Commentaria in Josue
VIEW THE LAND,—not only Chanaan, but the part near the Jordan, which I purpose to invade next, the Jordan once crossed, namely whether it is fortified, whether the inhabitants are warlike, whether they are spirited and ready to engage in battle with us, etc. So the Emperor Leo prescribes to his general of war in the Tactics, chapter xiii, number 2: “By scouts and spies diligently inquire into the state of the enemy, that they may note how great their multitude, what their line of battle: and so prepare thyself against them, that thou be not suddenly and unexpectedly attacked by them.” And chapter xx, number 178: “If thou wilt do anything secretly against the enemy, or move camp, or do anything else, trust this plan to none save one of thy prefects: for at such times there are very many who, from desire of reward, will betray thy plans to the enemy.” And in the same chapter, number 216: “As a good hunter hunts wolves and foxes with skill, so thou also shalt take the enemy’s spies with cleverness. For if thou hast posted guards outside thy rampart, and then ordered them to hold every stranger and question him, and not let him go until he has named the prefect and the mess to which he belongs, and the watchword of that mess, and thou examine who those are who could not do this, thou wilt easily find their spies.”
Vegetius also cleverly, book iii On Military Matters, last chapter, suggests this way of catching a spy: “When an enemy spy,” he says, “is secretly wandering about the camp, let all be ordered by day to return to their tents, and the spy is at once caught,” because he has no tent.
AND THE CITY OF JERICHO.—As if to say: Especially and before other places view the city of Jericho. He orders this, because Jericho was in that region the chief city, nearest to the Jordan and strongest. Similar phrases are 3 Kings xi, 1: “King Solomon loved many strange women, and (that is, but especially) the daughter of Pharao.” Psalm xvii, 1: “He delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul,” namely his chief and fiercest persecutor. 2 Kings ii, 30: “There were wanting of David’s servants nineteen men, besides Asael,” the chief of all. Mark xvi, verse 7: “Go, tell his disciples, and (that is, especially) Peter.”
Moreover Jericho was of old a great, populous city (hence it also had its own king, as is clear from the next verse), situated in a level and very fertile region. There balsam, which is a most fragrant liquor, grows most excellent, nowhere else. It abounds in rose gardens, honey canes and palm groves, whence it was also called the city of Palms: so that it seems to have been a paradise of the world. It is distant, according to Josephus, book v of the War, chapter iv, sixty stadia from the Jordan, that is, seven and a half Italian miles, which make two and a half French leagues of an hour each: it is distant from Jerusalem 150 stadia, that is eighteen and a half Italian miles, which make six and a quarter French leagues. In Jericho Eliseus lodged and dwelt, 4 Kings ii. There also Christ called Zacheus down from the sycamore, Luke xix.
Jericho is named either from yareach, that is Moon, because the plain which surrounds Jericho has the form of a new moon: so Arias Montanus; or from rachav, that is to widen, because it is situated in a very wide plain; or from reach, that is odour, because it breathes the sweetest scent of balsam, honey, roses, etc. So Josephus, Masius, Pagninus.
Symbolically, Jericho is a type of the world, which is unstable and changes like the Moon; and is very wide, and presents fragrant delights to its lovers, but they straightway vanish like odours and vapours.
teaching them to despise worldly things and to aim at heavenly, as most excellent and lasting for ever. So St. Gregory, Rupert and others.
WHO GOING (either by swimming, or by a ford, as is hinted in verse 7, or crossing the Jordan by boat), ENTERED INTO THE HOUSE OF A WOMAN THAT WAS A HARLOT, NAMED RAHAB.—For “harlot” the Hebrew has zonah, which means also an innkeeper or tavern-keeper, as the Chaldee and the Rabbis render, and a harlot. The Septuagint renders it harlot, and since St. Paul calls her such, Hebrews xi, 31, it may be that Rahab was both an innkeeper and a harlot. For women without husbands who keep public inns often incur the danger, or at least the suspicion, of fornication: although our Serarius, in Tobias, book i, chapter i, Question iii, contends at length that in that age inns and public lodgings were not in use. Wherefore it is certain that Rahab was a harlot, uncertain whether she was an innkeeper. With prudent counsel and under God’s guidance these spies went to the house of Rahab, where they lay most secretly hid, since it was near the gate and joined to the wall of the city. It was therefore most convenient for them for resting and hiding, and equally for escaping if the matter required. So Arias, Vatablus, Masius and others.
NAMED RAHAB.—Rahab in Hebrew is the same as widening, or she widened herself, as she did when, married to Salmon, she became the mother of David, of Solomon, of all the kings, and of Christ himself, of which a little later more. Moreover Tornielli says that Rahab at this time was fourteen or fifteen years old, as was her husband Salmon: for about the hundredth year of age they begat Booz, the great-grandfather of David, as will appear at the end of the book of Ruth; but this is hard to believe: hence I shall examine it at chapter vi, 25. St. Jerome notes on Matthew chapter i that in the genealogy of Christ only women infamous for infidelity or lust are named, namely Ruth, Thamar and Rahab, that he, he says, who had come for the sake of sinners might, born of sinners, blot out the sins of all. So also St. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Euthymius and others.
Rahab also received the spies of the Hebrews, enlightened and moved by God, as procurators of the divine counsel for subduing Chanaan to the faithful people. For she understood that God in this matter willed to use her service, and therefore willed that she should receive, hide and direct them: wherefore she was bound to obey God, and to deliver her impious fellow-citizens and her country to the people of God, and, so to speak, to betray them, as Abraham was bound, at God’s command, to sacrifice his Isaac.
3. AND THE KING OF JERICHO SENT TO RAHAB.—“King,” that is, petty king, leader, prince of the city of Jericho. For at that time single cities had their kings, that is rulers and leaders. Hence in chapter xii, 9, thirty kings of thirty cities are named, whom Josue conquered. The king therefore judged these two strangers to be Hebrews and spies: for to the fearful in time of war all are suspect; their strange dress, language and manners increased the suspicion.
4. AND THE WOMAN TAKING THE MEN, HID THEM.—From the Hebrew you may clearly render, with Vatablus, thus: But the woman had taken those two men, and had hid him (that is, each of them separately, says Arias); and Rahab had hid them before the king’s messengers arrived to seek them. When she heard the neighbours whispering that those two strangers turning in to her were spies, or by some other sign, or at least by probable suspicion, she conjectured that the coming of these two to her would be reported to the king. Wherefore, conjecturing this report, and fearing inquiry and a search of her house, she prudently forestalled it and hid the spies: and perhaps, when the king’s messengers arrived for the search, she was still occupied in hiding the spies; and our Vulgate hints this when it renders: “And the woman taking the men, hid them.”
Moreover the Rabbis explain what is in the Hebrew, “hid him,” in the singular, thus: that Rahab hid only one, namely Caleb; for Phinees answered her: “I am a priest; and priests, being like the Angels, are visible if they will; if they will not, cannot be seen.” So they think that only Caleb, not Phinees, was hid by Rahab; but these are Rabbinic inventions, the usual figments of those fabulists. More probably Philo, not the famous one but the obscure writer of Biblical Antiquities (a Hebrew nevertheless), says that these spies were two sons of Caleb, namely Cenez and Seniamin. Whence he has this, I do not know.
5. I KNOW NOT WHITHER THEY ARE GONE.—The crafty woman lies. Calvin here charges her with it as a vice, but so that, mixed with the virtue of hospitality, it was not imputed to her as a fault. But this is an error blasphemous against God. For it makes God as it were blind, suffering his eyes to be covered and veiled that he may not see the vice; or an accomplice and partner of evils, who does not count vices to be vices and does not impute them as vice. Yet this lie was not pernicious but officious, and therefore venial, especially in a rude pagan woman, who persuaded herself that this lie was in this case lawful, indeed honourable, as necessary to save her guests. Nor is this strange, since of old Plato, Origen, St. Jerome, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Cassian, and many others, both Christian and Gentile, held that a lie is sometimes lawful and to be used like hellebore, as I showed on the lie of the midwives, Exodus i.