The spies assented, and indeed most gladly, since they were grateful and upright men. “He is base,” says Plautus in [the] Persa, “who knows how to take a benefit but not to repay [it].” A serpent, in Aelian bk. 13 of the Various History, last chapter, protected — at great peril to itself — the one by whom it had been reared. A lion, in Gellius bk. 5 ch. 14, freed by [its] rending [claws] the little slave (by whom it had been freed from a certain trouble) from the wild beasts to which he had been thrown. A dolphin, in Athenaeus bk. 13, received the Milesian by whom it had once been bought alive and sent back free into the sea, [when he was] perishing by shipwreck in the midst of the waves’ billows, and carried him safe and unharmed to the shore, and preserved [him]. Would the Israelites not preserve a woman by whom they had been received and, in the utmost peril of [their] head [life], protected and saved? All [things], therefore, which she had sought they granted, and indeed — [more] than she had sought — nearly all [things] more abundantly. For, as the same Plautus says [of captives], “the benefit which is done to the good, that favour is pregnant [rich] with good [things].”
To Rahab’s first demand the Spies respond simply and without comparison: “We will do mercy toward you,” and they add: “and truth.” Kimhi [Radak] thinks that “mercy” [refers] to Rahab’s own parents and kindred, but that “truth” [refers] to Rahab herself — because that [former] is a gratuitous and undue benefit, [while] this [latter] is just and due. But of the former I have spoken [in] the preceding question. The latter is sometimes joined to it [the former], so that that mercy and beneficence be signified [as] not only certain and constant (as Masius thinks), but also true, sincere, and nothing at all feigned — as [in] Proverbs 14 v. 22, 16 v. 6: “By mercy and truth iniquity is redeemed,” and Genesis 24 v. 27 & 49, Psalm 22 [v.] 6, 84 v. 12. To the second [demand] they promise to save not only those whom Rahab recounts, but even more, for her sake. For although they seem to omit [her] sisters, v. 18 and below ch. 6 v. 23, they nonetheless do not omit [them]; nor yet, as pleases Abulensis, do they contain [them] under the name of “brothers,” but in their place the spies substitute a more capacious word, by which both they [the sisters]—
(col. 365)
—whether they be above or below, to the side [i.e. wherever they are], both live and be taken up [rescued]. For here [in] v. 18 [the Latin] is “and all your kindred,” in the Greek and Hebrew “and the whole house of your father.” Below, at ch. 6 v. 23, in the Latin [it] is likewise “all her kindred,” in the Hebrew “all her families,” in the Greek ἡ συγγένεια αὐτῆς [hē syngeneia autēs, “her kindred”] — whence, [in] quest. 53 & 56, Abulensis is sufficiently refuted. Nay, here [in] v. 19 they seem to promise safety to all, [as] many as she wished to receive into her house. These good spies, therefore, imitated those Angels who once repaid the most abundant favour to their host Lot too. For they held in memory that those [Angels] had said to him, Genesis 19 v. 12: “Have you here anyone of yours? a son-in-law, or a son, or daughters — all who are yours, lead [them] out of this city.” Again, as to the safety of [their] bodies, Rahab had asked only about her own life and her own [people]‘s; but they [go further], saying [in] v. 19 [that] they [will] repel from them slaps, blows, striking, and every injury: “If anyone touch them” — in the Hebrew, “if the hand of anyone be upon any of them.”
To the third [demand] the same [spies] received an oath from Rahab willingly, v. 10 [17], and bound themselves by these words, v. 14: “May our soul [life] be for you unto death.” Kimhi [Radak] indeed thought they said only this: “If anyone wish to kill you, we forbid [it], and indeed by the interposing of our own bodies, that we rather than you be killed.” But in that manner there would indeed be some promise, yet no oath. It is therefore rather to be judged [that] something greater than a simple oath is here sworn by them — a curse, namely, being applied thus: “Let our life be for yours; if we deceive in anything, if you or any of them, or anything, perish, let the Lord punish [us] with death.” For oaths of this kind, and imprecations, [are] everywhere in use, as in Cicero, Plautus, and the like: “may I not live,” “may I not be safe,” “so may I live,” “may I perish,” “may the gods destroy me, so may it befall me to live and die.” In Propertius bk. 4 eleg. 7: “If I deceive, may a viper hiss upon our tombs, and lie over [my] bones.” [In] the last elegy: “I myself speak, for myself: if I deceive, may the unhappy penalty of [my] sisters press [my] shoulders with the fillets [chains].”
And thus in public treaties, when the fetial “accomplished fathers” [patres patrati] struck a pig or lamb with a stone [or] flint, they swore with a loud voice: “If the Roman people shall first fail from the stated terms, do thou, Jupiter, on that day so strike the Roman people as I strike this pig today; and strike so much the more, by how much more thou art able and hast power.” And again, when he struck the stone from [his] hand, they asked that they be so cast out of all the goods of the living and the dead — as Barnabé Brisson shows copiously from Livy, Polybius, and others, [in] bks. 4 & 8, On the [Oath-]formulas. And to here pertain those [words] in our sacred books too: “May God do these [things] to me, and add these,” about which I [treat] elsewhere; and again that [phrase] here, v. 19: “The blood of all shall redound upon our head” — more briefly in the Hebrew, “His blood [be] on our head,” or “upon our head,” as [in] Matth. 27 v. 25: “His blood [be] upon us, and upon our sons.”
But because an oath is a most religious matter, [that it] be not afterward violated in any way, or certainly seem to be violated, [it] must diligently be provided beforehand [that] all [things] be looked around and weighed, and — if need be — various cautions [safeguards] applied: as the ancients (of whom [I spoke] a little before), in those solemn oaths, used to add, “if I knowingly and wittingly deceive,” “if the former people fail,” “by public counsel,” “with evil guile,” and the like. Our spies, therefore, since they were of signal religion and prudence—
(col. 366)
—[of signal prudence], applied three cautions [safeguards]. The first is [in] v. 14: “provided nevertheless you do not betray us” — and this, as someone in Abulensis holds, by announcing, after we have gone, that we were here, so that on that account the King fortify the city more diligently; or even while we have not yet departed, as Abulensis himself holds — who writes [that] the spies understood [that] they were to be freed by God, even if they were indicated and betrayed in the city by Rahab herself; or because, as [it] seems to Cajetan, they did not yet know how they were going to escape, whether by the window or otherwise. But the former [reason] is ridiculous. For Rahab would have given herself into the gravest peril of life; and the King notes sufficiently, if he wished to fortify the city, [that it was] from the arrival of the spies. The latter [is] in no way truer: for whence and how did they understand [that] they were to be freed, even if, while still tarrying in the city, they were betrayed? And who would be ignorant [that they were] released from the oath, if she had not further guarded them as she had begun? Of the third [caution, more] afterward. What therefore they take precaution against is this: lest this deed and pact of theirs be divulged; and [lest] thus too many [people], unworthy of life, should intrude themselves into Rahab’s own house while the city was being captured, or take away the sign (about which a little later), or set up many [signs] similar to Rahab’s own sign, or in some other way impede [it, so] that what the spies had promised be not made effective.
Now this first caution is not in the 70 [LXX at] v. 14, but only [at] v. 20. In the Hebrew, however, it is read thus: “If you do not announce our word,” [rather] than as [it] is written by our Interpreter, “provided you do not betray us” — or rather “in a small [degree],” which easily happens, the iod being drawn out and thence a vau made, [so that] it had been read not תגירו but תגירו [tagiru — variant pointings, iod↔vau], as [it] is also read [at] v. 20. The second caution [is at] v. 18 & 19: that all whom, from the granting of the second demand, Rahab herself shall wish [to be] safe, receive themselves into her house, and, when the army of the Israelites shall occupy the city, not carry a foot away from there. The third [is at] v. 18: that from the window of the house a scarlet cord [funiculus coccineus] hang, about which a little later. As to the fourth [caution], the requested sign is fixed beforehand: that it be that very [thing] by which the spies shall have been let down through the window of the wall — a scarlet cord, hanging from that very part of the wall and window, v. 18. For that entirely the same [cord] is prescribed (about which Abulensis seems to doubt) is clear from the text, v. 18, where in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, with a demonstrative article, it is called “that cord [funiculus iste],” about which [more in] the following question.
They protest, indeed, thrice [that] they will be beyond fault and all harm, unless these cautions be complied with. First, at v. 17, where by some — as Abulensis notes — the negative “not” had been ill placed, and therefore the sense is affirmative: “We shall be guiltless [Innoxii],” that is, “we shall not violate the oath,” or, “we shall give effort that we be innocent.” Then [at] v. 19, where our [Interpreter] renders the same word “of another [alieni].” Thirdly, [at] v. 20, where again the same word is rendered “clean [mundi],” aptly nonetheless to the sense.