Читать книгу Unlocking the Bible - David Pawson, David Pawson - Страница 16

Introduction

A schoolteacher asked a classroom of children: ‘Who knocked down the walls of Jericho?’ There was a long silence before a small boy said, ‘Please sir, I didn’t!’

Later that day in the staffroom, the teacher recounted the incident to the headmaster. ‘Do you know what happened in my classroom today? I asked who knocked down the walls of Jericho and that boy Smith said, “Please sir, I didn’t.”’

The headmaster replied, ‘Well, I’ve known Smith some years and I know his family – they’re a good family. If he says he didn’t do it, I’m sure he didn’t.’

The headmaster later reported the boy’s answer to a visiting school inspector, whose response was: ‘It’s probably too late to find out who did it; get them repaired and send the bill to us.’

The joke, of course, is that everybody should know who knocked down the walls of Jericho. It is one of the better known stories in the Bible. If they do not know the story from the Bible, then they have heard the Negro spiritual song ‘Joshua fit the battle of Jericho’. But this is the only part of the book many people do know. Joshua is not a well known book and a knowledge of the battle does not mean that everyone believes it actually happened. For even this story raises questions: How were the walls knocked down? Were they, in fact, knocked down at all?

It is clear that there are a number of preliminary questions for us to consider as we look at the book of Joshua. First of all we need to ask what sort of a book it is and how we should read the incredible stories it contains. We will then go on to look at the content and structure of the book, and how Christians can read it for maximum benefit.

What kind of a book is Joshua?

Joshua is the sixth book in the Old Testament. In our English Bible it is the book after Deuteronomy, with an apparently logical flow from the death of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy to the commissioning of Moses’ successor Joshua at the start of the next book. To the Jews, however, the significance of the book’s position is quite different. The end of Deuteronomy marks the end of the Torah, the law of Moses. These five books are read annually in the synagogue, with Genesis 1:1 beginning the New Year and Deuteronomy 34:12 being read at its end. Each of the five books is named after its first words, since these would be the words seen at the start of the scroll when the books came to be selected for reading. Joshua is the first book to be known by the name of its author.

Joshua is also a completely new type of literature. The first five books of the Bible set out the basic constitution of the people of Israel and are foundational to all that follows. By contrast, there is not a single law in Joshua, or in the books that follow. In Joshua we begin to see how the law is worked out in practice.

Joshua tends to be regarded as a history book because it comes in what is regarded as the history section of the English Bible. But it is more than just a history book. As we saw in the Overview of the Old Testament (Chapter 1), the Jews divide the Old Testament into three sections, rather like a library with books collected under three categories (Old Testament). The first five are the ‘books of the law’, also called the Torah or the Pentateuch. The ‘books of the prophets’ come next. Joshua is the first book of the ‘former prophets’, followed by Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. The books of Isaiah to Malachi comprise the ‘latter prophets’, with a few exceptions. The third section is ‘the writings’, which includes Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. So two books which are in the English Bible as prophets – Daniel and Lamentations – are part of ‘the writings’ in the Jewish Old Testament arrangement. Chronicles is the last book of the writings, although the English Bible includes it in the history section.

Joshua’s inclusion as a book of prophecy under the Jewish arrangement surprises many, for most of it is in narrative form and reads more like straight history than the poetic prophecy of later books. There are, however, a number of reasons why we should concur with this ‘prophecy’ tag.

First, it is not widely known that Joshua was a prophet. It is true that he is better known as a military commander, but he was a prophet just like Moses in that he heard from God and spoke for God. Indeed, the last chapter of the book records Joshua, in the first person singular, delivering God’s message to the people.

Second, biblical history is in any case a special kind of history. There are two principles which have to be followed when writing any history:

Selection – it is impossible to include everything, even when covering a short period of time. The Bible’s history is highly selective, focusing largely on one nation and only on certain events within that nation’s life.

Connection – a good historian takes seemingly disparate events and shows how they link together, so that a common theme is developed.

Using these two principles, we can see why the history in Joshua and the other ‘history’ books in the Bible is in fact prophetic. The author selects the events which are significant to God or are explained by God’s activity. Only a prophet can write this kind of history, for only a prophet has insight into what to include and why. Seeing the book as prophecy reminds us that the real hero of the book is not Joshua but God (and this applies to any book of the Bible). We see God’s activity in this world, what he says and what he does. Therefore, whilst it is genuine history, in that it describes what happened, we must see it as prophetic history, for it declares the reality of God and his work in the world.

The chart below shows the contrast between the books of the ‘former prophets’ and the books of the law.

There are a number of things to note from this chart.

1 The law includes God’s promises to Israel. The former prophets describe how these promises were fulfilled.

2 The law is God’s grace expressed to the people. The former prophets show how the people responded in gratitude to what they heard (although, as we will see, this gratitude was often sadly lacking).

3 The books of the law describe God’s redemption of his people from Egypt (Exodus). The former prophets explain how the people were to respond to God’s initiative by living in righteousness.

4 The books of the law tell how God would bless obedience and punish disobedience. In Joshua we see how an obedient response led to victory, as in the battle of Jericho. Conversely, we also see the ramifications of disobedience to the law, as in the defeat at Ai. Continued disobedience meant that the land claimed in the book of Joshua was taken away in 2 Kings.

The former prophets tell the tragic story of how the people won the Promised Land through obedience to the law, but then forfeited it because of disobedience. To put it another way: the first five books are the cause and the next six books the effect.

How should we read Joshua?

Before focusing on the book of Joshua itself we need to deal with the scholarly debate which can undermine our reading of so much biblical history. Many scholars argue that biblical truth is not historical or scientific but moral and religious. They are quite happy to accept that miraculous events form part of the Bible – just as long as no one is expected to believe that they actually took place! They suggest that biblical history is ‘myth’ or ‘legend’, teaching spiritual truths or values but not describing actual events which took place.

We need not deny that parts of the Bible are fictional. Jesus’ parables are technically ‘myths’. It does not matter whether there was an actual prodigal son or not, since the purpose of the story was to communicate important truth to the hearers. However, admitting that the Bible contains stories is a long way from agreeing that events included in the Bible are fiction.

Questioning the truth of the Bible began in the nineteenth century, when scholars argued that Adam and Eve were not real people but mythological figures whose activities explain universal truths. They said that the Fall was not the entrance of sin into the world, with a real Adam and Eve eating fruit prohibited by God, but a story showing the universal truth that if you tell someone not to touch something, they will want to touch it!

This approach did not stop with the story of Adam and Eve. Noah’s ark was next and eventually there were few biblical events which escaped this type of scrutiny. After this we were apparently left with a kind of biblical version of Aesop’s Fables, which conveys spiritual truth but has minimal historical basis.

The process of reading the Bible from this standpoint was given a long name: demythologization. Put simply, this means that in order to obtain the truth, one must discard the story (myth), and with it any suggestion that the story is based on historical fact. Miraculous or supernatural elements can therefore be discarded as being part of the myth.

This demythologization did not stop with the Old Testament: the New Testament was also attacked. The virgin birth, the miracles and the resurrection were regarded as soft targets. This scholarly debate affected theological training, and before long there were church leaders who taught that it did not matter whether the resurrection actually took place, providing people believed that it did. They said that if Jesus’ bones did still lie rotting in Israel, it made no difference to our ‘faith’.

With this background in mind, it is no surprise to find that concerns have been raised regarding elements of the book of Joshua, not least the story of the fall of Jericho. Scholars reasoned that the miracles in the story could not be accepted as fact by readers in a sophisticated scientific age. They saw it instead merely as a tale teaching us that God wants us to win our battles.

However, demythologizing Joshua requires much of the book to be cut out, for there are many apparent myths within the book: the Jordan river dries up, the Jericho walls collapse, hailstones help win a battle, and the sun and moon stand still for a whole day.

How do we respond to such an attempt to undermine the historical value of Joshua?

1 If we were to accept that miracles do not happen, we would be left with a purely human history, with little or no spiritual benefit. God’s part would be totally excluded. The ‘values’ or ‘truths’ would be of no more value than the sort of lessons gleaned, for example, from the secular history of China.

2 Mythical writings invent places and people to distinguish the genre from proper history, but biblical history is completely different. Joshua includes real places we can visit today: the River Jordan, Jericho and Jerusalem. It also includes real people groups, which secular historians acknowledge existed at this time: the Canaanites and the Israelites.

3 Joshua claims to be written by contemporary eyewitnesses. The first person plural ‘we’ is used, for the writers were reflecting on events they had seen. Furthermore, a common phrase in the text is ‘to this day’. Contemporaries of the writer could check out the details. This is not a fable about mythical characters, but a sequence of historical events described by people who were there.

4 Archaeologists confirm a great deal of information given in Joshua. They have discovered that the entire culture of some of the cities included in the book changed over a 50-year period. There is evidence that cities such as Hazor, Bethel and Lachish were destroyed between 1250 and 1200 BC and the inhabitants reverted to a far simpler lifestyle. The date of this change fits with Joshua’s account of how these cities were conquered.

5 Those who question the miraculous events in Joshua ignore the fact that the events in themselves are not necessarily miraculous. It is no problem for us to accept the miraculous, but it is interesting to note that such phenomena can be explained. For example, the River Jordan dries up during floods even today. The river meanders through the Jordan Valley and, because of the flood conditions, undercuts the banks on the curve. These banks can be so undercut that they collapse, causing the river to dam itself, sometimes for up to five hours. Similarly, in modern times, we know that large buildings collapse. Cathedrals and skyscrapers have fallen in the same manner as the walls described in Joshua. It is not the events that are miraculous so much as the timing. The river dries up and the walls fall just when God said they would.

6 We have noted already that the Bible is not the history of Israel as such, for there is much that is excluded. Joshua covers 40 years, yet most of what happened in those 40 years is not recorded. The fall of Jericho fills about three chapters, which is out of all proportion if this is a history of Israel. It is really the history of what the God of Israel did. The writer records the periods when God was at work, for he is a living God, active in time and history, saying and doing things. If God had not intervened on their behalf, the Israelites would never have got the Promised Land. It was an impossible task for a bunch of ex-slaves with no military training to go in and take a well-fortified land and replace a culture that was far superior to theirs in humanistic terms. If the subject of the book is God’s activity, therefore, it should be no surprise when his work is beyond human understanding. If we seek to remove these parts of the story, or to ‘demythologize’ them, we undermine the whole nature and purpose of the book.

Questions about whether the Bible is myth or history boil down to a personal question: Do we believe in a living God? If our answer is yes, then we can go on to look at the Bible as a record of what he said and did and ask why he said and did these things.

The Bible is not just about God, or even just about the God of Israel. It is the history of God and Israel – the story of their relationship – and that is how we need to read every book of the Old Testament, including Joshua. It is not fanciful to see God’s relationship with Israel as a marriage. The engagement took place with Abraham when God promised to be the God of Abraham and his descendants. The wedding took place at Sinai when the people heard the obligations and promises tied up with the law and agreed to play their part in the binding agreement God was introducing. The honeymoon was supposed to last for three months, as the people journeyed to the Promised Land. The bride, however, was not ready or willing to trust her husband, so it was 40 years before they finally entered the land. In Joshua we have the beginning of their life together in a prepared place, their new home. They were given the title deeds but still had to enter the land and take it. Sadly the marriage did not work out and there was even a temporary divorce, the faults being on the ‘wife’s side’. Since God hates divorce, however, he never left them.

The content of Joshua

It is important that we gain an overview of the content of Joshua before looking at the detail. This will save us from drawing inappropriate or unwarranted conclusions about what it means, just as we would refuse to judge a novel by selecting isolated pages without seeing the whole thing. Every sentence in a book takes its meaning from the context, so we need to see the book as a whole first.

The book covers the life of Joshua from the age of 80 to 110. This compares with the 40 years of Moses’ leadership which is covered by Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The difference between the two is that Moses was a lawgiver and a leader while Joshua was just a leader, the period of lawgiving having been completed.

Structure

The book divides like a sandwich. There are three parts: two thin slices of bread and a lot of filling in the middle.

The top ‘slice’ is Chapter 1, the prologue describing Joshua’s commissioning as leader.

The bottom ‘slice’ is Chapters 23 and 24, Joshua’s final sermon and his death and burial.

The main section between these two outer ‘slices’ is the account of how Israel possessed the land that God had promised them, in spite of the fact that it was already occupied. This middle section can be further divided:

Chapters 2–5 cover the entering of the land of Canaan through the River Jordan.

Chapters 6–12 detail how they conquered the land, with a list of the 24 kings that Joshua defeated being given in Chapter 12.

Chapters 13–22 cover the dividing of the land between the tribes who had conquered it.

Joshua’s commission

Joshua was 80 years of age when he received his call to serve as a leader. It is possible to identify two parts to the call: divine encouragement and human enthusiasm.

DIVINE ENCOURAGEMENT

God tells Joshua that he is his choice to replace Moses following his death. Moses had led Israel out of Egypt, and now Joshua would lead them into the Promised Land. God promises that just as he had been with Moses, so he would be with Joshua. He tells him to be strong, courageous and careful to obey the law. If he does this he will prosper.

It is an encouraging, if challenging, beginning to his leadership. The word ‘prosper’ has been misunderstood. It does not mean ‘wealthy’, and those claiming that the Bible promises financial rewards are mistaken. It means that Joshua will achieve what he sets out to achieve in God’s name.

These words of encouragement were not merely for Joshua’s wellbeing. God knew that his leadership would affect the morale of the whole people of Israel. And important as it was that Joshua’s leadership should help morale, he was also to ensure that his own morality was of the highest standard. He was not just leading a group of individuals armed for battle who needed good pep talks, he was leading the people of God. Their standards of morality would affect their success in battle too, and Joshua was to set an example.

HUMAN ENTHUSIASM

When Joshua told the people of God’s decision they were enthusiastic – indeed, their precise response echoes the commands God had given him privately, for they also urge Joshua to ‘be strong and courageous’. Furthermore, they promise to obey him fully just as they had obeyed Moses. This may seem strange, as the Israelites’ behaviour under Moses’ leadership could hardly be described as obedient and this was one of the reasons why they had taken 40 years to travel to the Promised Land. But this new generation had learned from the disobedience of their forefathers. This generation had obeyed Moses whilst he had been alive, when they had conquered Moab and Ammon, and were now comfortable about reaffirming their support for the new man. They promise specifically to do what Joshua tells them and to go where he sends them. They ask that God may be with Joshua as he was with Moses.

This twofold aspect of Joshua’s calling is instructive for calls to service today. Both aspects are required: a God-given sense that an individual is called to the work, and a heartfelt response from God’s people that this is so.

Joshua’s command

The heart of the book deals with Joshua leading the people as they enter the land of Canaan. There are three sections, all dealing fundamentally with the land.

1. ENTERING

(i) Before

Before entering, Joshua sends two spies into the land. When 12 spies had been sent out 40 years before, the negative report from 10 of them had contributed to Israel’s faithless refusal to enter the land. This time just two are asked to go in, mirroring the number who had brought back a good report on that first occasion. Sending in spies may seem to be faithless – after all, had God not promised the land to them? But they were practising a principle Jesus used in a story when he was on earth: it is important to sit down and count the cost before you go to battle. It would have been foolhardy for the Israelites to enter Canaan without first obtaining the maximum amount of information about what they might face.

The place where the spies stayed tells us a lot about the moral state of Canaan. They ended up staying in a brothel with a prostitute named Rahab. It is clear from their conversation with Rahab that news of the Israelite victories over Egypt and the surrounding nations had made the locals fearful about their prospect of repelling an invasion. Indeed, Rahab was so convinced that God would give the land to Israel that she wanted to join them. The New Testament commends this amazing display of faith, for Rahab is included in the great heroes of the faith mentioned in Hebrews.

The means of her escape was reminiscent of the way in which the Jewish first-born escaped with their lives when the angel of death came to Egypt. They had painted blood from the Passover lamb on the door frames of their houses. Rahab was told to hang a scarlet thread out of the window so that she and her family would be spared the destruction that would come on the city of Jericho. It was as if she was marking her window with blood, so that death would not touch her home. Not only was she commended for her faith, but Matthew’s Gospel records how this prostitute is included in the royal lineage which reaches to Jesus himself. It is an extraordinary and moving tale.

(ii) During

The River Jordan operated like a moat on the eastern edge of Canaan, especially at harvest times when floods could reach depths of 20 feet, with no bridges or fords to enable easy crossings. We have noted already that it is likely that a temporary natural dam upstream stopped the flow of the river to enable the people to cross. The timing was perfect: the river bed was dry at the precise moment when the priest at the front of the convoy entered the river.

The miracle enabled the crossing but also had an additional purpose. Many of the new generation of people who entered the land with Joshua had not witnessed the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea recorded in the book of Exodus. God wanted his people to see his mighty power and to have confidence in the leadership of Joshua as he led them against the Canaanites and into the Promised Land. God was with him as he had been with Moses.

(iii) After

Their first camp in the Promised Land was at Gilgal, an open space near to the fortified town of Jericho which had been built to guard the eastern approach up to the hills. When the Israelites arrived they did three things:

1 They took 12 stones from the bed of the River Jordan and made a cairn as a reminder for future generations of how God had dried up the river. Remembrance was an important part of Old Testament piety. Israel had as part of their culture many reminders of what God had done for them in the past. A cairn of stones was a favourite method of marking a significant site, with the 12 stones representing the 12 tribes.

2 They circumcised all the men. The new generation had not undergone this covenant rite, first introduced with Abraham. Joshua wanted to follow the law to the letter – the people’s spiritual condition was important.

3 They named the place Gilgal, which means ‘rolled’, because God had ‘rolled away’ the reproach or disgrace of Egypt.

God also did something when they entered the land: he stopped sending manna. For 40 years the Israelites had fed off this daily provision, but now they had reached the fertile land of Canaan, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey’, and the manna was redundant. Even today there are delicious grapefruits and oranges sold in Jericho.

(iv) The captain of the Lord’s host

Jericho was the first city they were to attack, but before the battle Joshua had an unusual experience. He approached the city by night to see the fortifications for himself and was met by an armed man.

Joshua suspected this man was an enemy and asked whether he was friend or foe. He was surprised to receive the answer ‘No’, a nonsensical reply! But then the man added that he was not part of the Hebrew or Canaanite peoples, but belonged to God’s forces, involved with heavenly rather than earthly troops. He was virtually asking Joshua whose side he was on! The person was none other than the captain of the Lord’s host, i.e. a senior angel, an archangel or even the preincarnate Son of God himself. Joshua was being reminded that he was not the highest officer in the Lord’s army, but only an under-officer. The experience also made clear to him that he did not fight alone, nor was he the true commander of Israel – he was a servant of God and the people.

2. CONQUERING

The military strategy for taking the land is clear – they were to divide and conquer. Joshua drove a wedge straight through the middle of Canaan and then, having divided the enemy into two halves, he conquered the south then the north. This strategy prevented the forces in Canaan from uniting, and meant that Israel could fight manageable numbers, dealing with each area in turn.

The view that Joshua is prophetic history is underlined by the space given to the first two cities attacked. Jericho and Ai were deemed the most significant. The moral lessons, both positive success and negative failure, learned from these two inital assaults, would be confirmed in later engagements; but the prophetic interpretation would not need to be repeated.

(i) The centre

Jericho

Ancient Jericho is a mile down the road from modern Jericho. Its ruins today are at Tel Es Sultan and reveal that Jericho is the oldest city in the world, dating from 8000 BC and containing the oldest building in the world, a round tower with a spiral staircase inside. These remains have been excavated and, of course, the key question was whether the walls which fell in Joshua’s day could be found. In the 1920s the archaeologist John Garstang thought he had found them, only to be contradicted by Kathleen Kenyon, who asserted that Jericho was not even occupied in Joshua’s day! However, the Egyptologist David Rohl has revised the dating and discovered fallen walls and burned buildings at another level in the diggings (see his remarkable book The Test of Time, Century, 1995, following the TV series of the same name, which includes his discovery of remains of Joseph’s time in Egypt, and his even more remarkable Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation, Century, 1998, locating the Garden of Eden, still full of fruit trees - and he’s not even a believer!)

When Jericho eventually fell, Joshua cursed anyone who sought to rebuild it. He said that their first-born would die when the foundations were laid, and their youngest would die when the gates were put in place. The book of Kings records an attempt to rebuild the city 500 years later, when the curse was enacted exactly as predicted. Although one would expect building work to take place on the ruins, therefore, the curse was a real deterrent. The remains of Jericho were left open to the weather and available to anyone wishing to remove stonework for other buildings. The absence of some walls thus helps to confirm the truth of the Bible’s record.

Archaeologists have confirmed the size of the walls from similar constructions. They suggest that Jericho’s walls were 30 feet high, with a 6-foot thick outer wall and a 12–15-foot gap between that and a 12-foot thick inner wall. The walls became a barrier as the city grew, so houses were perched on the top of the walls in close proximity to one another. It is easy to see how an earth tremor could send the whole lot toppling down. The text tells us that the sustained noise of the horns of 40,000 men was the trigger, so maybe this sound was sufficient – rather in the way that an opera singer can crack a light bulb if she sings at a certain intensity and pitch. The only house that remained standing was the one with the scarlet thread hanging from the window – the house of the prostitute Rahab, preserved because of her faith in the God of Israel.

The destruction was so great that no fighting was necessary – the Israelites simply walked in and took the city. But victory celebrations were conditional. God told them that this city was his, rather like the ‘first fruits’ of the harvest. They must recognize that this was God’s victory, not theirs. The cities conquered in the future could be looted, but not Jericho. One man, however, disobeyed the command, and this fact links with the next story.

Ai

The flourishing city of Ai was farther up the hill from Jericho. But this time the battle was lost. Israel made two errors. The first was over-confidence: Joshua used fewer troops, believing that conquering this city would be as easy as it had been with Jericho. They learnt the important lesson that it is fatal to think that because God has blessed you once, he is going to do it again in the same way.

The man who took some of the loot from Jericho made the second error. Achan had taken a Babylonian robe, 200 shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, thinking that these items’ disappearance would not be noticed. When Joshua’s troops first attacked Ai, they were routed and they fled. Joshua was distraught and asked God why he had let this happen, especially now that their reputation was growing. God explained that Israel had sinned; one of them had taken something devoted to God. So they drew lots to find the tribe, then the clan, then eventually Achan’s family.

Lots may seem a strange way of deciding on an issue of this magnitude, but the Israelites believed that God was in control of every situation and would enable the person to be identified through the drawing of lots, and so it proved. A similar method was used throughout Israel’s history. The priest carried a black stone and a white stone inside his breastplate, called the Urim and Thummim. People would use these to discern what they should do. When the white stone was drawn the answer was positive, and when the black one was drawn it was negative. This practice was continued among God’s people right up until the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. From that moment the Holy Spirit guided his people instead and such methods were never used again.

Achan knew he was guilty. Had he owned up earlier, he might have been forgiven, but he had refused to come clean. His family were also implicated in the crime because they had not exposed him, and so they were all stoned to death. It is frightening that one person’s sin could cause a whole people to suffer such disgrace.

When the sin was dealt with, the Israelites fought against Ai again and this time they were victorious.

Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim

Following the destruction of Ai, Joshua led the people of Israel to two mountains in the centre of the land. Moses had given clear instructions concerning the renewal of the covenant God had made with them at Sinai. They were to write the laws he had given them on uncut plastered stones and then they were to divide into two groups, one standing on Mount Gerizim shouting the blessings of the covenant and the other on Mount Ebal shouting the curses. The two hills form a natural amphitheatre, so that each group could hear the other and respond with an ‘amen’ to what was being called out.

(ii) The south

Despite this covenant affirmation, the people were still fallible, and they immediately made a big error in their dealings with the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were a tribal group within the land of Canaan who realized that they were unlikely to be able to stand against an Israelite onslaught. They opted for deception instead. They visited Israel dressed in old clothes and shoes and carrying old wineskins, worn-out sacks and stale, mouldy bread. They claimed to be from a distant country and said they had heard of Israel and wanted protection.

The text says that the men of Israel took them at face value and did not enquire of God. Only later did they realize their error, but by then it was too late, and the four cities belonging to the Gibeonites had to remain untouched because of the oath the Israelites had taken to preserve their lives. The Gibeonites were protected by the treaty they had gained through trickery, and served as woodcutters and servants to the people of Israel. Thus Israel was unable to expel these people from the land.

Gibeon continued to be part of the picture. The King of Jerusalem, Adoni-Zedek, heard of the treaty that the Gibeonites had made with Israel and called on four Amorite kings to unite with him and attack Gibeon. The Gibeonites requested Israel’s assistance and battle commenced. God assured the Israelites of victory, sending hailstones of such size that more died from the storm than by the sword. It was at this point that Joshua asked for an extraordinary miracle. He knew that he would not be able to continue routing the enemy when it was dark – at sunset all fighting stopped, whatever the state of the battle, since it was impossible to discern who was friend and who was foe. Joshua therefore made an unprecedented prayer request that the sun should stop in order that the battle could continue! This astonishing display of faith was rewarded, and we read that for a full day the sun stopped in the sky. Victory was complete.

I mentioned earlier that such stories have led to doubts about whether the events of Joshua actually happened. It does sound like a fable, doesn’t it? Mr Harold Hill, the President of the Curtis Engine Company of the United States, was a consultant to the American Space Program. He wrote the following article in the Evening World newspaper in Spencer, Indiana, which later appeared in the English Churchman on 15 January 1971:

I think one of the most amazing things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Indiana. They were checking the position of the sun, moon and planets out in space where they would be in 100 years and 1,000 years from now. We have to know this in order that we do not send up a satellite and it collides with something later on, on one of its orbits. We have to lay out the orbit in terms of the life of the satellite and where the planets will be so that the whole thing will not go wrong.

They ran the computer measurements backwards and forwards over the centuries and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal which meant that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it or with the results as compared with the standards. They called in the service department to check it out and they said, ‘It’s perfect.’ The head of the operation said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Well, we’ve found there’s a day missing in space in a lapsed time.’ They were puzzled and there seemed no answer. Then one man on the team remembered he’d been told at Sunday school of the sun standing still. They didn’t believe him but as no alternative was forthcoming they asked him to get a Bible and find it – which he did in the book of Joshua 10:12-14 ‘And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed – and hasted not to go down about a whole day.’ The space men said, ‘There is the missing day.’

Well, they checked the computers going back into the time it was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua’s day was 23 hours and 20 minutes – not a whole day. They read the Bible again and it said about a day! These little words in the Bible are important. But they were still in trouble because if you can’t account for 40 minutes you will be in trouble 100 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits. Then it was this same man who remembered somewhere in the Bible it said the sun went backwards. The space men told him he was out of his mind but they got out the Bible and found how Hezekiah on his death bed was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him he was not going to die and Hezekiah asked what the sign should be. And Isaiah said ‘This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has spoken: shall the shadow go forward 10 degrees or go back 10 degrees?’ And Hezekiah answered ‘It is a light thing for the shadow to go down 10 degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees’. And Isaiah cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow 10 degrees backward by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz. (2 Kings 20)

Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes. So 23 hours and 20 minutes in Joshua plus 40 minutes in 2 Kings make the missing 24 hours which they had to log in the log book as being the missing day in the universe.

In all honesty, I must add that many regard this report as unreliable, even fraudulent.

The southern campaign continued with victories over Bethel and Lachish (which we know from archaeology were destroyed between 1250 and 1200 BC). The whole region was subdued.

(iii) The north

Having defeated the south, the people turned to concerns in the north. The northern kings were aware of the Israelites’ success by then, and so united their forces for battle. Once again, however, God assured the Israelites of victory: their enemies’ chariots were burned and their horses hamstrung.

The cities on the mounds were the only ones not totally destroyed, apart from Hazor which Joshua burned. Archaeologists confirm that that city was ruined by fire at this time, between 1250 and 1200 BC.

With the conquests over, we are given an interesting summary of the Israelites’ activity, including the statement that the Lord hardened the hearts of the nations so that they came against Israel in battle. Clearly their sins were so great that complete extermination was the only solution.

3. DIVIDING

Before progressing any further, we must establish the distinction between occupation and subjugation. Occupation refers to places; subjugation refers to peoples. Whilst the land was theirs, since the people were subjugated, the Israelites still had much land to occupy. Much of the rest of the book is taken up with this process.

The allocation of land was decided by national lottery, leading some to believe that God sanctions the sort of lottery which currently operates in many countries, including Britain. There is, however, an important distinction to be understood. Lotteries are arranged so that humans cannot influence the outcome. Israel chose the lottery specifically so that God could influence the outcome. After all, if God could control the sun, this was nothing to him.

(i) The east bank

The land itself is fascinating, and Joshua records how it was surveyed. The same size as Wales, it is the only green part of the Middle East. The Arabian desert lies to the east, the Negev desert to the south. The rain comes from the Mediterranean.

Moses had promised that the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh would be given fertile land east of the Jordan, providing they helped in the battle for Canaan. Joshua honoured this pledge.

Throughout the division of the land, the key word was ‘inheritance’. The land was an inheritance for Israel, not just for a while, nor just for the lifetime of the victors, but as a permanent home to pass on to their descendants.

(ii) The west bank

At Gilgal: 2½ tribes

Caleb was one of the spies who had given a positive report about the land when the 12 spies were sent in 45 years before. Now, at the age of 85, we read that he was just as strong as he had been at 40. He approached Joshua and asked that he might be allowed to take the hill country that he had been promised all those years before. Joshua blessed him and gave him the town of Hebron.

The daughters of Manasseh reminded Joshua of Moses’ promise to give them land too. The people of Joseph claimed to be too numerous for the land they were given and so were also allotted forested areas to clear.

The book outlines in considerable detail the towns and villages that were allotted to each tribe, with occasional reference to other matters. We read, for example, of the Israelites’ failure to defeat the enemy when Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites in Jerusalem.

At Shiloh: 8½ tribes

Several tribes remained without allotted land, so each tribe selected men to survey the territory in order to divide it further.

(iii) Special cities

Refuge

There were six special cities of refuge, three on each side of the Jordan, where those guilty of manslaughter could flee when they were chased by those intent on revenge. Within Jewish law there was a distinction between accidental, unintentional killing and premeditated killing. These cities enabled the law to be applied.

Levites

When the land had been allotted, the text makes it clear that the Levites received no land as such, no specific territory. We are told that the Lord was their inheritance – serving God was sufficient for them. Of course, the individual Levites had to live somewhere and towns with pastureland were allotted to them, scattered amongst the other tribes.

(iv) The altar on the east bank

Towards the end of Joshua we are told how a potential tragedy was averted. When the two and a half tribes returned across the Jordan to their territories on the east bank, Joshua urged them to be careful to love God, walk in his ways and obey his commands. However, no sooner had they arrived home than they built an altar at Peor, by the Jordan. The other tribes regarded this as idolatry and immediately declared war. Fortunately, they decided to talk before the first blow was struck. The ‘guilty’ tribes claimed that the new altar was their way of remembering that they were still part of God’s people on the other side of the river. This pacified the concerned tribal leaders and war was avoided.

Joshua’s commitment

The last two chapters are a moving finale to the book. Joshua was conscious of his advancing years, and had served, like Moses, for 40 years. He knew he was going to die soon and so wanted to make provision for the future of the nation.

It is important to note that whilst Moses appointed Joshua as his successor, Joshua did not appoint a successor for himself. This may seem strange, but from then on the job of leadership could not be left to just one man. The leadership needs were different, the people were scattered across the land, and one man could not lead properly with so much ground to cover. So Joshua passed on his commission to them all.

Joshua’s message was very firm: God had promised not only to bless them when they obeyed but to curse them when they disobeyed. God had brought them into the land as he had promised, but they must obey the law if they were to experience his continued favour.

Joshua gave all the credit for Israel’s possession of the land to God. Although he had led the people, he recognized that God had fought for them and they should be grateful to him for their success. He concluded his speech by asking the Israelites to take an oath of loyalty to God.

The final chapter is in an altogether different style. Here Joshua speaks in the first person singular as he does in the previous chapter, but this time ‘I’ means God. His last message is prophecy and is understood as such by the people.

(i) Grace

First God reminds the people of all he has done for them. There is no mention of Joshua’s role.

(ii) Gratitude

Now Joshua speaks, urging the people to fear God, serve him, be faithful and throw away any other gods. Then he speaks for himself and his household, saying, ‘We will serve the Lord.’

The people agree to follow God with Joshua, who sets up a stone of witness. Three times the people declare, ‘We will serve the Lord.’

The last verses of the book record three burials: the burial of Joshua, the burial of Joseph’s bones and the burial of Eleazer. For 40 years they had carried with them a coffin containing Joseph’s bones, because his dying wish was to be buried in the Promised Land. Now at last the bones could be laid to rest in the land Joseph had looked for.

So a triple funeral rounds off this book. We are told that as long as Joshua and his generation of leaders lived, the people were faithful to God. When the next generation grew up, however, things went badly wrong.

It is possible to sum up the lessons of the book of Joshua in two simple phrases:

Without God they could not have done it.

Without them God would not have done it.

These are two very important lessons. It is easy to put all the responsibility on God or to put it all on ourselves. The Bible has a balance: without God we cannot do it, but without us he will not do it. The change of verb is significant – it is not that without us he cannot, it is that without us he will not. If Joshua and the people of Israel had not co-operated with God, their entry into the Promised Land would not have happened, and yet without God and without his intervention, they could not possibly have done it.

Divine intervention

1. GOD’S WORDS

God’s words are prominent in the book of Joshua as we hear of his solemn covenant to Israel which he could never break. He had sworn by himself that he would stay with them, and the land was his promised gift. God always keeps his Word – he cannot lie. So Joshua tells us that God gave to Israel all the land he had sworn to their forefathers that he would give them.

2. GOD’S DEEDS

God’s deeds are linked with his words. We are told that God would fight for Israel. He would drive the other nations out of the land.

Joshua is full of physical miracles: the division of the River Jordan, the sudden cessation in the provision of manna, the collapse of the Jericho walls, the hailstones which help defeat the five kings, the lengthening of the day by making the sun ‘stand still’, and the drawing of lots to decide how the land is to be divided.

The book of Joshua is careful to give the glory to God for these amazing events. God was truly with Israel. The name Immanuel has four possible meanings or emphases:

1 God is with us!

2 God is with us!

3 God is with us!

4 God is with us!

The fourth version conveys the meaning of the biblical text. Immanuel means God is on our side – the emphasis is that he is going to fight for us, not them. Joshua is a testimony to this truth.

Human co-operation – positive

God works through human co-operation. He did not fight by himself: the Israelites had to go to the battlefield and face the enemy for themselves. Without them God would not have done it – they had to go into the land, they had to take action. God said that every bit of land they actually stood on he would give to them.

1. THEIR ATTITUDE

Not fear (negative)

In taking action and entering the land, the Israelites were not to be afraid. This was the command given to Joshua at the very beginning. This had been the cause of the people’s failure 40 years before when they had refused to enter Canaan.

But faith (positive)

If they were to win every battle, their attitude had to be one of confidence and obedience. This faith showed itself in action as they obeyed the Lord’s command to march around Jericho seven times in silence, when they doubtless would have preferred to get on and fight straight away. They also had to be prepared to take risks. Joshua took the risk of asking God publicly to stop the sun.

2. THEIR ACTION

Their confidence had to lead to obedience. They were to act on God’s Word – they were to do what he said. This is a reminder to us that God’s gifts have to be received. The Israelites were given every bit of land they put their foot on, but this meant they had to do something to make the inheritance theirs; it was not automatic.

There is a delicate balance to be reached between faith and action, summed up brilliantly by Oliver Cromwell, who once told his troops, ‘Trust in God and keep your powder dry.’ Or as C. H. Spurgeon said, ‘Pray as if it all depends on God and work as if it all depends on you.’

If the Israelites’ attitude was to become self-confident and their action was to become disobedient, however, they would lose every battle. That is why the two major parts of Joshua cover the story of Jericho and the story of Ai, one attack a success, one (initially) a failure. If we learn the lessons of those two towns then we are set for the conquest of the land.

Human co-operation – negative

The Bible is a very honest book. It deals with weaknesses as well as strengths. The book of Joshua tells us about three mistakes the Israelites made when they took over the land.

The first mistake was at Ai. They were defeated by superior troops because they had too much self-confidence. The previous generation had been under-confident, and thus guilty of fear, but this generation was over-confident and therefore guilty of folly. Both attitudes were equally damaging.

The second mistake was when the Gibeonites tricked them into making a treaty to protect them. Their refusal to first ask the Lord what to do is given as the reason for their folly on this occasion.

The third mistake was when the two and a half tribes put up an altar on the east bank of the Jordan and the tribes on the other side of the river accused them of treachery and turning away from the Lord. The misunderstanding that arose almost led to civil war.

Christian application

We are told in 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 15 that everything in the past was written for our learning. How is the book of Joshua used in the New Testament, and how can we apply what we learn from it today?

Faith

In Hebrews 11 Joshua and Rahab the prostitute are used as examples of faith. They are part of the ‘cloud of witnesses’ with which we are surrounded.

James says that faith without action is dead; it cannot save us. Again Rahab is used as an example, for the way she hid the spies and said goodbye to the past in order to embrace the faith of Israel.

Sin

The book also gives us a graphic reminder of the problems which sin can cause amongst a whole people. In the New Testament an incident with Ananias and Sapphira exactly matches the sin of Achan. Acts tells the story of how this couple lie about money withheld from the church’s common purse, while Achan deceives the people by not owning up to the goods he stole from Jericho. The result in both cases is the same – the judgement of God. Ananias and Sapphira are immediately struck down dead, as Achan was stoned to death by the people.

Salvation

The book is also a glorious picture of salvation. Joshua’s name was originally Hoshea, which means ‘salvation’, but Moses changed it to Yeshua, which means ‘God saves’. The Greek version of the Old Testament translates this as ‘Jesus’.

Moses himself means ‘drawn out’, so his name and Joshua’s together describe Israel’s progress towards the Promised Land. Moses brought them out of Egypt, but it was Joshua the saviour who brought them into the Promised Land. Getting out of Egypt did not constitute salvation, but getting into Canaan did.

This illustrates an important truth: Christians are not just saved from something, they are also saved to something. It is all too possible to get out of Egypt but still be in the wilderness; to stop living the lifestyle of a nonbeliever but not enjoy the glory of the Christian life.

Applying the concept

Finally we must ask: How should a Christian apply the concept of the Promised Land?

HEAVEN

Some imagine that the Promised Land depicts ‘heaven’. One hymn, for example, contains the line: ‘When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside’, as if the image of the river is depicting death, with Canaan (heaven) on the other side.

HOLINESS

The Promised Land, however, is not heaven but holiness.

The writer of Hebrews, commenting on Joshua’s conquering of the land, says that the Israelites never entered ‘the rest’ under Joshua, despite entering Canaan. He goes on to say that there still remains ‘a rest’ for the people of God. This ‘rest’ means rest from battle – and the Promised Land is reached when we enjoy what God has for us. So whenever we overcome temptation we have a little foretaste of the rest that God has promised. The victories in Joshua should be replicated in the life of every believer as he or she lives for Christ and battles against sin. The ‘rest’ is that relief when our struggles with enemy forces are successfully behind us and our efforts have been rewarded.