Joshua 22:13

And the children of Israel sent unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest,

Ver. 13. And the children of Israel sent.] As they had good reason, considering the mischief of civil war, which ever is utrinque triste: and if victory be gotten, yet no triumph, because it is like a golden fish hook, which lost or broken cannot be paid for with that it taketh. Plutarch observeth that the state of the Roman empire flourished so long as Romulus's spear kept green and sappy; but decayed when it dried, which was about the beginning of the civil wars.

Phinehas the son of Eleazar.] Who was one of a thousand; famous for his zeal, and no less eminent for his knowledge and wisdom, wherewith zeal must be tempered, or else all will be out of order: as the ancient philosophers supposed of the Primum Mobile, that if the motion thereof were not finely cooled and allayed by the Caelum Chrystallinum next to it, it would set all the orbs on fire.