Joshua
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 1
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 3, 7:53 AM
I told my sister-in-law Aline that there is so much of the Old Testament I don’t understand. She said: Just ask the Lord for one thing in each chapter. Surely even the census lists of Numbers and the bad advice of Bildad in Job impart spiritual value, if you look for it.
As I happen to be in Joshua in my private devotions, let us test Aline’s proposition here. If the gambit proves successful, we will come away with 24 words from the Lord, the better to know Him, obey Him, and enjoy Him.
I would be very dense indeed not to see the emphasis of chapter 1, as it is commanded four times: “Be strong and courageous” (verse 6), “Be strong and very courageous” (verse 7), “Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened” (verse 9), and “Only be strong and courageous” (verse 18).
I say “commanded” as a reminder to myself that this is an order, not a sweet nothing in my ear, as I am prone to make of it. I have done this same injustice to many an imperative in Scripture. “Do not be anxious about anything,” Philippians 4:6 insists, and I have received it as treacly sentimentality—and not obeyed.
Israel under Joshua is being told to do something totally beyond herself—to go in and take possession of a land of giants and fortified city states (Numbers 13). Where man lives beyond himself is where God most shines. God is best glorified in the differential between our natural ability and the size of the objective. For instance, “Love your friends” is reachable by most folks, but “Love your enemies” is out of reach for people “behaving only in a human way” (1 Corinthians 3:3).
The word rendered “be strong” is the Hebrew “chazaq.” It is the same word used in 1 Samuel 30:6 where it is translated “David encouraged himself [literally made himself strong] in the Lord.” How do you “make yourself strong” in a scary situation? Well, you can always “Whistle a Happy Tune,” like the song says. Or you can lie to yourself. Or you can speak truth to yourself.
A missionary I know was filled with dread about a transfer to Germany and didn’t know why. She then realized that it was because her father, a German, had berated her since childhood, and now she unconsciously feared 82,000 replicas of him telling her she would never amount to much. She told me she decided to preach the truth to herself about how much God values her, and it strengthened her. She said, “A lie is still a lie, even if you’ve been believing it for 40 years; and the truth is still the truth, even if you’ve been believing it for only two weeks.”
Here is some truth Joshua preached to himself:
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1.“I have given [the land] to you” (verse 3). This is a past participle verb. That is, it’s a done deal in heaven; now just bring it forth “on earth as it is in heaven.”
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2.“The Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (verse 9). The thought of God being with his people should be our confidence, as it is our enemies’ terror (Genesis 21:22-24; 26:28). When God goes “with” you (verse 9), it’s not like your friend Harry going “with” you on a trip. Harry is just company; God is power and protection.
This is true whether the conquest is the Old Testament takeover of land or the New Testament takeover of land. Land is involved in both cases—a repossession of territory from the enemy. Just as the devil was sitting on Israel’s physical inheritance, he sits on our spiritual inheritance. Warfare should be our all-consuming passion as it was our ancestors’. I don’t see much difference between Joshua 1 and Matthew 28:18-20.
The convicting question is: Are we of the new age army really up for it? Do we get up in the morning bent on warfare, determined to “take captive every thought” and “put to death” every unholy desire? Or is Ephesians 6 just talk?
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 2
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 4, 7:57 AM
I’m sorry, but Rahab the harlot has always reminded me of the noble, bighearted saloon girls in the 1950s TV westerns. There was always one; her name was usually Kitty. A few of the local rowdies would predictably be goading a down-on-his-luck cowhand, and Kitty would take his side and give them a piece of her mind.
Rahab is strong like that—clear-minded and quick-thinking, too. She has heard the rumors of an encroaching military force and sees the handwriting on the wall. Devoid of over-sentimentality, due to the nature of her profession, she soberly takes stock of her situation and acts. She tells the spies: “I know that the Lord has given you the land . . .” (verse 9). Oh, would that the people of God had such assurance of faith!
Her decisive steps to save herself from destruction are as good a picture of a biblical conversion as there is. Not much in the way of deep love for God is required on the ground floor; it is enough to see danger and flee to Him. “. . . Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). “. . . [F]lee from the wrath to come” (Luke 3:7).
God is the most humble of husbands. He takes as his lover a person whose motive for union is at first pure self-interest and is content to let the relationship develop over time. There is a sense in which salvation is a stark and unromantic business transaction—a covering with the blood of Christ in exchange for my white-flag surrender.
The writer of Hebrews is impressed enough to list Rahab among the likes of Abraham and Moses in the “hall of faith.” Joshua 6:17 has a more down-to-earth description of her accomplishments: “. . . she hid the messengers whom we sent.” Who would have thought that prosaic act merited such accolades? You have done something like that yourself every time you sent a check to a missionary, or allowed yourself to be interrupted by someone because you thought God would like that.
Bible teacher Beth Moore suggests for homework that you add your own name to Hebrews 11, with your name filled in after the words “By faith. . . .” Let’s see now: By faith Jane gave a hug to Sally today, even though she knew she might be rejected.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 3
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 5, 7:45 AM
In reading chapter 3, I did a double take at verses 15 and 16, as the inspired narrator was describing the million-man crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land:
“. . . as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam. . . .”
I have almost no memory of hearing about the miraculous crossings of the Israelites (first of the Red Sea and, 40 years later, the Jordan River) without simultaneously hearing the miraculous element cut out of it by well-meaning teachers. From childhood they gave with one hand and took away with the other. Scientists had discovered, they told us, the natural causes that had allowed a band of nomads to cross these watery barriers.
A typical explanation: Naum Volzinger, a senior researcher at St. Petersburg’s Institute of Oceanography, and Alexei Androsov, a fellow researcher in Hamburg, Germany, have analyzed the conditions that would have made possible the parting of the Red Sea. They have calculated that a 67-mile-per-hour wind sustained for several hours could have exposed an underlying reef that would have served as a footpath for the peripatetic Semites.
The version of choice in my school happened to be that the Red Sea dwindles to a trickle at some times of the year, thus making for plausible passage. The condescending implication, as I understand it, is that a miracle of good timing is still a miracle. (And I, for one, can appreciate that since I have trouble enough timing my potatoes to be ready with my roast.)
Similarly, we are told not to be disheartened that the miracle of the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:13-21) was not really a literal multiplication of victuals but rather that the people’s hearts were moved to share their lunch bags with their neighbors. That’s pretty cool, too (but not to an 8-year-old).
I would think, however, that the logic of 14th century William of Ockham still applies: “Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate” (Entities should not be qualified unnecessarily). The best explanation for an occurrence is the simplest and most straightforward, all things being equal. If you are going to tell me I can keep my miracle, may as well let me keep the miracle the way the Bible narrator told it.
But I have never before noticed the parenthetical editorial comment in Joshua 3:15: “now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest.” It is as if the Lord saw Volzinger and Androsov and my Enlightenment child elementary school teacher coming and decided to obviate any way of diminishing His glory: “Yo! The Jordan is always overflowing at this time! Your Enlightenment explanation is not likely.”
That leaves us with a take-it-or-leave-it choice about God and His Word. As C.S. Lewis put it in God in the Dock:
“Do not attempt to water Christianity down. There must be no pretense that you can have it with the Supernatural left out. So far as I can see, Christianity is precisely the one religion from which the miraculous cannot be separated. . . .”
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 4
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 6, 7:52 AM
In a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone titled “King Nine Will Not Return,” World War II Capt. James Embry awakens on a desolate beach to find himself near a crashed airplane, his crew missing. As he tries to figure out what happened, he spirals toward insanity. Just then, futuristic (i.e., 1960-vintage) jets fly overhead and he realizes that he knows all about jet aircraft—though that is impossible.
The last scene has Embry lying unconscious in a hospital bed decades after the war. Two doctors in white coats and armed with charts are discussing his case and his delirious claims that today he has been back in the desert with his plane. We learn from the doctors’ conversation that during the war the captain had in fact declined that particular mission at the last minute, and that the crew who did go were all lost. The doctors reasonably ascribe the former flight leader’s incoherent ramblings to a long-festering guilt.
A nurse then comes by with the patient’s clothing and deposits them on a table. As she puts down the shoes, about a cup of beach sand spills out.
How do you know if something happened or if you dreamed it? C.S. Lewis writes in his book Miracles:
“In all my life I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that that person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it. She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously she may be right. Seeing is not believing. For this reason, the question whether miracles occur can never be answered simply by experience. Every event which might claim to be a miracle is, in the last resort, something presented to our sense. . . . And our sense are not infallible. . . .”
We already knew this, of course, from Luke 16, in which Abraham told the rich man in hell, who asked him to send his brothers on earth a visitor from the other side, that his brothers would not believe, even if someone should come to them from the dead.
In chapter 4, I used to think it quaint that Joshua had the Israelite leaders of the 12 tribes extract 12 rocks from the middle of the Jordan River while its waters were still pulled back from flood stage, to raise them as a lasting testimony of the incident of the crossing. Isn’t that so Old Testament?
But just imagine this: Some years hence, some Eliab ben Nethanel ben Shelumiel ben Ammishaddai who has rejected his parents’ religion and run off with the family goat to start a new life in Amnon will perchance stop at the Jordan River to rest. And the sight of a stack of rocks will catch his eye. And he will inquire of one of the townspeople, “What do these stones mean . . ?” (verse 6).
“[T]hen you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever” (verse 7).
All through the Twilight Zone episode we are not sure whether the captain is sane or is imagining things. The sand spilled from the shoes settles the matter. It really did happen.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 5
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 9, 8:50 AM
They say that every seven years nearly every cell of your body has died and been replaced. That is more than I can know, but it is fascinating to contemplate, since the new you looks pretty much like the you of seven years ago, and one would not be accused of error to say you were the identical person.
This biological fact provides an interesting example of continuity and discontinuity, of how an entity can be the same entity over time while being composed entirely of different parts from the entity as it was formerly constituted. Similarly, consider the genius of God: He knows how to keep His promise to bring all of Israel into the Promised Land, while at the same time keeping his promise that not a man of the original Israelites (except Joshua and Caleb) will enter the land. Who would have thought of it!
Some parts of the Old Testament are better understood in the New Testament, where we are told plainly the meaning behind the events: “With most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). The cast of characters that opened the book of Exodus have all exited the stage—but without fanfare and below the threshold of your observation, they were picked off one by one. Exodus through Deuteronomy is the story of a slow consuming.
Consider the patience of God: He could very well have killed them all on the spot for their recalcitrant grumbling, but instead He let them die by “natural causes.” It took 40 years for the last of them to have a heart attack or stroke. Let this be a lesson to us that dying of natural causes is not necessarily a sign that a person is right with God. Many have gone gentle into that good night, lulled by modern hogwash about the naturalness of death, only to be rudely awakened on the other side.
In contrast to this gradualness or naturalness in the decimation of rebellious Israel is the un-naturalistic explanation for the sudden cessation of the manna. The same experts with their calculators who gave us reef bridges and fortuitous winds to explain the Red Sea incident will doubtless have meteorological certainties about how the children of Israel came by the manna. Let’s see them wriggle out of the coincidence that, after 40 years, “the manna ceased the day after they ate the produce of the land” (verse 12).
My favorite part of chapter 5 is the end– the appearance of a sword-brandishing angel standing before Joshua, who, seeing that the man is formidable, asks, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” The Angel of the Lord answers “No.” Good answer, too: None of the above. None of your categories. Way beyond what you have conceived: “I am the commander of the army of the Lord” (verse 14).
It is good to be reminded. We sometimes forget that the battle is the Lord’s, and ours, but the humbling privilege is to be in the fight.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 6
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 10, 8:39 AM
I had a dentist who, when he was drilling teeth, used to sing, “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down.”
The old American spiritual is historically accurate as far as it goes, but chapter 6 makes me think it more apropos to sing, “God fit the battle of Jericho.” There was little that the people had to do, seems to me. The incident put me in remembrance of a situation hundreds of years later in which God told King Jehoshaphat, as the Moabites and Ammonites breathed down Israel’s necks:
“You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf. . . . Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you” (2 Chronicles 20:17).
They say “90 percent of success is showing up.” That’s pretty much all that was required of Israel. Although there is one other bit of instructions that I wonder about:
“But Joshua commanded the people, ‘You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout’” (verse 10).
I always understood that eerie silence of the marchers as a strategy to unnerve the enemy. Just imagine how you would feel as a citizen of Jericho, high up in your fortress that’s suddenly feeling more like a tomb, having heard the rumors of the Red Sea and Jordan crossings, and of what Israel’s God had done to the two Amorite kings Og and Sihon. And now here is this mysterious and unlikely war machine encircling your city—in dead silence. Spooky.
But God does not in fact tell us the purpose of the injunction to silence, and another possibility arises: We recall the reason for Israel’s detainment of 40 years in a desert that should have taken two weeks to walk; it was because of her chronic murmuring, whining, complaining, negativity, faithless talk, and “bad reports” (Numbers 13:32). The tongue is a very consequential organ, leading the whole body either into the paths of victory or defeat in the spiritual realms, releasing the power of God or inviting Satan by agreement. It is as if Joshua, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, said, OK, this time around, let’s not sabotage our venture with loose lips. Let’s keep our mouths zipped so as not to risk breathing a word of unbelief.
Until the blowing of the trumpets! And then shout for all you’re worth!
All blowing of trumpets in the Bible reminds us of the final blowing of trumpets. There are 7 in Revelation, chapters 8-11, these horns to end all horns. And as here on the shores of the Jordan, they announce judgment of God’s enemies, all the Jerichos and Babylons that ever raised their fists against the Almighty.
Then suddenly there is Jesus, the selfsame “Angel of the Lord” who had startled Joshua 5:13-15 when he announced himself as the commander of the armies of God. “And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses” (Revelation 19:14).
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 7
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 11, 8:23 AM
It was a party till now. It was a rout. Jericho would be the first of dominos. Israel was “high” on the glory of God—which isn’t a bad high. Then whammo, out of the blue, a major downer, for no apparent reason: ignomy at Ai. Joshua is almost sulking, almost angry at God.
The unexpected and stunning defeat of Israel before Ai reminds me of another party God spoiled, the day His wrath fell on Uzzah in the middle of a parade in God’s honor, on the occasion of the return of the ark from Philistia. David was angry, too.
How often have I impugned God’s justice, all because I didn’t know all the circumstances? The portion of reality we see is always finite; God’s is infinite.
The syllogism seemed air-tight: (1) God promised conquest of the land; (2) Ai is the next up; (3) Ai will be squashed like Jericho. Joshua didn’t even bother sending out many men, for his commanders told him this one would be a piece of cake.
The reader of Joshua 7 knows what Joshua doesn’t. One man in the camp has sinned, hoarded forbidden spoils in his tent. The camp is defiled. The defilement has to be dealt with before we can move forward. It seems severe, unfair.
One is reminded of the incident of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, who are also dispatched unceremoniously for a hidden sin and cover-up. In both cases God is evidently intent on nipping something in the bud from the outset. Today’s lesson: God is to be feared. It is best to get the ground rules straight from the beginning—this is not meanness but kindness. Welcome, reality. God is God and we’re not. He cannot be otherwise. Once we have that clarified we can do business.
Because there is sin in the camp, “therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies” (verse 7). Hidden sin will lead to defeat even if the sin is never discovered or known to a living soul, or even its host. I knew a man who committed adultery, and the affair was buried for 10 years, and the man moved on with his life. But as if the earth itself could hold it in no longer, the immorality was vomited it up in the end. By a series of improbably events, it resurfaced and destroyed him.
There are spiritual laws operating in the universe that we have no idea of. It is the strangest thing.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 8
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 12, 8:25 AM
When we get to chapter 8, Joshua and Israel are chastened puppies. The residue of the Achan incident is the same as that of the Ananias and Sapphira incident: “Great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:11). Any one of you who has known acute fear of the Lord will not abhor it. In fact, I always pray to keep it, for I am never more in my right mind than when I fear God.
So that fear of the Lord will be salubrious and not paralyzing, God now comes speedily with reassurance. He will urge the same practice 1,000 years later in the matter of the man in Corinth who has committed a deviant sex act:
“For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Corinthians 2:6-7).
“And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai.” This is not Lucy holding the football in place for Charlie Brown again, only to snatch it from him a second time. Our God is not capricious or mean:
“. . . with the blameless you show yourself blameless . . . with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous” (Psalm 18:25-26).
Israel is back on track. This Achan business has merely been a bump in the relationship, an interruption, nothing more—and all to the long-term good. Something that was unclear has been clarified. Welcome, reality.
I have a friend in prison who tried to hang himself from his cell with a bed sheet in 2001, but was found by a guard making his rounds and then was thrown into solitary confinement for five months, during which time God did a deep work in him. He emerged a new man in Christ, a walking proof that “whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). I know the man and that he does not regret the chastisement.
Quite amazingly, Israel’s former defeat at Ai now becomes useful as the new shortcut for victory on the second try. (Israel will remember this in Judges 20.) The tactic will be a feint. She will pretend to flee in battle, and it will be believable because she fled before. But this time a hidden garrison will ambush the troops of Ai who are lured out of their city to pursue the decoy.
The way that our past failures and sins are parlayed by God into present and future victories is interesting to contemplate. We must not say, of course, that God worked sin in us in order that we would prosper later. Nor can we draw the conclusion: “Let us do evil, that good may abound.” What we can safely say is that we who have sinned and repented and been restored can now minister out of our scars. The past defeats, in God’s merciful hands, are redeemable and useful.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 9
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 13, 8:48 AM
You may have wondered sometime: Which trumps which? Does the command to annihilate the Gibeonites trump the oath Israel took to protect them? Or does the oath trump the command?
Well, of course, both mandates originate from the Lord—the order to destroy the Canaanites, as well as the order to keep one’s oaths—so the matter is not that simple. But behold how important oath-keeping is to the Lord, that because of an oath, Israel in the quandary described in chapter 9 opted (rightly) to keep their oath to protect the Gibeonites, in spite of the fact that that vow was extracted by deception.
The collateral encouragement in this story (including God’s tacit approval of Israel’s honoring its oath) for us is that God Himself is as zealous for oaths as the Israelites proved to be. And God’s faithfulness to oaths is our hope for salvation. His word would be good enough as it is, of course, but for our sakes He voluntarily reinforces it with an oath:
“So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain” (Hebrews 6:17-19).
The troublesome fallout of the ill-advised treaty does not tarry long, as Israel is soon forced to defend Gibeon from a coalition of neighbors irate at their defection (chapter 10). To Israel’s credit, they come to the aid of Gibeon with the same zeal as if defending one of their own. Honorable is the man “who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4).
I find something commendable in the Gibeonites, even apart from their obvious cunning (which I think Jesus would commend as he commended the steward of Luke 16). It is not the first time—and won’t be the last—that pagans exhibit more fear of the Lord than the children of God. In the days of the patriarchs, Abimelech hastened to cut a covenant with Abraham (Genesis 21:22-24). Laban noticed that his son-in-law Jacob walked under a blessing (Genesis 30:27-28). Rahab and the Jerichoites trembled at the rumors of Israel’s warrior God (Joshua 2:9-10). The Ninevites were quick to repent when Jonah came to town (Jonah).
Rumors of Israel reaching Gibeon have evidently included not only the might of God but his mercy. The Gibeonites may well have said, as the Syrian courtiers would many years later when they counseled their cornered monarch Benhadad:
“We have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let us put sackcloth around our waists and ropes on our heads and go out to the kings of Israel. Perhaps he will spare your life” (1 Kings 20:31).
The Gibeonites would become woodcutters and water carriers, not full citizens, for Israel. But as for servitude to God, so is servitude to Israel. Better to be a doorkeeper in the house of God (Psalm 84:10) and protected by His shield when the storm of His wrath is unleashed than to take their chances with the collected brawn of the surrounding city-states. As for the latter, as Joshua had said on the other side of the Jordan: “Their protection is removed from them” (Numbers 14:9).
Having said all this, Israel’s “note to self” in the aftermath of the Gibeonite deception was probably: Next time, let’s inquire of the Lord (Joshua 9:14), and not judge matters on appearances.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 10
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 16, 8:23 AM
As we reach chapter 10, I was thinking that the story of Israel’s conquests could have ended abruptly and ignominiously at chapter 7. That was the first battle of Ai, the one they entered jubilant after Jericho and exited dejected after sin was discovered in the camp.
Some children of God might have lost heart and concluded that they could never make much progress in the land because they could never hope to be pure enough. They might even have couched this spiritual defeatism in comforting theological terms, evolving an elaborate theology of limited expectations, teaching in their schools and synagogues that though someday we will conquer all strongholds of evil, at the present time in this earthly dispensation we should not expect more than sporadic and modest conquests because we are still full of sin. In fact, people who imagine that much conquest is possible are fanatics and troublemakers.
If Israel had taken that attitude, the subsequent history of the nation would have looked very different. They would have been forever reminiscing around hearths about Jericho as if it were a big deal, and erecting statues to it. They would perhaps have settled in middling contentment on their little piece of real estate with their little memories of little achievement—never realizing that they had been meant for a much more glorious destiny. They were meant to have much more on this earth—more adventure and more enlarged borders, a la Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10).
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 11
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 17, 8:20 AM
It is “chariots” that strike me in my “just one thing” from this chapter of Joshua. The word is not dropped idly here by the Lord. There is a vendetta behind this. God makes a point of noting that when Joshua swept the land clean of God’s enemies, “he hamstrung their horses and burned their chariots with fire” (verse 9).
There is a sense in which the whole Bible is the record of the enmity between God and chariots. The narrative describing Pharaoh’s defeat at the Exodus never misses an opportunity to emphasize the chariots that Pharaoh counted on (Exodus 14:7, 17) and the total annihilation of the same (Exodus 14:18, 23, 25, 26, 28; 15:4, 19).
The Lord knows how impressive and fearful the chariot is, so He addresses the issue in a preemptive way when He sets down his laws for warfare:
“When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you. . . .” (Deuteronomy 20:1).
It begins to dawn on us that the chariot is imbued with symbolic meaning for God, representing all the powers of man that vainly vaunt themselves against Him. This is personal. The contest is on throughout the course of history. To the bitter end, the hellish enemies of God that are coughed out of the bottomless pit carry the sound of chariots (Revelation 9:9).
Later, the Ephraimite tribe’s two lame excuse for not taking possession of their allotted inheritance will be the forests and the chariots: “. . . all the Canaanites who dwell in the plain have chariots of iron, both those in Beth-shean and its villages and those in the Valley of Jezreel” (Joshua 17:16). Joshua is supposed to be sympathetic to this, but it leaves him cold:
“Then Joshua said to the house of Joseph, . . . “You are a numerous people and have great power . . . though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong” (Joshua 17:17-18).
Later, in Judges 1 we are told outright that the tribe of Judah was not able to drive out the inhabitants of the lowlands because they had chariots (verse 19). If we weren’t aware of the shameful background to this comment, we would almost accept it as a legitimate excuse. But we now recognize Israel’s self-defeatism and its inevitable consequences: Because they believe themselves unable to possess the land, they are indeed unable.
Fear of chariots is, of course, a subset of fear of man, whose flip side is confidence in man. These are people who would prefer to take their chances with human help than divine help. Someone endowed with a fascination for the more mathematical features of the Word of God pointed out to me the ultimate thrilling chiastic structure of the Bible—that the very middle verse of the entire book is Psalm 118:8:
“It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”
The delightful surprise, by the time we meet Elijah centuries later, is that the man who forsakes his trust in human chariots, far from forsaking his protection, now enters the exclusive club of those protected by the chariots of God. Elisha gets a glimpse of them as his mentor Elijah is carried off to heaven (2 Kings 2). The sight so captures his imagination that he is unruffled by the sight of Syrian horses and chariots encircling him and Dothan; he sees the outer ring of heavenly chariots ringing those (2 Kings 6:8-19).
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 12
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 18, 8:52 AM
It is beneficial to stop and take a regular tally of the deeds of God in your life, as we do in this chapter. Living through the drama of the conquest of Ai was exhausting—hopeful at the outset, demoralizing in the middle, exhilarating in the end. The rear-view mirror perspective reveals God’s justice and mercy and brilliance in it, which escaped us when we saw only trees and no forest.
My favorite example of the advantage of compressed time is always the way the 12 tribes of Israel came into existence. There was a decade-long flying of fur and pulling of hair between Leah and Rachel—and when the smoke cleared, 12 sturdy sons stood all in a row.
The Messiah’s two Comings looked like one Coming from the perspective of the Old Testament saints. The prophets themselves were puzzled by their own prophecies, perhaps expecting every prediction of theirs to occur simultaneously in one great finale. A favorite seminary metaphor for explaining this optical illusion is that of two mountains standing one behind the other in your line of vision. As we now know, the valley of millennia separates Christ’s “First Coming” and the “Second Coming” from each other. But from where the ancients stood, it looked like one mountain; they could not spy the farther mountain behind the closer one. In this case, it was they, not we, who saw the time compressed.
The whole Bible record is, of course, time compressed for our edification—thousands of years between two leather covers. It is the closest we come to God’s own control-tower vista, the beginning from the end.
We need to be able to practice the same thing with our lives—find patterns in the tangle of threads behind us. Paul Miller wrote his excellent book on prayer, A Praying Life, in which he rightly observed that a book about prayer is really a book about learning to know God. God is weaving a story in our lives, but while you’re caught in the skein of wool, you don’t always see what he is doing. There is activity in the long waiting periods, when nothing seems to be happening. It is here when our mettle is being tested and we are learning things both about God and ourselves.
Chapter 12 of Joshua is a pause to take stock of where we’ve been and what we’ve done—more importantly, what God has done. The dust has settled from 11 chapters of unrelenting warfare, and at the end of it, Joshua may list the following conquests: Jericho, Ai, Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon, Gezer, Debir, Geder, Hormah, Arad, Libnah, Adullam, Makkedah, Bethel, Tappua, Hepher, Aphek, Lasharon, Madon, Hazor, Shimron Meron, Achshaph, Taanach, Megiddo, Kedesh, Jokneam, Dor, Gilgal, Tirzah.
Behind each conquest, a whole story. Just like your life.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 13
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 19, 8:02 AM
Enough looking back. Time to move on again. That rearward glance was just to energize you for the next conquest. The people of God are not a backward looking people (Philippians 3:13; Isaiah 65:17), except to draw strength for the present by remembering God’s power and faithfulness. Joshua in chapter 13 lists the real estate yet to be conquered.
We might well do the same in our lives. Like Auntie Em said to Hickory the farmhand when he started rhapsodizing about the statue that the townsfolk would erect for him someday: “Well, don’t start posing for it now.” You got saved, but that wasn’t for sitting on laurels but for walking on water. You conquered the overeating problem, but there’s the condescending attitude that still needs dealing with.
And then there’s the world to conquer, not just your world but the one out beyond your front yard. We are to enforce the victory obtained on Calvary. Pastor Bill Johnson of Redding, Calif., writes:
“It’s time for a revolution in our vision. When prophets tell us, ‘Your vision is too small,’ many of us think the antidote is to increase whatever numbers we’re expecting. For example: if we’re expecting 10 new converts, let’s change it to 100. If we were praying for cities, let’s pray instead for nations. With such responses, we’re missing the sharp edge of the frequently repeated word. Increasing the numbers is not necessarily a sign of a larger vision from God’s perspective. Vision starts with identity and purpose. Through a revolution in our identity, we can think with divine purpose. . . .
“Many, if not most, theologians make the mistake of taking all the good stuff contained in the prophets and sweeping it under that mysterious rug called the Millennium. . . . I do want to deal with our propensity to put off those things that require courage, faith, and action to another period of time. . . .”
I am amused by the way the Lord matter-of-factly ticks off the names of the next regions to be conquered (verses 2-7). When God is with you, you can count the chickens before they hatch. I imagine the Israelites not being as daunted by this list of lands slated for conquest as they were by the list before Jericho. By this stage of the game they have a track record with God, a cognizance of his past faithfulness that gives confidence for the future.
I see the dynamic in miniature in my own little life challenges. Two years ago I could not have envisioned being able to write a blog post a day. When Dr. Olasky offered me this job on a silver platter, I asked for two weeks to think about it (to his bafflement, I expect). But 24 months and 537 posts later, there is a literal paper trail of God’s ability to supply a little bit of oil and meal in the widow’s jars.
Joshua 12 and 13 form an “encouragement sandwich,” as my son Jae would say. The top layer of bread is the recital of God’s faithfulness in the conquests thus far (12:1-24). The meat in the middle is his commands of further conquest (13:1-7). The other slice of bread resumes the recital of God’s faithfulness evidenced in the division of the claimed land.
There is value in writing things down, in keeping lists of concrete answers to prayer. “Vague confession yields vague absolution,” said the Friar to Romeo. Similarly, vague awareness of God’s benefits toward you yields vague gratitude—and negligible encouragement for future battles.
Verse 22 is an embarrassing postscript for Balaam. The once famous man is reduced to a footnote. So it is with all who are wined and dined and flattered for a season. The sought-out prophet was a double-minded man who loved money and the proximity of power. But every man dies alone in the end.
To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 14
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 20, 8:05 AM
I wonder what it feels like to know you are an indestructible man. That’s what Caleb son of Jephunneh was. Not many of us have a guarantee that we will live tomorrow, but Caleb did. The fact is it was impossible for him to die before he received the promise made to him 45 years earlier.
The time was Moses’ time, and the place was the Wilderness of Zin. Twelve men, a leader from each tribe, were sent to spy out the territory for conquest (Numbers 13). Twelve men saw the same lay of the land in Canaan, but 10 came back to camp with a recommendation not to attack; best to wait till a more opportune time; too many contraindications at present. Only Joshua and Caleb said, “Yippee, let’s go!” Just for that, the Lord told the 10 “realists” they would never enter the land. But as for Caleb:
“. . . my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it” (Numbers 14:24).
And today, Joshua 14, is payday. The Israelites have won all the marbles, and Joshua is divvying them up. A delegation from Judah arrives, with Caleb leading it. He takes the initiative and reminds Joshua of the Lord’s promise, reviewing the whole story. How many times, I wonder, has he rehearsed this speech—to his wife and kids, to himself on his bed on sleepless nights.
O Lord, God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, shine forth!
Rise up, O judge of the earth;
Repay to the proud what they deserve !
O Lord, how long shall the wicked,
How long shall the wicked exult?
They pour out their arrogant words;
All the evildoers boast.
They crush your people, O Lord,
And afflict your heritage
(Psalm 94:1-5)
Caleb is about to find what the Apostles found when they asked Jesus where to make arrangements for the Passover; and Jesus directed them to go into the city, where he told them they would find a man carrying a pitcher; and to follow that man into a house; and in that house they would meet the master of the house and would ask for a guest room:
“And the disciples set out and went to the city, and found it just as he had told them . . .” (Mark 14:16).
Isn’t it delightful when we step out onto God’s promises—when we get out of the boat with Peter—and find that they hold?
“. . . If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3).
And the waiting time between promise and fulfillment, between prayer offered and prayer answered—well, it is no more empty of activity than a drop of water is empty of microbes. It’s in the long stretch of waiting that we learn about ourselves and learn about God. Still, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
As a postscript, I am glad to see Caleb still filled with the Spirit after all these years. (See Joshua 14:6-12). They couldn’t take that away from him, that blessed fanatic.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 15
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 23, 7:47 AM
Adolph Hitler read the Bible once but had a low opinion of it as far as religious works go. Commenting on the Old Testament, he said it appeared to be a book about Hebrew cattle dealing. One would have hoped for more transcendent oracles from one’s spiritual wellsprings.
I myself confess to giving short shrift to the “cattle dealing” passages of Scripture—those interminable genealogies from 1 Chronicles 1-9, as well as Joshua 15 on real estate subdivisions. But this is very like the situation with yearbooks and elementary school playbills, isn’t it? People may skim most of the hundreds of entries and credits in the publication, but everyone searches intently for his darling son’s or daughter’s name.
It just so happens that every child of God is darling to Him. So He cannot resist featuring all their names. And, like it or not, you and I are supposed to be as excited about all the rest of His kids as we are about our own. (Someday we will be sanctified enough to feel that way.) Ours is not a destiny of union with Brahman by a liberation from individual personality. The Lord—who is a Trinity—celebrates the individual.
Think of the many lists in the Bible as God’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, if you will. As you observe the thousands of visitors annually surveying Maya Lin’s black granite for the names of loved ones, and tracing their fingers over its Braille, so the names of those warriors who have partaken in the greatest story ever told are etched in His flesh:
“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you” (Isaiah 49:16-17).
Each name is a story. The dust of each conquered town divulges its tales anew to the reader who was there. Look at Hazor, sandwiched between Kedesh and Ithnan in verse 32, as if it were not that city of fame whose proud fortress bestrode the main trading route from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Did she polish her chariots to a shine for battle against the Israelites (11:4-9)? God has a thing about chariots, and a score to settle with those whose trust is in them.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 16
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 24, 7:55 AM
Miracle on 34th Street was magical for me as a child. In a jaded world of unbelief, a little girl named Susan believes in a Macy’s Santa Claus, of whom she has requested a house, with very particular specifications. The last scene, Christmas morning, shows her and the two disillusioned adults in her life, Fred and Doris, driving down a street where Kris Kringle has sent them, ostensibly to avoid traffic on their way home. Susan spots the house of her dreams with a for sale sign in front of it, and bolts out of the car. Inside the house, everything is exactly as she had drawn it for Santa. Fred, still not quite “getting” what is already perfectly clear to the child, thinks that perhaps his own lawyerly cunning had something to do with the mysterious apparition. Just then, they spot a cane leaning against the fireplace that looks identical to the one Kris, aka Santa, sported.
I get that old feeling again when I read Joshua 16. There was a time when the Promised Land was just a promise, an idea, a twinkle in God’s eye. Abraham left everything he knew for that idea. Many must have thought him mad, mad as little Susan. Hebrews says he “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” But years elapsed, and children were born, and still no city. “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and aliens on the earth” (Hebrews 11:10,13).
Moses never touched it. The closest he got was to stand on a mountain and have his breath taken away by the sight of it. Then he passed the baton to Joshua, the disciple-warrior to whom was left the great privilege of the surveyor’s task—of marking out terrestrial space points and boundaries and trigonometry and distances and angles of the tribal portions. The chapter is full of this kind of detail:
“The allotment of the people of Joseph went from the Jordan by Jericho, east of the waters of Jericho, into the wilderness, going up from Jericho into the hill country to Bethel. Then going from Bethel to Luz, it passes along to Ataroth, the territory of the Archites. Then it goes down westward to the territory of the Japhletites . . .” (verses 1-3).
Many a “through-the-Bible-in-one-year” reader has groaned through this repetitive notation in a hurry to get to more exciting chapters. But I dare say that the person who was recording the words of Joshua 16 3,000 years ago had a smile on his face and a spring in his step.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 17
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 25, 7:37 AM
This is a chapter in which a bunch of women are go-getters in attaining their territorial inheritance, and a bunch of men are excuse-makers when it comes to theirs. I know not if the original author meant the juxtaposition to have that barbed effect, but that’s how it struck me.
Some might want to use Joshua 17:1-4 as a women’s rights passage, and that’s fine with me (as long as we admit that no one has any rights except what God gives us). But I think the anecdote serves just as nicely as an illustration of James 4:2: “You do not have because you do not ask.”
If they had not been so determined and desirous—if they had not asked—the daughters of Zelophehad may well not have received an allotment among the children of Israel, and their clan of Manasseh would have died out. Zelophehad had sired five daughters and no sons, in a culture where inheritance was normally passed through sons. The daughters saw the long-range consequences of not speaking up and they prepared a case to bring to Moses: “Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father’s brothers” (Numbers 27:4).
Moses had never seen this one before. Here was a test case. He brought it to the Lord, and the Lord approved of the women’s reasoning. God always approves of our reasoning when it furthers his kingdom—and God was set on a total of 12 tribes in his kingdom.
But notice the balance of assertiveness and submissiveness in the daughters—assertiveness in contending for justice; submissiveness in following the instructions subsequently handed down by Moses and the elders. (Numbers 36).
It’s scary to think of the things we don’t have because we don’t ask. Who do you know, for example, that asks for a gift of the Spirit, though God seems eager to hand them out (1 Corinthians 14:1)?
In contrast to the happy state of affairs in Zelophehad’s corner of the camp is the whiny attitude of “the people of Joseph” (verses 14-18). Though Ephraim and Manasseh have been given the largest piece of the pie, they grumble that it’s no good for two reasons: 1) There are chariot-driving Canaanites living on part of it; 2) there is dense forest on another part of it. To these complaints Joshua responds, as diplomatically as he can: 1) So get rid of the chariot-driving Canaanites! 2) And clear the forests! Do you want to be shown up by the ladies, after all, who slew their “Canaanites” and felled their “forests,” as it were? These women “spoke to their mountains” (Mark 11:23) and saw them cast into the sea.
God had expressly addressed the chariot question before, and issued a command: “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you . . .” (Deuteronomy 20:1). It’s like Joshua and Caleb had explained to the Israelites about the Canaanites 40 years earlier: “Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us” (Numbers 14:9).
It strikes me as ironic that of all people, Ephraim and Manasseh—the sons of Joseph, should show so little zeal in claiming their inheritance. Theirs are the two tribes who were nearly snuffed out from their inception. If young Joseph’s 11 brothers had had their way long ago in Dothan when they sold him to Midianite merchants en route to Egypt, Joseph would be naught.
Pastor Bill Johnson of Redding, Calif., speaking on revivals, once commented, “The next generation always seems to be unwilling to pay a price to advance what they received for free.”
It all boils down to believing God and taking him at his word: “‘How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?’” (Numbers 14:11).
It’s a good question any day.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 18
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 26, 7:43 AM
More foot-dragging (see Joshua 17:14-18). We can no longer put off a problem I’ve been ignoring for three chapters. The sledge is getting stuck in the mud. The first hint was as early as chapter 15:
“But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out, so the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day” (15:63). (“To this day,” in this case, probably means the time of the scribe who did the final editing of Joshua’s notes before the Babylonian captivity.)
What do you mean “could not drive out”? Isn’t God the captain of this expedition? Is anything too hard for God? I am struck by the way the author puts the matter of Israel’s failure—“could not drive out.” No commentary here, no theologizing, no explanation of the reasons, just a flat statement of the fact that they were unable. Whether this inability is due to a fault in God or a fault in man is completely left for the reader to ponder and decide. I know how I’m voting.
A second intimation of trouble soon follows:
“However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer, so the Canaanites have lived in the midst of Ephraim to this day but have been made to do forced labor” (16:10).
On past readings of this passage I have thought: “Well now, that’s not so bad. The Israelites didn’t drive out the Canaanites but they made them slaves. That’s something. It’s not an A-plus but it’s at least a B-minus.” But I am catching on to the understatement of the author, and I think he’s saying “Booo!” under his breath when he writes this narrative. He’s probably remembering the time, later in Israel’s history, when Saul brought the same lame self-justification to the prophet Samuel who had rebuked him for not killing all the Amalekites and their animals as God had commanded. Saul said:
“. . . the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction” (1 Samuel 15:15).
The third dropped hint of backsliding comes in the next chapter:
“Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out” (Joshua 17:12-13).
I just keep picturing the self-righteous schoolkid rebutting his parents: “I admit I didn’t actually do my homework, like you told me to. But I did have the book open on my desk all evening. Come see for yourself!”
Now here we are in chapter 18, and the festering problem boils to the surface:
“There remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned. So Joshua said to the people of Israel, ‘How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?’” (verses 2-3).
Procrastination, apathy, indifference, powerlessness, and malaise will worsen in the next book of Judges (see Judges 1:19 for a taste.). Here is the paradox of the history of salvation: Salvation is all of God, from beginning to end—but he will insist that we cooperate and show some interest.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 19
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 27, 7:41 AM
I remember Andre Senecal. He was an only child and my brother’s best friend in elementary school, and he got so many presents from his parents at Christmas that they were still sitting around unopened a few weeks into January.
Today’s chapter in Joshua is a Polaroid of all the presents God left under the tree for Israel but that never got opened for one reason or another. We will take Asher as an example. You may read in verses 24 to 31 what God intended her to conquer and to rule over. You may read in Judges what actually happened:
“Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon or of Ahlab or of Achzib or of Helbah or of Aphik or of Rehob, so the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, for they did not drive them out” (Judges 1:31-32).
Again the author refrains from overt criticism, but his style is dripping with accusation—note the staccato litany of names, the way he draws out the agony by referring to unconquered cities one by one.
Bereft of television and iPods, the Israelites had only one book to read, after all, and it was the Bible. So it’s not as if they weren’t aware of what Moses had written:
“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them…for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. . . .” (Deuteronomy 7:1-4).
The lot Asher drew happened to be a nice spot that stretched north-south from beyond Sidon to Mount Carmel, and east-west from the hills of Galilee to the Mediterranean Sea. She saw her parcel, sank her tent peg into the ground, noticed how rich the soil was, started growing the best olives in Israel, and said it was good enough for her. We’ll be farmers, she evidently thought to herself. She never got around to driving out the Phoenicians from the seaports of Tyre, Sidon, and Acco.
Asher “settled”:
“Asher’s food shall be rich, and he shall yield royal delicacies” (Genesis 49:20).
You pays your money and you takes your chances, like they say. Rich food and royal delicacies is a pretty tempting deal. Esau thought so anyway: a birthright is nice and all, but when you’re hungry nothing beats a bowl of lentil stew. Demas on Paul’s missionary team, and Cyper in The Matrix also decided to forgo the adventure and just grab a little earthly pleasure.
The New Testament says that everything in the Old Testament is for our instruction. This story of Asher “settling” makes me wonder what gifts and blessings God wants me to have that are still sitting under the tree unopened. Some people just can’t handle Christmas.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 20
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
November 30, 7:40 AM
I happen to know a lot of people in prison. We have a councilman in Philadelphia who will do about 55 months for decades of siphoning millions of taxpayer dollars into his pocket—less time if he gets into a drug program in the joint. And I know an inmate who is doing 12 to 22 years for taking a handful of drugs from a drugstore with an unloaded gun, in a state that happens to have a “truth in sentencing” law, which means no time off for good behavior.
And then there’s God. Perfect justice:
“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed” (Psalm 103:6).
In Genesis, Abraham knew God’s character and was not afraid to make an appeal in the matter of Sodom’s destruction on the basis of His justice:
“Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25).
Sometimes even God’s best people don’t understand his justice:
“Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive?” (Jeremiah 12:1).
But for myself, I trust in the Lord in spite of the things I don’t understand about Him—because of the things I do understand about Him. And one of those things is that He looks at the heart of a matter and not just external appearances. Every one of us knows what it’s like to be in a situation that looks really, really bad, but onlookers are unaware of a few facts that would unfurl their eyebrows if they knew. What about the poor guy who walks into church on Sunday morning filthy because he stopped to help someone on the way who had a flat tire? I have been so sleep-deprived that I have nodded visibly through very good sermons.
God knows all that stuff. But mortals jump to conclusions. And mortals generally don’t distinguish between evil intent and innocence if their new Ferrari gets hit from the rear.
Therefore, as we learn in today’s chapter, God invented the cities of refuge, because there are extenuating circumstances in life. There were six cities of refuge scattered throughout Israel (for your convenience), and each was a place you could run to if you had killed a person accidentally, without malice aforethought. You didn’t get off scot-free because you still were forced to leave everyone and everything you knew and to go to a strange city and hang around there until the high priest died. But it was better than vigilante justice on the streets of Debir or Medeba. God once gave King David a choice of punishments: famine, fleeing from his foes, or pestilence. David didn’t miss a beat:
“Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14).
Today, of course, the cities of refuge are all done away with, superseded by the refuge that is in Christ:
“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10).
The better thing about this new place of refuge is that He even takes people who killed someone on purpose.
And unlike the prison system my correspondents are in, the chastisement is never a day too long or too short.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 21
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
December 1, 7:36 AM
How do you like the fact that the Levites had no inheritance of land among the other 11 tribes (except for a few cities and their surrounding farmland)—because God was their inheritance?
“But to tribe of Levi alone Moses gave no inheritance; the Lord God of Israel is their inheritance” (Joshua 13:33).
Would that sit well with you if you were a Levite? Or would you feel cheated?
This is perhaps a question best discretely left hanging, for your private rumination.
Then again, it is actually the question we are each faced with many times a day: What would you prefer, a pat on the back from your pastor for staying after church to put the chairs away? Or a “well done, good and faithful servant” from God for doing it in secret? Would you prefer to “find yourself in the world” to chart a course for a prestigious career? Or to give it all up to serve your husband—and hear a “well done, good and faithful servant” from God? Would you prefer getting an extra paid essay under your belt today? Or meeting that neighbor who needs to talk—plus a “well done, good and faithful servant” from God?
Or have you even gotten to the point where the choice of God is not a sacrifice? Have you gotten to the place where you have stepped into obedience enough times, and chosen the way of faith often enough, that you have learned a very cool secret—that the joy is immediate and the deepening intimacy with God is something you wouldn’t trade for all the olive oil in Asher?
“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalm 16:5-6).
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 22
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
December 2, 8:46 AM
Pardon me for finding comedy in this chapter; it could be just my ignorance of Semitic literary forms.
The play is almost done now, at least this act in which the children of Israel more or less conquer the land, and then everyone says goodbye and goes home to his respective parcel.
A little history: Way back before they had crossed the Jordan, two-and-a-half of the 12 tribes had fallen in love with land on the east side of the river and asked to settle there instead, which somehow has always given me the sad feeling I had when some of the Telmarines in Prince Caspian took Aslan up on his offer to return to earth rather than stay in Narnia under his rule. But it all worked out, because the Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh were willing to fight with their brothers till everyone’s inheritance was secured.
Now that was done and all were turning their swords into plowshares, as it were, and the two-and-a-half tribes were heading back to their wives and kids in the fertile region where Og and Sihon had once reigned. Then someone among the returnees got the idea to erect an altar by the Jordan, and word of this reached the ears of the nine-and-a-half tribes, who promptly geared up for war. (Mosaic law forbade offering sacrifice anywhere but in God’s designated place.)
Good old Phinehas son of Eleazar, renowned for single-handedly arresting a plague in the wilderness by skewering an Israelite who had brazenly brought a pagan woman into the camp, was tapped to lead a delegation confronting the supposed apostates. It was either he or some other spokesman who, when the band arrived in Gilead to fight, launched into a grandiloquent speech denouncing the easterners’ treachery. There is no hint that he asked questions first. The oration takes up five verses and impugns a variety of evil motives before the accused have even had a chance to open their mouths.
When the speaker finally comes up for air, the eastern tribes offer a satisfactory explanation for their piling of memorial stones, and warfare is averted. But not, I hope, before a good lesson is learned by all:
“Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 23
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
December 3, 8:51 AM
Every once in a while, the Lord likes to make a point of the fact that everything He says comes true. The point is made after the allotting of all the territory:
“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass” (Joshua 21:45).
And in case you missed it then, a hoary-headed old general named Joshua makes the point again years later in his farewell address in chapter 23:
“And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed” (verse 14).
Not only the good words of God come true but the bad words. And the better to impress this warning on his people, God instructed back in Moses’ day that when the tribes were to enter their new home a national show-and-tell was to be acted out in which half the people would shout the blessings of the covenant from Mount Gerizim, and the other half would shout the curses of the covenant from Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 11:29-32; Joshua 8:30-35).
The Nazca Lines of the high plateau in Peru can only be discerned with any understanding from an aerial view. On the ground all you see is reddish pebbles. From a higher elevation, a menagerie of winsome creatures appears: fish, orcas, llamas, monkeys, spiders, and hummingbirds.
The principle holds true for observing the work of God in my life. From my 57-year perch, I now see that rebellion bore fruit for evil in the long run, though in the short run I seemed to have gotten away with it:
“But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? . . .” (Zechariah 1:6).
God’s words “overtake.” They catch up. They are living words. Put them on the shelf and they will vibrate till they jump off, or smoke till there’s a fire.
But I can trace also in my life the finger of His mercy, which at every juncture blunted the full impact of evil and brought beauty from ashes.
A day is coming when many of us will moan to see that “not one word” of God has failed—all those words we watered down, we relegated to poetry, we tamed into liturgy, we dismissed as culturally conditioned, we claimed had ceased in our day, we shunted off into the millennium, we submitted to the judgment of man rather than submitting the judgments of man to the Word of God.
Hold fast, indeed, warns Joshua (verse 8). Slipping away is easier than you think. Beware of the nations and don’t intermarry (verse 12). This is what we’ve done in America. It’s the frog in the pot thing.
Joshua – Just one thing: Chapter 24
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Written by ANDRÉE SEU
December 4, 7:36 AM
God is not a history buff. You would almost think He was. He has so many chapters in his Book that recapitulate the history of the Hebrew people, sometimes starting with the wandering nomad from Ur, and sometimes from the parting of the Red Sea. And then there are the hundreds of other abbreviated synopses throughout the Bible, embedded in many a narrative.
And it seems like all His “favorites” are little history buffs like Him. The Psalmist tells again the “dark saying from of old,” though they are “things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us” (Psalm 78). Peter, baptized in the Spirit, becomes a raconteur (Acts 2). Stephen’s last act before his executioners is to tell the old, old story (Acts 7). When the synagogue ruler in Antioch ask if anyone has a word to share, Paul stands up and relates the history of Israel—to Jews (Acts 13).
In today’s chapter, Joshua, the venerable general venturing out of retirement for a farewell address, chooses for his final words a review of history.
But my epiphany this morning is that God is not into history for history’s sake. Several words stand out to me in the old warrior’s address—the words “sea,” “Balaam,” and “hornet.” Riddle: What do these references have in common? Answer: They are all ways that God saved his people that have nothing to do with man’s strength.
They involve, respectively in verses 7, 9, and 12, the incident in which God sends a wind to part the waters for an escape route (no man gets the glory for this deliverance); the incident in which a talking donkey is key and a foolish prophet is reduced to a megaphone (no man gets the glory for this deliverance); the incident in which an advance team of hornets softens up the enemy ahead of Israel’s army (no man gets the glory for this deliverance). I am even a bit surprised that Joshua doesn’t bring up the hailstones: “There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword” (Joshua 10:11). And the sun that obeyed the voice of God and stopped in its course to give an unfair edge to Israel in battle (Joshua 10:13).
All but the naive know that history books always have an agenda or organizing principle. What is God’s agenda here? Is it a coincidence that every instance selected in this condensed narrative refers to occurrences beyond usual human experience?
“It was not by your sword or by your bow,” Joshua summarizes in verse 12.
At age fiftysomething I am no longer interested in theology for theology sake, any more than God is interested in history for history sake. It is not a “neat insight” for me to see that God pulls deliverance out of a hat with signs and wonders, and that history does not proceed in a closed circle along naturalistic lines. The thought of Red Sea and Balaam and hornet and hailstones and tarrying sun is eminently practical for me. It not only changes my life; it changes my day. It makes me to feel safe to relinquish idols and to simply trust the One who will give me a miracle if I need one.
Psalm 78 puts the moral this way: “He established a testimony . . . which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children . . . so that they should set their hope in God . . . (verses 5-7).
Joshua’s conclusion, and mine:
“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (verse 16).
If God is going to conscript all nature for my deliverance, if He is really going to work out all things for the sake of those who love Him, right here on the hot pavement of life, then I am motivated to serve with abandon.
Herein is our comfort—that we do not save ourselves but God does all the saving. Herein is our dignity—that God allows us to become a part of that story.