Bible Reading Challenge Blog

I can’t help but favor those chapters that end with the words: “And the land had rest from war.”  This is one of those chapters.  Joshua is so filled with instances of war and times when the people of God are following the directives of God which included the complete extermination of the people and the lands which were in the way of them and the promised land that they were promised earlier.  It is interesting that it seems like we are now living in a time which is so much more like the Old Testament than the New Testament.  I can’t support any policy or any ideology which brings us closer to war.  If there are Christians who say that God calls us to war, I simply find it hard to support.  Yes, you can point to Joshua and a myriad of other Scripture in the Old Testament, but I would redirect your gaze to our Savior Jesus who had such a different perspective than what we read about in these chapters.  As a result I’m glad when I read: “And the land had rest from war.”

We enter into territory which can be called monotonous if this is all that you are reading.  There is repetition.  For example, did you know that the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance?  You see that mentioned in vs.33 and  in vs.14, with 14 telling us why that is.  They are the priestly class, they are the ones who are responsible for overseeing the temple and all that takes place in it so their area, or their residence will always be around the temple, or where the presence of the Lord is seen.  Their gift from God are the offerings which the people provide to the Lord which should be plenty to live on.  I love the way this chapter ends in respect to the Levites…, “The Lord God of Israel is their inheritance, as he said to them.”  God is our inheritance, we know that one day we will be inherit, we will be left as a legacy, God Himself.  I think I’m going to sing.  

SCOREBOARD!!!  So that is what you say when you are way ahead and someone who is losing badly tries to talk trash to you.  It should direct their gaze to the score, which ought to reflect that you have a huge lead.  Here we find a listing of all the kings that Joshua defeated.  There are 31 in all.  That is a lot of kings and that represents a whole lot of battles.  

It seems like vs.1-6 reflects the kings that Moses defeated.  The remainder  are the ones that Joshua defeated.  Again, all of this is to show how God is able to carry out God’s promises.  

At the end of this chapter, finally, we have a rest from war.  But before we get to the end of this chapter we see a whole lot of war still in front of us.  We find another alliance of enemies who tried to join together to defeat Israel, but once again the Lord was with Joshua, and let him know.   This time, instead of throwing rocks from heaven, the horses were hamstrung and their chariots were set on fire.  Keep in mind, that those who had chariots back in those days had a distinct advantage.  So, at face value the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites all had a distinct advantage over the Israelites because they were countries with chariots.  But no matter how much of an advantage people may think they have, if they are going up against the Lord, your advantage becomes a disadvantage.

We see that once Joshua really begins to win battle after battle you would think that people would surrender and that some kind of truce or treaty would be created.  But just like God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so he hardens the heart of the kings of the lands that Israel overtakes.  This was done to Egypt so that the glory of God could be revealed.  This was done here, it says in vs. 20 so that these nations would be: “exterminated”.  This is what we would call genocide.  It is frowned upon today.  For good reason.  I am so glad I serve a risen Savior who says: “Love your enemies”.  I think I would do better loving my enemy than exterminating them.  I’m not good at exterminating people.  

The chapter begins at least with Joshua merely acting on behalf of his allies, the Gibeonites, remember those who had tricked Joshua but to whom Joshua remained loyal.  The Gibeonites were being attacked by 5 kings and Joshua was sworn under oath to protect the Gibeonites, and he does.  But things then get a little out of hand.  Not only do the Israelites defeat the five kings and their armies, but he also assassinates the five kings who were hiding in a cave.  But wait, there is more.

From there he continues and goes into the lands of these five kings and lays utter waste to their countries and takes over all of them and more on top of that.  So what began as a defensive battle to help an ally, turned into a full assault making sure that none of those in the land would ever doubt who was king.  There could be no doubt that God was on Joshua’s side especially since in vs.11 we see huge stones which fell from heaven, so that more were killed from the stones than those that the Israelites defeated.  That is really a bit of a lopsided victory and not really fair, but it was once again an object lesson of what it means to trust in the Lord.

We have these verses starting in vs.12 and following where we see that Joshua was able to command the sun and in battle he was able to visible have the Lord on his side.  It seems like the promise of chapter 1 is coming to fruition.  As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

Here is a clip that I thought might be of interest for you, what with the stones from heaven etc.

The plot thickens.  I do love the detail of Scripture.  The Israelites are making a name for themselves in the region.  They had conquered Jericho and Ai and now the people around them were forming alliances in order to overcome this powerhouse called Israel.  We begin with the various countries joining forces in order to face the Israelites and their wrath, except for one country.  There is one group, the inhabitants of Gibeon, who are too smart for their own good.  They pretended that they were travelling foreigners in order to make a treaty with the Israelites which would protect them when the Israelites looked to take over the region. They were neighbors, but pretended that they were from far away so that the Israelites would not harm them.

It worked in that the Israelites made a treaty with them that they would not harm them.  But then they discovered that they were their neighbors, but a treaty is a treaty, you just don’t break it.  They didn’t and they honored it, but they were bitter.  They had that conversation, why did you do this?  We were afraid of you.  It was the only thing that we could think of that would protect us.  They were saved, but were relegated to the very and the most menial of tasks that had to be done in the society.  

The previous chapter  we see that Israel was defeated soundly by the King and the people of Ai.  This was because God had withdrawn His blessing because Israel had disobeyed.  Well, now that they had fully obeyed the Lord by killing the person and his entire family who had disobeyed, they are ready to take on Ai and the people again.  It is not often that we are let in on the actual strategy that the Lord uses to defeat people.  Walking around the city and shouting really isn’t a strategy.  It is following through on a commandment which ensured that God would act.

But here we actually have as strategy which works.  Draw the people out and then have another group of your people from behind go into the city and cut them off.  It worked perfectly.  The King was taken as well and then as an example to who God is, was executed.  It seems like all is well again.  If you can read those last two sentences and make sense out of them, well, then we should talk.

I guess we can say that even if you admit your  guilt you are not guaranteed to get an easy sentence.  In many of our thoughts we see that when a person admits their guilt then maybe their sentence can be commuted and we can turn back and make them a productive member of society.  God does not mess with infidelity.  If you are going to disobey God, I mean like disobey God directly after you have heard God’s voice, then you really don’t have a whole lot to stand on.  The jealousy of the Lord is predictable in the Old Testament.

The beginning scene of this chapter is fascinating because the tables are completely turned on the Israelites.  They voluntarily decrease their numbers because the enemy is weak and should be easily conquered.  In a reverse-Gideon the enemy conquers and strikes fear in the heart of Joshua and all the Israelites thinking that the time of their blessing has come to an end.  But that is the not the case.  The time of their blessing has not come to an end, but rather their disobedience has caused the blessing of the Lord, the protection of the Lord, to be removed.  Remove the disobedience and the blessing will come back.

God doesn’t tell Joshua who the person is who disobeyed but allows Joshua to find the person through the process of elimination.   It works, and as a result the person confesses.  I was thinking, what a complete and full confession.  The person called out their sin and has shown remorse.  Now the mercy and grace of the Lord is about to be revealed.  Not so much.  But we did see the judgment of the Lord on full display, so we have that going for us.

God doesn’t always follow the most orthodox ways in accomplishing His purposes.  The battle over Jericho is described and it is set up in a way where only God would be able to get the credit for the conquest.  No one would ever imagine that with a single shout, and with trumpets blaring, and with nothing more, no battles, no flying arrows, just what God commanded and nothing more, the walls of the city came down.  Where did Rahab live?  She lived in the walls of the city.  I often wonder what happened to her house and how she survived if she lived in the actual walls.  Look at chapter 2:15 and you can read that she lived on the actual city walls.  Her house was toast but Joshua made sure that she and her family were saved even while the entire rest of the city was destroyed to the ground.

As the days were growing nearer to the conquest, after the people had been circumcised and so prepared for battle and prepared to be the people of  God, then they were placed in a situation where they had to recognize that what would happen next would simply be as a result of the presence of the Lord.  How often we want to prepare so that what happens next is a result of our planning and our skill.  Yes, we are called to be prepared, yes we are called to do all that we can and work as hard as we can so that we are ready for what happens next.  But Scripture is filled with examples of where God takes over and says, you have done enough, it is time for me to teach you and the people around you a lesson.  Let me take over.  I have to be reminded repeatedly that it is only by the grace of God that we are able to move, breathe, and have our being.  Thanks be to God!

There really is a lot in this chapter to look at.  First of all, I love the detail of what happened in the wilderness while they were wandering.  The people who were born in Egypt were circumcised by their parents because while they were slaves in Egypt there was still a pseudo-institutionalized religious reality in which the male children were circumcised.  So all those who made it out of Egypt, but were banished from entering the promise land, had been circumcised.  But while they were wandering for 40 years wives and husbands continued to have children.  While these children were born Israelites, there was not set up any type of institutionalized religion and so the rite of circumcision had been circumvented (see what I did there).  

In this chapter, before the Israelites go into battle, before they go to capture what was their land according to the commandments of the Lord, they have to be made pure and right before the Lord.  They had to be circumcised.  So when you are 8 days old and circumcised, that is one thing.  But when you are an adult and are circumcised, that is totally another thing.  You can look at Genesis 34 and a fun story about that and see how Hamor and Shechem did after they had been circumcised.  Not very well.

But here we see the Israelites are circumcised and give themselves enough time to heal before the battle of Jericho.  We then find that Joshua has his own burning bush experience, but without the fire and without the bush.  An angel appears and tell him to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground.  That is all that we hear, Joshua sees an angel with a sword, removes his shoes, and the rest is history.  Speaking of an angel with a sword…a prize for the first person who can identify this image.