Commentaria in Josue
3. NEITHER HAVE YOU LEFT YOUR BRETHREN A LONG TIME.—The Hebrews in the Seder Olam say that it was two septennia, or fourteen years; for seven years they fought before the first casting of lots, as is gathered from chapter 14, verse 10, and as many elapsed from the first casting of lots to the second, by which the division of the promised land was completed, chapter 15 and following. The Hebrews are followed by Masius, Magalhaes and others. But it is truer that there was only one septennium, in which, namely, war was waged: for these three tribes had come only for fighting; the wars, therefore, being finished in seven years, they returned home, as I said on chapter 16, verse 1 and following.
Great faith, certainly, obedience and patience these three tribes showed, while for seven years they were absent from home, children and wives, to go before their brethren in fighting, and to settle them in Chanaan beyond the Jordan.
4. TO YOUR DWELLINGS,—to your houses: for the houses of soldiers are tents in camp. And these had been, and were, soldiers.
6. AND JOSUE BLESSED THEM,—that is, he invoked upon them good and fortunate things.
8. WITH MUCH SUBSTANCE AND RICHES RETURN YE.—It is an imperative, not an indicative, as is plain from the Hebrew shuvu, for which the Septuagint, reading with another point, shabu, translate, they have returned.
DIVIDE THE PREY OF THE ENEMIES WITH YOUR BRETHREN.—He does not advise but commands, say Abulensis, Serarius and Masius. “Divide,” namely in two equal parts, so that one half of the prey falls to you who went out to battle, and the other half to your brethren, who remained in Galaad with the baggage and guarded it: but in this half more fell to those who went out to the fight than to those who remained in Galaad; for few were those who had gone out, many those who had remained. For there had gone out only forty thousand, there had remained about eighty thousand. Josue followed the example and command of Moses, who in Numbers 31 commanded the spoils of the Madianites to be divided equally between the fighters and those who remained at the baggage. Whence David afterwards, following the same, confirmed it by perpetual law, and ordained: “Equal shall be the portion of him that went down to the battle, and of him that abode at the baggage, and they shall divide alike,” 1 Kings 30:24.
OUT OF SILO, WHICH IS IN CHANAAN, TO GO INTO GALAAD, THE LAND OF THEIR POSSESSION,—Chanaan here signifies the land lying beyond the Jordan as far as the Mediterranean sea, which the nine tribes occupied; Galaad, the land on this side of the Jordan, which three tribes possessed, namely Ruben, Gad and half Manasses, who therefore, the wars being finished, return from Silo and Chanaan to their seats in Galaad. Elsewhere the whole land of the twelve tribes is often called Chanaan.
10. AND WHEN THEY CAME TO THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN IN THE LAND OF CHANAAN,—that is, when they came to the borders of Chanaan, namely to the banks of the Jordan, where, namely, the Jordan is restrained by heaps and mounds of sand, lest it overflow its bed. Whence Josephus, book 5 of the Antiquities, translates, the bank of the Jordan; Symmachus, limits; Masius, dykes of the Jordan. The Septuagint retained the Hebrew word Geliloth, as a proper name of the place. Hence it is plain that the three tribes erected this altar not in Galaad but in Chanaan, that is, on the hither bank of the Jordan, which belonged to Chanaan, not on the farther bank, which looked to Galaad. The reason was that by this altar they wished to testify their former right, which they had in Chanaan, especially to sacrifice at the altar of the tabernacle common to the other nine tribes.
AN ALTAR OF IMMENSE BIGNESS,—that is, a very vast and very great one. It is a hyperbole.
OVER AGAINST THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.—Not as though they were about to erect against the nine tribes, who had their altar in Silo, a new altar for themselves on the bank of the Jordan; for this was forbidden by the law, and therefore the beginning of schism, as the nine tribes interpreted it: but over against, that is, opposite, so that this altar was in the middle between the Galaadites and the Chanaanites, or between the three tribes and the other nine, and associated these with those and connected them in religion and in the right of sacrificing.
12. TO FIGHT AGAINST THEM,—as apostates and schismatics, who, namely, were falling away from the law and tabernacle and Mosaic altar, and setting up for themselves a new law with a new altar. See here the zeal of Phinees and the nine tribes in defending the ancestral law and faith, lest a different religion should creep into their one Synagogue and commonwealth, and so the wrath of God rage against the whole people, and all the tribes permitting it. For all the twelve tribes made one commonwealth and one Church: wherefore the greater part, namely the nine tribes, were bound to take care that the remaining three should continue in it, and not make a schism and found a new Church for themselves.
17. IS IT A SMALL THING TO YOU THAT YOU SINNED WITH BEELPHEGOR? Adoring this idol and committing fornication with the daughters of Moab, Numbers 25.
AND THE STAIN OF THIS CRIME REMAINETH IN US TO THIS DAY,—a stain both of infamy and of guilt; for there were many who had not yet blotted it out by penance; indeed they still desired that fornication: and of punishment; for God was still exacting from the Hebrews the penalty of so enormous an idolatry and fornication.
18. AND TO MORROW HIS WRATH WILL RAGE AGAINST ALL ISRAEL.—“To morrow,” that is, soon. For God, indignant at so enormous and public a sacrilege, will at once most sharply avenge it, both upon you as its authors, and upon us as its permitters.
19. BUT IF YOU THINK THE LAND TO BE UNCLEAN,—on account of the idols and crimes of the former inhabitants, which it is not lawful for you to expiate by sacrifices, as it is for us who have the altar of God in Silo. The Septuagint for unclean have mikra, that is, small; but one must read tame, that is, unclean. “Dwell among us”: we will cede to you part of our land, at our own loss we will give you place in our land, and will crowd ourselves, to call you away from crime, and keep you in the ancestral faith. See here true charity.
20. AND WOULD TO GOD.—The interpreter reads lu, that is, would to God: others read with another point lo, that is, not, whence they translate, and that one man did not die alone in his crime (so the Septuagint read in the Complutensian, although in the Roman the word “not” is wanting), but with him many others, who for his crime were slain by the men of Hai, chapter 7.
22. THE LORD THE MOST MIGHTY GOD, etc., HE KNOWETH.—They call God to witness that they erected the altar with innocent and pious mind; whence they give him three names suited to this place, and repeat them: the first is El, that is, strong; the second Elohim, that is, God, governor of all, judge and avenger; the third, Jehovah, that is, ho on, that is, he who is, or being itself.