“Jericho,” says the text, “was shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel; and no one durst go out or come in.” In which words three [things] are to be noted. FIRST: that for “shut up and fenced” [clausa & munita], there are in the Hebrew two participles, of which one [is] active, the other passive, thus: “Jericho was shutting [claudens] and shut [clausa].” But what [of] this? Some say [it] is a metonymy, in this sense: the citizens of Jericho had shut up the city, and held [it] shut. But surely the latter would differ little — or rather nothing — from the former in that manner;
and both would become active, and a figure [trope] is established in vain where the proper meaning of the words can conveniently be preserved. Finally, that the exposition might be probable, [it] nevertheless ought not to be foisted upon the text by the Interpreters Junius and Tremellius. Masius, however, interprets [it thus]: that [the city] had so shut in its own citizens and defenders that no one could go out at all; and had so been shut against the enemies that likewise no one could go in. The exposition agrees not inelegantly with the last clause of the text [v. 1], and rightly explains the force of the Hebrew words. Someone also thought that [“Jericho”] is called “shutting” [claudens] because it had fenced itself in with gates and sharp watches and guards; but “shut” [clausa] because it was besieged by the Israelites. For, as was said above,
(col. 737)
…is, [the Israelites’] camp was distant from it by only ten stadia; and those who are besieged are wont to be called “shut in” [clausi], as in Vegetius, book 4, ch. 12: “If,” he says, “the first encounter is repelled by confident or by soldierly men, at once the boldness of the besieged [clausis] grows.” And in our own text, 2 Kings [4 Reg.] 25:2, “the city was shut up,” where the Hebrew has, “it came into siege.” But properly the city had not been shut in by the Israelites, since it had not been surrounded on all sides; and for the men of Jericho, had they wished, an exit lay open toward the West and the South; and their camp was still far enough off. And therefore it rather seems that a description is given of what the city was doing of itself against the enemy, and in what state it held itself — such that the first participle, “shutting” [claudens], signifies what it was now doing. For we saw, in its chapter 2, that its gates lay open until evening. But now it keeps them shut always, by night and by day. Then it was itself both long since, and much most of all now, “shut” [clausa] — namely by the great strength of its walls, by the variety of its bulwarks, by the depth of its ditches, by the multitude and might of its soldiers and defenders, since the King kept himself within it, and the whole people of the neighboring countryside had withdrawn into it as into a most secure citadel. And this most firm manner of “shutting” is indicated by the Hebrew participle, which is in the Piel conjugation — the one called “strong” [fortis]. And therefore our translator [the Vulgate] rendered it “fortified” [munitam], following of course the Seventy [LXX], in whom it is Ἰεριχὼ συγκεκλεισμένη ἦν, καὶ ὠχυρωμένη [Ierichō synkekleismenē ēn, kai ōchyrōmenē, “Jericho was shut up and fortified”]. For the fortifications [munitiones] and ὀχυρώματα [ochyrōmata, “strongholds”] of cities are walls, towers, ditches, ramparts, and many — or at least vigorous — defenders, as Vegetius pursues in the cited book from ch. 1. And the Chaldee Thargum says: Jericho was closed with iron doors, and barred with bronze bars. Nor indeed is it to be doubted that all the other things which pertain to defense besides were present in fullest abundance — grain, water, salt, vinegar, pitch, incendiary oil, and arms of every kind. For Jericho was situated in the most excellent farmland, as was set out at ch. 2, q. 4; and that it abounded in gold and iron we shall hear afterward. What, moreover, that it was a royal city too? Some have handed down that it was so fortified that St. Ephrem believed it to have been surrounded by a sevenfold wall. For in vol. 3, in the oration on the sinful woman, he says: I adjure thee by that holy power which, in the twinkling of an eye, broke down the seven walls of the city of Jericho. But the context hands down nothing of the kind, nor Josephus, nor any others whom I know, none at all. And although Josephus, and the Seventy at verses 5 and 20, and our translator use the plural number “walls,” yet they do not on that account mean that there were several — as is plain from the most common everyday speech, when we call cities “girded with walls” [muris cinctas] which have only a single one, and that sometimes not very thick or strong. And the Hebrew here always set down the singular noun “wall.” We read of the very broad and vast ramparts of Babylon in Herodotus book 1, Diodorus book 2, Propertius book 3; of the double walls of Saguntum too in Livy book 30; of Tyre in Diodorus book 17; of Jerusalem, 2 Kings [4 Reg.] 25:4; of other cities, in whose wall there is now ruin and calamity, in Vegetius book 4, ch. 14. But who has heard of a sevenfold wall of any city or citadel? When the Poet [Virgil] wished, in Aeneid 6, to signify the most tightly shut Stygian prison, yet he said no more than: Broad ramparts thou seest, girt with a threefold wall. [Moenia lata vides triplici circumdata muro, Aen. 6.549.] To me it seems that the whole slight conjecture was drawn from this — that the Israelites went round for seven days, and on the seventh day seven times, as is said afterward — or that he said “seven walls” for “most firm ones,” in that manner in which the number seven is sometimes taken for “much” in the Scriptures, as I noted at 1 Samuel [1 Reg.] ch. 2.
A second thing is to be noted: that “the fear of the children of Israel” is omitted in the Seventy — either because it dropped out of the text, or because it is easily understood from the present danger. This is also the cause that moved the [Vulgate] Interpreter so to render what is in the Hebrew, “from before the face of the children of Israel.” And the Innovators [Novatores] Junius and Tremellius, imitating this, translate: “for fear of the children of Israel.”
A third thing: when it is said that “no one could go out or come in,” it is not merely signified that the city’s gates were shut, but also that keen guards and watches were everywhere posted, so that it was permitted to no one, neither openly nor secretly, neither for battle nor for flight, nor for parley or for making peace, to enter or go out. Whence the Chaldee Thargum: there was none who might go out of it to fight, nor who might come in to make terms of peace, or to sue for peace. And because all these things were done on account of the children of Israel, our Interpreter used the verb “to dare”: No one dared to go out or come in.