they came to the banks of the Jordan in the land of Chanaan, they built an altar of immense bigness near the Jordan. 11. And the children of Israel heard, and certain messengers told them, that the children of Ruben and of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses, had built an altar in the land of Chanaan, upon the banks of the Jordan, over against the children of Israel: 12. and when they had heard it, all assembled together at Silo, to go up and fight against them. 13. And in the mean time they sent to them into the land of Galaad Phinees the son of Eleazar the priest, 14. and ten princes with him, one of every tribe. 15. And they came to the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses, into the land of Galaad, and said to them: 16. Thus saith all the people of the Lord: What meaneth this transgression? Why have you forsaken the Lord the God of Israel, building a sacrilegious altar, and revolting from the worship of him? 17. Is it a small thing to you that you sinned with Beelphegor, and the stain of that crime remaineth in us to this day: and many of the people perished? 18. And you this day have forsaken the Lord, and to morrow his wrath will rage against all Israel. 19. But if you think the land of your possession to be unclean, pass over to the land wherein the tabernacle of the Lord is, and dwell among us: only depart not from the Lord, and from our society, by building an altar beside the altar of the Lord our God. 20. Did not Achan the son of Zare transgress the commandment of the Lord, and his wrath lay upon all the people of Israel? And he was one man, and would to God he had perished alone for his wickedness! 21. And the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses answered the princes of the embassy of Israel: 22. The Lord the most mighty God, the Lord the most mighty God, he knoweth, and Israel also shall understand: if it be by a prevaricating mind that we have set up this altar, let him not save us, but punish us immediately; 23. and if we did it with that mind, that we might lay upon it holocaust, and sacrifice, and peace offerings, let him require it, and judge: 24. and not rather with this thought and design, saying: To morrow your children will say to our children: What have you to do with the Lord the God of Israel? 25. The Lord hath put the river Jordan for a border between us and you, ye children of Ruben, and ye children of Gad: and therefore you have no part in the Lord. And by this occasion your children will turn away our children from the fear of the Lord. We thought therefore it was better, 26. and said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, nor to offer sacrifices, 27. but for a testimony between us and you, and our posterity and yours, that we may serve the Lord, and that we may have a right to offer holocausts, and victims, and peace offerings: and your children may not say to our children to morrow: You have no part in the Lord. 28. And if they will say so, they shall answer them: Behold the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for holocausts, nor for sacrifice, but for a testimony between us and you. 29. God forbid that we should revolt from the Lord, and leave off following his steps, by building an altar to offer holocausts, and sacrifices, and victims, beside the altar of the Lord our God, which is erected before his tabernacle. 30. And when Phinees the priest, and the princes of the embassy of Israel who were with him, had heard this, they were satisfied: and they most willingly received the words of the children of Ruben, and Gad, and of the half tribe of Manasses. 31. And Phinees the son of Eleazar the priest said to them: Now we know that the Lord is with us, because you are alien from this prevarication, and you have delivered the children of Israel from the hand of the Lord. 32. And he returned with the princes from the children of Ruben and Gad out of the land of Galaad, of the borders of Chanaan, to the children of Israel, and brought them word again. 33. And the saying pleased all that heard: and the children of Israel praised God, and said no more that they would go up against them, and fight, and destroy their land. 34. And the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad, called the altar which they had built, Our testimony, that the Lord himself is God.