Commentaria in Josue
But because the Hebrews out of reverence read Adonai for Jehovah, which is the proper name of God, ours accordingly following them translates, Lord. They call to witness, therefore, three chief attributes of God, namely power, justice and majesty, as if to say: We call to witness God, and the strength and omnipotence of the most mighty God, that he may exercise it upon us if we have plotted this. We call to witness, third, the essence and immense majesty of God, on which all our being depends, as a ray on the sun, that he may take it from us, and annihilate us, if we have wished to separate ourselves from him without whom we cannot be. From these words the ancient Hebrews held that Phinees was Elias, and Elias Phinees; and they are followed by Blessed Peter Damian; epistle 12, or, as others divide, 44, chapter 3, to Pope Nicholas, whom hear: “Elias is interpreted Lord God, which is believed to have been given him on this occasion; because when he was sent as legate from the people to Ruben and Gad, who had built a new altar, he received from them this answer of excuse: The Lord the most mighty God, he knoweth, if it be by a prevaricating mind that we have set up this altar. Hence, therefore, Phinees was called Elias, so that their answer seems to be his name.”
Wherefore he thinks that Phinees, being Elias, is still alive, and will live until the end of the world, when, preaching against Antichrist, he will be slain by him and will fall a martyr. But I have refuted this opinion as paradoxical on Numbers chapter 25.
23. AND SACRIFICE.—That is, sacrifice of meal and flour, of which Leviticus 2, whence it is here distinguished from holocausts and peace victims, which were of flesh, not of meal.
LET HIM REQUIRE IT AND JUDGE,—as if to say: Let him as judge inquire, and if he find us guilty of sacrilege, “let him judge,” that is, condemn, punish and avenge.
24. AND DESIGN.—In Hebrew de’agah, that is, care, anxiety, which compels the mind to turn over many things, and to treat and revolve them with itself and with companions.
TO MORROW YOUR CHILDREN WILL SAY TO OUR CHILDREN, etc. YOU HAVE NO PART IN THE LORD,—that is, you are not the particular people of the Lord, so as to be partakers of his peculiar worship, and heirs of the promises made by God to Abraham and Jacob our fathers concerning the Messias and the care of the Israelite people, because you are divided from us by the Jordan: wherefore our God does not belong to you, nor is our God your God: go away then to your gods of the Gentiles. So in 2 Kings 20:1 the ten tribes say to Roboam: “We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Isai,” as if to say: We will not share with thee, who art the son of Isai or Jesse; begotten of him through David and Solomon, we will not have thee, so cruel, rule over us, we will not be subject to thee. So also Christ says, John 13:8: “If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with me.” The sense is as if to say: We do not wish to fall away from the Lord, nor from you; the altar built by us we did not erect for the proper use of an altar, namely for sacrificing on it, which alone is forbidden in the law by the Lord, but only as an eternal monument of our ancestral religion and profession, and that it may remain testified to all that we belong to the worship, altar and sacrifices which are performed beyond the Jordan at Silo and Jerusalem among you, and have a right with the remaining nine tribes beyond the Jordan to offer our victims to God in your temple. Though then the Jordan divide us from you, yet religion, Church and commonwealth shall not divide us, but we shall be your companions and fellow-tribesmen in all things, as we have been hitherto. So Abulensis, Masius and others.
Note here the modesty, as well as the zeal, of the three tribes, by which they fully calmed the minds of the nine tribes, inflamed against them with anger.
Zeal for religion, therefore, impelled them to build this altar rather than any other monument, because by this altar erected on the borders of Chanaan they testified that they wished to worship the God whom the other tribes dwelling in Chanaan worshipped, and so that they were conspiring with them in one and the same religion; for this consists chiefly in sacrifice, which is made on the altar. Wherefore an altar is a symbol of sacrifice, as well as of faith and religion. So Abulensis.
27. BUT FOR A TESTIMONY BETWEEN US AND YOU,—that, namely, we have a right to sacrifice on your altar, and you have not a right to hinder us.
31. AND YOU HAVE DELIVERED THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL FROM THE HAND OF THE LORD,—by which God would have sharply chastised all Israel.
32. OUT OF THE LAND OF GALAAD, OF THE BORDERS OF CHANAAN.—So read the Roman, as if to say: Out of the land of Galaad, which is on the borders of Chanaan, or which ends and bounds Chanaan, says Hugo and Abulensis. But the Complutensian Bibles, the Royal and others read thus: Out of the land of Galaad into the land of Chanaan. For so have the Hebrew, Chaldean and Septuagint, which reading presents a plain and clear sense.
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.—The Septuagint, Roman, assert that Josue himself imposed this name on the altar. But the Latin, Hebrew and Chaldean assert that the Rubenites and Gadites did it. Wherefore it seems that an error crept into the Septuagint, unless you say that Josue confirmed this name imposed by the Rubenites, and added his own vote to it. The name of the altar, then, was this: “Our testimony, that the Lord himself is God,” as if to say: We have erected this altar to testify that the true God of Israel is as much our God as of the other nine tribes, and therefore that we in no way wish to depart from him and call upon another god, but to cleave to him firmly, to worship him alone and to hope from him the goods promised to Abraham and his posterity: we testify, therefore, by this altar that he is as much our God as yours, O nine tribes: for we are children of Abraham and of Israel or Jacob, as well as you. Wherefore their God is as much our God as yours, and the promises made by him belong as much to us as to you. Wherefore we call this altar by this name: “Our testimony, that the Lord himself is God.” So when Josue had defeated Amalec, “Moses built an altar, and called the name thereof, The Lord my exaltation, saying: Because the hand of the throne of the Lord, and the war of the Lord shall be against Amalec from generation to generation,” Exodus 17. In like manner Jacob erected an altar to God as a title, Genesis 28:18. Whence Bellarmine, in the treatise On Images; Vasquez, book On Adoration; and Serarius here, rightly and holily conclude that images, titles and statues may be made, which renew for us the memory of God, Christ and the saints, and refresh their benefits, and so sharpen devotion and piety.