A Leader Led by God
September 6th, 2009Joshua now assumes the leadership of the people and his first act is . . . to listen to God:
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying,
2 ”My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites.
3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses.
4 From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory.
5 No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.
6 Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go.
8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.
9 I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
10 Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people,
11 ”Pass through the camp, and command the people: ‘Prepare your provisions; for in three days you are to cross over the Jordan, to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God gives you to possess.’”
16 They answered Joshua: “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.
17 Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses! Joshua 1:1-11, 16-17 (NRSV)
These verses instruct us that we must listen to God, follow God’s commands and persevere for he is with us.
But these verses and many that follow in the Book of Joshua and the history of Israel trouble modern sensibilities. Maybe a couple of hundred years ago and more it was not troubling to read about God siding with Israel in the conquest of Canaan and in the killing that was occasioned by that conquest. I use the word “occasioned” because I struggle with whether it was “necessary” – particularly with regard to the death of women and children in many instances. I do understand that we’re talking about another era and there were times when it was considered best to completely eradicate an enemy even as opposed to enslaving them (look what happened to Egypt and Babylon when they enslaved Israel).
Wesley, Matthew Henry and Adam Clarke all make similar arguments about this sort of thing in general and the absolute destruction of Jericho in particular: (1) as this was the first conquest and the greatest, the fruits thereof (every living creature human and animal) were God’s; (2) this was also to serve as an example to other cities that might consider resisting (what you might call the Hiroshima argument); and (3) it removed the temptation of plunder from the soldiers of Israel. Well, this is the logic of the 18th and 19th centuries. I can only say that we’ll understand it someday and thank God that we live in a time and a society when we have the luxury of being bothered by this sort of violence instead of knowing it firsthand only too well ourselves.
You folks had an interesting time Sunday it seems… In regards the thinking about these bloody Old Testament stories and reconciling the Israelites conduct with our idea of a loving and compassionate God… Yes! I agree we cannot do anything to change the past and we thank God we will understand the “why” God gave the instructions He did when we see Him in our future life. We do know the scriptures tell us about those secret things that belong to God while the revealed things belong to us… Deut. 29:29. So we would do well to content ourselves for the time being that God’s reasoning here is one of those secret things.
In so far as we know God maybe had been dealing with all those other people groups to bring them into His covenant too. We do know God gave instructions to deal merceifully with different people so perhaps in God’s own time God had made providion for these folks to be incorporated too but they refused, rebelled and suffered the consequences. They didn’t leave a written or oral record of how God dealt with them… The only evidence I see (there may be others) is that incidence where in the year before the events here with Joshua we see the kings that went to the seer Baalam for him to curse the Israelites. Most scholars speak of Baalam as a pagan seer… but if he was such a pagan , how would he have had the relationshipo he did with the God of the Israelites? Does this not suggest God’s dealing with other peoples besides the Israelites? As I said earlier we think God only dealt with the Israelites because of the written records of Moses…. But maybe we are looking through a too narrow lense and need to broaden our appreciation for the mobility of this God of ours. Just something to think about when we feel wont to struggle with the things that we just don’t know.
Thanks, Bro Spence. I think you’re right; we’ll know someday and in the meantime it’s simply another test of faith. I do believe that there are reasons that speak to Israel at the time, the people who were conquered and — this is really important — that speak to us. Blessings.