By the word which they say [use], the Hebrew responds [that] they were sent חֶרֶשׁ [cheresh, “secretly, silently”] — which today is omitted by the 70; others, in the royal Bibles [Polyglots], turned [it] κρυφῇ [kryphē, “secretly”]; our [Vulgate renders it] “in secret [in abscondito].” “It is not,” [says] Cajetan, “everywhere clear whether this mission be written [as being] clandestine relatively to the people of Israel, or relatively to the garments and exterior signs of the spies. For each [Vtrumque] can be understood.” But this whole [matter], whatever it is, will be illustrated, if we advert [notice] what the expositions of the various [interpreters] are, and about them, what is to be thought. But those [expositions] I find [to be] fivefold [quinas] — from, namely, the five notions [meanings] of that Hebrew name. The first exposition is Ralbag’s [Gersonides’s], who says these were sent [as] spying-out [explorantes]—
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—cogitation [cogitatio] — that is, [that] they were spies of the hostile cogitations and machinations. Because the verb charas [חָרַשׁ] avails [means] sometimes “to machinate [machinari],” Proverbs ch. 3:29, ch. 6:13 & 16, ch. 14:22; and [that] these explored nothing else than with what mind the enemies were, but not the situations of places, the city’s bulwarks, and the like — but only those [things] which they heard in Rahab’s own house. The second [exposition], of certain old Rabbins in [i.e. cited by] Tanchuma: [that] there were sent “artificer-spies” [exploratores opifices], or — as by the vulgar even of the Germans it is called by name — Abulensis calls [them] “masters [magistros],” not any [craftsmen] whatever, but (from the same Hebrew) “Fabers [Fabri, craftsmen],” who are either “smiths [Ferrarii],” as 1 [Sam.] 13:18, Isaiah 44:12; or “wood-workers [lignarii],” as the same Isaiah 44:13; or “stone-workers [lapidarii],” Exod. 28:11 — [namely] that they carried, so to speak, workmen’s tools and garments, and simulated themselves [to be] men of a craft of this kind. The third, of the same [Rabbins] in the same Tanchuma, and Radak [Kimhi]: [that] they carried earthen [fictiles] pots and potsherds [testae], lest they be recognized; for this too that word signifies. The fourth, of the old Rabbins on [the commentary on] Ruth, of Radak on [—], and of R. Salomo [Rashi] and of Lyra: [that] these [spies] simulated deafness [surditas] and muteness [infantia] — nay, even insanity — wholly in the likeness of David, 1 [Sam.] 21, always keeping silence. The fifth: [that] Joshua sent them silently [tacite] and secretly [clam]. But Abulensis wills [it to be] “secretly from the Canaanites [clam Chananaeis]”; Masius, “secretly from the Israelites [clam Israelitis]” — to whom I adjoin myself. First, because [it] seems [that] the text wished wholly to distinguish this mission of spies, by this word, from that which, Num. 13, had been instituted by Moses — the people, namely, asking and demanding [it]. And [it] is confirmed from the dissimilitude of the narration instituted after the return. For the Mosaic [spies] narrated all [things] both to Moses, and to Aaron, and to the whole assembly of the Israelites, Num. 13:27; but these [our spies] are said to have narrated only to Joshua himself, toward the end of this chapter, v. 23. 2. The first four expositions are rejected by the Greeks turning [it] κρυφῇ [kryphē, “secretly”]. 3. The same [expositions] are also repelled, because similarly the Chaldaic Targum [renders it] berathiz [Aramaic — “secretly, covertly, in secret”; reading uncertain]. 4. because the Hebrew word signifies neither the “cogitation” of that first exposition, nor the “artificer [opifex]” or “craft [opificium]” of the second, nor the “earthenware [fictilia]” of the third; and even if the verb charas [חרש] has [meanings] whence these [could] be led, yet [it] is nowhere attributed to that name [the substantive here]. Or the points [vowel-points] would have to be changed here, which the Rabbins themselves posited. For charasch (by cholem & tsere), or charash (by two camets), is “craft” or “craftsman”; and chares, with a point in the left horn [i.e. sin], is “potsherd [testa],” Levit. 6:27, Ps. 21[22]:16, Job 41:20, 4 Kings [2 Kings] 3:26. I hear indeed [that], in our memory, a chief man entered the enemies’ camp in the guise of a charcoal-burner [carbonarius] selling coals; another entered Susatum, a city of Westphalia, with earthen vessels. But of these, as I said, nothing here is relevant. 5. If they had simulated deafness, and always kept silent in the likeness of the mute, would they not, by this very [fact], have made themselves more suspect? For that which is added — [that] they simultaneously feigned insanity — is fictitious, since neither does the notion of the Hebrew name import it, nor does the manner of acting permit [it]. For if they were acting [as] demented and insane, how did they always go together [as one]? how [is there] no indication of madness — as in [the case of] David — brought forth, not even from those who indicated their arrival to their King, or sought them at Rahab’s? 6. Since
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—charash [חרש] can also mean “to plough [arare],” Judges 14:18, Job 1[?], 1 Kings [1 Sam.] 8:12 — what [is] the cause why the same Rabbins did not equip these [spies] with the scheme [guise] of farmers, and gave them no ploughshare [vomer], threshing-sledge [tribula], or sickle [falx]? Especially since the harvest [messis] was now at hand, and they could have approached as if [as] hired-men [mercenarii] to reap the crops, as among us today happens? 7. Not even in the fifth exposition does that [phrase] “in secret [in abscondito]” seem true, [if] posited so that we should understand [them] having set out “secretly from the Canaanites.” For who does not know [that] all spies are sent out secretly from the enemies, and [that] all take care to do this especially — that they be to them as most hidden and most unknown [as possible]? And therefore, when Joshua is said to have sent the spies, [it] was hardly necessary that [it] be narrated [that] he did this [with] the enemies unknowing. [So] rather [it is] to the unknowing and unconsulted Israelites [that] they are signified [to have been] sent by him. Nor does it stand in the way, that the first exposition said [that] these, when they returned, narrated only about the enemies’ minds, but not about the cities and places, or [their] situation or bulwarks. For they narrated the enemies’ minds broken by fear, as [being] a certain chief and choice [matter], from which a sure hope of victory was shown. Yet [that] about the rest [the spies] were wholly silent, the text does not say; nay rather, [it] indicates [that they] commemorated about these too, v. 23: “They narrated,” it says, “all [things] which had happened to them [acciderant sibi].”