Question III. What of the arrangement of those who go round Jericho in the first circuit?

Some of the Jewish Rabbis — Rashi — and, of ours, following him, Lyra and Vatablus, say that in the first rank there were warriors from only three tribes, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, who had crossed the Jordan with Joshua, of whom it was spoken in ch. 1. But whence he hammers this out appears nowhere in the text; nay, clearly at v. 3 the Angel says: “Go round the city, all ye men of war.” Were there warriors in those tribes alone? Were there not indeed far more in the others? From all the tribes, therefore, I judge that all who were fit to bear arms were present, and held the first place in the order — unless perhaps some had to be absent for guarding the camp and the baggage. For thus all could be said to have been present as warriors — not indeed as individuals, but the classes of individuals, that is, some from all the tribes; or rather it must be said that all and each from all the tribes were here. First: because the Lord willed this city to be assaulted not in the usual manner of wars, but, as we have already heard in q. 2, miraculously and almost in play, and by neglecting all military art — so that it ought to seem less wondrous if the camp was ordered to be left bare and undefended, and from it all the warriors flowed together to those “processions round the city” [amburbalia]. Secondly: God could easily do what he promised to those same Israelites in Exodus 34:24, when they should betake themselves for religion’s sake to Jerusalem three times each year. “No one,” he says, “shall lie in wait for thy land, when thou goest up and appearest in the sight of the Lord thy God thrice in the year.” Thirdly: thus the proper meaning of the words is not violated at all; and so Abulensis too pronounced before, at q. 3. But St. Ephrem, in the oration on the Forty Martyrs, makes mention of forty thousand. But what these things mean will be asked afterward. And among these [warriors], immediately before the seven priests sounding the trumpets, I place the Leader himself, Joshua.