Our Interpreter [the Vulgate] turned [translated] the word “crabrones” [hornets] (v. 12). That [word], in Hebrew, is “Tsirhah” [צרעה], which signifies a multitude either of wasps, or of gadflies [oestra], or of hornets: namely, of obscene and most vile flying [insects], which — as “Radak” [David Kimhi] & “Raschi” [Rashi] say — fly into the eyes of men, and bite them, and wound [them] with poured-out poison: the Seventy call [them] here τὴν σφηκίαν [tēn sphēkian, “the wasp-swarm”], elsewhere σφῆκας [sphēkas, “wasps”] & σφηκίας [sphēkias]. And such swarms of flying little-beasts God once promised (Exod. 23:28, Deut. 7:20) [that] he would send before the Israelite forces, and [that it] would most greatly harm and weaken the enemies [for] them. And [that] God stood by his promises, Joshua here narrates (v. 12). But the Doctors inquire: whether these hornets are to be taken properly [literally], or metaphorically? St. Augustine (on Exodus, q. 93, and here, q. 27) understands the hornets metaphorically — because [we] nowhere read [that] true [ones] were sent divinely: “neither,” he says, “in Moses’s times, nor under Jesus [Joshua] son of Nun, nor under the Judges, nor under the Kings.” Yet, with the good leave of so great a Doctor, others take [them as] true [literal] hornets — as Arias [Montanus], Masius, [and] Caietan. For first: it is the rule of St. Augustine himself [that] the propriety [literal sense] of words is to be kept in the Scriptures, when nothing absurd [results]. But what [is] absurd, if we say [that] swarms of those little-beasts were sent divinely upon the Canaanites? What [is] not rather wonderful, and worthy of God’s power and majesty? Secondly: By the metaphorical hornets St. Augustine understands universally whatever strikes terror, and [that] very [fear] — sent from God — invading and torturing the minds of the enemies. “The wasp,” he says, “those [are] the stings of fear, perhaps, to be understood, by which the aforesaid nations were agitated, so that [they] gave way to the children of Israel.” And specially, here (q. 27), the same [one] expounds those wasps in two ways. First: [that they] were rumors, flying before [them], about the coming of the Israelites — by which the Canaanites were most vehemently pricked and tortured — as appeared above, in Rahab’s speech (ch. 2:11). Secondly: [that they] were Demons, or hidden aerial spirits, which, in Ps. 77 [78], [Scripture] calls “through evil Angels.” But the text cited before, which looks a little more diligently [carefully], sees [that] those [things] are joined to the hornets which drive away the metaphorical [sense] and retain the true [literal]. Exod. 23:26, the Lord first says: “I will send my terror [fear] into thy forerunning,” or “before thee, and I will slay all the people” — or “I will confound, [I will] thoroughly terrify,” and, as the Seventy render [it], ἐκστήσω [ekstēsō, “I will throw into consternation”]; “I will strike dead [exanimabo].” But then, after — as [it were] the mode by which [it] would come to pass that this [should be], so that our Latin could be explained, or rather as the Hebrew and Greek indicate more clearly — [something] greater and more prodigious is subjoined: “And I will make all thy enemies turn [their] backs before thee, sending hornets first, which shall drive out the Hevite and the Canaanite.” But in the Hebrew and Greek [it] is clearer, as I said: “And I will send hornets before thee.” Deut. 7:20, when Moses had said the wonders which the Lord had done for the Israelites in Egypt, he adds [that] he would still do other [things] for them, among the nations to which [they] are about to come — for example, [that] into these [nations], before their arrival, [he] would send hornets. But in Egypt, [were there] not terrors, [were there] not malignant [spirits], which tortured the minds of the Egyptians with fear — [were there not such] spirits? But thirdly: this whole matter can be settled by even one passage — Wisdom 12:8. For when the sage had said [that] the Canaanites — on account of the gravest [crimes], with which [they] were most contaminated, [crimes] punished most gravely by God, and [who were] destroyed by the hands of the Israelites (v. 6) — [he] adjoined: “but these too, as [being] men, thou didst spare, and didst send the forerunners [antecessores] of thy army, wasps, that they might little by little exterminate them.” Behold, besides the swords of the Israelites, [there] was something else which [was to] exterminate the enemies, and indeed little by little. But that forerunning fear [would] not
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[…but that forerunning fear did] not [do this]. For [it] destroyed none of those [enemies], nor destroyed [them] little by little. But [it] seized all at once: all at once [it] smote, broke, and dissolved [them] — as is clear from the nature of fear, and from Rahab’s narration above (ch. 2). But [the sage] adds [things] which most clearly indicate true hornets — other [things, in] Wisdom vv. 9 & 10: “Not because [thou wast] powerless to subject the impious to the just in war, or by cruel beasts, or by a harsh word to exterminate [them]: but, judging by parts [little by little], thou gavest place for repentance.” In these words [the sage] gives the cause why the Lord willed to send ahead wasps or hornets — forerunners [prodromoi], as the Greek text here calls [them] — of the Israelite army. And for that cause [it] falls not upon tropical [metaphorical] and improper [hornets], but upon true and proper [literal] hornets. For since these little-animals are most minute and most vile, someone might perhaps say: could not God have done other [things], greater and more terrible, against the Canaanites? could [he] not, in war, and by the sword of his people, cut those [enemies] off? [could he] not send upon them bears, wolves, lions, and other savage and monstrous beasts? [could he] not — by some hard word, or, as [it] is in the Greek, ἀποτόμῳ [apotomō, “cutting, severe”], that is, “cutting and vibrating,” and penetrating the innermost marrows and “drying up” [desiccating] by a word — by [his] command and nod take those [enemies] utterly away from the midst? “By [his] command,” he [the sage] says, [he] “could [do] these [things], who is omnipotent, [could do] all [things]: but [he] preferred to use the work of most tiny and most abject little-beasts, that little by little, and by parts, gradually and minutely” — for this is that “by parts” of v. 10 (in the Greek κατὰ βραχύ [kata brachy, “little by little”], as [in] v. 8; & κατ’ ὀλίγον [kat’ oligon, “by a little”], v. 2) — “he might judge those nations, or exercise [his] judgment upon them, [and] rout them; and that for them, by that tardiness, and that slow and long-lasting torture, [he] might give place and occasion of repentance,” as [in] Romans 2:4. And that again, because, although [they] were most grave sinners, nevertheless [they] were men, whom [he] might in some way spare, and [to whom he might] attribute something — even in [their] very punishments — of mercy and of mildness, the compassionate and merciful Lord deems [it] just (v. 8): “not being ignorant” (because v. 10) “their nation is wicked” (or [their] birth and conception [is] πονηρὰ γένεσις [ponēra genesis, “an evil origin”], as [in] Ps. 50:7), “and their natural malice”: ἔμφυτος πονηρία [emphytos ponēria, “inborn wickedness”], that is, native and inborn, on account of the depravation of nature [that is] the companion of original sin, and the propensity to evil (Gen. 6:5).
If the hornets here were “warlike rumors” and guardian[-spirits] [tutores], would not these very [things] have pertained to [the realm of] war — [war] which we nevertheless saw [is] set in opposition to them? And why would [they] be compared with savage and monstrous beasts? Ought not the sage to have added also minute and vile little-beasts to these — like frogs, locusts, and sciniphs [gnats], since the Lord once vexed the Egyptians with these too (Exod. 8, 9, 10)? and could not fears also be compared with these? And would not these [hornets, if literal] have at once overrun all the Canaanites, at once fought them, at once — as [it were] in one column formed — struck and lacerated [them]? As for [the view] that [they are] to be referred also to malign spirits, [consider] this besides: if by “hornets” those [spirits] were signified, [it] would not rightly have been said by the sage (v. 9): “Not because [he] was powerless.” For [it] seems [to be] of greater power to use demons as ministers than wasps and stinging little-animals — nay, than men, beasts, and words, however harsh and thundering. [It is] therefore sufficiently manifest, I think, [that] true hornets, by God’s command, flew ahead upon the Canaanites before the Israelites’ approach to them. And therefore St. Augustine, departing somewhat from his prior opinion — or at least relaxing [it] — modestly says in this place: “Unless perhaps someone say [that] not all [the things] which were done are written down: and [that] this too [was] done visibly, so that [one] may wish to understand [them as] true wasps.” On the contrary, however, when Junius and Tremellius wished [there to be] only metaphorical wasps, [they] dared very immodestly and boldly to insert that very [thing] into the text itself (Exod. 23:28), [where they] translate thus: “I will send, I say, my terror, as [it were] a hornet, before thee.” In which matter [they] have as adversary not only [the things] which I have said hitherto, but also their own Master Calvin here, and Camerarius (Century 2, ch. 13). But like to this plague of wasps seems that [plague] which the most holy Bishop James [Jacob] of Nisibis, by his prayers, sent upon the forces, horses, and Elephants of the Persians besieging Nisibis — as [it] is in Theodoret, in the History of the [Holy] Fathers, ch. 1. But perhaps, as soon as the Israelites began to go out from Egypt, this scourge began to rage upon the Canaanites, so that — as [has been] said — [they] might be gradually and little by little finished off and extirpated.