I. Of the people we read thus (v. 5): “And the heart of the people feared, and was melted like water.” In the Greek similarly, except that in the latter part [it has] ἐγένετο ὥσπερ ὕδωρ [egeneto hōsper hydōr, “it became like water”]. But in the Hebrew, word for word, thus: “And the heart of the people was melted, and became into water,” or “and became water.” The metaphor, as is plain, [is] elegant — from the fact that soft water yields most easily,
(col. 849)
fluctuates, flows, and glides here and there. For so the minds of the grieving and the fearing are softened; they resist not [him who is] pressing, or even lightly touching; they are agitated here and there by anxious thoughts; they stand firm in nothing; and their [powers] go off into nothing. As at Gen. 49 [there is] a hyperbole, by which this metaphor is heightened in the Hebrew, [which] the Seventy and the Latin modify and explain — just as, at 1 Sam. 25:37, of the harsh and foolish Nabal it is said: “And his heart died within him, and he became into a stone,” or “became a stone.” The Seventy: γίνεται ὡς λίθος [ginetai hōs lithos, “he becomes like a stone”]; the Latin, “he became as it were a stone.” But if some more curious [person] should ask: Could nevertheless, from excessive grief or fear, a man’s heart — whether as to its whole self, or as to a part of itself — be properly turned into water and stone? I answer, first: if Lot’s wife was turned into a statue of salt, the heart too can be turned into water and stone. Secondly: certain members of men sometimes petrify, [or] turn watery, by some disease. Thirdly: sometimes the entrails of men and of cattle are found stony. Fourthly: naturally, by the force of grief or pain alone, a stone and water of this kind is not made — just as neither [was it made] in CHRIST the Lord, when blood and water came out of his side. Fifthly: if it were done, a man could not live long, especially if the whole heart, or a great part of it, so blackened or melted. But our Israelites lived afterward — every fear and mourning laid aside, they exulted with all joy. Therefore [it is] mere hyperbole here.
II. Of Joshua two [things] are handed down (v. 6 and following). The former is common to him with the elders; the latter is proper to him, [treated] in the next question. That former [is] threefold. First, to rend the garments. Second, to fall to the earth — and indeed with a threefold circumstance worthy of note: the first, [falling] prostrate; the second, before the ark; the third, until evening. Third, to cast dust upon the head. Of the first I spoke in Esther ch. 4, qq. 1 and 2; of the second, in the same book, ch. 14, q. 7; of the third, in both places already cited, and in Judith ch. 4. And from the ancient institutions of the Abrahamides [Abraham’s descendants], not a few [customs] flowed to the Gentiles. And so, in Euripides’ Hecuba:
“…upon the ground / she lies; her ill-starred head is befouled with dust.” [ἐπὶ χθονὶ / κεῖται· κόνει φύρεται τὸ δύσδαιμον κάρα]
In the Latin Tragedian [Seneca], in the Octavia:
”…Aegesta rends her garments, and tears her hair, and bedews her face with sorrowful weepings.”
And, to pass over Achilles at the death of his [friend] Patroclus in Homer, behold, in Virgil, book 12:
”…Latinus goes with rent garment, defiling his hoary hair befouled with unclean dust.” [Aeneid 12.609–611]
But these [are], for those Gentiles, signs of immoderate grief; but for the Israelites, symbols of divine worship, and of the utmost submission and religion toward the highest Godhead. For among those [Gentiles], otherwise, it is the leaders who make much [of appearances] — says Seneca (ch. 24, to Polybius) — [so] that in afflicted affairs they deliberately feign cheerfulness, and hide adverse things with a feigned gladness, lest the soldiers’ spirits, if they see their leader’s mind broken, themselves also collapse. But Abulensis asks (q. 15): since Joshua was not High Priest, nor had received from God Moses’s extraordinary right and power, and therefore could not enter the Holy of Holies — how could he prostrate himself before the ark of the Lord? He answers that the ark was very often outside the Holy of Holies — as when it was carried around Jericho, and when it was brought into the Israelites’ camp (1 Sam. 4); and [that] then, indeed, covered and wrapped (lest it could be seen naked), it stood in the open, so that before it anyone could either kneel or fall on his face. But I add that the same could be done by all, even though it [the ark] remained in the most covered and innermost sanctuary. For he who stood or lay before the gate of the tabernacle, or of the temple itself, in one of the courts, with his face turned toward the sanctuary — he was said to stand and lie “before the ark” too, though not so nearly or immediately. And to this can be referred that [text of] Ps. 98:5: “Adore his footstool.” That [Joshua] lay before the ark until evening indicates a fast, and great constancy in prayer — which, however, seems to be begun not from sunrise, but from that hour of the day at which [came] the understanding [news] of the unlucky outcome of the war. They [the 3,000] were therefore sent early in the morning to fight the city of Ai, and returned in haste while it was still before noon. It is well enough understood that, by a synecdoche, some prayer and fasting can be called [that of] “the whole day,” as it is called by Josephus in words to be cited shortly.
III. All these same [things] the elders of Israel did with Joshua — [the elders] who are so called, first indeed by reason of age, then and much more by reason of office. For just as
“The senate [senatus] has its gentle name from old men [senes],”
yet not all senators are therefore old men: so also among the Jews, “elders” [senes] are called the princes of the tribes and families, and all the senators who bore the person [role] of the whole people. And therefore Josephus [speaks] of them all thus: “When they had put on sackcloth over their garments the whole day, they were in tears and mourning, nor did they take any care of seeking food.”