Latin original · 40 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 59:1024–59:1063 (1230 verses in all)
For it was not permitted him to overstep the commandment of the law which was given to men, lest by his own judgment—that which is enjoined or allowed to be exercised by one man upon another—he should suppose that one person ought to be punished for another's sin. But God judges by a far more hidden justice, He who has power even after death, which man cannot, to set free or to destroy. The visible afflictions of men, therefore, or their deaths, since they can both harm and profit those upon whom they are inflicted—the Lord knows, in the secret of His providence, how He justly dispenses them to each, even when He seems to avenge the sins of some upon others.
But the invisible penalties, which only harm and cannot profit, no one pays for another's sins when God is judge, just as, when man is judge, no one ought to pay these visible penalties except for his own fault. For this is what God has commanded man as judge in those matters which pertain to human judgment. But what He Himself does in His own judgment, to that no human power aspires. It is rightly asked why, when the Lord, on account of the man who had committed theft from the devoted thing, had commanded that he who should be pointed out be burned with fire, Joshua rather had him who was pointed out stoned by the people. Was it that he had to die in such a way as Joshua, who followed the Lord more closely, could understand the words of the Lord who commanded? For thus not easily could anyone else have understood.
Hence it is rather to be asked why the Lord called stoning by the name of fire, than to be believed that Joshua did anything other than the Lord had commanded. For neither could anyone have been wiser in understanding the words of the Lord, nor more obedient in carrying them out. Accordingly, Scripture is witness that by the name of fire a punishment could be signified, in Deuteronomy, where it is said to the children of Israel: "And He led you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt"—where surely He meant harsh tribulation to be understood. Now two reasons occur to me—not that both should hold, but that one or the other of them—why that man was not, together with all that was his, burned with visible fire. For if the Lord judged his sin to be such that, being expiated by that punishment, He would not punish it eternally,
then on account of that very expiation and purgation that punishment fittingly received the name of fire. Nor would anyone be prompted to reach for this understanding if visible fire had properly burned him up; rather each would remain in that which he plainly saw fulfilled, and would seek nothing further. But now, since on account of God's words and Joshua's deed—by whom those words could not be transgressed—it is most rightly said that even stoning was fire, that punishment is elegantly recognized as having purged the man, lest he perish hereafter through that sin. This is signified also by the vessels in Leviticus, which are commanded to be purged by fire.
But if his sin was such that even after this life Gehenna would receive him, then Joshua willed him to be stoned in order that what was said by the Lord, "he shall be burned with fire," might prompt the understanding that this was what the Lord would do, not what was to be done by them. For if the Lord had said, "you shall burn him with fire and all that is his," there would be no room for this sense:
but since it is so put that God rather seems to have foretold what would befall the man than to have commanded what should be done to him by men, Joshua could do no better—he who understood the divine words as so great a prophet, and who even did this very thing prophetically—than to slay him by stones rather than by flames, lest in those fires the words of the Lord should seem fulfilled, which He wished to be understood as spoken for another purpose. Nor should it disturb us that God foretold that not only he himself but also all that was his should be burned with fire. For thus He says: "he shall be burned with fire, and all whatsoever is his."
For "all whatsoever is his" can be understood as his works, which He said were to be burned up together with him—not as the Apostle says of certain works consumed by fire, "but he himself shall be saved"—if this man's sin is to be so understood that he is punished even with eternal fire. Therefore, when the people punished him, they at the same time overwhelmed with stones his sons and daughters together with his cattle and all that he had;
yet Joshua did this not by human judgment but by the prophetic spirit, either understanding "all that is his" in such a way as not to reckon even his sons excepted, applying to them too the penalty of stoning in place of fire; or signifying his works, which after death God was going to burn in him, not only through the rest of the things that were his but also through his sons. Nor indeed should it be believed that they, being innocent of their father's sin, were after death consumed by the punishment of hell-fire. For that death which awaits all, although it comes from the first sin, yet, because we are so born that we must necessarily die, is, when hastened for some, useful. Whence it is read of a certain man: "He was carried off, lest malice should alter his understanding."
By what judgment or mercy of God, then, it was inflicted, whether upon this man's sons or upon those thirty-six men—since all were free from his sin—lies hidden with Him with whom there is no iniquity. But this is plain: that it behoved the people also to search out with terror what had been committed, and the rest feared all the more vehemently to imitate his deed, the more human weakness shudders both at being given over to so great and so just a hatred of the people, and at dying—with his posterity consumed along with him by his own sin—among those whom he had thought to leave behind for the hope of propagating his line.
As to what God commands when speaking to Joshua, that he should set an ambush behind him—that is, warriors lying in wait to ambush the enemy—we are hereby admonished that it is not done unjustly by those who wage a just war; so that a just man ought to consider nothing chiefly in these matters except that he undertake a just war, seeing that it is lawful for him to wage war—for it is not lawful for all. But when he has undertaken a just war, whether he conquers by open battle or by ambush makes no difference to justice. Just wars, moreover, are usually defined as those which avenge injuries, if some nation or city, which is to be assailed by war, has either neglected to punish what was wickedly done by its own people, or to restore what was taken away by injuries.
But this kind of war too is without doubt just which God commands, with whom there is no iniquity and who knows what ought to be done to each. In such a war the commander of the army, or the people itself, is to be judged not so much the author of the war as its minister. Joshua, sending thirty thousand warriors to make war on Ai, says to them: "You shall lie in ambush behind the city, and you shall not be far from the city, and you shall all be ready. And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And it shall be, when those who dwell in Ai come out to meet us as before, that we will flee from their face. And when they come out after us, we will draw them away from the city, and they will say: These flee from our face as before."
"But you shall rise up from the ambush and go into the city. According to this word you shall do. Behold, I command you." It is to be asked whether every will to deceive is to be reckoned as a lie, and, if so, whether that lie can be just by which one is deceived who deserves to be deceived; and if not even this lie be found just, it remains that, according to some figurative meaning, this which was done by way of ambush should be referred to the truth.
As to the Gibeonites who came to Joshua with old bread and sacks, that they might be thought, as they had feigned, to have come from a distant land, so that they might be spared—for it had been ordained by the Lord that they should spare no inhabitant of those lands which they were entering—some manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, have: "and taking old sacks upon their shoulders"; but others, which seem more accurate, do not have "upon their shoulders," but "upon their asses." For the similarity of the word in the Greek language made the error easy, and therefore the Latin copies too came to vary; for ōmōn and onōn do not differ much from one another—of which the former is the word for shoulders, the latter for asses.
But "on the asses" is the more credible reading, since they said they had been sent from their distant nation: whence it appears they were envoys, and therefore could carry their necessities on asses rather than on their shoulders. For they could not be many, and Scripture records that they carried not only sacks but also wineskins. It may be asked how the Hebrews could believe that an oath had to be kept to the Gibeonites, to whom they had sworn as though to men coming from a distant land, as those had lied. For they knew that they were to be warred down if it were known to the Hebrews that they dwelt in that land which, once the inhabitants were slain, they were to hold as promised. Since, then, they lied that they had come to them from a distant land, the Israelites swore to them.
But after they learned that they dwelt there, where all whom they found had, according to God's command, to be warred down, they nevertheless would not break their oath; and although they had learned that they had lied, they chose to spare them for the sake of the oath, though they could indeed have said that they had sworn as to such as they had believed them to be, that is, men coming from afar; but when they knew otherwise, the Lord's command concerning them had to be fulfilled, that they should be assailed like the rest. God, however, approved this and was not angry with those who spared them, although they had not inquired of Him who those men were, and therefore the others had been able to deceive them.
Whence they are surely not unfittingly to be believed, even if they wished to deceive men for their own safety, yet not to have deceitfully feared God among His people. For this reason the Lord was not angry with those who swore or those who spared, so that afterward He avenged the Gibeonites themselves, as men of His own people, upon the house of Saul, as the history of Kings shows. And since the oath was thus kept, though toward men who had lied, so that the sentence was bent toward clemency, it did not displease God.
For if, on the contrary, they had sworn to slay certain men whom they had supposed to be Gibeonites in the land of promise, and afterward had learned that these were strangers to that land and had come to them from afar, it is by no means to be thought that they would have warred them down for the sake of fulfilling the oath, since, for the sake of that very clemency of sparing, holy David—even after the words by which he had sworn that he would slay Nabal, and though knowing well whom he had been about to slay—chose rather to spare, judging that it pleased God more not to fulfill the oath in so harsh a matter, if he did not carry out what, disturbed by anger, he had sworn to do by way of harm, than if he had carried it out.
When the Gibeonites, besieged by the kings of the Amorites, had sent to Joshua that he might come to their aid, Scripture thus continues and says: "And Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and all the warrior people with him, everyone mighty in strength. And the Lord said to Joshua: Fear them not; for into your hands I have delivered them: not one of them shall stand before you." Here the Lord was not consulted whether one ought to go to them, but of His own accord He foretold the coming victory to those rightly willing to aid their own. Thus, then, He could—though not consulted—have admonished them concerning the Gibeonites themselves, who they were, since they lied that they were from afar, had not that oath pleased Him, which compelled them to spare their subjects.
For they had believed God, whom they had heard had promised His own people that He would overthrow those nations and take possession of their land; and this faith of theirs He rewarded, in a certain manner, by not delivering them up. It is asked how Adonibezec, king of the city of Jerusalem, and the other four with whom he besieged the Gibeonites, are, according to the Seventy translators, first called kings of the Jebusites when they gathered to besiege them, but afterward kings of the Amorites by the Gibeonites themselves, when they sent messengers to Joshua that he might free them from the siege.
But as we have been able to observe in that translation which is from the Hebrew, in both places they are called Amorites, although it is agreed that the king of the city of Jerusalem was of the Jebusites, since that city itself was called Jebus, as the metropolis of that nation; and Scripture very frequently mentions the seven nations which God promised He would exterminate from before His people, of which one is named that of the Amorites. Unless perhaps this name was universal for all, or rather for the greater part, so that not one but several among these seven were held under this name;
although there was also one among the seven which was properly called that of the Amorites, just as there is a certain part which is properly called Libya, although this name applies to all Africa; and a certain part which is properly called Asia, although some have reckoned Asia to be half the globe of the lands, others a third part of the world. For, as is agreed, the Canaanites too are mentioned as one nation among those seven, and yet that whole land is originally called Canaan. "Joshua left nothing breathing in it, as the Lord commanded Moses His servant, and Moses likewise commanded Joshua; and so Joshua did: he transgressed nothing of all that the Lord had appointed to Moses."
On this account, that cruelty is by no means to be supposed, in that Joshua left no living thing in the cities delivered to him, because God had commanded this. But those who think that hence God Himself was cruel, and on this account are unwilling to believe that the true God was the author of the Old Testament, judge as perversely of the works of God as of the sins of men, not knowing what each deserves to suffer, and reckoning it a great evil when things destined to fall are cast down and mortals die. "And there was no city which was not delivered to the children of Israel." It is asked how this can be true, since neither in the later times of the judges nor in the times of the kings could the Hebrews capture absolutely all the cities of those seven nations.
But either it is to be understood thus, that Joshua approached no city in warfare which he did not capture; or certainly none was uncaptured, but of those which were in the regions mentioned above. For the regions were enumerated in which were the cities concerning which this conclusion was made: "and he captured them all in war." "Because it was done by the Lord to strengthen their heart, that they should go out to meet Israel in battle, so that they might be exterminated, in such wise that mercy should not be given them, but that they should be exterminated, as the Lord said to Moses." This is thus said, "it was done by the Lord to strengthen their heart," that is, to harden their heart, as of Pharaoh.
That this is done justly by a divine and lofty judgment is by no means to be doubted, when God forsakes and the enemy takes possession: which is to be understood in the same way as there also. But here another thing gives pause: how it is said that their heart was strengthened to this end, that they should rise up in war against Israel, and on this account He would not show them mercy; as though mercy were to be shown if they did not make war, whereas God had commanded that none of them be spared, and on this account they had spared the Gibeonites, because, feigning that they had come from a distant land, they had held them to their oath.
But since the Israelites of their own accord showed mercy to certain ones, although against God's command, this is to be understood as said to this effect: that these warred in such a way that they were not spared, nor were the Israelites themselves, neglecting God's command, bent toward mercy by them. This indeed, under the leadership of Joshua, who diligently kept all the divine commands, is not to be believed to have been able to happen. Yet even he would not have destroyed these so quickly, had they not most conspiringly opposed him, and so it could come about that, had they not been warred down by him who took care to fulfill God's commands, they would have remained until that time when they could be spared after the death of Joshua, by those who did not carry out God's commands with such care.
For even while he was still living, they spared certain ones, only subjecting them to their dominion; but some they could not even conquer. Yet these things were not done under his leadership, but when, being now old, he was free from war, only dividing the lands among them, so that they themselves, he now no longer waging war, should hold the divided lands—partly already emptied of the enemy, partly to be captured by fighting. And that they could by no means conquer some was, as will appear from certain passages of the Scriptures, owing opportunely to divine providence. "And Ephraim did not destroy the Canaanite who dwelt in Gezer;"
"and the Canaanite dwelt in Ephraim until this day, until Pharaoh king of Egypt came up and captured the city and burned it with fire, and slew through the Canaanites and Perizzites and those who dwelt in Gezer; and Pharaoh gave it as a dowry to his daughter." As to what is said of Pharaoh the king, I wonder whether we ought to understand it as said prophetically, since this history is believed to have been written in those times in which those events were recent. But what great thing could have been chosen to be said prophetically, when past events are narrated and greater and most necessary future ones are passed over in silence?
Accordingly it is rather to be supposed that the Seventy translators—who by prophetic authority, from their very marvelous agreement, are reported to have translated—added these things, not as foretelling future events, but because they themselves lived in that time in which they remembered that these things had been done and had read them in the books of Kings; for indeed it happened in the times of the kings. This has seemed the more credible to us because we have examined the translation which is from the Hebrew and have not found this there; just as neither that which was said of Jericho, that Hozah, who should have rebuilt it, incurred the curse which Joshua had spoken. For thus it is written: "And Joshua adjured in that day: Cursed be the man who shall raise up and build that city:"
"in his firstborn he shall found it, and in his youngest he shall set up its gates." Thus far it is found in the translation from the Hebrew; but that which follows: "and so did Hozah who was of Bethel; in Abiron his firstborn he founded it, and in the youngest, saved alive, he set up its gates,"—this is not read there. Whence it appears to have been inserted by the Seventy, who knew that it had been done. "And the Amorite remained, dwelling in Elom and in Salamin; and the hand of Ephraim was heavy upon them, and they became tributaries to them." This was now done against the Lord's command, and Joshua was still living, but their leader in those battles was no longer, by reason of old age.
On this account it is said to have been done by the Lord, that the heart of those who together conspired to go into war against Joshua should be strengthened, lest that mercy should be shown them even against God's command, if, remaining unassailed, they should—Joshua growing old or dead—be left to be assailed by the children of Israel, who might spare them against the Lord's command, which he would not do. It is rightly asked, since Israel, not only up to the day of Joshua's death but also afterward, did not root out the nations which held the land of promise—although, these being partly warred down, they settled in the same promised inheritance—how is to be understood what is said:
"And the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers; and they inherited it and dwelt in it. And the Lord gave them rest round about, as He had sworn to their fathers; not one stood before their face of all their enemies; all their enemies the Lord delivered into their hands. Not one of all the good words which the Lord had spoken to the children of Israel failed; all came to pass." Diligently, therefore, must all things be considered. And first it must be seen of how many nations the land was promised to the Israelites. Seven nations indeed are seen to be continually mentioned, as is read in Exodus: "And the Lord said to Moses:"
"Go, go up from here, you and your people, whom you led out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, saying: To your seed I will give it. And I will at the same time send My angel before your face, and He will cast out the Amorite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Girgashite and the Hivite and the Jebusite and the Canaanite." The land, therefore, of these seven nations God is seen to have promised to the fathers. It is written also in Deuteronomy much more expressly: "But if you draw near to a city to assail it, and call them out with peace, if indeed they answer you peaceably and open to you, all the people who shall be found in the city shall be tributaries to you and obedient;"
"but if they do not obey you and make war against you, then you shall besiege it, and the Lord your God will deliver it into your hands, and you shall slay every male of it by the slaughter of the sword, except the women and the household goods; and all the cattle and all whatsoever shall be in the city and all the utensils you shall plunder for yourself; and you shall eat all the plunder of your enemies, whom the Lord your God gives you. So shall you do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations. But behold, of these cities, which the Lord your God gives you to inherit their land, you shall not keep alive anything that breathes, but you shall devote them to destruction with the ban:"
"the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite and the Girgashite, as the Lord your God commanded you." And here it is manifest that the land of these seven nations was promised as an inheritance, which the Israelites were to possess when these same nations had been warred down to utter destruction. For the others, which should be found more remotely outside these nations, He willed to become their tributaries, if they did not resist; but if they did resist, that they too should be slain and given over to destruction, except the cattle and what could come as plunder. Likewise in another place in Deuteronomy it is read thus:
"And it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land into which you enter to inherit it, and removes great and many nations from before you—the Hittite and the Girgashite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Canaanite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, seven nations great and many and stronger than you—and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you strike them, you shall utterly exterminate them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor shall you have mercy on them, nor shall you join in marriage with them; your daughter you shall not give to his son, and his daughter you shall not take for your son," and the rest. Accordingly, by these and other passages of the Scriptures it is often shown that the children of Israel received the lands of these seven nations as an inheritance in such a way,
that they should dwell there not together with those who held those same lands, but in their stead. Yet nevertheless in Genesis not only these seven nations, but eleven, are promised to the seed of Abraham. For thus it is read: "On that day the Lord God disposed a covenant to Abraham, saying: To your seed I will give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites." This question is resolved thus, that we understand this prophecy to have gone before, that Solomon would extend and enlarge his kingdom to those bounds, of whom it is thus written:
"And every purpose of Solomon, which he had determined to build in Jerusalem and in Lebanon and in all the land of his dominion: all the people who were left of the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, who were not of Israel, of their sons who remained after them in the land, whom the children of Israel had not consumed, these Solomon subjugated to tribute until this day." Behold, the remnants of the peoples who were to be warred down and altogether destroyed by God's command, Solomon subjugated to tribute—those whom, according to God's command, he ought indeed to have destroyed; yet nevertheless, subjugated as tributaries, they were possessed. But a little after it is read thus:
"And he was ruling over all the kings from the river even to the land of the Philistines and to the borders of Egypt." Behold where was fulfilled what God, speaking to Abraham in Genesis and promising, had foretold. For "from the river" is here understood as "from the Euphrates"; for the great river in those places can be understood even without its proper name being added. Nor can this be taken of the Jordan, since the Israelites had held lands both on this side of the Jordan and beyond the Jordan even before the reign of Solomon. Therefore from the river Euphrates, from the parts of the east, up to the borders of Egypt, which was for them the part on the west, the Scripture of Kings said the kingdom of Solomon was extended. Then, therefore, more was subjugated than those seven nations held;
and by this then were reduced into servitude not seven but eleven nations. For as to what is written in the books of Kings, "even to the borders of Egypt from the river," since the Scripture wished to show from the east to the west how far the kingdom was extended, this same thing in Genesis, when it was defined from the west to the east, was said: "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates." For the river of Egypt, which is the boundary separating the kingdom of Israel from Egypt, is not the Nile, but is another, not great, river which flows through the city of Rhinocorura. Whence, turning now toward the east, the land of promise begins.
Thus, then, it had been appointed for the children of Israel, that they should inhabit the lands of the seven nations, those nations being exterminated and destroyed, but should rule over others, made subject and tributary, up to the river Euphrates. And although in this they had not obeyed God, because even of those whom they ought to have exterminated they had made some obedient, God nevertheless in the times of Solomon fulfilled the faithfulness of His promise. Now, then, in the book of Joshua son of Nun, what we have undertaken to consider, how it will be true: "And the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers; and they inherited it?" How, while Joshua was still living, did He give all the land, when they had not yet overcome even the remnants of those seven nations? For what follows: