Question IX. How many, and which, priests carried the ark around Jericho? And whether their sides were bare of all protection?

On the first and second [points] that are asked, it must be said: that as many, and the same, priests carried the Lord’s ark around Jericho as [those who] had carried it in the crossing of the Jordan. For no reason occurs for imagining bearers fewer, or more, or even other [than those]. It was said (ch. 3, part 2, q. 1) that those bearers were two, Eleazar and Ithamar. Let them, then, now be the same. But on the third [point] that is asked, Josephus’s opinion (book 5, ch. 1) is that the sides of these priests were not bare of all protection. For, he says, τὴν κιβωτὸν οἱ ἱερεῖς φέροντες, περὶ αὐτὴν ἐν κύκλῳ μέρος τι τῶν ὁπλιτῶν φυ- -λάττον ἦν [“the priests carrying the ark, around it in a circle a part of the armed men was guarding”] — that is: the priests were carrying the ark, and around it in a circle was a part of the armed men, to guard it. And this indeed seems to have had to be done both from military discipline and from a certain pious religion. For so great a treasure, so great an honor and ornament of the Israelite people — ought it to have been left uncovered and unguarded in the enemy’s sight? And God’s priests — and they, indeed, the chief of all — around a hostile city, before the eyes and weapons of a hostile nation, ought they to have been hedged about and walled round by no guard? And did not religious devotion toward this sacred litter of the ark demand — if not for guarding, at least for honor’s sake — a bodyguard to press close about it? These things seem to win some probability from Josephus’s testimony, or at least to be such as would have persuaded him that it was so done. Yet because the text hands down that the warriors only went before the ark, and that none walked at its sides, I would not readily dare to side with Josephus. For at verse 7: “Go round the city, [ye] armed men, going before the ark of the Lord.” And at verse 9 the whole army is said to have gone before. And at verse 13 the armed people [are said] to have gone before the priests. For although that word “all” is not in the Hebrew and the Greek, yet the very course of the narrative shows that all the armed [men] went before; and the 70 say τοὺς μαχίμους παραπορεύεσθε ἐναντίον τοῦ κυρίου [“let the armed men march past before the Lord”], or ἔμπροσθεν [“in front”]. You will object: in the 70, at verse 12, it is said καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα εἰσεπορεύοντο οἱ μάχιμοι [“and after these the armed men went in”]. I reply, first, that from this it is not gathered that the soldiers were at the ark’s side, but rather behind it. Secondly, that not even this is rightly gathered; for that μετὰ ταῦτα here means “besides, moreover,” so that the sense is: the priests took up the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and those seven priests who carried the seven trumpets went before the Lord, and, besides them, the warriors went in. For what is added, ὄπισθεν τῆς κιβωτοῦ [“behind the ark”], refers to the people, of whom [we shall speak] afterward. And therefore the Lord seems to have willed that the ark not be surrounded by a military guard, so that he might show the enemies could do nothing against him; or at least [he willed] that it was sufficiently covered and protected by those very warriors who went before it, if perchance any inroad or tumult should arise from the enemy. And great honor accrued to the ark by this very [fact] — that no one from the people dared approach it, not even at its side — especially since there was no necessity.