Homilies on Joshua 13.1–14.2

“All these things that happened to them in figure were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” When one who is a Jew outwardly, who has circumcision visible in the flesh, reads this, not knowing what it is to be a Jew inwardly in the circumcision of the heart, he thinks it is nothing other than an account of wars and slaughter, and of Israelites conquering under the leadership of Jesus and plundering the kingdoms of the nations. But he who is a Jew inwardly, that is, a Christian, who follows not so much Jesus the son of Nun as Jesus the Son of God, understands all these things to be mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, and says that even now my Lord Jesus Christ makes war on the contrary powers and casts them out of the cities they possessed, that is, out of our souls; and he kills the kings who reigned in our souls, so that sin may no longer reign in us; so that, after he has slain the king of sin from the city of our soul, our soul may become the city of God, and God may reign in it, and it may be said to us: “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” This, then, is a work of the highest mercy, which the heretics accuse of cruelty: that what the Lord Jesus foreshadowed earlier through the son of Nun in each of the cities, he now fulfills in truth in each of the souls of believers: so that those cities which were possessed by evil and most wicked kings, after the prince of the power of the air of this world, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, once these have been driven out and destroyed, he may deign to make a dwelling place of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit; so that the members which under the wicked king had served iniquity unto uncleanness may now serve righteousness unto sanctification. In this way, then, understand that Jesus killed the king of Jericho and the king of Ai and the king of Libnah and the king of Lachish and the king of Hebron, so that all these souls, which formerly kept the law of sin under the most wicked kings, may now live under the laws of God.

And if we examine the interpretations of the names themselves more closely and diligently, it will be found that the meaning of the names can be applied now to the understanding of the evil kingdom, now to that of the good. For instance, Libnah is interpreted “whiteness.” But whiteness is understood in different ways: there is the whiteness of leprosy, and there is the whiteness of light. It is possible, then, that the very interpretation of the name indicates the difference between the two states: that Libnah had the whiteness of leprosy under the evil kings, and when that was destroyed and overthrown, and Libnah came into the kingdom of Israel, it received the whiteness of light; for whiteness is set down in the Scriptures as both praiseworthy and blameworthy. Again, Lachish is interpreted “way.” And a way is held in the Scriptures as both praiseworthy and blameworthy. This is not hard to prove, as it is said in the Psalms: “And the way of the ungodly will perish”; and elsewhere, on the contrary: “Make a straight way for your feet.” It can be understood here too, then, that the city of Lachish was at first a way of the ungodly, and when that was destroyed and overthrown, it was afterwards, when the Israelites reigned, brought to the straight way. And likewise Hebron, which they say is interpreted “joining” or “marriage.” The joining of our soul was at first with an evil man, the devil, a most wicked husband; when he was destroyed and extinguished, the soul was freed from the law of its former and most wicked husband and joined to a good and lawful husband, the one of whom the apostle Paul says: “I have resolved to present you as a chaste virgin to one husband, Christ.” So, then, the understanding of the names themselves also fits this twofold state of each city.

I think that it is better to understand the wars of Israel in this way, and better to think that Jesus fights in this way and destroys cities and overthrows kingdoms. For in this way that saying too will appear more devout and more merciful which says that he so overthrew and laid waste each city that nothing was left in it that breathed, neither anyone who was saved nor anyone who escaped. Would that the Lord would so cast out and extinguish all former evils from the souls that believe in him and that he claims for his kingdom, and from my own soul, that no sense of malice might breathe in me any longer, no impulse of anger, no impulse of any evil desire be kept alive in me, and no evil word remain to escape from my mouth! For in this way, purified from all my former evils under the leadership of Jesus, I shall be able to be made one of the cities of the sons of Israel, of which it is written: “The cities of Judah will be built, and they will dwell in them.” For now Jesus destroys and builds up the soul of each of us; and as we said then, when we were discussing Jeremiah, that he had received words in his mouth by which to overthrow and to build, to uproot and to plant, so also now, in what we have in hand, I think it must be understood — not as the heretics or the Jews understand it — but as it was said there to Jeremiah: “Behold, I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root up and to overthrow and to destroy, and after this to build and to plant.” So too we must believe of the things written as done through Jesus, or rather of the things that are done in us even now through our Lord Jesus. For the first work of the Word of God is to root up the evils that were there before, the thorns and thistles of the vices. For while the roots of these evils hold the ground occupied, it cannot receive good and holy seed.

This, then, is the necessary and first work of the Word of God: to root up the plant of sin, and to uproot and consume with fire every plant that the heavenly Father has not planted. The second work then is to plant. What is it that God plants? Moses says that God planted a paradise. But God plants now too, and plants daily in the souls of believers. For in the soul from which he cuts out anger he plants gentleness; in the soul from which he cuts out pride he plants humility; in the soul from which he roots out wantonness he plants chastity; and in the soul from which he roots out ignorance he implants knowledge. Does it not seem to you that the planting God plants should be of this kind, rather than of sensible and earthly trees? Likewise among the first works of the Word of God is to destroy the diabolical buildings that the devil has constructed in the human soul. For he had built towers of pride in each of us and walls of arrogance; these the word of God overthrows and undermines, so that, according to the Apostle, we may rightly become God’s field and God’s building, set on the foundation of the apostles and prophets by Christ Jesus himself, the chief cornerstone, from whom the joining of the building grows into a temple of God in the Spirit; and so at last we may be found worthy to be made sharers in the inheritance of the holy land, in the portion of Israel, when all our enemies have been extinguished and destroyed, so that none of them is left to breathe in us, but only the Spirit of Christ breathes in us, through our mouths, our words, and our spiritual understanding, according to the teaching of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom is power and might for ages of ages. Amen.

Before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when Israel according to the flesh read these same Scriptures, it understood nothing else in them but wars and the shedding of blood, so that their minds were sharpened by them to excessive ferocity and they were always feeding on wars and seditions. But after the presence of my Lord Jesus Christ poured the peaceful light of knowledge into human hearts — since, according to the Apostle, he himself is our peace — he teaches us peace from the very reading of wars. For peace is restored to the soul if its enemies, sins and vices, are driven away from it. And therefore, according to the tradition of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we read these things we too are armed and roused to battle, but against those enemies that proceed from our heart, namely evil thoughts, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies, and the other like adversaries of our soul, of which we try, as this Scripture relates, if it can be done, to leave none that is saved or that breathes. For if we overcome these enemies, we shall fittingly also overcome the powers of the air and drive them out of the kingdom they had set up within us over the seats of the vices. In the previous readings the king of Jerusalem had gathered four other kings with him against Jesus and against the sons of Israel; but now it is no longer one who gathers four or five: see how great a multitude one gathers. “When Jabin king of Hazor heard,” it says, “he sent to Jobab king of the Amorites, and to the king of Symeon, and to the king of Azef, and to the kings who were around great Sidon, and through the hill country, and into the Arabah opposite Chinneroth, and to the plains, and to Faneandor, and to the Canaanites who were along the sea on the east, and to the Amorites who were along the sea, and to the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites who were in the hill country, and to the Hivites who were below the desert at Masecma; and they went out, they and their kings with them, like the sand of the sea in number, with horses and very many chariots. And all these kings came together and assembled in one place at the water of Maron to fight against Israel. And the Lord said to Jesus: Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this hour I will deliver them wounded before Israel. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire. And Jesus came, and all the people of warriors with him, upon them at the water of Maron, and fell on them suddenly in the hill country; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of Israel, and they pursued them as they fell as far as great Sidon, and as far as Masefoth at the water, and as far as the plains of Masfe toward the east, and slaughtered them until none of them was left who escaped. And Jesus did to them as the Lord had commanded him: he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire. And Jesus turned back at that time and took Hazor and killed its king with the sword.” You see what great swarms of contrary powers and most wicked demons are stirred up against Jesus and the army of Israel? All these demons, before the coming of our Lord and Saviour, possessed human souls quietly and securely and reigned in their minds and bodies. But when the grace and kindness of God our Saviour appeared on earth, teaching us to live devoutly and holily in this world, separated from every contagion of sin, so that each soul might recover its freedom and the image of God in which it was created in the beginning — for this reason battles and wars arise from those wicked former possessors of souls. And if the first are crushed, many more rise up afterwards, come together into one, and conspire for evil, they who are always at odds with the good. And if they are conquered a second time, other, more wicked powers rise up a third time. And perhaps the more the people of God increases and grows and multiplies, the more of them conspire to attack it.

But let us try, as God grants, to examine each of the kings of the hostile army, and from the meanings of each one’s name to consider also the work he does in malice. First of all, the one named as the author of this war, who gathers the others and invites them to the conspiracy of crime, is called Jabin, who was king of Hazor. For he is the one who is said to have summoned the others too. Jabin is interpreted “understanding” or “prudence.” Who, then, is this understanding or prudence, if not the one whom the prophet Isaiah calls “the great understanding”? For he says: “And I will bring it upon the great understanding, the prince of the Assyrians, who said: By my own strength I will do it, and by the wisdom of my understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations and plunder their strength.” This, then, is the one who there is called the great understanding, the king of the Assyrians, but here Jabin, understanding or prudence. For the serpent too is written to have been in paradise more prudent than all the beasts that were on the earth. And the steward of iniquity is said to have done prudently what he did. This Jabin, then, is king of Hazor. And Hazor is interpreted “court.” The whole earth, then, is the court of this king, who holds the rule of the whole earth as of a single court, and he is the devil. And do you want to see that the earth is his court? In the Gospels it is written that the strong man sleeps secure in his court until a stronger one comes who binds him and takes away what he possesses. He is, then, the king of the court, the prince of this world: he sends to Jobab; for it is he who sends to all the nations and invites them to battle. He sends also to the king of Maron. Jobab is interpreted “enmities,” and Maron “bitternesses.” The devil, then, sends to another hostile power, undoubtedly one of the renegade angels, a power that is king of bitternesses; by its authorship and agency, of course, come all the bitternesses and harsh things inflicted on wretched mortals in this world. These are the various kinds of sin. For nothing can be more bitter than sin, even if some things seem sweet at first, as Solomon writes: “But in the end,” he says, “you will find more bitter than gall what seemed sweet at the beginning, and sharper than the edge of a sword.” The nature of righteousness is the opposite: at the beginning it seems more bitter, but in the end it is found sweeter than honey, when it has borne the fruit of virtue. The devil, then, sent to Jobab, the hostile king of bitterness. And he sends also to the king of Symeon, which is interpreted “hearing.” But hearing seems to be twofold. Sometimes God hears a man, as Simeon, one of the patriarchs, received his name because God had heard his mother’s prayer. It is also called hearing when someone hears the command of the devil. For the devil is accustomed to say: “If you fall down and worship me, I will give you all these things.” But if you follow Jesus, you say to him: I will worship the Lord God, and him only will I serve. But those who are of his party hear him, as this Symeon now did: hearing him, he came to fight against Jesus. He sends also to the king of Ziph. Ziph is interpreted “how it flows!” as in the words of one who wonders; because it is truly to be wondered at how all the carnal things of this world flow away, and how fleeting and perishable are the things that unbelieving men consider lasting and perpetual. But one who considers the nature of things and observes how the things thought good in this life are always dwindling and passing away, says: How it flows! The devil also calls against the sons of Israel those who are around great Sidon. I, for my part, though I have stayed several times in the region of Sidon, have never found that there are two Sidons, one great and the other small, as far as the earthly place is concerned. But if I go back to the interpretation of the name, which means “huntress” or “hunters,” I see that among the adverse powers, among whom there are many differences, some are hunters in small things and some hunters in great things; that is, some deceive souls through small sins, others through great ones. For example, when the soul is deceived by the pleasures of the world and the delights of the flesh, it must be said to have been caught in something small. But when it either denies Providence or worships demons as God, it must be thought to have been deceived in something great. And therefore he now sends to great Sidon, so that they may gather as for a great hunt against the sons of Israel. He sends also to the hill country. The hill country must be understood as every thought that exalts and raises itself against the knowledge of God. He sends also to the Arabah. The Arabah is interpreted “ambushes.” He invites, then, the powers that lie in ambush, which deceive human souls not by force or open attacks but by unforeseen ambushes and cunning; such perhaps as those of whom the prophet says: “He lies in wait in secret like a lion in his den; he lies in wait to seize the poor.” But if anyone is such as Paul, he says confidently: “For we are not ignorant of his wiles.” He sends also to Chinneroth. Chinneroth is interpreted “as if lamps.” Not lamps, but as if lamps. For a lamp is one thing, and “as if a lamp” another. John “was a burning lamp,” because he was an angel of light. But “as if a lamp” is he who “transforms himself into an angel of light.” And if you wish to know still more clearly the difference between the lamps and the things that are as if lamps, which are in Chinneroth, hear the Saviour saying to his disciples: “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning.” Those in the church, then, who teach the catholic faith and enlighten the people of God with the word of truth are burning lamps. But those who teach heretical doctrines from the testimonies of holy Scripture with false assertions seem to light lamps because they read the Scriptures; but because they use false assertions, they are not lamps, but as if lamps. He sent also to the plains; for he had to call into his fellowship those too who are in the plains and whose minds are set on low and earthly things. He sent also to Faneandor, which is interpreted “turning.” And turning is understood in two ways. For there is a turning by which someone turns to God, or is turned by God to good things. But there is also another turning, by which King Jabin, that is, the devil, turns souls to himself, as we explained above about Symeon; such must be thought that turning which had happened to the Galatians, of which the Apostle says: “You were running well; who hindered you?” that is, turned you from the good course and the straight road. He sends also to those who were in the coastal places, to the Canaanites, neighbors of the waves, who are interpreted “as if moved,” that is, those who are always stirring everything with motions and waves; and to the coastal Amorites. The Amorites are interpreted “growing bitter,” and they are like those of whom we spoke above. Such, then, is the roll of the whole army of invisible enemies gathered by King Jabin to attack us who follow Jesus, our leader and Saviour. But what does the Lord say? “Do not be afraid of them,” he says, “for tomorrow at this hour I will deliver them into your hands.” I see that today we cannot crush them all or kill them all, but that tomorrow they will be destroyed, that is, after the consummation of this age. For then every contrary power will be destroyed, and then it will be wholly conquered, when you see it said to those on the left: “Go into the eternal fire, which God has prepared for the devil and his angels.” For then we too, if we conquer and are able to prevail, following Jesus our leader, shall receive the kingdom that God the Father has prepared for his saints and for those who have fulfilled his commandments and righteous ordinances, through our Lord Jesus Christ himself, to whom is glory and dominion for ages of ages. Amen.