First, indeed, God bids Joshua, [who was] lying [prostrate], to be raised and to stand; then he opens the cause of the loss received; thirdly, he inculcates [that], unless this cause were removed, it would come to pass that the loss already begun be perpetuated; finally, he explains how that cause is to be removed. 1. (v. 10) “Arise.” In the Hebrew, indeed, it is “arise for thyself” [surge tibi], but in such a way that nothing can accrue thence to the Latin and Greek text — unless perhaps some greater emphasis, which in verbs of this kind, [those] which pertain to motion, is very frequent among the Hebrews: as also [at] 2 [Sam.] 2:21, “Turn thee to the right, or the left”; [and] Prov. 20:14, “‘It is bad, bad,’ says every buyer, and [then] goes off [pleased] with himself.” 2. “Why liest thou prostrate on the earth?” It could be rendered, “Why this?” [or] “To what end this thing?” “Thou [art] prostrate upon thy face.” But it is certain that God does not use the interrogation for the sake of learning a cause that had been hidden from him. For he is omniscient, and Joshua himself had sufficiently set forth why he had so prostrated himself. Nor does the Lord blame [him] for having given himself immoderately then to grief — which Calvin asserts, and [which] was refuted above; nor does he even reprehend the mode of supplication, which is seen in the prostration, [as too] humble, as Calvin himself confesses: but that interrogation urges Joshua himself to a greater humility, [and] to the taking up of a new consideration about the cause of so great an abasement. For it is, as it were, a wonder at a new thing, and casts shame and blush upon him [who is] cast down and supplicating; and at the same time it meanwhile admonishes [him] to arise. And because, from the utmost submission of soul and effort to appease God, he did not at once raise his countenance [nor] rise to his feet, nor make an end of prayers, [the command] is repeated at verse 13 — the same, “arise.” Secondly, the cause of the loss received is disclosed at verse 11 — generally, indeed, [a] sin; specifically, the sin in the theft and sacrilege of the anathema, of which above (qq. 8 and 9). And because, by human judgment perhaps, the sin could seem light, the Lord shows it exceedingly grave by fourfold words, and a quadrupled particle even in the Hebrew, for which our Interpreter put “and,” “what,” “and also.” And a “lie” [Mendacium] is here named, because all had pledged themselves to take nothing of the anathema (ch. 6:18, 19, 20); but now it was done otherwise. Cajetan would gladly say that the Israelites were asked whether they had taken anything of the anathema, and that all — even Achan — denied [it], and so lied. Yet there is no likelihood of truth [in that]. And the sin is attributed, in the plural, to several Israelites, though [there] was [only] one — for a cause of which afterward. III. The terror of losses of this kind will be perpetual, unless this sin be expiated. And a twofold cause is repeated. The first: because “the people itself has become an anathema” — as it is said in Hebrew and Greek — that is, the Israelites are devoted to destruction, and worthy to be utterly taken away from the midst, like an anathema; or, as our [Vulgate has it], “the people is polluted with the anathema.” The second: because the Lord does not will to be with a people so polluted. But what, and how great [a thing], it is “for the Lord to be with someone,” was said in ch. 1. Yet he does not say precisely that he is unwilling to be present with the Israelites any longer, but with a condition, which the Latin renders thus: “until you crush him who is guilty of this crime”; but in Hebrew and Greek: “unless you shall have destroyed the anathema from the midst of you.” And the mode of destroying and routing [it] is handed down next. IV. How the cause of those evils is to be removed is explained in a fourfold way. First: by hastening from prayers to the other things which need to be done — “Arise.” Secondly: by proclaiming a sanctification to the whole people — “Sanctify the people,” in the manner set forth above (ch. 3:5), by the washing of garments, the purity of bodies and souls, and abstinence [sleeping apart] that night. Thirdly: by saying to the same [people]
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the same people, that the cause of the received disaster is the sacrilege, and that it cannot come to pass that every calamity thereafter be absent, unless it be removed from the midst. Fourthly: finally, the remedy [is given], by prescribing [it] in a twofold way: one, indeed, placed in inquiring out the source (v. 14); the other in punishing [the culprit] once found (v. 15).