Our text says Joshua enjoined this order upon the people by himself, at v. 7. For when he had spoken to the priests about their order and duty, it is added: “To the people also he said: Go, and go round the city, [ye] armed men, going before the ark of the Lord.” But the Greek 70 version does not have this, but through the priests makes this same [thing] — both the work and the order — to be enjoined by Joshua upon the people, thus at v. 6: Εἰσῆλθεν Ἰησοῦς ὁ τοῦ Ναυῆ πρὸς τοὺς ἱερεῖς, καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς λέγων· παραγγείλατε τῷ λαῷ παρελθεῖν, καὶ κυκλῶσαι τὴν πόλιν, καὶ οἱ μάχιμοι παραπορευέσθωσαν ἐνωπλισμένοι ἐναντίον κυρίου. That is: “Jesus [Joshua] the son of Nave went in to the priests, and said to them, saying: Command the people to go round and surround the city; and let the warriors march armed before the Lord.” It must be said:
First, that the Latin text, as it is now read, is more consonant with the Hebrew text, in which at v. 7 is written vaiomer el ha’am [ויאמר אל העם] — vaiomer, that is, “and he (Joshua) said to the people.” For the “vau” which is added to that Hebrew verb has, noted above it, a little circle, by which some other reading is signified, and a note of the Masoretes, who write in the margin yatir vav [יתיר ו], that is, “the letter vau is redundant” — just as, on the contrary, it is noted by the same [Masoretes] to be lacking in the same verb at 1 Samuel [1 Reg.] ch. 13, v. 19. Secondly, that the Greek 70 [text] agrees more with the Hebrew text which — by the Masoretes’ annotation — has now been indicated to have been in certain codices. For somewhere it was read with that “vau,” thus: vaiomeru [ויאמרו] — “and they said to the people,” namely the priests, to whom Joshua had spoken at v. 6. Thirdly, that the same Greek [70] translated this passage not word for word, but as it were paraphrastically…
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…transposing verses 6 and 7, and rendering the sense itself rather than the single words; since, from what is said — according to the other Hebrew reading, that “the priests said to the people” — they gather and express that Joshua had commanded it to them [the priests]. Fourth: that in fact the [two] texts do not disagree, and can be reconciled thus — that, according to the Latin, Joshua said those things to the people, but through the priests, his go-betweens to the people in the matter, on account of the ark, [which is] as it were sacred.