Library / Commentary on Joshua, Volume I

Book I — De Iosue: Caput IX — On the election, and the inauguration, of Joshua as ruler and prince of the people

Question XIX. (marg.) Ought Moses to have given of his own glory to the succeeding Joshua?

Expressly the text affirms [that he] ought. Yet I know not what came into the mind either of Oleaster, or of certain [others] in his [work], that they preferred to render, “thou shalt give of thy descent,” or “of thy casting-down.” For 1. the Hebrew noun hod [הוד], since it is often in the Scriptures, always signifies “glory and comeliness,” or “power and fortitude,” whence glory is wont to arise — as Ps. 8, vv. 2 & 6; Ps. 95 [96], v. 6; Ps. 45, vv. 4, [5]; Prov. 5, v. 9; Ps. 145 [146], v. 12; Isa. 30:30; Deut. 33; ch. 11 [?]; Jer. 22:18; Hos. 14, v. 7; Habac. 3, v. 3; Zach. 10, v. 3; and the 70 also here rendered δόξαν [doxan, “glory”]. [2.] [Likewise the Seventy so rendered it.] 3. Oleaster’s own reason is very weak — namely, that yad [יד] avails, in Jer. 50, v. 14, [to mean] “to cast forth” [proiicere]; therefore hod [הוד] signifies descent and casting-down. For that noun neither is from that verb, nor can [it] be feigned how it should be; but Oleaster deduced [it] from ḥadah [חדה]. But how, in that place of Jeremiah, would yad [יד] be more imperative [there] and not hod [הוד]? He would rather—

(col. 200)

—have cited Isaiah ch. 11, v. 8, where “into the cavern the boy shall send his hand” [yado, ידו]; but it is there put, he [ה] for yod [י], R. Judah contends. And if those two words be [distinct], it appears they are of the same signification. And therefore, since the former [yad] signifies not only “to cast forth,” but also “to confess,” “to give thanks,” and “to praise,” the same is to be thought about the latter [hod]. How, then, does this noun draw [its meaning] rather from “casting-down” than from “confession” [and] “praise,” without necessity, without any cause? But [Oleaster] explains [it] in this twofold manner: 1. “thou shalt give of thy descent,” that is, of the spirit which descended upon thee when I constituted thee leader; 2. “thou shalt give of thy casting-down,” that is, of the humility — which virtue rendered Moses laudable and very glorious. But although the [things] which are said were true (which will be more examined in the following little question), yet those senses do not suit the text, as was already shown; and therefore that [reading] which Oleaster asserts about the former [word] is much less true. The truer sense seems [to be otherwise]. Yet two [things] are still to be sought here. One, why does our Interpreter render “thou shalt give part of thy glory”? For the Septuagint rendered δώσεις τῆς δόξης σου ἐπ’ αὐτόν [dōseis tēs doxēs sou ep’ auton, “thou shalt give of thy glory upon him”], or, as in certain books (St. Augustine testifies, quest. 55 on Numbers, and as appears from Origen, hom. 22, and some other Greek codices), τὴν δόξαν [tēn doxan, “the glory”]. I answer: our [translator] expressed what is in the Hebrew, “of thy glory.” For, of one’s own moneys, honors, or whatever things, “to give” is to bestow a part of them. And this same [thing] the 70 mean [when they render] “thou shalt give of thy glory upon him” — that is, something of thy glory, or some part [of it]. And therefore Procopius, Theodoret (q. 48), [and] St. Augustine (in the cited place), from these same [words], render “thou shalt give of thy glory,” as though it were ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης [apo tēs doxēs, “from thy glory”]; or, as I said, “thou shalt give thy glory” — not the whole, but as to something. The other. Since, at the end of the chapter, all the [things] are repeated which the Lord commanded to be done, and they are handed down [as] effected by Moses, why is this one [thing] omitted? Is it sufficiently expressed in this, which [is] verse 22, “Moses did as the Lord had commanded”? and verse 23, “He reviewed all [things] which the Lord had commanded”? — or, as in the Hebrew, “he commanded him according to what the Lord had said by the hand of Moses”? Or [is it] because this was not done at once, but was deferred until the death of Moses? We shall see [in] the following question.

To cite this page

Nicolaus Serarius, S.J., “Question XIX. (marg.) Ought Moses to have given of his own glory to the succeeding Joshua?,” in Commentary on Joshua, Volume I, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/serarius-joshua-1/139-question-xix-marg-ought-moses-to-have-given-of-his-own-g/.

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