The opinion is twofold. The prior [is] that of Abulensis himself (in this chapter, before question 5, and in the
(col. 1137)
[question 3]: [that] Caleb approached Joshua, to obtain the land promised to him, at that time when the whole tribe of Judah had already cast lots for its inheritance. The posterior [view], of others: [that] he approached before that same tribe cast lots for the inheritance; and this seems more consonant to the text. First: because it narrates this petition first, in this chapter, [and] afterward the casting-of-lots of the whole tribe, in the following chapter. Next: because the children of Juda are said to have approached Joshua, and from them Caleb alone spoke, and about his own portion only — as if the casting-of-lots had already been announced, and on account of it all the tribes should assemble at once, but especially and first the Judaic [tribe]. [This was] so that, because from it one [man] had a divine promise of an extraordinary portion, as it were, he should receive that before all — lest, the lots being already cast, he himself should take away too much land from that tribe within whose bounds that extraordinary portion lay; but rather [so] that it — to whatever tribe at last the bounds should fall — should augment the Judaic tribe by [its] accession, whether it were contained within its boundary or not. Just as certain parts of the tribes of Manasseh and Dan [were] drawn off by others, yet were portions and members of the whole tribes: so the extraordinary inheritance of Caleb — even if it had been removed further from the Judaic tribe — would yet have pertained to it, and augmented it; just as Abulensis confesses [that], in a special manner, the tribe of Ephraim [was] enlarged by the extraordinary adjunction of its own Sichem (below ch. 17, q. 3). But finally so it seemed to Origen (here, homily 20): “The lot of his portion was given to Caleb,” he says, “before his tribe, which is [that] of the children of Juda, received [its lot].”