Ver. 14. In the morning, therefore, ye shall be brought, &c.— "Persons deputed from each tribe to represent it, shall successively come, to appear before me, and to receive my orders."
And—the tribe which the Lord taketh, shall come, &c.— We see clearly from these things what was to happen; first, that God would make known the tribe, then the family of that tribe, then the house or branch of that family, and, lastly, the particular person of that branch, in whose hands was the accursed thing. But it is not so easy to determine how this designation was to be made; that is to say, how the taking was to be. There are only conjectures respecting it, and those of the rabbis are commonly the least probable. We shall not stop to quote them. Josephus, Rabbi Levi Ben Gersom, and almost all the Christian interpreters, presume that, upon this occasion, the tribe, family, house, and particular offender, were determined by lot. It matters little how it was cast. What Masius observes of it is very clear, who thinks that twelve tickets were first put into an urn, on each of which was the name of a tribe; that then they cast as many tickets as there were families in the tribe whose name was drawn, then as many as there were houses in that family; and, lastly, as many as there were heads in that house. However this matter may be, it cannot be denied, either that the method of discovering hidden things by lot was in use among the Jews (1 Samuel 20:21.) and Pagans, (Jonah 1:7.) or that it was very lawful; having been ordained by God in more cases than one, (1 Chronicles 5:7; 1 Chronicles 5:26. Leviticus 16:8.) and practised by the apostles; Acts 24:26.