Commentaria in Judices
21. AND THE CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN DID NOT DESTROY THE JEBUSITE, THE INHABITANT OF JERUSALEM, AND THE JEBUSITE DWELT WITH THE CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN IN JERUSALEM,—as if to say: The Benjamites with the Jews, their allied leaders, did indeed take and burn the city of Jerusalem, as was said in verse 8, except the citadel of Sion, which the Jebusites held until David, 2 Kings 5; but the Jebusites, coming down from the citadel, with the permission of the Benjamites themselves began, the war being now laid to rest, to inhabit the city also together with them.
Tropologically St. Bernard, serm. 58 on the Canticle: “However much,” he says, “you have advanced while remaining in this body, you err if you think the vices dead, and not rather suppressed. Willing or unwilling, the Jebusite dwells within your borders; he can be subjugated, but not exterminated.” Soon he suggests the remedy: “In so great a danger,” he says, “there is one counsel: to watch diligently, and as soon as the heads of the springing-up vices appear, to cut them down with ready severity. Virtue cannot grow together with vices; therefore that it may flourish, let these not be allowed to grow. Take away the superfluous, and wholesome things spring up; whatever you take from cupidity is added to usefulness. Let us give our care to pruning. Let cupidity be pruned, that virtue may be strengthened. For us, brethren, there is always a time for pruning, as there is always the work.”
22. THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH ALSO (namely the tribe of Ephraim, who was the son of Joseph) WENT UP TO BETHEL.—Adrichomius thinks there were two Bethels, one in the tribe of Ephraim, the other in the tribe of Benjamin, as is said Josue chap. 16, verse 1, and 18:22. Masius and others better judge that it is one and the same Bethel, because that which here, verse 23, is said to have been formerly called Luza, is also said to have been called Luza in Josue 16:2. It was situated on the border of the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin, and therefore is assigned now to one, now to the other. Add: these two places seem to have been neighbouring, namely the city Luza, which afterwards was called Bethel, or Bethel Luza, from the vision of the ladder which Jacob had there, and the very place of Jacob’s vision, which gave its name to the neighbouring city Luza; for this place was in the tribe of Benjamin, but the city itself was in the tribe of Ephraim. This, then, is the Bethel where Jacob saw God leaning upon the ladder, and where Jeroboam afterwards set up a golden calf as an idol. Hence Bethel, that is, house of God, was called Bethaven, that is, house of an idol. See what was said on Gen. 28:19.
24. THEY SAW A MAN COMING OUT OF THE CITY, AND THEY SAID TO HIM: SHEW US THE ENTRANCE INTO THE CITY.—The Rabbis relate that Luza had no gate, but a certain hidden entrance: for it was shut up on every side like a nut: luz in Hebrew signifies a nut, but these are the idle tales of fable-mongers: for it was called Luza because it abounded in nuts (nuces) and almonds, says St. Jerome. By “entrance,” therefore, understand here not a gate, but an easy access into the city by reason of lower or broken walls.
SHEW MERCY TO THEE.—We will grant thee thy life. The Hebrews could lawfully do this: for although God had commanded all the Chanaanites to be slain, yet on account of so great a benefit as the entrance into the city laid open they could spare him, as they spared Rahab, who received the spies, Josue chap. 2. Add that the Hebrews did not permit this betrayer of the city to remain in it; for God had forbidden only this, lest the Chanaanites should infect the Hebrews with their idols and vices.
25. AND WHEN HE HAD SHEWN THEM, THEY SMOTE THE CITY WITH THE EDGE (the point) OF THE SWORD.—This betrayer sinned by shewing the Hebrews the access into the city, because he betrayed his country to them; for this is against piety; for although it is not lawful to fight for an impious and harmful country in an unjust war, yet piety forbids betraying it to the enemy, just as I cannot defend by arms my father justly attacked by the magistrate, but I cannot hand him over and betray him without conspicuous mark of impiety. Yet the fear of death threatened him by the Hebrews lessens here the crime of treason. Wherefore the Emperor Aurelian, hearing that the man who had pointed out to him the place for taking the city of Thyana was slain with the other inhabitants when it was taken, rejoiced, and said: “For I could not love a traitor, and I gladly bore it that the soldiers slew him; for he could not have kept faith with me, who did not spare his country.” So Vopiscus in Aurelian.
26. INTO THE LAND OF HETTHIM.—Some understand Cyprus, says Procopius. For Cyprus in Hebrew is called Cethim, Isaias 23:1. But Cethim is then written with Caph; here, however, it is written with Chet, wherefore the place Hetthim is another from Cethim; but which it is, is unknown.
27. MANASSES ALSO DID NOT DESTROY BETHSAN.—The Septuagint add, which is a city of the Scythians; whence it was called Scythopolis.
34. AND THE AMORRHITE STRAITENED THE CHILDREN OF DAN IN THE MOUNTAIN, AND DID NOT GIVE THEM PLACE TO GO DOWN TO THE PLAIN.—The Danites, more than the other tribes, were straitened by the Amorrhites, so that they occupied only the barren mountains of their lot, but not the fruitful valleys: for which reason they were compelled to seek other lands, as we shall hear in chap. 18.
35. AND HE DWELT (not Dan, but the Amorrhite, as is plain from the Hebrew and the Septuagint) IN THE MOUNTAIN HARES, WHICH IS INTERPRETED POTSHERD, IN AIALON AND SALEBIM,—as if to say: The Amorrhite took from the Danites not only the cities of the valleys, but also three situated on the mountain, namely Hares, Aialon and Salebim.
POTSHERD:—So it must be read, not “tile-like,” as some read; for Hares in Hebrew is a potsherd: this mountain, therefore, was called the mountain of potsherds, either because earthen vessels were formed on it by potters, or because the fragments of those broken were thrown there, as we see done at Rome on the mountain by the gate of St. Paul, which is thence named Monte Testaccio. The Septuagint translate, in the mountain Hares, where bears and foxes abound; wherefore in place of Aialon some seem to have read dubbim, that is, bears, and in place of sahalim or salebim to have read shualim, that is, foxes. For although bears are larger and more numerous in cold and northern regions, yet they are found also in hot and southern ones, as in Judea: for there David slew a bear, 1 Kings 17:34, and Eliseus by two bears slew forty-two boys mocking him at Bethel, 4 Kings 2:24. Perhaps Samson, who was a Danite, gathered his three hundred foxes from this place of his tribe, namely from Salebim abounding in foxes, and tying firebrands to their tails burned the crops of the Philistines, as we shall hear in chap. 15, verse 4.
AND THE HAND OF THE HOUSE OF JOSEPH WAS HEAVY, AND HE BECAME TRIBUTARY TO HIM.—Joseph, neighbours of the Danites, heavily oppressed the Amorrhites dwelling in the lot of the tribe of Dan, and by the right of war made them tributaries to themselves as subdued by them. Therefore almost all the tribes sinned in this, that they did not cut off the Chanaanites subjugated by them, as the Lord had commanded, but made them tributary to themselves, as will appear at the beginning of the following chapter.
36. THE SCORPION.—Some read so; others, over acrabbim, that is, over the place of scorpions. It is the name of a place so called because it abounded in acrabbim, that is, scorpions, say Lyranus, Abulensis, Dionysius, Arias and others. From this acrabbim, that is, place of scorpions, was named the city Acrabatha and the region Acrabatene, which was one of the eleven toparchies of Juda, and was the boundary of Samaria and the border of the Amorrhites. See on it St. Jerome in the Hebrew Places, Josephus, book III of the Jewish War, chap. 3, Adrichomius and other Chorographers of the Holy Land.
THE ROCK.—It is the name of a city situated on a rock on the border of Juda and Amalec. There was another Petra in Arabia, which is thence surnamed Petraea.