Question VI. What [did] the Israelites [say and do] at the embassy of the Gabaonites?

First, the Israelites said to the legates of the Gabaonites — or, as [it is] in the Hebrew, to the Hevite — or some [one] of these (v. 7): “Perhaps you dwell in the land which is owed to us by lot, and [then] we cannot enter into a covenant with you.” Secondly, Joshua said to the same (v. 8): “Who are you? or whence have you come?” Thirdly (v. 4): The Israelites took of the provisions of those legates. Fourthly (same place): “And they consulted not the mouth of the Lord.” Fifthly (v. 15): “Joshua made peace with them, and, a covenant being entered into, promised that they should not be slain.” Sixthly: “The princes of the multitude also swore to them.” — The first [point] seems to be clearer in the Hebrew: “perhaps thou dwellest in the midst of me — and how shall I strike a covenant with thee?” The third indeed seems clearest [in its motive]. For it is on this account that the Israelites seem to have taken of their provisions, that is, of the bread — that they might see whether, as the legates said, it was so dry and reduced to crumbs, or mouldy; and they handled [it] with [their] hands, and perhaps even tested [it] with [their] teeth — so also Radak and R. Isaiah. Others obscure these words in a fourfold [way]. First: [that], most grievous hunger pressing, that bread was devoured by the Israelites. But what [could be] more absurd, in that blessed course of victories, and the very great abundance of spoils and crops? Secondly: for “they took” [susceperunt] others render “they learned” [didicerunt] — and this explains that effect of exploration which I mentioned. Thirdly: The Chaldee [Targum]: “The Israelites,” it says, “assented to the insidious words of the Gabaonites” — as if [the verb] came not from “tsid,” but from “tsadad,” that is, “to lie in wait”: a Hebrew derivation which displeases at once anyone who looks even a little at the grammar. Fourthly: Some, finally, hold [that] the bread was taken by the Israelites from the Gabaonites, because in the ratifications of covenants it was the custom to pour a libation and to eat bread together; likewise sacrificial flesh, or salt, or wine, or something similar — as [is] clear from Curtius (bk. 8), Homer (bk. 3 of the Iliad), [and] Alexander ab Alexandro (bk. 5, ch. 3). So Lyranus, and Arias Montanus — saying [that] this is observed today by all the Orientals, and by many of the Western islands; and [that] he himself experienced in Ireland [Hibernia] the greatest tokens of goodwill and friendship to be placed in the dividing of bread, the eating together, and the drinking of ale. On [v.] 14: since God does not truly and properly have a mouth [os], it is agreed [that] here is signified by it the divine oracle — and indeed, as Abulensis, Arias, and Masius confess, that which was done through the Urim and Thummim, concerning which [see] bk. 1, ch. 9, q. 23 and following.