About the manner in which this land was given by God to the Israelites there is a double question. One: was it given so that it would be to them only tributary and taxable? or truly as hereditary, and their very seat also? St. Augustine (quest. 21 on this book) delivers the former; Masius, the latter; P. Pererius (on Gen. 15, disp. 10) — although he says he dissents from this — nonetheless holds a certain middle [view]. For he says it was given to them as hereditary, yet that for this it is enough if they should impose tributes and compel [the inhabitants] to pay tribute and obedience to them. But the same question is elaborated [with a further distinction]. For that about which it is chiefly asked is: whether that land was so given to the Israelites that they themselves should inhabit the whole of it, divide it among themselves, [and] obtain [it] through themselves as their own inheritance. And plainly I judge that God gave it to them in this [latter] manner. First, because thus the name of “inheritance” is wont to be taken in Scripture. For although what the Catholic King of the Spains holds in Italy, India, and the new world be his hereditary possession, yet by the usage and phrase of Scripture it would not be called “the inheritance of the Spaniards,” except [for] those portions which — the old inhabitants being driven out — they themselves dwell in and inhabit. But of that land [in question] Deut. 19:10 says: “to give it to his people for an inheritance.” For so the Hebrew speaks, which ours renders “to give to possess”; and the Septuagint: ἐν τῇ γῇ ᾗ κύριος ὁ θεός σου δίδωσί σοι ἐν κλήρῳ [“in the land which the Lord thy God gives thee for a lot [inheritance]”]. Second, if for this donation of the land it were enough that it be tributary to the Israelites — [even] by hereditary right — then Judaea and Galilee would also have been their inheritance even if they had not crossed the Jordan, but all had remained in the land of the Kings Og and Sihon. Third, the Lord God commands — in case indeed He should [only] concede those enumerated bounds of the land at some time [in the future], as He swore to the Fathers — that they should double the asylums, or cities of refuge. Now I ask: was it necessary to double these if they should have the land only [as] tributary, or [only] if they should have a domicile in it?
If [it was] the former, David and Solomon did badly — [they] who, when they extended the empire in that manner (as will be said below), yet constituted no such cities. If the latter [is true]: therefore God’s mind, in the promise and in the swearing of the oath, was that the Israelites should place domiciles in that land. Yet that [difficulty], about the sin of David and Solomon, Pererius says “it is no business [of ours] to expedite.” Let us hear [it]. And it can be dissolved in twofold [manner]. First: There was not then need of new asylums, for the Hebrew nation had not yet grown in so numerous a propagation that the land of Canaan could not conveniently hold it, but that it was necessary to be diffused into foreign regions, colonists being led out. There was besides that [fact] that that [extension] up to the Euphrates — up to the empire of the Hebrews — [was] exceedingly brief; and if it had endured long, well-established and strengthened, then the Hebrews would have set about instituting new asylums, nor would they have omitted to execute God’s command. But [I give] that former answer openly, which we press — [there]
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accedes [to it], namely, that it behooved [them] to lead colonies into those parts and to dwell in them — yet that [this] was not then done, because the Hebrew nation had not yet grown to so numerous a propagation. But the latter [consideration] does not free David and Solomon from fault. For at once in the beginning, when David occupied those regions and had [ordered them] by fixed Commonwealths, laws, and institutions, by the right of victor, he ought to have prefixed these other [asylums]. Just as, as soon as the Israelites divided Canaan, they at once decreed asylums also. But if there was still something to be delayed, was it not — at least in Solomon’s principate — already enough delayed? Nay rather, even if this empire over those lands was brief, yet since in the beginning it was begun from David, it was by no means thought that it would be so brief; and therefore it was to be so composed and conformed as if it were to remain for the longest time. For so both they hope, and they do, who join new accessions to their empires.
But since, even up to Solomon — [him] not only taking up the scepters, but also departing from life — all these [lands] were in the power of the Israelites for more than 40 years, was there not too much procrastination in executing that command of God? And if the most religious David [and] the most wise Solomon had done nothing in so great a time, who at last would be about to begin [it]? But in very truth they knew that they were not held by that precept of God unless they had entered those lands as their proper inheritance, and had constituted homes and seats in them, the Gentiles being driven out from them. And this too is the opinion of St. Jerome, epist. 129, as will be seen afterwards.
The other question is: whether all this land was given with some condition, or absolutely. Most markedly the Lord appended a condition in the donation of this land — one indeed, but set down in a twofold [way]. Once, [for] the part which was already being given absolutely into possession, [namely] that it should afterwards be retained; then, [for] the part whose possession was still deferred, [that] it should be obtained. Although the condition of the former can easily be gathered from the event — while we see the Israelites themselves led into exile out of Canaan on account of [their] sins — it is nonetheless declared [at] Deut. 11:20–23: “Thou shalt write,” says the Lord, “these words of mine [namely] upon the posts and doors of thy house: that thy days may be multiplied, and the days of thy sons, in the Land which the Lord swore to thy Fathers, that He would give them as long as heaven hangs over the earth. For if you keep the commandments which I enjoin you, and do them, [so as] to love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, cleaving to him, the Lord will destroy all those nations before your face, and you shall possess them — [nations] which are greater and stronger than you.” The reason of the latter [part] is likewise there signified, when v. 24 it is at once added: “Every place which your foot shall have trodden shall be yours. From the desert, and from Lebanon, from the great river Euphrates unto the Western sea shall be your bounds. None shall stand against you: the Lord your God shall put the terror and dread of you upon all the land which you shall tread, as he hath spoken to you.” But more openly, ch. 19 v. 8: “When the Lord your God shall have enlarged your borders, as he swore to your fathers, and shall have given you the whole Land which he promised (yet if thou keep his commandments, and do the things which I command thee this day, [so as] to love the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways at all times), thou shalt add to thee three other cities.” And this is what here (v. 3) the Lord again wove onto his donation—
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—[the Lord again wove onto his donation], saying that not simply “every place” of which [he spoke] above would he hand over, but “as,” he says, “I have spoken to Moses” — that is, with the condition of Moses set out in the places already cited, as this quest. 1 also admonishes — Theodoret.