Cajetan says the manner is unknown. Yet of those who have investigated this very [point], there are three opinions — and there can be four. The first: the Rabbis say that all the tribes were brought before the ark, and by it — First, the tribe which was guilty [was] as it were seized by a hand thrown [upon it], and retained so that it could not move itself; then, similarly, the family; thirdly, the house; fourthly, finally, the person. The second opinion: that part of these was found by the Urim and Thummim oracle, part by the lot. So Rashi, Radak, and (from R. Eliezer, ch. 38) Lyra. For they say all the tribes were brought before the sight of the Lord, and the gem of that [tribe] which was guilty [was] darkened, as it were blackened, in the Pontifical breastplate, and so [it was] detected; but thereafter the families, houses, and persons of this tribe were sought by lot. The third opinion: that all shone out [were revealed] by lot; and so Ralbag [Gersonides] thinks. The fourth opinion: that all were laid open by the Urim oracle. For although [Cajetan] set forth that manner — which indeed I have seen — no one of them [held it]; yet from the things which are said about the manner of this oracle, both as to consulting and as to responding, in book 1, ch. 9, it appears it can be posited; and it would please me, unless the third opinion pleased [me] more. First: because Josephus expressly makes the Israelites [do] this thing κληροῦν καὶ προστιθέναι τὸν κλῆρον [klēroun kai prostithenai ton klēron, “to cast lots and to bring forward the lot”]. Secondly: because the Latin Interpreter [Vulgate], at v. 14, for that which in Hebrew is “whom the Lord shall have apprehended,” and in Greek “whom the Lord shall have shown,” rendered “whom the lot shall have found” — expressing, namely, the manner by which the Lord apprehended and showed that [tribe]: not by the throwing of a hand, not by the oracle of Urim and Thummim, but by lot. Thirdly: because in similar partitions of the people, and inquisitions of persons, other [Scriptures] show the lot to be customary — 1 Sam. 10:20, in the election of King Saul; ch. 14:42, in the tracking-down of him [Jonathan] who had violated the prescribed fast — so that the lots
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I may meanwhile cite: Lev. 16 [the scapegoat], [Num.] 34, Jonah 1, Luke 1, Acts 1. Fourthly: Of the four proposed opinions, this [lot] one seems the aptest — because the first is fabricated, and is futilely drawn from the little word “he apprehended” [Apprehendit], at v. 14. For who does not know that source [culprit] to be “apprehended” who is surely indicated and detected when before he lay hidden? The second [opinion] divides the manner of inquiring, and from mere arbitrary choice ascribes part of that manner to the Rational [breastplate], part to the lot. But it is better and truer that all was investigated by one and the same way. The fourth lacks any author, nor does it preponderate over the third by any argument. Fifthly: The author among the Hebrews especially good and noble who hands down this third opinion; and to it assent St. Thomas (2a-2ae, q. 95, a. 8), Gratian (26, q. 2), Abulensis (qq. 29 and 30), Andreas Masius (fol. 129), Ribera (on Jonah 1, no. 41), Gregorius de Valentia (disputing that question of St. Thomas, 12, point 3), Gregory of Toulouse (bk. 34, ch. 5), Valerius Marcius Marniensis (De doctrina promiscua, ch. 21), and among the Innovators, Chytraeus (fol. 47), [and] Zwinger (vol. 5, bk. 4).