Question XII. When and how did Joshua receive that inheritance?

Both of these [matters], these words of the text (v. 49) fix before our eyes: “And when he had completed dividing the land by lot, to each by their tribes, the children of Israel gave a possession to Joshua the son of Nun in the midst of themselves, according to the command of the Lord.” The time, therefore, was after the completed division of all the tribes. But when [the division] was completed, [is] to be reckoned in the same way in which the completion of the former [division] was stated at ch. 13, q. 13 — in the same year, I say, in which [it] was begun. The manner, moreover, was [this]. First: that Joshua entered upon that inheritance not by his own will and power, but by the grant and gift of all the Israelites. Secondly: that they granted and gave this to him not of their own accord and by mere liberality, but by God’s command and order — or, as [it] is in the Hebrew, “by the mouth of God.” Thirdly: that the option [choice] of choosing whatever place and city he wished was made to Joshua; but he himself chose and selected that mountain and city. But when, and where, did the Lord command anything concerning some inheritance — outside the [usual] order — to be conferred and given to Joshua? The answer [is] twofold. One, of Masius: [that] in this very latter division, an oracle [was] given by God to the Pontiff Eleazar, that Joshua should choose a place, and [that] the Israelites should give to him the place chosen by him. The other: [that] this command [came] from God when Caleb and Joshua resisted the factious [seditious] spies. But this very [point] is asserted in three ways. For some will [have it] prescribed [in] Num. 14 — as, in this place, Abulensis; others [place it] above (ch. 14), when Caleb said to Joshua himself (v. 6): “Thou knowest what the Lord spoke to Moses the man of God concerning me, and thee, in Cadesbarne” — and so, in this place, Arias; others, finally, [say it was] first written here, and nowhere else. Cajetan’s words are: “Just as [those things] which were said concerning Caleb’s inheritance are not written in the books of Moses, so [also] a divine word of this kind for Joshua’s inheritance is not written in the same books, but is here first written.” And concerning Caleb indeed [it was] said above (ch. 14, q. 4); but concerning Joshua [it] seems [to have been] prescribed by God when [it was] prescribed concerning that Caleb. For why would [Joshua] have been passed over? Why [would] no earthly reward, as to him [Caleb], [have been] decreed for him too? Yet concerning the same Joshua [it] does not seem [to be] written, except above (ch. 14), and here (v. 49).