The first [the year] is here passed over in silence, as [being] clear from the narrations of the Mosaic books. But the two latter [month and day] (v. 19) are thus explained: “But the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.” What the names of the months were among the Hebrews, I have said on Genesis, and [on] 1 Macc. ch. 1 (fol. 568). And deservedly did the Lord attribute the first month to this crossing — both because, to the Israelites, weary with the wandering of so many years, and longing with so great a desire for the promised land, it [the first month] chiefly, in that region, was fitting. For the fields (as appeared from the preceding [ch.] part 2 q. 5) flowed with ears; the vines were budding with grapes; the trees were bending with fruit; the whole land, clothed with flowers, grasses, and herbs, as it were smiled. How it revived the spirits of all, so pleasant—
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—[so pleasant] a spectacle! And the most kindly Lord is wont so to dispense the opportunities of all things, and the joints [critical points] of all times, that he always has the greatest regard for our weakness, and sustains, helps, [and] raises it by all supports. [To this] was added, that if he had begun [it in] any other month of the same year, this pilgrimage or exile of the people would have been longer by 40 years, contrary to what he had threatened (Num. 14). But of this first month the same Lord chose the tenth day, because it was [the day] on which the lamb was to be immolated, that the Passover might be performed [Exod 12]; and [on which] each one was choosing [it], and keeping [it] at home up to the 14th day — although Abulensis (q. 21) denies [it]. Since, then — for causes to be touched on below (in the following chapter) — the Lord wished the Israelites to keep this first feast of the Passover in the promised land, [it was] most fitting [that], at this beginning of it, and as the first preparation [for it], he should have them cross the Jordan, and, the first camp being pitched there, prepare themselves for it, and set apart the best lambs they could from their flocks.
But of that first [point] — of the year, I say — a double question can be raised. One is: which year from the Egyptian departure was this? [The] opinion [is] twofold. For to some [it] seems the forty-second year. Because, namely, since in the second year of the same Egyptian departure the spies had returned from Canaan, and the people, having heard them, had murmured, the Lord had said (Num. 14 v. 33): “Your sons shall be wanderers in the desert forty years — for the [40] days in which you viewed the land, a year shall be reckoned for a day.” To these forty years, then, if the two years which flowed from the departure be added, this will be [year] 42. And St. Augustine expressly asserts it, in this place (q. 6); and — as, indeed, [it] is attributed to him by Masius below (ch. 11 v. 18) — Josephus (bk. 5 ch. 2); and [it] can be confirmed from the 70 themselves (following ch. 5 v. 6), where they say τεσσαράκοντα γὰρ καὶ δύο ἔτη ἀνέστραπται Ἰσραήλ [tessarakonta gar kai dyo etē anestraptai Israēl, “for two-and-forty years Israel was turned back [wandered]”] — that is, “Israel was driven back for 42 years.” Yet the common opinion — as [being] in truth much better founded — is the other: [that] this [was] the fortieth year from that departure. For (Deut. 1 v. 3) we read [it] handed down, in express words, [that] in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses made [his] discourse to the people — and this not long before he died — namely, in the plains of Moab, after Sihon and Og the kings were vanquished. But [that] those forty years are to be counted from the Egyptian departure itself, not from that murmuring, clearly shines out in those words in which the death of Aaron is recorded (Num. 33 v. 38). For since he departed from life in the same year as Moses, but some months earlier, [it] is there thus written: “Aaron went up into Mount Hor at the Lord’s bidding, and there died in the fortieth year of the departure of the sons of Israel out of Egypt, in the fifth month, on the first day of the month.” And just as the greater number of 40 years is shown, in these scriptures, [to be counted] from the leaving of Egypt, so the lesser number of 38 years [is counted] from the place of that murmuring, Kadesh-barnea, [and] is expressly handed down (Deut. 2 v. 13): “Rising up,” he says, “that we might cross the torrent Zared, we came to it. But the time in which we walked from Kadesh-barnea unto the crossing of the torrent Zared was thirty-eight years.” Behold, then, how — while Egypt is set [as] the terminus from which the journey began — Scripture reckons 40 years; while [reckoning] from the place of the murmuring of the spies, only 38 — so that about this matter [there] ought to be no doubt. But now that most clear [passage] too—
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—[But now] that most clear argument too [confirms it], which Ribera uses on Amos 5. The year in which Moses spoke to Pharaoh was the 80th year of his age; but of Aaron the 83rd (Exod. ch. 7). But when Moses met death, he was 120 years old (Deut., last [ch.]); and when Aaron departed from life a little before him, he was 123 years old. Therefore, from that colloquy with Pharaoh up to their death, the years are neither more nor fewer than 40. But the year of their death is the same as the year of the entry into the land; and that year of the Pharaonic colloquy [is] the same as the year of the Egyptian departure. Therefore, from the Egyptian departure up to the entry into Canaan, the years are only 40.
But to those [things] which were objected [for the 42-year view]: to the first I answer [that] the sense of that place (Num. 14) is [this]: [that] the entry into the promised land would be deferred to the fortieth year, and that meanwhile, in the [interval] of time, [the people], like shepherds who wander here and there in the wilderness with uncertain seats [camps] to find pastures, would themselves also wander. But the beginning of those 40 [years] is the same as [the beginning] of the journey to that land. If you say [that] the Lord threatened [that] 40 years would answer to the 40 days of exploration, I do not deny [it]; but I say only [that] one whole year of those 40, and now the greater part of a second, had then already passed — [years] which the Lord nevertheless willed to come into the sum of 40, so that the likeness between the days and the years might be fitting; whether the sin were reckoned really from the beginning of that exploration (as, ch. 2 fol. 35, Masius will [have it]), or only at the very end (as Abulensis argues, Num. 14 q. 70 & 75). You will press: how can a penalty be inflicted, in [respect of] that which is done afterward, [for] what is already past? I answer [that] this can happen, whenever the delay of some thing is deferred still further. For the past time of delay increases the time of the later delay. For example: if something which one greatly desired could be given [him] this year, and yet, for a certain cause, were not given; if it happened [that] he offended at the end of this year, and the gift were deferred, as a penalty, into another three years — [then] rightly would he be said to be tormented by the expectation of four years, and by the longing for the most-desired thing—
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—[tormented]. For “hope which is deferred,” Solomon being witness (Prov. 13 v. 12), “afflicts the soul.” To the second [objection]: St. Augustine followed the 70’s text, of which a little later. To the third: Josephus never asserted that number of 42 years, but the other [40]; and indeed in that very place which is objected — saying [that], from the beginning of the manna given to the Israelites, up to its ceasing in the promised land (which, as we shall see in ch. 5, happened a few days after the entry), there were 40 years — which Exodus too (ch. 16 v. 35) expressly affirms. But in the former book (bk. 4) he reckons only 38 years from that murmuring, and clearly adds [that] Miriam died in the fortieth year after she had gone out of Egypt. And that was the last year of the wandering, and precisely the same [year] which brought the end of life to her brothers Aaron and Moses (Num. 20 vv. 1 & 28). Now, to the fourth [the LXX’s “42”]: I say [that] the number was here corrupted (as, not rarely, also in other places) among the 70. And this is understood not only from the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Latin text, but also from Theodoret, who diligently warns [that], in other Greek copies, [there] are not 42 years, but 40; and [it] is cited in the annotation of the 70 of the Roman edition. And the Royal Bibles too followed this, in whose Greek [there] are 40 years. But St. Augustine (of whom above) chanced upon an uncorrected copy. I conclude, therefore, [that] from the Egyptian departure to this crossing of the Jordan, 40 full years passed — 10 days being added, if account be taken of the month in which they once went out; but 5 days being subtracted, if [account be taken] of the day on which they likewise went out. For that was the 15th day of the first month; but now they go out [of the Jordan] on the tenth day of the same month. And thus that [word] too (Ps. 94 [95] v. 10) is to be taken: “Forty years was I near [nigh] to this generation.” And Amos 2 v. 10: “I am [he],” says the Lord, “who made you go up out of the land of Egypt, and led you in the desert forty years, that you might possess the land of the Amorite.” There is, further, another question: which year from the founding of the world was this? This depends on the perpetual chronology of the preceding books, which is various among various [authors]. But to me this is the year of the world 2490, which, according to my chronology, was 1705 before Christ the Lord.