“The King was dining,” says (in the cited book) Josephus, “and, as he heard from [his] informers [that] spies had come into the city, at once he sent his guards, who should catch them in the city or outside.” For while spies are caught, one both conserves oneself from danger, and at once harms the enemies — not by diminishing their number only, but by impeding and disturbing [their] counsels. For by how much these [spies] [are] more conducive to the one party, by so much [are they] more harmful to the other; and therefore [there is] a most certain danger to life for these, if one be caught: [see] the whole [title of the] Digest On military matters, and in Appian On the Punic War, Vegetius bk. 3 ch. 5. But just as, in this matter, the King applied something of military diligence, so [it] is a wonder [that] there was so great a cowardice and stupidity of the same [King] and of the Jerichoites, that — since the enemies were so near — [it] was allowed to foreigners so securely to approach the city gate, and to enter into it, without any examination and scrutiny. The guards similarly [were] too easy and credulous, when — as above [was] explained — they did not suddenly burst into Rahab’s house, [did] not ascend up and down, [did] not turn [over], move, and scrutinize all [things], but to one woman — and a harlot — at once give credence, and permit [her] so much leisure, that those who were sought could be hidden in the highest part of the house. Superstition perhaps, as I said, held them [in check by] some [awe]; but to it a like ignorance and stupor cohered. But [that] these [things] were all done divinely [by God’s providence], we shall see v. 11. And therefore neither do we have [any] need to esteem — as Masius, Cajetan, Tremellius, and others say (who therefore render v. 4, “And the woman, taking the men, had hidden [absconderat] [them]”) — [that], before these guards came, the men had already been hidden by Rahab herself. For why should we desert the proper force of the words without that necessity? and why should we feign — [a thing] which we do not know — the muttering of the neighbors, or [that] a rumor about the spies indicated to the King had come to Rahab’s ears, and thus [that] she had hidden them? But [that] v. 6 is therefore to be expounded by the pluperfect [“she HAD hidden”], is gathered—
(col. 349)
—[it is gathered] from that same v. 4, where [Rahab] does that which v. 6 she had done. But that [thing] too [is] little [in accord] with military discipline — [namely] to close the city gates so late, at such a time, and with hostile forces so near, so that the awaited darknesses might be [i.e. that they waited for full dark]. Then, when now it had grown fully dark, those spies-of-the-spies [the King’s men] went out; and after them the gate [was] closed — partly because the time [was] now nocturnal, partly lest, if in the city those who were sought should anywhere still lie hidden, [there] be for them any place of going out. But that [phrase] in the Latin and Greek v. 5, “and when the gate was being closed in the darkness,” avails [means]: “when [it] was next [about time] that the gate be closed, the darknesses now drawing on”; or, as the Chaldee [Aramaic] says, “when the time of the gate-to-be-closed was at hand.”