Bible Reading Challenge Blog

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  This was because God had withdrawn His blessing because Israel had disobeyed.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.

Here you find the entire story of the crossing over of the Jordan from after the beginning all the way until the end.  God wants to be sure that the people of Israel do not forget what God did for them when they crossed the Jordan so he tells Joshua for each tribe to take a stone as a memory for that which the Lord had done.  So, as you read this story in chapter 4 how big do you think the stones were that they took?  I know I took 5 smooth stones and each one was the size that I thought would be able to kill Goliath.  We have a detail in this chapter that gives us an insight into how big the stones might have been.  See if you can find it.

Look at vs.5 and you will find it there.  Joshua commands them: “Each of you take up a stone on his shoulder.”  You are not going to take a pebble and put it on your shoulder.  I am guessing that these stones could have been 40 or 50 pounds in weight and who knows how big.  That is a lot of stone that is being placed as a memorial.  Probably at least 500 pounds worth.  You can see the people carrying their stones and wondering when they were going to stop for the night because they were to be set up where they were camping out.  

Once again you get a lesson at the end of this chapter.  Why did God have them take the stones and place them?  We find the answer in vs.24: “So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”  What a great way to end a chapter.

This is one of the most powerful stories in the Bible for me.  The message of the priests standing in the Jordan while it was overflowing its banks is not lost on me…now.  Every year we would go to the place where the Israelites crossed and maybe it was 8 feet across and so shallow you could walk from one side of the Jordan to the other.  Now, today that would be impossible because one side is Israel and the other side is Jordan.  But this year was a year that we saw the fulfillment of vs.15.  The Jordan was totally overflowing its banks in the time of harvest.  This year the Scripture was made alive because it truly reflected what was happening in Joshua’s time.

Look at the picture below, yes the same picture that I included for yesterday’s lesson.

Does that look 8 feet across?  No, it looks more like maybe 100 feet, or 100 yards.  What difference it makes when the Jordan overflows its banks.  This picture below is from 5 years ago when it was back to its normal levels in the same location.

Okay, maybe it is more than 8 feet across, but nowhere near what we found this year.  The meaning of the priests putting their feet in first before God would act is immensely powerful for me.  It reinforces my constant teachings that we cannot expect God to act unless we are willing to take risk, even the type of risk that seems foolhardy, like wading in the Jordan with a very, very heavy ark of the covenant on your shoulders when it is overflowing its banks.  But sometimes God tells us to get out of the boat in order to walk on water.  

All of this God did for the purpose of showing the people that Joshua was firmly in command and that God was with him just  like he was with Moses.  Once that happened and the Jordan parted, just like the Red Sea by the way, then Joshua was ready to take his people  into battle against Jericho.  Remember, we still have to go into Jericho and reunite with Rahab.  

There is a lot to look through in this story with BC eyes.  Let’s start, first of all, if you don’t know this story, read it again 5 times until it becomes familiar to you.  The story of Rahab…

Let’s begin with Joshua’s command to his men, go spy out the land and bring a report back, especially about Jericho.  So keep in mind this is a foreign land, a pagan land, that was being scoped  out for battle.  The next thing we read is: “So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute…and spent the night there.”  Come on guys…FOCUS!!  There is no explanation, like they entered that house because…  It should be  obvious why they entered the house of Rahab.  She was a prostitute and lived on the city wall and hers would have been the first of houses that they would have seen.  They went into her house and spent the night because, well, she was a prostitute.  That’s what you do, you spend the night with prostitutes…, no, not really, actually not at all.  There is not a single sentence of explanation.  It is so easy to romanticize this story and completely miss the scandal in it.  It is a scandalous, shocking story that doesn’t provide any explanation.  So we move on.

She then lies to the king’s men and tells them those who spent the night with her had gone.  Again, no sentence of explanation as to whether or not her lie was justified.  We know why she lied, she believed that her town of Jericho was about to be overwhelmed and taken over and sacked by the Israelites, so this is my chance to save myself and my family.  That is exactly what she does.  She makes a deal, a covenant, she signs an agreement with these spies with a crimson thread out of her window.  

We know the story plays itself out just as Rahab says.  She is saved and, the story doesn’t stop.   For generations to come she will be remembered as the ancestor of Jesus.  Yes, a prostitute, a liar, a person of immeasurable faith (Hebrews 11:31), of righteous works (2:25), and a person who would have been shunned and an outcast in her town and society, her DNA was in Jesus’ blood.  That’s powerful, absolutely powerful.  Here is a picture of Rahab in art history.

This book of the Bible takes its name from Moses’ apprentice and successor.  In Numbers 13:16 we see where his name is changed from Hoshea which means salvation, to Joshua which means The Lord is salvation.  Think about that switch and understand where the credit and the honor and the glory needs to go once he comes into power, which is beginning in chapter 1.  Let’s look at that chapter now.

The title of this chapter should be: “Be strong and courageous.”  I have to admit that when I hear these words I can’t help but think of the following Michael W. Smith song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzeitdaBjPQ

We have the continuation here of God speaking directly with His servants.  Here we find Joshua getting his first marching orders once he has taken the helm.  Overwhelmingly the message he gets from God is encouragement.  The land that I promised to the people they will get.  Look at vs.17 and it should strike terror into the heart of Joshua.   The people say to him: “Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you.”  

Wait, what did you say?  You mean as you built the golden calf?  You mean as you grumbled about the food and complained about being thirsty.  Do you mean as you plotted and gossiped about him and his foreign wives?  Joshua is probably thinking, yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.  And so we begin to see the people of Israel start to enter the promised land.  Here is a picture of the area where the Israelites crossed over.  

The story of Moses comes to an end, and what a story it has been.  Think about him being born and laid in a basket in the Nile, then growing up in Pharaoh’s house, then running away and tending sheep until a burning bush told him to do something else.  He confronted Pharaoh and brought down the plagues from God, then led the people through the Red Sea, got the 10 commandments and shattered the golden calf.  He wandered with them for 40 years, and now just on this side of the promised land, he dies.  What a life, what a story, what a person of God.

Modern day Jordan is the site of where Moses was buried, and as the text states, no one knows the exact location.  He was unequaled, he saw God face to face.  There are those who believe that he wrote the first five books of the Bible, I’m not necessarily one of those, simply because I know that back in his day things were not written down in the same way that we write things down.  It was mostly oral tradition that was passed on from generation to generation.  But many within the Christian world do attribute to Moses the writing of the Pentateuch.

Regardless, he was a man of faith that made mistakes.  I like that about people in the Bible.

The blessing that Moses gives on the day of his death, or at least before he died, corresponds to the twelve tribes of Jacob, or the twelve tribes of Israel.  This number 12 is so important in Scripture.  It is also the number that we have of the disciples whom Jesus called.  Again, it represents the completeness of God’s people.  Notice, and this always gets me, one of those 12 betrays Jesus, but he is still considered one of the twelve.  

In this chapter each of the twelve tribes are covered and they are each given a legitimate blessing.   There is no sense of if you do not obey then you will receive nothing.  The assumption is that they will obey the commandments, it simply is not stated.  This is the approach that we ought to take with those with whom we come into contact.  We must give the benefit of the doubt to each person and then operate in a way that is expecting the best from them as we give the best to them.