What to the Hebrews is cherem [חֵרֶם, “a ban, a devoted thing”], this to the Greeks and Latins is anathema [ἀνάθεμα]. But that cherem means a thing which is snatched away from the use of men, and utterly taken away and removed from human and common usage. And this happens in two ways, and for a twofold cause. For either it is consecrated to God and preserved, so that it may be a holy thing, dedicated to his ministry, worship, and honor; or it is abolished [and] exterminated from the nature of things, because it is impure, nefarious, and unworthy of all use. An example of the former is illustriously set forth in Lev. 27:28. For what our interpreter renders — “everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether it be a man, or an animal, or a field, shall not be sold, nor can it be redeemed” — is in Hebrew: “every cherem which a man shall iacherim [יַחֲרִים, devote as a ban] to the Lord, out of everything that is his — of men, and of cattle, and of the field of his possession — shall not be sold, nor redeemed.” Again, what follows in our text — “Whatever has once been consecrated shall be most holy to the Lord” — is in Hebrew, “every cherem is a holiness of holinesses [most holy].” Finally, what our [interpreter] says at v. 9 — “every consecration which is offered by a man shall not be redeemed, but shall die by death” — is in Hebrew, “every cherem which he shall iacheram [devote], or shall devote of man, shall not be freed, [but] shall die by death.” But wherever that [word] is cherem, and in the Latin “consecrated” or “consecration,” there in the Greek it is always ἀνάθεμα [anathema]. Similarly Num. 18:14: what is rendered by our [interpreter] — “everything which the sons of Israel render by vow shall be yours” — is in Hebrew, “every cherem in Israel shall be yours,” [and] in Greek, πᾶν ἀνάθεμα υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ σοὶ ἔσται [“every anathema of the sons of Israel shall be yours”]. Examples of the latter kind are Judg. 7[:1] & 12; 3 Kings [1 Kings] 20:39; here in the following chapter, v. 1; and in this very chapter, vv. 17 & 18. Where the Hebrew, word for word, [is] thus: “And only keep yourselves from the cherem [the accursed thing], lest perchance you tacherimou [make yourselves accursed], and take of the cherem, and make the camp of Israel [into] a cherem, and trouble it.” Now Radak holds that those [phrases], “lest perchance you tacherimu” and “and take of the cherem,” mean one and the same [thing]; and the moderns generally embrace this. For so Pagninus [renders]: “lest perchance you take of the anathema, and carry off from the anathema”; Masius: “lest perchance you anathematize, that is, take of the anathema.” And in [his] Commentary he says: “the word tacherimu here signifies to take a thing dedicated to God, and to take [it] for oneself, as the particle which is subjoined explains.” But indeed that word here signifies to anathematize — that is, to make [someone] guilty of the anathema, to subject [him] to the anathema, and to destroy [him] — or, as the text adds, “to put into cherem,” that is, into execration, into sin, or into the penalty of sin; and at v. 21 likewise. And again the particle “and” which is subjoined has a causal force, thus: lest you make yourselves guilty of the anathema, because you have taken of the anathema — just as in Isa. 64:5, “You are angry, and we have sinned,” that is, because we have sinned. And that whole reading those words of Deut. 7:26 wholly confirm: “You shall not bring anything from an idol into your house, lest you become an anathema, like it also is.” And therefore our interpreter well rendered — not indeed word for word, but the sense — and said: “But beware lest you touch any of those things which are forbidden, and be guilty of transgression, and all the camp of Israel be under sin, and be troubled.” And the same [meaning] the 70 regarded, when they translated μήποτε ἐνθυμηθέντες ὑμεῖς αὐτὸ λαβεῖν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀναθέματος [“lest, being provoked, you take it from the anathema”]. For since θυμός [thumos] not rarely signifies anger — whence [come] θυμαίνειν, θυμιᾶσθαι, and, in Aristophanes, ὀξυθυμεῖν, “to blaze up in headlong anger,” in Plutarch (in [the life of] Marius) ἐπιθυμεῖν, “to be greatly kindled with anger,” in Suidas συνθυμεῖν, “to be angry together” — the 70 took ἐνθυμεῖν not only for “to think” and “to turn over in the mind,” but also for “to be angry,” or “to be in anger” (actively), and ἐνθυμεῖσθαι for “to be [one] with whom another is angry,” or “to be [an object] of anger” (passively). And therefore this is their meaning: “lest perchance you be in [God’s] anger,” or “lest perchance you be those with whom, on account of [their] transgression, God is angry, because you have taken of the anathema.” Since this had not come into Masius’s mind, he fastened onto the 70 here [conjectures] like games [absurdities]. For first he wants them to have read daleth for resh in the Hebrew; then, to have transposed the letters of the Hebrew word, and so, for tacherimu, to have made tachmedu; thirdly, to have put ἐνθυμηθέντες for [the anathematizing word]. But although Achan is thus called ἐνθυμηθείς in the 70 at the following chapter (7), yet none of these [conjectures] is here either necessary or opportune. It is clear, in the manner I have handed down, [that there is] the fullest concord of their text, and ours, and the Hebrew, and the true sense — which too, for the evidence of the matter (and rather [preferring] that other [reading]), Junius and Tremellius have followed, [men] who otherwise most gladly depart from our interpreter to the Rabbinic and new interpretations. For this is their version: “But only keep yourselves from the anathema, lest you make yourselves an anathema, taking of that anathema; and, subjecting the camp of Israel to the anathema, you trouble it.” And from these [things] it is clear that, just as the noun Cherem is taken in two ways — namely, for a good and for a bad thing — so also [is] the verb hecherim. For above, twice, from Lev. 27:28 & 29, it is put for “to vow, and to consecrate something to God”; and very often elsewhere it is read for “to subject to the anathema, to destroy, to slay, to root out” — as above (ch. 2, v. 9); below (ch. 10, v. 1; vv. 28, 35, 37; ch. 11, vv. 11, 12); Judg. 20:17; [1] Kings 15:9 & 18; Isaiah (ch. 11:15; 50[:2]; 51[:3]); Deut. 1:34; ch. 22:28; etc. And this the 70 render sometimes ἀναθεματίζειν [to anathematize] — as here, v. 21, where they attribute to Joshua, as author, what in the Hebrew and Latin, and in some Greek [copies], is attributed to all; sometimes ἐξολοθρεύειν [to destroy utterly] — as above (ch. 2, v. 10), where the Chaldee used the verb gamar [גמר, “to make an end of”]; sometimes otherwise. Whence to the Latins too [the word] is anathematizare, and, in St. Augustine, anathemare. But when some thing is consecrated to God, and yet is not taken away from the midst, but is preserved, it is wont almost always to be called — by the Jewish Rabbis of the later times — Corban [קָרְבָּן, “offering”], and more softly Coban, from Corab [the root “to draw near, to offer”], which means “to offer”: as is clear in the Talmud, tractate On Oaths and Vows; but by the Greeks, ἀνάθημα [anathēma, “votive offering”] — yet sometimes also ἀνάθεμα, as question 121 in St. Justin shows, and the promiscuous use of these names in Andreas of Caesarea (on Apocalypse 22, fol. 108), St. Chrysostom (homily 6 on Ephesians, fol. 1070), [and] Prudentius (in the Psychomachia, on avarice) — just as ἀνάθημα and ἐπίθεμα [“a lid, covering”] are used for the covering of some thing. Yet that confusion [of the two forms] is rarer; and where ἀνάθημα is taken in the bad sense, I do not remember reading [it]. But of this I have said something on Judith 16 (fol. 406). But [as to the fact] that thus…
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…[But as to the fact that thus something] is abolished and destroyed, it is also said “to be given to God”: whence here, at v. 17, when it had been said “let this city be an anathema,” at once is added, “and let all that is in it be the Lord’s.” For thus it seems it must be read, so that what is in the Hebrew be more clearly expressed; or at least that word “be” [sint] must be understood, since it would have to be said fully, “let all the things that are in it be the Lord’s.” But those [things] are said “to be given to God,” because, in his honor and reverence, they are removed as nefarious and wicked, and are reduced to nothing. But others, as was said above, are preserved, and so are applied to the divine worship as pure, chaste, and holy.