Because the Midianites, by the enticements of [their] women, had lured very many of the Israelites into most grave crimes (Num. ch. 25), the Lord therefore commanded them to be punished by war, and by a most bitter slaughter (in the same book, ch. 31); and that war was waged, by God’s help and hand, so successfully that of the enemy very many thousands of both sexes were utterly cut off — [and] Balaam himself, the author and architect of the whole wickedness, [was] slain together with them. In this war, then, [that] Joshua was the Leader, Abulensis says (quest. 3, on that chapter of Numbers), and he affirms this to be handed down in the letter [text]. Cajetan truly teaches [that] about this nothing is handed down in the letter; yet [that] it seems likely that he [Joshua] was the Leader.
(col. 236 [Q I cont.])
Which [view] is also rather the more assertible [likely]. For a war is not waged with so [great forces] without a leader; either, then, it was Moses, or Joshua, or some other. But not Moses — because in that chapter (v. 6) Moses himself is said not to have gone out with the armed [men], but to have sent them with Phinees [Phinehas]. If you should say [that] it was said to Moses himself in the same place (v. 2): “Avenge the sons of Israel of the Midianites” — R. Salomo [Rashi] answers [that] Moses interceded against this very [thing] before the Lord, excusing himself, because he had dwelt among the Midianites and had been enriched by an honorable marriage [there] (Exod. 2). But he had received much more of benefits from the Egyptians, among whom he was born, nourished, and educated — nay, even [adopted] by the Queen as a son—
(col. 237)
—[much benefits from the Egyptians…]? Yet, since it so seemed [good] to GOD, He wrought a huge slaughter of them [the Egyptians / of the people], because they had cast [molten] a calf (Exod. 32). The truer reason is that the Lord was unwilling that he [Moses] — now very near to death — be still entangled in war, and be sprinkled with the blood of men, even [though] of enemies; and [that] it was enough if he took that vengeance, not through himself, and by his own hand and presence, but through others whom he had sent out. But who, besides Joshua, would it have been? Only one [other] is named in the text, about whom conjecture can be made: Phinees [Phinehas]. For [at] v. 6 it is said [that] Moses sent chosen thousands from the Israelites with Phinees; or, as [it stands] in the Hebrew and Greek, “Moses sent those thousands into the battle-line, and Phinees into the battle-line.” By which what else is signified, than that he was the leader of those thousands? And truly this seemed to happen deservedly, because before all others Phinees had blazed with zeal against the wicked and seductive blandishments of the Midianites; and, taking up at once a dagger, had begun to exact the penalty from them (Num. 25). As, therefore, GOD promised him the dignity of the high priesthood for that cause (in the same place, v. 13), so also now — while, his Father [Eleazar] yet surviving, he could not enter upon it — he seems constituted supreme leader. For it was not unusual, in that commonwealth, for priests to command military forces, as [is] abundantly clear from the history of the Maccabees, and the life of Josephus, and the books of the captivity. And Abulensis afterward (after quest. 4) seems nearly to embrace this. “Phinees,” he says, “was one of the leaders of the war, and the chief.” But he was not [one] of those who were over the individual thousands and centuries — since those thousands and centuries were not of the tribe of Levi (as the same Abulensis teaches, quest. 4), but of other tribes, and [so also] their heads. And he adds, “[that] he was sent, because he was a man valiant in arms, and had zealed for the Lord” (above, ch. 25). Yet it could be answered [that] he was sent with the army not to command it, but to help by his presence — first exhorting them, out of his zeal, and clanging the trumpets, as was prescribed to be done by the priests at the start of battles (Deut. 20). For this reason, too, it is here added [that] “in his hand were the trumpets.” Not that he himself blew the many trumpets, but because he was over them, and at his nod others blew them — in that manner in which, [at] the same chapter, v. 49, the tribunes and centurions say their soldiers “were in their hand,” which our [translator] rightly renders “under [their] hand.” And on that account the Seventy [LXX] had said [that] these trumpets were not in Phinees’s hand alone, but also in the hand of others. Certainly in the tractate Sotah he is said [to have been] sent to battle to be meshuach milḥamah [משוח מלחמה], that is, the herald and exhorter to war — which was shown to have been a priest’s office, in the same place, at the beginning of ch. 8. Then [he was sent] for guarding the vessels of holiness, which were sent to the same war (v. 6). But these Vatablus and Oleaster do not distinguish from the trumpets; yet, since in the Hebrew and Greek there is a copulative conjunction, and no cause appears why [it] should here be drawn away from its proper and usual signification, we shall reckon these vessels distinct from those trumpets. But which [vessels are they]? The Rabbis say [they] were the ark and the Pontifical plate. And R. Salomo [Rashi] recounts, in this place, an inept little fable — how Phinees, though not yet Pontiff, placed that plate upon his forehead, and cast down the flying Midianites. If they are distinct from the trumpets, “I would think,” says Oleaster, “[they are] priestly garments or ornaments.” But where, if—
(col. 238)
—[the] vessels are elsewhere read [in Scripture]. But because in the ark was the vessel of manna, and to it clung the staffs by which [the ark] was carried, therefore all these are called “vessels” in the plural. That this [ark] was wont to be borne to war we read also (1 Kings [Sam.] 4 & 14; and Josh. 6; 2 Kings [Sam.] 11), and it is gathered from Num. ch. 14, v. 44 — just as, namely, the Gentiles were wont to carry their idols with them to battles (2 Kings [Sam.] 5[:21]). But clearly, and without any ambiguity, the Talmudic Rabbis say (in the cited tract. Sotah, ch. 8, f. 48): “The sacred vessels were the ark, and the tablets which [were] in it.” Thirdly, [Phinehas was sent] for praying beside the ark itself, for the warriors’ safety and victory. For it did not befit the priests to be merely idle spectators and bystanders in so great a danger. But again R. Salomo fables in his own manner: because, namely, in the Hebrew (vv. 4 & 5) the word “thousand” is read three times, he wishes [that] three thousand set out from each tribe — of whom a thousand would fight, a thousand guard the baggage, a thousand pray. As though in Hebrew it were novel, without any multiplication, [for] the same number to be frequently repeated. Besides, conjectures could be brought forward for Joshua [being the leader]: First, that, being now recently designated prince of all, he ought deservedly to be set over this war — both that he might prove himself more to all (as in the Amalekite war), and that he might begin to undergo the labors of leadership, and, as it were, to foretaste the glory; even as, above, Moses was bidden to give him his [own] glory. Secondly, because by his exhortation and religion the so-great piety of the inferior leaders, and [their] munificence toward God, seems to have been kindled — so that from their spoils they dedicated the best to His tabernacle (v. 49 and following). Thirdly, because (v. 13) Moses and Eleazar are said to have come to meet the victors. Why was Joshua — [the] declared successor of Moses — not named with them? For of the others [it is] subjoined only generally, “And all the princes of the Synagogue.” It seems, therefore, [that] Joshua was the leader in this war — or at least he [Phinehas] himself, as has been said, Phinees.