Anf-03 v.iv.v.xx Pg 6
Josh. iii. 9–17.
when his priests began to pass over!4220 4220 This obscure passage is thus read by Oehler, from whom we have translated: “Lege extorri familiæ dirimendæ in transitu ejus Jordanis machæram fuisse, cujus impetum atque decursum plane et Jesus docuerat prophetis transmeantibus stare.” The machæram (“sword”) is a metaphor for the river. Rigaltius refers to Virgil’s figure, Æneid, viii. 62, 64, for a justification of the simile. Oehler has altered the reading from the “ex sortefamilæ,” etc., of the mss. to “extorrifamiliæ,” etc. The former reading would mean probably: “Read out of the story of the nation how that Jordan was as a sword to hinder their passage across its stream.” The sorte (or, as yet another variation has it, “et sortes,” “the accounts”) meant the national record, as we have it in the beginning of the book of Joshua. But the passage is almost hopelessly obscure.
