The penalty imposed on the Gabaonites is delivered thus (v. 21): “Let them live, so as to cut wood and carry water for the use of the whole multitude.” (v. 23:) “You shall be under a curse; and there shall not fail of your stock [one who is] a cutter of wood and a carrier of water into the house of my God.” (v. 27:) “Joshua decreed in that day that they should be in the service of all the people, and of the altar of the Lord — cutting wood and carrying water — unto the present time, in the place which the Lord should choose.” Four [things], then, are contained in these words, which signify the penalty of the Gabaonites. The first is the very genus or species of the penalty — namely, servitude, as will appear from the matter itself a little later, and [as] it is expressly so called in the Hebrew (v. 23), when Joshua says to them: “There shall not fail from you a servant.” And in the 70: οὐ μὴ ἐκλείπῃ ἐξ ὑμῶν δοῦλος [ou mē ekleipē ex hymōn doulos], that is, “let not a servant fail from you.” And Joshua named this servitude — as a certain grave evil — by the name of a curse, saying (v. 23), in the Hebrew, “cursed [are] you”; in the 70, ὑμεῖς ἐπικατάρατοί ἐστε [hymeis epikataratoi este, “you are accursed”]. By which curse the Talmudists (in the order “On women,” tractate Ketuboth, ch. 8) think the Gabaonites [to have been] excluded forever from all marriage-alliance and affinity with the Israelites — but they bring forward no reason [for it]. Rather, an allusion is made to the curse by which Noah adjudged Ham and Canaan servants to [their] brothers (Gen. 9:25). The second [thing]: the genus or species of this servitude. “Jesus [Joshua],” says St. Jerome (in the epitaph of Paula), “condemned the Gabaonites [to be] water-carriers and wood-cutters.” But in our text, and in the Greek, they are called “cutters of wood,” ξυλοκόποι [xylokopoi], [and] “carriers and porters of water,” ὑδροφόροι [hydrophoroi]; but the Hebrew calls them “drawers of water” — so that they seem to have had both to draw water and to carry [it]; and a like reckoning [holds] for the wood, that they should both cut it in the woods, and bring it to the woodpile. But [that] this was, in those places and times, the lot of the most abject and, as it were, lowest of men, appears from Deut. 29:10, where, when Moses reckoned up all — proceeding from the highest to the lowest — he said: “You stand today, all of you, before the Lord your God — your princes, and tribes, and elders and teachers, all the people of Israel, [your] children and wives, and the sojourner who dwells with thee in the camp — except the cutters of wood and those who carry water”; but for “except” it can be rendered, with the 70, “even to the cutters of wood and carriers of water,” or “the cutters of wood [being] included.” Third: From St. Ambrose (bk. 3, On Duties, ch. 10): “Jesus [Joshua] punished the Gabaonites with the service of a viler ministry.” The third [thing derives] from the ancient contempt of camp-servants [calones] and sutlers [lixae]. 4. But to whom they should render this servitude is expounded in the text in a threefold [way]. First, to “the whole multitude” of the Israelites (v. 21). Secondly, to “the house of God” (v. 23). Thirdly, to “both — the people,” I say, “and the altar” (v. 27). And this very [thing] could be done in two ways. First, that the Gabaonites should truly carry wood and water for the private [uses] of the Israelites, and likewise for the uses of the tabernacle. Secondly, that [they should carry them] only for the public uses of the taberna-
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[should do the same] only for the public uses of the tabernacle. But because the tabernacle and altar are public, and common to all the Israelites, while they served this [tabernacle], they served all and each, and the whole assembly at once, or the multitude. The former mode has [as its] author Abulensis (qq. 33 and 43) — but so [that] the Gabaonites were not condemned to that private ministry of individuals, except up to the division of the land; [while] R. Moses of Gerona [Nachmanides holds] [that] they served even any [individual] of the people after the distribution of the land. The latter mode Masius, Cajetan, and Arias hold; and so the same condition of servitude always remained unchanged — which seems more consonant with the institution and the judicial sentence; and so they are called by Josephus δημόσιοι [dēmosioi], that is, “public servants.” Fourth. How long the Gabaonites had to serve this servitude. It is answered (v. 23): “forever.” And (v. 27): he who, after Joshua, added some words to this book (as [was] said in the Prolegomena) says [that] in his own time this servitude was still flourishing in the temple of Jerusalem. For there is the place which the Lord chose (2 Chron. 7). But since this temple was afterward destroyed and burned by the Romans, how [is it that] St. Ambrose (bk. 3, On Duties, ch. 10) said [that] in his own time the same ministry [servitude] had remained? For thus [it] is read: “A milder sentence, but more lasting. For the penalty of the ancient cunning remains — deputed, by hereditary ministry, to the services [duties], unto this day.” I answer, [that] St. Ambrose looked not to the very day on which he was writing, but imitated the Joshuan writing [text].