In the previous chapter (q. 16) I said [that] a long time is indeed noted in the text, [but] yet is not defined. It is defined, however, by Josephus (bk. 5, ch. 1) [as] “five-year [quinquennial]”; but by others [as] “seven-year [septennial].” [That the latter] is of the truer reckoning comes out clearly enough from ch. 14 below (v. 10), where, after the end of those wars, when there was discourse about dividing the land, [Caleb] said: “Forty and five years are [passed] since the Lord spoke this word to Moses, when Israel walked through the wilderness: today I am eighty-five years [old].” Behold, Caleb says [that] he is 85 years [old]; and from that time when
(col. 1085)
[and from that time] when he was sent with the others to explore the land, 45 years have flowed by. But he was sent in the second year of the exodus from Egypt, as was said above (bk. 1, ch. 8). Let there be subtracted, therefore, from those 45 years, the 38 years during which — after that two-year [interval] of the exodus from Egypt — they wandered in the wilderness; and there remain 7 years, in which these wars were waged. And this is the opinion of Theodoret (q. 16), Abulensis (ch. 11, before q. 11, and afterward q. 90), Arias, Masius, and of almost all. And this seventh year of the wars falls in the year of the world 2497, or thereabouts.