Question XVII. (marg.) Which was done first — the imposition of hands, or this setting [him] before all?

Prior [in the narration] is recounted the imposition of hands (v. 18) than this setting [him] before the Pontiff and the whole people (also v. 18); but on the contrary, below (vv. 22 & 23), he is first constituted before these, [and] then hands are imposed upon his head. And altogether the order seems here to be observed. For most of all — toward Joshua’s principate being not only declared and persuaded to the people, but also commended, and marked with great reverence and veneration — this ceremony, applied before the eyes of all, availed. For who would not honor and venerate as prince [one] for whom so great and so God-pleasing a man, with so signal a ceremony, had prayed [for] all happy things? — [one] whom [Moses] himself, first of all the Jewish Priests and Pontiffs (and indeed with another [Eleazar] now surviving and discharging that office, yet [Moses] retaining still an extraordinary function), had commended to God the Best and Greatest, and, as it were, had offered [as] a certain victim on which, as was said above, hands were wont to be imposed, and had plainly devoted and consecrated [him] with worship and obsequy? Wherefore it is to be said [that] there was, before (vv. 18 & 19), prescribed only what Moses ought to do, not in what order; but that the order retained and applied by him is [that] which the last and next-to-last verse opened. And that indeed [is] very consonant to reason. For first, [Joshua], his right hand grasped by Moses, was led into the gathered assembly of the whole people; here, before the Pontiff, in the sight of all, for a while he was constituted, and by the same Moses praised (as above, quest. 14). Then, whether admonished or of his own accord, when he saw Moses wishing to impose hands on his head, he most humbly bent both knees, and, so set forth, received the benediction and consecration. He rose afterward, and the other [things] which follow were done.