Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 23-24.

Today’s passage describes events which took place after all of those described earlier in this book.  The Israelites have all found land to live upon in the land.  While they have not driven all of the non-Israelites out of the land, for the most part they have destroyed all of the non-Israelite political power bases and are living at peace. Joshua realized that he would not be around much longer to provide the Israelites with guidance, so he calls an assembly of the leadership of the people.  First, I want to note that Chapter 23 appears to be a summary of the assembly which Joshua called with Chapter 24 going into more detail.  First Joshua reminded the people of all of the good things which God had done for them.  Then he called them to respond to those good things by faithfully serving God.  I am hoping that you, my readers, can agree with me, and Joshua, that the Lord has done wonderful things for you.  If that is the case, then I will join Joshua in calling on you to faithfully serve God.  Do not associate with the idol worship going on around us.  Do not serve the gods to which so many bow down and serve.  Hold fast to the Lord our God.  Just as there was a price to pay for the Israelites listening to Joshua, there is a price to pay for us if we choose to faithfully serve God.  But, there is a price to pay if you choose to serve the gods of those around us.  So, if you find the price of serving God too high, you must choose which other gods your will serve.  Our world offers many such gods, choose which ones you will serve!  Or, choose to serve the Lord of Lords, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Joshua chose to serve God, I choose to do likewise.  I hope you will join me in my choice, even with the high price which Jesus made clear to us.

Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them. ⁸ But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 21-22.

For the last few days I have been commenting on how much of what was being described appears to me to have happened before the end of Chapter 11 where it says, “Then the land had rest from war.”  I believe that Chapter 22 describes wat happened immediately after that verse: the warriors of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh crossed back over the Jordan River to the east side.  In any case, the warriors returning to their homes east of the Jordan built an altar as a  monument declaring unity between themselves and their kindred settling west of the Jordan.  The other tribes took this altar as a declaration of separation both from themselves and from their God.  From there this story becomes an example of how to deal with conflict.  The tribes west of the Jordan were angry, they thought the tribes east of the Jordan were rejecting them and their God as not “good enough”, and they believed the actions of the tribes east of the Jordan would negatively impact them.  However, instead of immediately going to war in order to protect themselves and punish the eastern tribes, they selected a delegation to speak with them and find out what they were doing, offering a solution if the eastern tribes had a legitimate reason for rejecting them.  When the delegation came to the eastern tribes, they could have taken it as an insult and immediately mustered to make war on those who showed such little trust in them.  After all, the eastern tribes had just returned from spending a generation fighting alongside their brothers now living to the west of the Jordan River.  But that is not how they reacted.  Instead they explained the purpose of the altar which they had built, they told the delegates that the altar had been built as a declaration unity between the tribes living east of the Jordan and the tribes living west of the Jordan, not as a declaration of independence from them.  Because both sides were willing to talk, and to listen, misunderstandings were resolved and peace was obtained.  Of course, peace would likely not have been possible if the eastern tribes had actually intended what the western tribes thought they intended.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 18-20.

Continuing what I have been saying about the passages for the last few days, today’s passage also seems to me to be an account of things which happened in the time before Joshua 11:23.  As I read it, the conquest of the southern cities described in Chapter 10 is about the tribe of Judah claiming its allotment in the land, and the conquest of the northern cities described in Chapter 11 is about the tribes of Joseph claiming their allotment.  The allotments for the other seven tribes described here were smaller campaigns which involved the conquests of territories which did not enter the larger alliances.  Interestingly, we even have a reference here to the tribe of Dan losing control of their territory and later taking over the territory they name “Dan” which is recounted in more detail in Judges 18.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 15-17.

Yesterday I mentioned that the account of Caleb claiming his inheritance in the land probably took place during the events described in Chapters 10 and 11.  The additional information concerning Caleb claiming his inheritance makes me think it took place during the events described in Chapter 10.  Following up on that, I would think that the description of the territory allotted to Ephraim and Manasseh would have then happened during the events described in Chapter 11.   We also learn from this passage that the two tribes of Joseph failed to completely drive the Canaanites out of the land of which they took possession.  I am tempted to think that the writer is making a contrast between the tribes of Joseph failing to drive out all of the Canaanites from their territory and the tribe of Judah doing so.  However, they did mention that the tribe of Judah failed to drive the Jebusites out of Jerusalem, so perhaps that is not the point being made here.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 12-14.

At the end of Chapter 11 (the end of yesterday’s passage), we were told “Then the land had rest from war.”  Today’s passage ends with the same phrase.  This leads me to believe that we are intended to understand that some portion of today’s passage took place during the events recounted before that phrase was written at the end of Chapter 11.  As I read this, Chapter 12 is a summary of the kings defeated by Joshua before the end of Chapter 11.  I believe that Chapter 13 occurs after the end of Chapter 11, but that Chapter 14 occurs during the time when the battles written about before the end of Chapter 11 took place.  I am not quite sure when Caleb claimed his inheritance in Hebron, but I would guess it occurred shortly after Joshua and the Israelites finished their war against the alliance of the northern kings described in Chapter 11, most likely during the time in Chapter 11 where it describes the Israelites killing all of the Anakites who lived in the hill country.  I do not think figuring out the exact timing of when Caleb claimed his inheritance is important.  Rather, I think it is important to recognize the clues which tell us that account of one event is not intended to be understood as taking place after all of the events which had been described before the writer(s) got to the event in question.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 10-11.

A casual reading of this passage leads one to believe that by the end of it the Israelites had more or less destroyed all of the people inhabiting the land.  However, a closer reading tells a different story.  For example, the king of Jerusalem created the alliance which attacked Gibeon.  Yet, Jerusalem is not one of the cities described as being conquered and destroyed as part of the campaign which followed Joshua’s successful defense of Gibeon.  Jarmuth, another city which was part of that alliance, is also not mentioned as being conquered and destroyed.  Then in the summary of Joshua’s battles the passage tells us that the Israelites wiped out all of the Anakites in the hill country of both Judah and the northern part of the land, but that some remained in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod, cities which would later become centers of Philistine dominance (the Philistines were not yet on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea at the time of Joshua).   The other thing which hints to us that we are supposed to understand that not all of the people living in the land when the Israelites arrived is when it tells us that only the Gibeonites entered into a treaty with the Israelites.  If the Gibeonites had been the only people living in the land whose presence predated the Israelites there would have been no reason to mention this.  So, while Joshua destroyed the emerging nations in the land (we see the same southern and northern political divide emerge in the split kingdom), he did not completely eradicate the people living in the land.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 8-9.

There is much I could write about the victory over Ai, or about the Gibeonite deception of the Israelites, but I want to focus on when Joshua gathered the Israelites between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.  Joshua was carrying out the command which God had given the Israelites through Moses to assemble between these two mountains after they entered the land.  Then, while the people were gathered, Joshua wrote a copy of the law Moses had given the Israelites on stones.  This would be the second set of God’s commands written on stones.  I have always had it in my head that Moses had carved God’s commands into the stone tablets he prepared on Mount Sinai.  So, when I read that Joshua wrote on these I thought they would be different than the ones which Moses made.  However, when I went to check that, I discovered that the translation says that Moses wrote them.  That does not mean that neither of these sets of stones with God’s commands on them were not chiseled, but it seems unlikely that Joshua took the time to chisel the law of Moses onto these stones in front of the gathered people of Israel.

Having said all of that, what does this mean for us?  Well, the passage also says that Joshua read all of the law of Moses to the people during this gathering.  That reminds me of one of my college professors who would write key statements from his lecture on the blackboard during his classes.  As he wrote them he would discuss what they meant and how they fit into the rest of what he was teaching.  For me, that approach accomplished two things.  First, they allowed me to take particular note of the statements he wrote on the blackboard, and second, they caused those statements to encapsulate the entire lesson the professor was teaching.  So, Joshua writing God’s commands on the stones and then reading those commands to the Israelites helped them to internalize those commands.  In the same way, my writing this blog helps me internalize the lessons I learn from my daily Scripture reading.  I hope that reading the passages I write about and then reading my thoughts about them will help you internalize what God has to say to you through those passages (which may or may not have anything to do with what I write).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 5-7.

Some things in this passage struck me as curious, and others as something to think about.  I will write about them in the order they appear in the passage until  I feel like this is getting too long (or I have covered all of them).  At the beginning of the passage we learn that none of the Israelite males born after they left Egypt had been circumcised up until this point.  So, God tells Joshua to have them all circumcised.  I wondered why none of the Israelites were circumcised in the wilderness, so I did an Internet search to see what others had to say on the subject.  The best explanation I found suggested that the Israelites did not circumcise their children in the wilderness because the covenant God had made with Abraham had been broken when they initially refused to go into the Promised Land.  Now that they were going into the Promised Land, it was time to renew their side of the bargain.  There are some other aspects of that which are less than clear, but I had not noticed them before I read this answer, so I will leave them in the back of my mind for now.

Next I want to write about how they are their first produce from the Promised Land the day after their first Passover in the Promised Land and they stopped receiving manna.  So, God did not stop supplying them with manna when they crossed the Jordan River.  He did not stop doing so until they began to eat food produced in the land which He had promised them.  I find this significant because I have heard manna explained as a naturally occurring substance in the Sinai Peninsula (the person I heard making that explanation even identified the substance which they thought it was, but I forget what they suggested).  Now, while there is some chance that manna was the substance so identified, the fact that the Israelites continued to receive it each day as they traveled around the Dead Sea, up to the eastern bank of the Jordan River, and even after they initially crossed the Jordan, indicates that they were being fed by something more than just a naturally occurring substance which they happened to find along their way.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Joshua 1-4.

There are three things in this passage which inspire me to write something each year when I read this passage.  I am not sure if I will write about all three, but I will start with the one which comes last in the passage.  When the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground, Joshua had twelve men, one from each tribe, pick up a large stone from the middle of the riverbed.  Joshua then built an altar out of those twelve stones.  For however long that altar remained those who saw them would see something unique.  As a result of water running over them day in and day out for years, stones from a riverbed appear differently from stones just dug up out of the ground.  Those twelve stones would have been a testament to someone being able to gather then from the middle of the river.

Now for the thing with which the Book of Joshua begins, God’s commission to Joshua.  As the centerpiece of that commission God commands Joshua to not be afraid.  Again and again throughout the Bible when God, or one of His messengers speaks to people they tell them, “Do not be afraid.”  This is a command.  This is not a soothe-your-nerves sort of statement.  While it is not part of the Ten Commandments, it goes right alongside “Do not lie,” “Do not steal,” etc.  Do not be afraid! That command is for all who put their faith in God.  Here God told Joshua why you should not be afraid, because the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.  Of course, God gave Joshua another command, before He told him not to be afraid.  God told Joshua to obey all of His commands, turning from them neither to the left or to the right.  How do we keep from deviating from God’s commands?  By meditating on them all of the time.  So, if we think about what God’s commands tell us about what we should do in every situation in which we find ourselves, we will keep His commands and He will be with us.  And then  we will find it easier to not be afraid.  That pile of stones I mentioned in the first paragraph today?  God had Joshua have them gathered to remind him, and the rest of the Israelites, why they should not be afraid.  Even if they have been lost to time, they should serve as a reminder to us as well.

When I started writing today I also wanted to write about Rahab and the spies who went to Jericho, but this has gotten long enough so I will save that for another time.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.