Library / Commentary on Joshua, Volume I

Book II: The Third Part of the Chapter

The Third Part of the Chapter (opening)

On the return of the spies to Joshua, vv. 23–24

The spies crossed the Jordan in the same manner in which [they are] said above (part 2, quest. 1) to have crossed it; [and] returned gladly to their Leader Joshua, by whom [they had been] sent. To him, about their journey, they narrated all [the things] which had happened to them: how they had come into the city; [how], received hospitably by a certain harlot, Rahab by name, they had been preserved, and freed from the city and the King’s guard; what they had promised her, and by what sure cautions they had bound [her] with an oath; finally, how, at the persuasion of the same Rahab, they had hidden in the mountains, and what state both of the Canaanites and of the Jericho[ite] city itself they had come to know — partly by sight, partly (and indeed most of all) by the hearing of Rahab herself — and therefore they said: “The Lord has delivered all this land into our hands.” For what was on the very point of being, they narrate as if [already] done, on account of [their] most certain hope. “And all its inhabitants are laid low with fear” — [this] as to the receiving of the land (whether all Canaan, or the first part of it, which they had now scouted, namely the Jericho[ite] [region], as [was] said above, part 1 quest. 4) and as to the fear (as also above, part 2 quest. 17). Josephus adds, bk. 5 ch. 1, [that] this oath of the spies was narrated by Joshua to Eleazar the High Priest and to the Senate; and [that] these all approved [it] and held [it] ratified.

To cite this page

Nicolaus Serarius, S.J., “The Third Part of the Chapter (opening),” in Commentary on Joshua, Volume I, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/serarius-joshua-1/242-the-third-part-of-the-chapter-opening/.

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