Commentaria in Josue
Chapter 2
Josue sends spies into Jericho: Rahab receives them, hides and directs them. The men of Jericho get wind of the matter, and pursue them; they, verse 9, make a pact of silence with the suppliant Rahab, promise safety to her house, and give her a scarlet cord as a sign. Let down by her with a rope they flee, verse 15, and lie hid in the mountains three days, and at last, verse 23, return to Josue, relate the terror of the men of Jericho, and promise victory over them.
1. Josue the son of Nun sent from Setim two men to spy secretly: and said to them: Go, and view the land, and the city of Jericho. They went, and entered into the house of a woman that was a harlot, named Rahab, and lodged with her. 2. And it was told the king of Jericho, and said: Behold there are men come in hither, by night, of the children of Israel, to spy the land. 3. And the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying: Bring forth the men that came to thee, and are entered into thy house: for they are spies, and are come to view all the land. 4. And the woman taking the men, hid them, and said: I confess they came to me, but I knew not whence they were: 5. And when the gate was shut in the dark, they went out withal: I know not whither they are gone: pursue after them quickly, and you will overtake them. 6. But she made the men go up to the top of her house, and covered them with the stalks of flax. 7. Now they that were sent, pursued after them by the way that leadeth to the fords of the Jordan: and as soon as they were gone out, the gate was presently shut. 8. They that were hid were not yet asleep, when behold the woman went up to them, and said: 9. I know that the Lord hath given you this land: for the dread of you is fallen upon us, and all the inhabitants of the land have lost heart. 10. We have heard that the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea at your going in, when you came out of Egypt: and what things you did to the two kings of the Amorrhites, that were beyond the Jordan, Sehon and Og, whom you slew. 11. And hearing these things, we were affrighted, and our heart fainted away, neither did there remain any spirit in us at your coming in: for the Lord your God he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath. 12. Now therefore swear ye to me by the Lord, that as I have shewn mercy to you, so you also will shew mercy to my father’s house: and give me a true token, 13. That you will save my father and mother, my brethren and sisters, and all things that are theirs, and deliver our souls from death. 14. They answered her: Be our lives for you unto death, only if thou betray us not. And when the Lord shall have delivered us the land, we will shew thee mercy and truth. 15. Then she let them down with a cord out of a window: for her house joined close to the wall. 16. And she said to them: Get ye up to the mountains, lest perhaps they meet you as they return: and there lie ye hid three days, till they come back, and so you shall go on your way. 17. And they said to her: We shall be blameless of this oath, which thou hast made us swear, 18. If, when we come into the land, this scarlet cord be a sign, and thou tie it in the window by which thou hast let us down: and gather together thy father and mother, and brethren, and all thy kindred into thy house. 19. Whosoever shall go out of the door of thy house, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be quit. But the blood of all that shall be with thee in the house, shall light upon our head, if any man touch them. 20. But if thou wilt betray us, and utter this word abroad, we shall be quit of this oath, which thou hast made us swear. 21. And she answered: As you have spoken, so be it done: and sending them on their way, she hung the scarlet cord in the window. 22. But they walking went to the mountains, and stayed there three days, till they that pursued them were returned. For having sought them through all the way, they found them not. 23. And when they were gone into the city, the spies returned, and came down from the mountain: and passing over the Jordan, they came to Josue the son of Nun, and told him all that befel them, 24. And said: The Lord hath delivered all this land into our hands, and all the inhabitants thereof are overthrown with fear.
1. JOSUE THE SON OF NUN (the Septuagint Nave, but corruptly: for from the likeness of the Greek letter v to n, vao has been corrupted for nun) SENT FROM SETIM TWO MEN TO SPY.—These words are to be joined to verse 9 of chapter i, and placed before verse 10. For this is a hysteron proteron, as I said there; for Josue, roused and strengthened by God to invade Chanaan, immediately did so, and sent spies into Jericho, near the Jordan, to subdue it first. Wherefore “he sent therefore” means, he had sent therefore, namely before he commanded the Hebrews to prepare for the crossing of the Jordan after three days, chapter i, verse 10. For the perfect past is put for the pluperfect.
Mystically St. Augustine, sermon 106 On the Season: “Jesus,” he says, “sends two spies, because the true Jesus was to give the two precepts of love. For what else does the true Jesus send us for, but that we love God and love our neighbour? Jesus therefore said: Prepare you food, and be ready for the third day. For as then, food being prepared, on the third day they came to the river Jordan, so now in the Catholic Church, the spiritual food of faith, hope and charity being taken, one comes to the mystery of the Trinity and the sacrament of Baptism.”
FROM SETIM.—Setim was in the plains of Moab near the Jordan and Mount Nebo, where a month before Moses had died, Deuteronomy xxxiv. In Setim the people fornicated with the daughters of Moab and Madian, and there Phinees ran through with a dagger the Israelite who was fornicating with the Madianite woman, Numbers xxv. And from this place the Setim trees were named, whose wood is the lightest, brightest and most beautiful of all, and does not suffer decay; hence from it all the boards of the ark, of the tabernacle and of the temple were made.
TWO.—The Rabbis say, or rather fable, that these two were Phinees and Caleb; but who would believe that Phinees, already designated Pontiff by God, and Caleb, weighty in authority and years, were chosen for so great a danger? Especially since the Septuagint as corrected at Rome calls them neaniskous, that is young men, and so they are called in chapter vi, verse 23, in the Hebrew.
SECRETLY.—The Hebrew cheres, that is, silently, secretly; so the Chaldee: both lest the enemy, the men of Jericho, should imprison and kill them, and lest their own Hebrews should know it, who as thirty-eight years before they had murmured on account of the spies sent, so now again could easily have murmured. Add that in arduous affairs, especially warlike, the success of the expedition often consists in the strictest secrecy. For a secret easily leaks from the citizens to the enemy. So Cajetan, Masius and Serarius.
The Rabbis interpret cheres as dumb or deaf, or as a potter, as if Josue had ordered the spies to feign themselves deaf and dumb, as ignorant of the language of the Chanaanites; or, as others say, potters, carrying earthen vessels, as if to sell them in Jericho. But these are the inventions and fables of the Rabbis. More probably they would say that they pretended to be countrymen. For so spies are wont to go about like countrymen, who freely enter cities, and to cover their plots with the pretence of rusticity. For the root charash with shin means not only to be silent and to be deaf, but also to plough and to fabricate: while cheres with sin means a potsherd and an earthen vessel.