In the Hebrew there is only מבחריו [mibbecharav]. But because בחר [bachar] means “to choose,” by that Hebrew word is signified either “chosen” or “young man” — and this, as Rabbi Kimchi says, because those who are of that age are stronger for all works, but especially for war. Psalm 77 [78], v. 32 [31]: “and he hindered the chosen [men] of Israel.” Whence also the Poet (Aeneid, bk. 8 [499–500]): ”…I will give chosen strength of manhood… and a youth culled for war.” And for the same reason, among the ancient Latins, from “helping” [iuvando] the iuvenes [young men] are so called, as was said from Varro above (ch. 6, q. 1); [and the Hebrew] בחורים [bachurim] signifies youth itself. And therefore [there is] a fourfold exposition of this place. The first, that Joshua is simply called “chosen.” For if [he is] “out of the chosen,” therefore he is chosen; and thus in—
(col. 139)
…by the Seventy he is called [eklektos, “chosen”]; and in certain other Greek [codices], as the Royal ones, [eklektos autou] — “chosen of holy Moses himself.” The second [exposition]: that it be “of his young men” — because, as I said (ch. 4, q. 1), Moses had several young men or ministers by whom he was helped; and so [read] almost the Hebrews, and those who follow them: Oleaster, Vatablus, and Pagninus in their versions. This I add, because these two set down a third exposition — the one in his Notes, the other in his Thesaurus. For they hold it can be rendered “from his youth” — nay, as it is in Vatablus, “from his boyhood” — because from then already Joshua began to serve Moses. But they received this interpretation from the Chaldee Targum, and yet seem to approve it less, in that they did not insert it into their own versions. And rightly indeed. For how could he have been Moses’s minister from many years [back], when [Moses] lay hidden a full 40 years in Midian, but Joshua even at this very time is not yet 40 years old (as, above, ch. 6 q. 1, someone was saying), or was certainly born and reared in Egypt? How “from his boyhood” — or, as the Chaldee word rather sounds, “from his infancy” — could he have served Moses, when Moses himself acted as servant and shepherd to the priest of Midian, and only in the year before had first returned from the land of Midian? This year, first from the exodus, is the second from Moses’s coming into Egypt and his departure from the land of Midian. One would indeed have to feign either that Joshua was sent to Moses out of Egypt into Midian, to act as a shepherd’s boy in pasturing the sheep; or at least that, before Moses fled from Egypt, Joshua was already so far born that, as a little boy, he ministered to [Moses] then dwelling in Pharaoh’s court, [and] fled when [Moses] fled, and thereafter always clung to him. But if we consider Moses’s flight and his coming into Midian (Exod. 2, from v. 15), we shall see he was altogether alone and unaccompanied. And if we look at his return into Egypt (Exod. [4], from v. 18), we shall indeed find he was then not alone — but his whole retinue is described in these words (Exod. 4:20): “Moses therefore took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and returned into Egypt, carrying the rod of God in his hand.” There is, then, at last, a fourth exposition — the one in our Latin text — that he was “chosen out of many”; and thus it beautifully embraces the two former expositions. For out of all Moses’s chosen ones (who, as the plural number indicates, were several), he was chosen, and out of all the young men of the same [Moses] the most select — of which I have already touched something above (ch. 4, q. 1 and 3). And Abulensis, on this place, says: “Joshua was most familiar to Moses above all, even more than Aaron, Moses’s brother”; and [at] Num. 13, q. 17, where it is faultily cited from this place as “chosen out of thousands,” for “out of many.”