Joshua Formally Commissioned

v. 1. Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, after the completion of the thirty days’ mourning for this great prophet whom the Lord so signally distinguished, Num 12:7-8; Deu 34:5-8, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, not his servant, but his assistant, who had been pointed out some ‘time before as the successor of Moses, Num 27:15-23, had been expressly designated as such by Moses, Deu 31:7, and had appeared before the people in that capacity, saying,

v. 2. Moses, My servant, is dead; now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel, for Canaan proper was always spoken of as including the territory west of the Jordan only. These words were not spoken to Joshua through the high priest’s Urim and Thummim, upon which he had been told to rely in case of difficult questions, Num 27:21, but were an immediate Revelation of the divine will, in the same way in which the Lord had communicated with Moses.

v. 3. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses, Deu 11:24.

v. 4. From the wilderness, the Desert of Arabia on the south and southeast, and this Lebanon, the mountain range in the north, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, who apparently had been overlords of this entire region at one time and were still occupying the country northwest of the Sea of Chinnereth, afterward that of Galilee, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, the Mediterranean Sea, shall be your coast. Cf Deu 11:24-25.

v. 5. There shall not any man, namely, of the kings and inhabitants of the country, b e able to stand before thee, withstand him successfully, all the days of thy life, Deu 31:8. As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee; I will not fail thee, let him sink down in helplessness by withdrawing his hand, nor forsake thee.

v. 6. Be strong, firm, mighty in the trust of Jehovah, and of a good courage, altogether undismayed; he must lay hold boldly and with a strong hand, and when he has done so, allow nothing to drive him from his position of firm adherence to Jehovah; for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Cf Deu 31:7-23. This condition is still further expanded.

v. 7. Only be thou strong and very courageous, said with greater emphasis than in v. 6, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the Law which Moses, My servant, commanded thee, for the leader of the people must be an example to all his followers. Turn not from it, namely, from the roll of the written Law as it was preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, to the right hand or to the left, as the slightest deviation was a transgression, that thou mayest prosper, make use of the proper wisdom and thus be successful, whithersoever thou goest.

v. 8. This book of the Law, as it had been written by Moses and delivered into the hands of the priests, Deu 31:26, shall not depart out of thy mouth, he should teach it, study it, discuss it; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, trying to penetrate ever more deeply into its scope and meaning, and thus becoming qualified to speak more clearly, pointedly, and powerfully to the people, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein, namely, in the thoughts of the heart and in the deeds of the hands; for then thou shall make thy way prosperous, make headway on the path of duty before him, and then thou shalt have good success, because of the application of practical wisdom given by the Lord. The Lord now summarizes His charge to Joshua, introducing it by a rhetorical question for the sake of greater effect.

v. 9. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord, thy God, is with thee whithersoever thou goest. Thus the assurance gains in strength when to the positive command to be courageous is added the negative to lay aside all fear, as in Deu 31:6-8. We Christians have a similar promise of victory over all our enemies and the eventual enjoyment of the heavenly happiness. But we also have the command of God to read, study, and hear the Word of God to arrange our whole life in accordance with its precepts. Then we also shall have success in the things we undertake under the guidance of God.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

JOSHUA‘S COMMISSION.

Jos 1:1

Now after the death of Moses. The form of the Hebrew is the usual historical one for the continuation of a narrative before commenced. The Book of Joshua is thus shown to be, and to be intended to be, a continuation of the Book of Deuteronomy, which ends with the death of Moses (see Speaker’s Commentary in loc). This link of connection is lost in the English version. The question forces itself upon the critic, At what time was this consecutive narrative written, as is admitted, in various styles, in the language of obviously distinct periodsfirst composed and palmed off upon the Jews as the genuine work of a writer contemporary, or nearly contemporary, with the events he describes? The servant of the Lord. This term (Keil) is applied to the heavens and the earth (Psa 119:91), to the angels (Job 4:18), to the prophets (Jer 7:25, etc), to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the Jewish people (Exo 19:5), to Zerubbabel (Hag 2:23), and even to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 25:9, etc), as the appointed minister of God’s wrath, and to pious men in general (Gesenius; see Psa. 34:23, etc). It is also applied to the Messiah (Zec 3:8; comp. the word similarly applied in Act 4:27). It originally implies the position of a slave, whether born in the house or bought with money (see Lev 25:39; and Gen 9:25; Exo 13:3, Exo 13:14). In all cases it expresses a closer and more familiar relation than the term minister below. Keil says that it is applied so frequently to Moses that it has become almost his “official title” (see Deu 34:5, and the Book of Joshua passim, and cf. Heb 3:5). It is, however, still more frequently applied to David. But it suits well with the special and peculiar mission which Moses had above the rest of mankind. He was, as it were, the household servant of the Most High, His steward and representative, ruling over the family of God in His name, and giving to them the directions of which they stood in need. That the Lord spake unto Joshua. Either by Urim and Thummin, which seems at least probable (see Num 27:21, and Jos 9:14). But the great majority of commentators prefer the idea of an inward revelation, since the words are frequently used in this Book of God’s revelations to Joshua (Jos 3:7; Jos 4:1, Jos 4:15; Jos 5:2, Jos 5:9; Jos 6:2, etc). The manner of these inward revelations is also a matter on which much difference of opinion exists. They, no doubt, were frequently made through a vision or dream, as to Abraham at Sodom (Gen 18:1), Jacob at Bethel, and Joshua him. self (Jos 5:13). But it is by no means clear that they were always so. The voice of God in answer to prayer is recognised by Christians in a strong inward persuasion of the desirability or necessity of a particular course. Of this kind would seem to be the answer to St. Paul’s prayer in 2Co 12:9. And it is quite possible that in passages such as Gen 12:1, Gen 22:1, Gen 22:2, nothing more is meant than that the persuasion, by God’s permission or inspiration, was strongly felt within. And so it is possible that one so specially and divinely commissioned as Joshua discerned in a strong and apparently irresistible conviction, the voice of God (cf. Act 16:7; 2Co 1:17). Joshua’s name was originally Hoshea (like the prophet and the Israelitish king of that name). The name originally meant salvation, or deliverance, but it was changed, either when he entered into Moses’ service, or when he was about to fight the Amalekites (Num 13:8, Num 13:16; Deu 32:44), into Jehoshua, or Joshua (either “God shall save,” or “God’s salvation”). It is not stated in Holy Writ when the name Joshua was given. In Exo 17:9, where Joshua is named for the first time, he is called by the name Moses gave him, and is mentioned incidentally as a person well known to the writer dud his readers. The reader need hardly be reminded that in the form Jeshua (Gr. ) it was the name of our Blessed Lord Himself, and that the Name which is now above all other names is used of Joshua in two places in the New Testament, in Act 7:45, in Heb 4:8. It was a common name in later times, as Col 4:11 and Act 13:6 will serve to show. In later Hebrew, as in Neh 8:17, Joshua is called Jeshua, and the names of Joshua and Jeshua are given indiscriminately to the high priest, the son of Josedeeh, who was contemporary with the building of the second temple. For Joshua as a type of Christ the reader may consult a deep passage in ‘Pearson on the Creed,’ Art. II; from which some of the most striking parts are here quoted:”First, it was he alone, of all which passed out of Egypt, who was designed to lead the children of Israel into Canaan, which land, as it is a type of heaven, so is the person which brought the Israelites into that place of rest a type of Him who only can bring us into the presence of God, and there prepare our mansions for us. Besides, it is further observable, not only what Joshua did, but what Moses could not do. The hand of Moses and Aaron brought them out of Egypt, but left them in the wilderness. Joshua, the successor, only could effect that in which Moses failed. Moses must die that Joshua may succeed (Rom 3:20-22). The command of circumcision was not given to Moses, but to Joshua; nor were the Israelites circumcised in the wilderness under the conduct of Moses and Aaron, but in the land of Canaan under their successor. Which speaketh Jesus to be the true circumciser, the author of another circumcision than that of the flesh (Rom 2:29; Col 2:11). If we look on Joshua as the ‘minister of Moses,’ he is even in that a type of Christ, ‘the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God.’ If we look on him as the successor of Moses, in that he represented Jesus, inasmuch as ‘the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ If we look on him as judge and ruler of Israel, there is scarce an action which is not predictive of our Saviour. He begins his office at the banks of Jordan, where Christ was baptized and enters upon the public exercise of His prophetical office; he chooseth there twelve men out of the people to carry twelve stones over with them, as our Jesus thence began to choose His twelve apostles, those foundation stones in the Church of God (Rev 21:14). Joshua smote the Amalekites and subdued the Canaanites, By the first making way to enter the land, by the second giving possession of it. And Jesus in like manner goeth in and out before us against our spiritual enemies, subduing sin and Satan, and so opening and clearing our way to heaven; destroying the last enemy, death, and so giving us possession of eternal life.” Pearson quotes Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Theodoret, and others as justifying his view of the history. Theodoret, moreover, in his ‘Questions on Joshua,’ remarks on the coincidence between Jos 1:17 and Joh 5:46. And Origen, in his first ‘Homily on Joshua,’ remarks on the fact that the first time the sacred name meets us in the Book of God, it is as the leader of an army (Exo 17:9). Another way in which Joshua was a type of Christ is this. Under Moses there are constant murmurings and disputings, for “the law made nothing perfect” (Heb 7:19). Under Joshua all is confidence and triumph, for “by one offering Jesus hath perfected forever them that are sanctified” (Heb 10:14). Moses’ minister. This word is principally used of service in the house of God. Thus it is used of Aaron and his sons, Exo 28:43; Exo 39:41, etc.: of Samuel, 1Sa 2:11; 1Sa 3:1, etc.: of the priests and Levites, 1Ch 6:32; 1Ch 16:4; Eze 14:5; Joe 1:9, etc. In these places it seems to be equivalent to the LXX. . But it is by no means confined to such service. In Exo 33:11, where it is applied to Joshua, it is rendered in the LXX. by , and it is quite clear that Joshua’s service to Moses was not exclusively of a religious character. Some commentators have suggested the word aide de camp, but this would be equally incorrect in the opposite direction, since Joshua’s services (see Exo 24:13; Exo 33:11) were clearly not rendered only in time of war. The word is used of Abishag the Shunamite, 1Ki 1:4, 1Ki 1:15; and of Elisha, 1Ki 19:21.

Jos 1:2

Moses my servant is dead. “When you see Jerusalem overthrown, the altar forsaken, no sacrifices, no holocausts, no drink offerings, no priests, no Levitical ministry, when you see all these things cease, say it is because Moses the servant of God is dead, and Jesus the Sou of God obtains the leadership” (Origen, Hom. 2 on Joshua). This Jordan. Called “this” because it was now close to them, just as we have “this people, this Lebanon” (see note on Jos 1:4), etc. The name Jordan signifies “Descender,” from the verb to descend. The word fitly describes the headlong current of the river, which, according to Mr. Macgregor, has a fall of fifteen feet per mile, and if we subtract the Lake of Gennesareth and the lake and attendant marshes of Huleh, of thirty feet. Between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, however, the average fall is much less. Just after leaving the Sea of Galilee its fall is over forty feet.. It may be interesting to compare with this the average inclination of some of our own English rivers. The swiftest is the Dee, in Aberdeenshire, which has a fall of 16.5 ft. per mile. The Tweed and Clyde have a fall of 16 ft. and 14 ft. respectively, while the Severn has but 26.5 in; the Thames 18 in; and the Shannon 9 in. per mile. This comparative table will give the best idea of the rapidity of the Jordan. The various explorers bear testimony to the swiftness of its current. Thus Robinson, in his ‘Biblical Researches,’ says, “The current was so strong that even Komeh, a stout swimmer of the Nile, was carried down several yards in crossing.” “It was so swift,” says Dr. Bartlett, “that a gentleman of another company, who went to bathe, was not suffered by his friends to do so without a rope most un-romantically attached to his person.” This was in March, at the time of the overflowing (see Jos 3:1-17), and he adds, “the turbid stream rushed along like a mill ace.” Canon Tristram, visiting it in April, describes it as “rushing with tremendous force.” It rises among the snows of Hermon, dashes down headlong into the lake Huleh, the Merom of the Book of Joshua, and thence, with a descent of 60 ft. per mile, into the Sea of Galilee. Thence it shapes its course, as we have seen, with greatly diminished velocity into that strange depression where the Dead Sea lies, at a level of 1,290 ft. beneath the level of the Mediterranean. I do give, literally, I am giving; i.e; at this moment, when you are preparing to enter it.

Jos 1:3

Every place that the sole of your foot doth tread upon. These words are a quotation, almost word for word, from Deu 11:24, bat the original promise is to be found in Gen 12:1-7, with which we may compare Gen 13:14-17; Gen 15:18; Gen 17:8. Comp. also Jos 14:9; Exo 23:30, Exo 23:31, etc. It was God’s purpose that the whole land should belong to the children of Israel; a purpose which, as usual in Hebrew prophecy, is signified by the use of the perfect tense here. The conquest was intended to be complete. Not a foot’s breadth was to rest in the hands of its former owners. But here, as elsewhere in Holy Writ, we may mark the way in which man’s sin and want of faith has marred the purposes of God. In the Book of Judges we read that the Canaanites were not only not driven out, but that the children of Israel made marriages with them, worshipped their gods, and practised their abominations. Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Jebusites until the time of David, while the Philistines remained in possession of their portion of Palestine until it was reduced under the power of the king of Babylon. We may observe that, according to all the ordinary laws of criticism, this citation of Deuteronomy is a proof that that Book existed when the Book of Joshua was written. For the cumbrous scheme of Elohists, Jehovists, Deuteronomists, and the like, by which this natural conclusion is overruled, see Introduction. Have I given it. The preterite here denotes God’s purpose (cf. Gen 1:29).

Jos 1:4

From the wilderness and this Lebanon. The words suppose a line to be drawn from the desert of Arabia on the south and the range of Lebanon on the north, to the River Euphrates on the one hand and the Mediterranean Sea on the other, including the land of the Hittites (see 1Ki 4:24; 2Ch 9:26). Tiphsah, the later Thapsacus, was far north of the utmost limits of Palestine, and almost in the latitude of Antioch. Azzah is generally termed Gaza in our version. See note on Jos 11:22. The land of the Hittites here (Keil) seems to be taken for the land of Canaan in general (see 1Ki 10:29; 2Ki 7:6; Eze 16:3), but extending far beyond their border, and including Syria, Moab, Ammon, the land of Bashan, and part of Arabia. This was never actually in the hand of the Israelites save during the reigns of David and Solomon, when these regions were either tributary to them, or had been actually reduced under their immediate sway. “The promise,” says Theodoret, “was not undefined, but if ye shall keep my commandments and ordinances” (Deu 11:22, Deu 11:23). But they, inasmuch as they immediately transgressed the law, did not obtain the perfect promises. The Divine Apostles, on the contrary, not only conquered those places on which they set their foot, but even those in which their all wise writings were read; and the land that was before a desert they displayed as a Divine Paradise.” This Lebanon. This expression is no doubt used because Lebanon was visible from the spot where Joshua was standing. There is nothing surprising in this. We learn from travellers that its range, which there is no doubt included that of Anti-Lebanon, with its lofty peak Hermon, the highest point in Palestine, is visible from all parts of the Holy Land, even from the depths of the Jordan valley near the Dead Sea. Dr. Thomson (‘Land and the Book,’ p, 2) says that it is visible from Cyprus. Canon Tristram tells how he had seen Hermon from Type, Sidon, Carmel, Gerizim, from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, from Gilead, from Nebo, and from the Dead Sea. The name Lebanon, derived from to be white, like the Arabic lebanon, milk, is supposed by Robinson to have been given from the whitish colour of the chalk or limestone rock. But it is at least equally probable that it derives its name, like Mont Blanc in Savoy, from its snowy peaks. Hermon is still called by the Arabs Jebel-el-Thelj, or “the snowy peak.” The Jordan, the river of Palestine par excellence, derived its copious and ever-flowing streams, so essential in that “thirsty land,” from the Anti-Lebanon range. “Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus,” as well as the Orontes, and the Litany or Leontes, derive their waters from the same source. We have a vivid description of the region of Lebanon and the adjacent range of Anti-Lebanon and Hermon, in the spring, at the time of the melting of the snows, in the 42nd Psalm. There David, recalling to mind his sojourn in the “land of the Jordan,” and of Hermon, speaks of the “deep calling unto deep,” of the noise of the cataracts as they dashed from rock to rock and foamed along the mountain sides; and he describes his sorrows as overwhelming him by their number and magnitude, just as the multitudinous torrents that rose in that snowy region threatened to engulf the unwary traveller in their onward sweep. The far-famed cedars of Lebanon are indigenous to this region, and to it alone, but the climatic changes which Palestine has undergone have reduced their number largely, and comparatively few specimens now remain, in a wild condition, of that noble tree, once the pride of the dwellers in the land. “We cannot study all the passages in the Old Testament which refer to the cedar, without feeling certain that in ancient times it was a far more conspicuous feature in the landscape than it is now”. The great river, the river Euphrates. Das grosse Wasser Phrath (Luther). The Hebrew name is as Luther gives it. The Greeks added the euphonic syllable at the commencement, according to those who assign to the word a Semitic derivation. Others, however, derive it from an Aryan source, and regard it as equivalent to “the flowing river.” This mighty stream, especially after its junction with the Tigris, far transcended in size any other with which the Israelites were acquainted. The plains of Mesopotamia, even as far as Nineveh and Babylon, were destined to have been occupied by the Jewish race, had not their impiety and rebellion prevented; and the world empire obtained by Nineveh and Babylon might, and had they been obedient would, have been theirs. All the land of the Hittites. The Hittites, or Chittites, seem to have been the most considerable of the tribes which inhabited Canaan. We find them in possession of Hebron in the time of Abraham (Gen 23:1-20), but their more usual dwelling place was in the valley. They appear from the narrative above quoted to have been a peaceable people. We have records of them in Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions. Thus we hear of the Khita in the inscriptions of Rameses II; who reigned between 1383 and 1322, B.C.; that is, about the time of Deborah and Barak (‘Records of the Past,’ 2.67-78; 4.25-32). They were the inhabitants, however, of a region further to the northward, beyond the borders of the Holy Land, on the banks of the Orontes. So a Mohar, or scribe, of Rameses II; in an account of a tour in Palestine, in which he mentions Kirjath Anab, Achsaph, Megiddo, and the land of Hamath, describes Khita as to the north, bordering on this latter territory (‘Records of the Past,’ 2.106). The various translators of the Assyrian inscriptions of Assur-bani-pal, Tiglath Pileser, Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib recognise the Hittites in the people mentioned as dwelling to the north of Palestine (ibid. 3.52; 5.21, 32, 33; 7.61), though Ewald thinks that the Khatta there mentioned must be sought still further north. Prof. Sayce, in a recent lecture, regards the Hittites as having occupied a large portion of Asia Minor, and as having had great influence upon early Greek art, and adds, “‘Till within the last few years the Bible alone has preserved the name of a people who must have had almost as great an influence on human history as Assyria or Egypt.” Shahnaneser mentions the kings of the Hittites, just as they are mentioned in the later narratives of Kings and Chronicles (see note on Jos 3:10). Unto the great sea. As the Euphrates was the greatest river, the Mediterranean was the greatest sea, known to the Jews. Unlike the race they displaced, the Canaanitesor, to call them by a title by which they are better known to profane history, the Phoeniciansthe Jews were no sailors. It may have been even before the conquest of Canaan under Joshua that the Phoenician fleets sailed out beyond the pillars of Hercules, and brought back tin from the British isles. For Canaan, or Phoenicia, was a powerful and civilised country when conquered by the Jews. But whether it were before this period that Britain was discovered, or whether the fleets of Tyre and Sidon first sailed thither at a later period, to the Jews the Mediterranean still remained the great sea. They knew nothing of the vaster ocean into which it flowed. It seems strange that, with the example of Tyre and Sidon before them, the Israelites should have been so indifferent to navigation. Even in the time of David, it was Hiram’s ships that brought him his treasures and building materials. The later navies of Solomon and Jehoshaphat did but coast along the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to Ophir, which has been identified with India, or more probably with Arabia.

HOMILETICS

Jos 1:1-4

Joshua’s Commission.

This passage may be viewed under two main aspects:

(1) regarding Moses as the type of Christ and Joshua of His ministers; and

(2) regarding Joshua as himself the type of Christ.

As these points of view suggest two perfectly distinct and independent lines of thought, it is obvious that they are better fitted for two separate discourses than for being combined in one.

I. JOSHUA AS THE TYPE OF GOD‘S MINISTERS.

1. After the death of Moses, the task devolves upon his minister. So after the death of Christ, the task of conquering the world devolved upon His apostles, His “ministers.” They who waited on Christ during His human life, who were with Him in His temptations, were the men appointed to carry on His work when He had gone hence.

2. By the express command of God. So the apostles not only had Christ’s commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mar 16:15; 28:19), and “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (Joh 20:21), but they were bidden to wait till the time was fixed (Act 1:4), and the Spirit poured out upon them from on high (Act 2:4). Hence we learn that no work, however high and holy, should be undertaken without the express intimation that it is God’s pleasure we should attempt it; that no motives, however pure, will justify us in putting our hand to the ark (2Sa 6:6, 2Sa 6:7) unless we are ordained by God to touch it. And if we ask how we are to know when we are so ordained, the answeris

(a) by seeking counsel of God;

(b) by scrutinising carefully the purity of our own motives, lest we may have mistaken pride or self interest for the voice of God.

That intimation will be given in various ways. We know not how (see note on Jos 5:1) Joshua was stirred up by God. But men are marked out for special tasks in three ways:

(1) by circumstances. Thus Joshua, as the minister of Moses, most closely acquainted with his modes of thought and course of action, became naturally his successor. So Timothy takes the place of St. Paul (2Ti 3:10).

(2) By external authority; that of those who have a right to exercise it, like the high priest when he sought counsel of God by Urim and Thummim.

(3) By inward intimations of God’s Spirit, which cannot be mistaken, save by those who have blinded their own eyes by self seeking and self conceit.

3. The command is based upon Moses’ death. So all the work of God’s ministers derives its energy from the death of Christ. It was the one all sufficient sacrifice and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world that was the salt of the Apostles’ mission. It is that same atonement which gives power to their successors now.

4. The work is of God, but the ministers are human. God might have performed His work without the intervention of means. But He has chosen to act through human instrumentality. Thus he magnifies His greatness even more than if He had done the work Himself. For human infirmities sorely mar the work of God. And yet that work goes on, and even human infirmity is overruled to God’s glory (1Co 2:4, 1Co 2:5; 2Co 4:7; 2Co 12:9). So it was with Joshua’s error in judgment regarding the Gibeonites (Jos 9:14), and so it often is with our own.

5. Difficulties often present themselves, insuperable but by the hand of God. “Go over this Jordan.” But how? The river was full to overflowing, the passage dangerous; in fact, for the whole multitude, in the face of the enemy, impossible. Yet the hand of God was stretched out, the river dried up, and what would have been a task of the greatest peril to themselves was instead a source of terror to their adversaries. So at the outset of great spiritual undertakings we are often confronted with difficulties far beyond our power to overcome. But “God showeth his voice,” and they “melt away.”

6. The result, possession of the promised land. The land promised to the Israelites was a limited space, but the spiritual Israel has the promise of the whole earth (see Gen 12:3; Psa 2:8; Isa 11:9; Dan 2:35, etc).

II. JOSHUA AS THE TYPE OF CHRIST.

1. After the death of Moses. The law could never give us our inheritance (Heb 7:19); therefore Moses must die and Joshua arise. Again: the law was crucified together with Christ (Rom 6:6, Rom 6:10; Rom 7:4; Gal 2:19; Gal 5:24; Eph 2:15, Eph 2:16; Col 2:14; also 2Co 3:14 in the Greek). As long as the law existed, man could only dwell in the wilderness, be dead in trespasses and sins, wander about without power to enter the promised land. He was continually confronted with a standard of holiness utterly beyond his strength to reach. But when Mosesi.e; the lawis dead, the true Jesus arises and leads His people into their inheritance, giving them the power to fulfil a law which He has written within.

2. Joshua was Moses’ minister. So Christ was “made under the law” (Gal 4:4), and was bound, by His Father’s will, to keep it. By His obedience alone was His sacrifice made acceptable to His Father. The law could but condemn us for being “weak through the flesh” (Rom 8:3); we could not fulfil its precepts. But Christ condemned sin

(1) by His perfect fulfilment of God’s law, and

(2) by submitting to death, as the “wages” of that sin which mankind, whom He represented, had so fully deserved. Thus did He gain the right to be our leader into the inheritance God had promised us.

3. Jordan must be crossed; i.e; Jesus must die. As our representative, He dies once for all to sin, and His death translates us into a new life. Henceforth, by virtue of His atonement, “sin has no more dominion over us,” and we are, under His leadership, to destroy its empire forever. And we must follow Him through Jordan; that is, we too must die to sin and rise again unto righteousness. The river which divides our old condition from the new, which separates the wilderness from the promised land, is an eternal boundary between our condition by nature and our condition by grace. The waters of Jordan are likened by some to the waters of baptism, whereby we are “baptized into Christ’s death;” and by others to the moment of conversion, when, by the power of God alone, we are changed from wanderers and outcasts into the covenant people of God.

4. The land must be conquered. It was a wicked land; a land the sins of whose inhabitants contaminated it by their example; a land which called for condign chastisement from on high. The land with which Christians have to do is either

(1) the whole world, or

(2) the human heart.

In the first case it is the duty of the Church, in the second of the individual, in each case under Christ as a leader, to wage unceasing warfare against evil, in whatever forms it may be found. The character of that warfare will be indicated later. At present it will be sufficient to remark that the nature of the warfare itself is not changed, though its conditions are. The servants of God are eternally pledged to root out evil without compromise, and without mercy.

5. It was a land flowing with milk and honey. Every blessing was to be obtained there. Not only food, but delights. It is called emphatically “the good land” (Deu 3:25; Deu 4:22). It contained every good thing man could desire (Deu 8:7-9). So the steadfast determination to follow Christ, to him who is resolved to do so, insures us every blessing we needthe supply of our wants, means of defence against our enemies, and the means, moreover, of happiness and enjoymentprovided always that we do not cease the combat until all our enemies be destroyed.

HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE

Jos 1:1, Jos 1:2

Consolation for bereaved workers.

In these words, addressed to Joshua, we have the most effectual consolation that can be offered to believers, when one has been taken away from their midst whose life seemed indispensable to the work and service of God. They are words applicable to the family no less than to the Church. Moses had just been taken from the people, from his friends, from Joshua his faithful servant. The great leader of Israel through the wilderness journey, the captain who had gone forth with their hosts to battle, the medium of the highest revelations of God to the nation, had vanished from among them. Israel would look no more on that noble face which had caught and kept the brightness of the glory of God revealed upon Sinai. The prophetic voice of him who had talked with God as a man talketh with his friend was hushed in lasting silence, he had been struck down on the very borders of the land of promise, to which he had safely led the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There was a peculiar sadness in the death of Moses just at this time. Have we not often felt the same when we have seen the strong man fall at the very moment when he was about to reap the fruit of his patient labours, and to win the hard-fought fight? The words spoken by God Himself for the consolation of Israel may suggest thoughts helpful to us under similar circumstances.

I. GOD‘S WORK DOES NOT DEPEND ON ANY ONE WORKER, EVEN THE GREATEST. It goes on, uninterrupted by the strokes of death. “Go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.” Thus the cause still advances. Moses may die; his work cannot. Nay, it is extended, and assumes new developments. Moses has led the people to the verge of Jordan. Joshua will carry them over. Both Moses and Joshua are only instruments which may be broken and laid aside; but He who uses them will never be stopped in His work of love. “My Father,” says Jesus Christ, “worketh hitherto” (Joh 5:17).

II. AS GOD ONLY WORKS BY HIS SERVANTS, THESE MUST NEVER REST IN AN IDLE RELIANCE ON His POWER; THEY MUST TAKE UP THE WORK JUST WHERE IT IS HANDED OVER TO THEM, EVEN THOUGH THEIR HEARTS MAY BE BROKEN BY SORROW. Thus the Lord says to Joshua: “Arise, go over this Jordan.” We may not sit still mourning even over our beloved dead; we are to arise and take up their work. To carry it on is a sweet consolation; we feel ourselves still linked with the departed as we trace their blessed footsteps, and deepen the furrows they have already made. It brings us into closer fellowship with them. Joshua, as he took up the charge laid down by Moses, was more than ever brought into oneness of spirit with him.

III. GOD, IN SPEAKING OF MOSES AS HIS SERVANT, GIVES TO THE SURVIVORS THE SWEET ASSURANCE THAT HE HAS TAKEN HIM TO REST IN HIS OWN PRESENCE. The recognition of his faithful service implies that of his sure reward. Undoubtedly he, like all the sons of men, was an unprofitable servant, but he nevertheless received from God that grand word of commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant;” and this is the word which sets before him who receives it an open heaven. Thus to know that God never leaves His work incomplete, that He gives it to us to carry on, and that those who have gone before us have entered into His rest, while we take up their unfinished taskthis is the threefold solace of the sorrows alike of the Church and of the Christian family. Thus both “he that soweth and they who reap rejoice together” (Joh 4:1-54 :86).E. DE P.

HOMILIES BY S.R. ALDRIDGE

Jos 1:2, Jos 1:3

God’s gift to the Church.

The loss of a privilege teaches us how inadequately we have appreciated its womb. The removal of art honored servant of God often awakens a deeper sense of the blessing that has been in our midst. And sometimes a tendency is thus created to dwell unduly on the past, to become morbid, and to neglect the present, undervaluing what still remains to us. Mourning has its proper limits. In the text God impresses on the people the duty of recognising facts. “Moses is dead.” True, you will never look upon his like again; but also true, that all your resets will not restore him to his wonted place. There is to be no standstill in the kingdom of God. A new leader is summoned to the front. Joshua must succeed to the vacant post.

I. We have A NEW LEADER AND A FRESH START. As if to magnify Joshua in the eyes of the Israelites, the command is at once given to prepare for that entrance into the land of promise which Moses had so ardently longed for but was not permitted to witness. “One soweth, another reapeth.” The law paved the way for the gospel. It is well to follow a period of inaction by vigorous measures. Active employment would turn away the people’s thoughts from unduly dwelling upon the absence of Moses, and would prove that all wisdom and energy had not died with him, nor had God also perished in His servant’s death. And so today the class in the Sunday school shall continue its training, though the much loved teacher has been compelled to renounce his work; the congregation shall be instructed as heretofore, though by a different voice. Let class and congregation rally around their new chief. The appointment of a new leader should be the signal for a fresh advance. Let “Onward!” be the cry.

II. THE TITLE OF POSSESSION. The real claim of the Israelites was grounded on the gift of God. Consider the earth

(a) Materially, as belonging to God. “The earth is the Lord’s.” Men are but His tenants at will. The justification of the Israelites in driving out the Canaanites is to be sought in the fact that the inhabitants had made an ill use of the land. He who owned it had revoked His grant, and conferred it on His chosen people. The lesson enforced by our Lord in the parable of the talents is of wide application. Not only agriculturists but merchants must regard their property as held at the disposal of the Creator. Nevertheless there is something in the possession of a “foot of ground” which seems to connect us immediately with the Lord of the earth, and renders impiety amid scenes of nature the more guilty.

(b) Spiritually, as given through Christ to the Church. The commission of Christ to the disciples embraced the whole world. Every nation of right belongs to God, and the establishment of missions is but claiming the land for its Great Owner. God hath given to every company of believers a “land” to possess, a neighbourhood to be evangelised, cruelty and vice and selfishness to be expelled, that peace and love and righteousness may dwell in the conquered territory. The text may remind us, therefore, of the aggressive measures which the Church of Christ is required to undertake.

III. THE DIVINE GIFT NO SUPERSESSION OF HUMAN EFFORT. First the Israelites must cross the river Jordan, and then seize the gift offered. They had literally to tread with the “sole of the foot” upon the land they desired to receive from God. Every promise of Scripture is intended not as a sedative, but as a stimulus, to exertion. We have to “labour to enter into the rest.” There is a Divine law, “Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened.” The redemption that is in Christ will not benefit unless appropriated. The “treasures of wisdom and knowledge” will be ours by taking them in Christ from the outstretched hands of God. In all church operations we must be mindful that “Christ expects every man to do his duty.” The heathen are His inheritance, but will be made His only as the Church is stirred up to diligent activity in moral conquest. Thus the gifts of God are conditional upon human service. Not, of course, that God simply allocates the land as did the Popes formerly, expecting the grantees to secure it for themselves; for He helps us, and without Him our efforts would be vain.

IV. THE RECORDED PROMISE INTENDED FOR ALL GENERATIONS. “As I said unto Moses.” There is evident reference to the utterance of Jehovah forty years before (Exo 23:31). He had not forgotten His word. Should the unbelief of the people make His “promises of none effect”? That Moses had not allowed the declaration to slip from his memory is seen in Deu 11:24. Intervening years do not render the fulfilment of God’s promises less sure. Thousands of years rolled away between the first prediction of a Messiah and His actual appearance. Let not our hearts fail to trust in God. “As I said unto Moses may be turned into a general promise, as the Epistle to the Hebrews did with the specific utterance of Jos 5:5 to Joshua (Heb 13:5). It may be kept before us as a message of hope and assurance.A.

HOMILIES BY J. WAITE

Jos 1:1-9

Joshua the successor of Moses.

The very name Joshua, Jesus, “God’s salvation,” is enough of itself to awaken special interest in the man who, on the page of Scripture, first bears it. It is suggestive at once of the nature of his life work, and it leads us to anticipate some points of analogy between him and the Savior of the world. Joshua is one of the few Old Testament characters against whose name there is no reproach. Not that this Book presents any formal delineation of his character or pronounces his praise. It is but a simple, matter of fact record of great events in which he took a leading part. His illustrious deeds are their own eulogium. He stands before us as the type of a godly warrior, reverent in spirit yet full of practical energy, blameless and fearless, gentle and strong, spending a long life in unselfish and unwearied devotion to the cause of the people and of God. He was the brave soldier whose work, dark and terrible as it was, was consecrated by the inspiration of a Divine call and of a beneficent purpose. A general view of Joshua’s position in the annals of the Hebrew race is suggestive.

I. IT REMINDS US HOW, AT CRITICAL PERIODS IN HUMAN HISTORY, GOD RAISES UP MEN AS FITTING INSTRUMENTS FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF HIS PURPOSES. The death of Moses marks a crisis in the career of the chosen people, he who has been their “leader and commander” through all the forty years’ wandering in the wilderness and has brought them to the borders of the land of promise, is taken from them just when they seem most to need him. Only Jordan now rolls between them and the fruition of their hopes; the prize is within their reach. Shall they fail, and, after all, come short of it? They would have failed if God had not been with them, moving, working among them, fulfilling His own will, magnifying His own name. Joshua’s uprising is itself a Divine interposition. He is not the product of the mere natural working of events and second causes. He is a deliverer whom God has provided, well named God’s salvation. The lesson is an important one. When God has any great work for men to do, he never fails to call forth those who can do it. The history of the Church, the general course of the world’s life, establish this law. The demand and the supply, the hour and the man, always meet. When those who are in the high places of the field fall, others step forth, often from very unlikely quarters, to fill the gap and carry on the work to riper issues. This continuity of the Divine purpose and of the path of its development is very wonderful

“The voice that from the glory came

To tell how Moses died unseen,

And waken Joshua’s spear of flame

To victory on the mountains green,

Its trumpet tones are sounding still,”

kindling our expectations, rousing our energies, rebuking our distrust. Through the shifting clouds of circumstance we catch “glimpses of the unchanging sky.” God’s redeeming purpose shines on through all human and earthly changes. We need not fear but that He “will plead his own cause,” and when new emergencies arise provide some new instrument or agency to meet them.

II. IT REMINDS US OF THE PROCESS BY WHICH GOD IS WONT TO PREPARE MEN FOR THE WORK HE HAS FOR THEM TO DO. Joshua was a divinely chosen and ordained deliverer (Num 27:18-23; Deu 31:14-23). But God’s choice is never arbitrary, reasonless. There is generally some native quality, or circumstantial advantage, that makes the chosen man the more fitting instrument. (Examples: Moses, David, Cyrus, Paul, Luther) Joshua grew up as a slave in the brick fields of Egypt. Born about the time when Moses fled into Midian, he must have been forty years old at the exodus. It may seem strange that such greatness as his should have been nursed amid such associations. But when God has fixed His choice on a man He can make what seem to be the most adverse conditions a school of preparation. And, perhaps, the rough influences of such a lot were, after all, the best school. In servitude as a youth, he learnt how to command as a man. No doubt sudden emergencies have often developed unlooked for qualities in men. Tender spirits, nursed in the lap of luxury, have been found calm in danger, brave in battle. Still, as a nile, to “bear the yoke in one’s youth” is the best preparation for the stern struggle of after life. Moreover, the trials and responsibilities of life are graduated. The right discharge of lesser duty qualifies for higher positions of trust. Joshua proved, in the previous expeditions on which Moses sent him (Exo 17:9; Num 13:17), his fitness to take the place of the great leader. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.” “If thou hast run with the footmen,” etc. (Jer 12:5). Again: other circumstances of a different kindmiraculous manifestations, Divine revelationshad their part in Joshua’s preparation, he had witnessed the wonders in Egypt and at the Red Sea, had been with Moses in the mount, had had direct communication from God to himself (Deu 31:1-30). We are reminded of the higher, diviner influences that help in the formation of all noblest human character; there is always the blending of natural and supernatural elements, ordinary associations of life mingled with direct heavenly visitations, innate qualities sanctified and glorified by special ministries of the grace of God.

III. IT ILLUSTRATES THE HEROISM THAT SPRINGS FROM FAITH. Faith, the faith that brought him into personal contact with the living God, was the spring of all Joshua’s strength and courage. He had no prophetic gift as regards the vision of the future, for it was through the priest Eleazar, “after the judgment of Urim,” that he was to ask counsel of the Lord (Num 27:21). But as military leader of Israel he was divinely inspired; and his inspiration was the energy of faith. This has ever been the prolific root of the noblest forms of character and deed. By it “the elders,” whose names shed lustre on the ages of the past, “obtained their good report.” And so it always will be. There is no heroism like that which springs from the soul’s living hold on the unseen and eternal. The hope of the world for deliverance from the ills that afflict it, and its being led into the heritage of a brighter future, is in the men of faith. And he is an enemy to his race who would attempt to dry up this spring of power. “This is the victory,” etc. (1Jn 5:4).

IV. IT PRESENTS US WITH AN INTERESTING HISTORIC TYPE OF GOSPEL SALVATION. Many points of typical resemblance have been traced. This, at least, is clear, as Joshua, “Moses’ minister,” consummates his work, leads the people into the promised land, divides to them their inheritance; so Christ, “made under the law,” brings in the richer grace. He is the “end of the law for righteousness,” etc. (Rom 10:4). The Captain of salvation leads many sons, His redeemed ones, to glory and eternal rest.W.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Ver. 1. Now after the death of Moses, &c. The Hebrew is, and after, &c. This conjunction points out the connection of this book with the foregoing, of which, indeed, it is a continuation. The book of Judges is connected with that of Joshua, and the book of Ruth with that of Judges, in the same plain manner. Thus too the LXX have joined the Lamentations of Jeremiah with the Prophesies of that prophet. This manner of writing is that of a just and exact mind, elevated above the vanity of making a shew of what he composes. He leads the understanding from events to events, without distracting the reader, and without even apprizing him that he who speaks is a new historian. The ancient manner of transcribing the sacred books was conformable to the taste of those who composed them. The works were not distinguished by chapters, and frequently the books had no title; they were written in continuation, those which followed being joined to the foregoing by a conjunction, as we see in this place: see Calmet. With respect to the time here specified by the words, after the death of Moses, it may very probably be placed immediately after the forty days mourning for that holy man were fully elapsed.

The servant of the Lord Respecting this title, see Deu 34:5.

The Lord spake unto Joshua, &c. He gave him his orders. But whereas he spake to Moses familiarly face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend; he informed Joshua out of the sanctuary, and by the mouth of Eleazar the high-priest; who, being invested with the breast-plate, and presenting himself before the veil, over against the mercy-seat, whereon rested the divine presence, consulted God by the Urim and Thummim; and God answered him by an intelligible voice which issued from the mercy-seat.

Moses’ minister i.e. Who had been Moses’ minister. The expression in the original gives the idea of an honourable minister, acting by no means in a servile capacity. See Exo 24:13. Deu 1:38.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

PART FIRST

The Conquest of the Land of Canaan

Joshua 1-12

____________

SECTION FIRST

The Preparation

Jos 1:1 to Jos 5:15

____________
1. The Summons to the War,

Joshua 1

a. The Command of God to Joshua

Jos 1:1-9

1Now [And1] after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord [Jehovah], it came to pass, that the Lord [Jehovah] spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister, saying, 2Moses my servant is dead; now therefore [and now2] arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto [into] the land which I do [omit: do] give to them, even [omit: even] to the children [sons3] of Israel. 3Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said [ properly: spoke] unto Moses. 4From the wilderness and this Lebanon even [and] unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast [border4]. 5There shall not any man be able to [Not a man shall] stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so [omit: so] will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.5 6Be strong and of a good courage [strong and firm6]: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance [for a possession7] the land which I sware unto their fathers to give them. 7Only be thou strong and very courageous [firm], that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or [Hebrews , 8] to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. 8This book of the Law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but [and] thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success.9 9Have not I commanded thee? [,] Be strong and of a good courage [firm]; [?] be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord [Jehovah] thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

b. Joshuas Command to the Leaders of the People, and to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the Half Tribe of Manasseh

Jos 1:10-18

10Then Joshua commanded the officers [overseers10] of the people, saying, 11Pass through the host [camp] and command the people, saying, Prepare you victuals; for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord [Jehovah] your God giveth you to possess it.

12And to the Reubenites [Reubenite], and to the Gadites [Gadite], and to half the tribe of Manasseh, spake Joshua, saying, 13Remember the word which Moses the servant of the Lord [Jehovah] commanded you, saying, The Lord [Jehovah] your God hath given [giveth] you rest, and hath given you this land. 14Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this [the other11] side [of the] Jordan; but ye shall pass [pass over] before your brethren armed [eager for war, or, in ranks12], all the mighty men of valour [strong heroes13], and help them; 15until the Lord [Jehovah] have given [shall give] your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed [shall possess] the land which the Lord [Jehovah] your God giveth them; then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy [possess] it, which Moses the Lords [Jehovahs] servant gave you on this [the other] side [of the] Jordan toward the sun-rising. And they answered 16Joshua saying, All that thou commandest us, we will do, and whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go. 17According as we hearkened unto Moses in all things,14 so will 18we hearken unto thee: only the Lord [Jehovah] thy God be with thee, as he was with Moses. Whosoever he be [Every man] that doth rebel against thy commandment [literally, mouth], and will not hearken unto thy word, in all that thou commandest him [or, us] he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage [firm]

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

a. Jos 1:1-9. The Command of God to Joshua. The history of the conquest of the land of Canaan, commencing here and constituting the first part of the Book of Joshua, connects itself closely with Deuteronomy. There, at the end, Joshua 34, the death of Moses is reported, Israels mourning for him described, and mention made of Joshua (Jos 1:9) his successor, while yet Moses himself is once more celebrated in words of highest praise as a prophet and leader of the people without parallel in all the subsequent times. Only Samuel afterward in some sense reached the same level (Jer 15:1). Here in Jos 1:1, Moses, after notice of his death, is honorably entitled as in Jos 1:7, as in Deu 34:5; Num 12:7-8, in a long series of places in our book (Jos 1:7; Jos 1:13; Jos 1:15; Jos 8:31; Jos 8:33; Jos 9:24; Jos 11:15; Jos 12:6; Jos 13:8; Jos 14:7; Jos 18:7; Jos 22:2; Jos 22:4-5), 1Ki 8:56; 2Ki 18:12; 2Ki 21:8; 2Ch 1:3; 2Ch 24:6; Psa 105:26. Sometimes also he is called . Psa 90:1; 1Ch 6:49; 2Ch 24:9; Dan 9:11; Neh 10:29. Besides Moses there are so designated or so addressed by God: the Patriarchs,Deu 9:27, especially Abraham, Gen 26:24; Psa 105:6; Psa 105:42; Job 1:8; Job 2:3; Job 42:7-8; Kings, as David (Psa 18:1; Psalms 15 Psa 36:1; Psa 78:70; 1Ki 8:66; 2Ki 8:19; Ezr. 37:24), and Hezekiah, 2Ch 31:16, as a theocratical leader, but Nebuchadnezzar also as one who executed Gods designs (Jer 25:9; Jer 27:6; Jer 43:10); Prophets, as Isa 20:3, whom God himself so names (Isa 43:10; Isa 44:26; Jer 7:25; Jer 26:5; Amo 3:7; Dan 9:6, and often). Properly all the Israelites also are servants of God (Exo 19:5; Lev 25:42-55) and recognize themselves as such, the authors of the Psalms most freely expressing this consciousness in their distinct individuality (Psa 19:12; Psa 19:14; Psa 34:23; Psa 35:27; Psa 69:37; Psa 90:16; Psa 119:17; Psa 119:65; Psa 119:84; Psa 119:122; Psa 119:176; Psa 135:14; Psa 104:2). Hence in the second part of Isaiah, the whole people is so named (Isa 4:8-9; Isa 42:19; Isa 44:1-2; Isa 44:21; Isa 45:4; Isa 48:20), and then again He who is the Israelite , the Messiah, (Zec 3:8; Isa 42:1-7; Isa 49:3; Isa 49:5; Isa 49:8; Isa 52:13-15; Isa 52:53). On the sense of this designation, see below under Doctrinal and Ethical.Concerning Joshua see Introduction.

Moses Minister. Observe that Joshua is not spoken of as Moses servant, but as , minister; adjutant, we should now say, in so far as Moses was not law-giver but commander-in-chief. The formal installation of Joshua in this position is reported to us in Num 27:15 ff.

Jordan. , almost everywhere in the O. T. with the art., from the r. to go down, or, when a stream is spoken of, to flow. The Jordan therefore means, the flowing [the Descender, Stanley], perhaps with allusion to its extremely abrupt fall and rapid course. At the present day it is called by the Arabs esh-Scheriah, the drinking-place, occasionally with the addition el-Kebir, the great. The name el-Jurdun (Jordan), is however not unknown to the Arabic writers. … The length of the Jordan from where it leaves the sea of Gennesaret to the Dead Sea is about sixty miles, measured in a straight line [but following the sinuosities of the stream two hundred miles]. Furrer, Wanderungen, p. 155 Robinson, Phys. Geog. p. 144 ff. Von Raumer, Palstina, p. 54 ff.16

Jos 1:4. Here the boundaries of Canaan are laid down very much as they are given in Deu 11:24. In the other passage, however, the wilderness, Lebanon, and the Euphrates are taken together as opposed to the great sea, while here, (1.) the wilderness and Lebanon (south and north), and then again (2.) the Euphrates and the great sea (east and west) are brought together. Substantially they amount to the same. The land should be bounded on the south by the Arabian desert, on the north by Mount Lebanon, on the east by the Euphrates, and on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, as was already promised to Abraham (Gen 15:18-21). Still more vaguely is it expressed (Exo 23:31) from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river (Euphrates), while in Num 34:1-12; Joshua 8-19, the boundaries, stated only in a general way in our passage, are quite accurately fixed.

The territory to be occupied by the people of Israel is further and more exactly ascertained from the definition, all the land of the Hittites.

This Lebanon, as in Jos 1:2 this Jordan, because the river was visible close at hand, and the mountain could be seen although at a great distance. (in prose always with the art.) is, from to be white, the white mountain. Further particulars see in the Introduction, and in von Raumer p. 29 ff. Concerning the Hittites as well as the other Canaanitish peoples, comp. the Introduction, 7.

Jos 1:6. Be strong and firm. Luther translates finely but not accurately: Be comforted and undismayed. De Wette: Be firm and strong. Schroeder: Be strong and firm, Deu 31:6; Deu 7:23. We prefer this rendering of , since the words, as J. H. Michaelis has noted, signify not firmness and strength in general, but the strength in the hands () and the firmness in the knees (, Isa 35:3, cf. Heb 12:12-13). Joshua must lay hold boldly and with a strong hand, and then when he has done so, allow nothing to drive him from his position. It will be noticed that in Jos 1:6 we find simply repeated, in almost the same words, what has been said to Joshua in Deu 31:7; Deu 31:23, precisely as the promise Jos 1:5 is a repetition of Deu 31:6; Deu 31:8.

Jos 1:7-8, admonish Joshua to a careful observance of the law, in order that the great work laid on him by the Lord may be successfully accomplished. Not depart out of thy mouth, is the same as to be continually in the mouth. Joshua must, on the one hand, speak to the people in the words of the law, in order rightly to impress on them its sacred design, and on the other, must also ground himself always more deeply therein. Hence it is added:

Thou shalt meditate therein day and night. We are not to think of this meditation as a learned study, but rather as a mature reflection upon the law by which Joshua penetrates more deeply into its meaning, and thus becomes qualified to speak more clearly, pointedly, and powerfully to the people. For to that particularly, and not to the reading aloud, as Bunsen explains it, is the reference in the command, that the law should not depart out of his mouth. Comp. Deu 6:7; Deu 11:19; Deu 17:19. Comp. further, Psa 1:2, and on , Jos 1:3 especially.

Jos 1:9 : The assurance gains in strength when to the positive there is added also the negative , as in Deu 31:6; Deu 31:8. Keil.

How did God speak to Joshua? By the Urim and Thummim, as Hess (Gesch. Jos. i. p. 29) supposes, appealing to Num 27:21, or, as most interpreters assume, immediately, by an inward revelation? Probably the latter, because, although we must admit that Joshua had been directed by God himself to employ the other means, and therewith the mediation of the high-priest, yet the Lord himself by whomobserve thatthe initiative is here taken, was not bound to this means, as appears very clearly from the manifestation of the angel, Jos 5:13-15. The Lord spoke to Joshua as he had spoken to Moses, and as he afterwards spoke to the prophets. Together with the divinely regulated office there went on this free communication of Gods purposes without disturbance to the functions of that office when they were in proper exercise, but sometimes also to awaken them to life when light and right was extinguished in Israel, 1 Samuel 3; Joe 1:13.

b. Jos 1:10-18. The Command of Joshua to the Magistrates of the People as well as to the Reubenbenites, Gadites, and the Half Tribe of Manasseh.

After Joshua has received the command from God to cross the Jordan with the people, he adopts his plans and immediately enjoins upon the (comp. Exo 5:10; Num 11:16; Deu 16:18; Jos 8:33; Jos 23:2; Jos 24:1) to go through the camp, and call on the people to provide themselves with victuals (the need of which is explained by the cessation of the manna, Jos 5:12), since within three days the march would begin. This statement of time is not exact, since rather, as Keil also assumes, seven days in all intervene, namely, one day for the journey of the spies to Jericho, three days for their stay in the mountain, three days for the march from Shittim to the Jordan, and the delay there, after all which the crossing of the river took place. Keil says concerning this: We give up the attempt to identify the three days in Jos 3:2 with those mentioned in Jos 1:11, since the text in Jos 3:2 contains not the slightest hint of such a combination. The article is not found with (Jos 3:2) by which the might be referred to Jos 1:11; and we stand by the simple statements of the text, assuming that the spies were sent out immediately after the command in Jos 1:11, probably on the same day, i. e. on the third of Nisan, that they returned after three full days, i. e. on the 6th of Nisan, at evening (Jos 2:22), and that on the next morning, i. e. on the 7th of Nisan, Joshua broke up from Shittim, came on to the bank of the Jordan (Jos 3:1), where he rested three days, and on the tenth effected the passage. Not so Gerlach, who says rather: As regards the chronological succession of these events, we see from Jos 4:19 that the passage of the Jordan was effected on the tenth of the first month. That command of Joshua (Jos 1:11) was given therefore on the 7th. Early the same day he sent out the spies, and they so quickly accomplished the journey of perhaps scarcely a dozen miles that they left Jericho before the approach of that night; (but how does this agree with Jos 2:2; Jos 2:5 ff.?) the three days which they spent in the mountain were not full days (where are we told that?) being the remainder of the 7th (which must thus have been an uncommonly long day), the 8th, and part of the 9th. On this last they returned to Joshua, and thus he was able, in accordance with his orders received early on the 7th, to cross over on the 10th. Thus we have a very satisfactory correspondence between the series of events and the successive dates. The perplexity in which these two interpreters find themselves may be very simply cleared up if, with Knobel, we assume that the three days mentioned in Jos 3:2 are identical with the three days here in Jos 1:11, but that Joshua 2 was a separate report here worked in by the author, and in the insertion of which, attention was not paid to the exact determination of the dates.17

There follows now, Jos 1:12-18, a special demand of Joshua upon the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. These had, according to Numbers 32 on account of their wealth in flocks and herds, received their possession in the land of the conquered Amorite kings, Sihon and Og, east of the Jordan. This was on the condition, however, that they should help the other tribes to conquer West Palestine; and Joshua now calls upon them to fulfill that condition and carry out the promise they had made. This they declare themselves ready to do.

Jos 1:13. Remember the word which Moses commanded you, etc. Num 32:20-24 is quoted not literally but freely according to the sense, for does not occur in the passage cited,a very beautiful expression: to afford rest, to cause to rest. It is the same as giving a dwelling-place secure and undisturbed by enemies (Deu 25:19), after the long, restless wanderings through the wilderness. The disobedient (Num 14:26 ff.) come not into this rest (Psa 95:11); but not even this is the true rest, the full , the true of the people of God, Heb 3:11; Heb 3:18; Heb 4:1; Heb 4:3; Heb 4:8-9.

This land (Deu 3:18) as in Jos 1:2, this Jordan, Jos 1:4, this Lebanon: the land in which then the whole people as yet and the speaker also were, the land east of the Jordan,while , translated by Luther, De Wette, and Eng. Vers. on this side, means on that side, or beyond, and is employed from the writers point of view.

Jos 1:14. is variously derived; either (Gesen.18 Frst, [with whom agree Masius, De Wette, Keil]), from , lumbus, venter, tanquam, sedes, roboris = lumbis accincti, with which comp. Num 32:27; Num 32:32, or ); also Job 38:3; Luk 12:35; Eph 6:14; 1Pe 1:13,or, (Ewald) from , five = arranged in fives, i. e., in companies. With this Knobel sides, in so far that in Exo 13:18, he defines the word, which is met with only here and in Jos 4:12; Exo 13:18; Jdg 7:11 (cf. also the , Num 32:17, which should be amended to this form), as meaning, drawn together, collected, i. e., in separate divisions or fixed companies, as opposed to individual separateness and irregular dispersion. Knobel seeks the proper etymon in the Arabic with a comparison of the Heb. , to compress. We translate with Ewald, Knobel, and Bunsen, arranged in companies.19

But ye shall pass before, etc. So had they promised Num 32:17; Num 32:27; Num 32:32.

All, not to be taken strictly, since according to Jos 4:13, only forty thousand men went over, while the two and a half tribes had, according to Num 26:7; Num 26:18; Num 26:34, 110, 580 men.

Jos 1:16-18 contain the joyful answer pervaded by the spirit of obedience and fraternal love, closing with the same call from the two and a half tribes, to be strong and firm, which God had addressed to Joshua. So David also addresses himself when he sings: Be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart, , Ps. 27:15.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. If we would accurately determine the meaning of the distinguishing title servant of Jehovah, ascribed to Moses in Jos 1:1, we cannot be content to say merely that it signifies a worshipper of Jehovah who may be also a messenger, an ambassador of Jehovah. We are concerned rather to know how it comes to pass at all that the pious worshippers and messengers of God are called his servants. The answer might be given in the following hints. In the first place, we must not forget that we are here on oriental ground, where kings and subjects stand related to each other as lords and slaves, where the inferior towards the superior studies the most humble submission and unconditional obedience, and expresses himself also in a proportionately humble manner (Gen 44:27; Gen 44:32; Dan 10:17). And thus God himself appears only as under the figure of the Most High, the Ruler of all worlds, the Lord of Hosts, before whom all the world keeps silence (Hab. 3:20; Zec 2:13), before whom also on his throne, the seraphim veil their faces (Isaiah 6). He is, therefore, the master, men the servants. Those, however, among men (more particularly in Israel, the , Exo 19:5; Deu 7:6; Deu 14:2; Deu 26:18) who serve him with special obedience, and, with extraordinary talent, like the angels in heaven (Job 4:18), perform his will, are called his servants in a preminent sense. So Moses; before him Abraham; after him David, Hezekiah, the prophets; all Israel, moreover, in so far as they are, according to Deu 32:15; Deu 33:5; Deu 33:26; Isa 44:2, the Jeshurun, the beloved, pious people, who rightly ( from ) walk before Jehovah; and lastly the Messiah, since in Him all the excellences of his people are combined. In the second place, it is carefully to be considered that in the economy of redemption we are still on the ground of the old covenant, therefore on the ground of the Law, where God commands, and man has unconditionally to perform his dictates exactly to the letter, without any freedom whatever, hence as a slave, not as a child (Rom 8:15). Not even the most pious, therefore, can claim any higher distinction than this. A relation of freedom between God and man does not yet exist. Man stands yet under the law, not yet under grace (Joh 1:17); but precisely this absolute obedience leads to freedom. Moses is the instrument of effecting the deliverance of his people out of the slavery of Egypt, where they pined in the house of bondage (Exo 20:2), the iron furnace (Deu 4:20); but the Messiah makes many righteous (Isa 53:11) and is a Servant, the Branch (Zec 3:9). In his time God gives holy increase, takes away the sins of the land in one day (Zec 3:9), and makes peace, so that one invites his neighbor under the vine and fig-tree (Zec 3:10). He is the true (Mat 12:18; Act 3:13; Act 3:26; Act 4:27; Act 4:30), whom, on account of his obedience, God acknowledges as his Son; on which cf. Nitzsch, Treatise on the in the Acts (Studien u. Kritiken, 1828, 2).

2. The declaration in Jos 1:4, that God has assigned to the people of Israel its portion of the earth, is in accordance with Deu 32:8 and Act 17:26, in which passages he marks off to the nations their bounds. This is involved in Gods government of the world, which embraces everything, the least as well as the greatest, so that all accident is excluded. As He determines for each particular man his place on earth, by birth, education, external circumstances, so He determines for each people its habitation in congruity with the disposition and character which He has lent to them, and the design which He entertains concerning them. That was peculiarly the case with Israel, when He actually gave to them the land promised to the fathers, where they might in beautiful seclusion serve the Lord their God. True, the previous inhabitants must give way, but jure divino, because through their enervating idolatry they had forfeited the right to a historical existence. It is not just, therefore, in the manner of the Wolfenbttler fragmentist, to charge God and his agents with cruelty and injustice, but rather to heed the fundamental laws of divine Providence, according to which also his judgments are executed. An analogy may be seen in the destruction of the Roman empire amid the storms of the northern invasions. See Introd. 3.

3. The silent collection of ones thoughts, holy meditation, is, in the over-busy activities of our time, an aid to all religious and moral life, which cannot be too earnestly recommended. It is enjoined upon Joshua in Jos 1:8, in simple but very suitable words, and is necessary, in order that the soul may constantly remember its origin, that the heart may lose itself in God and his word, that from this inward concentration of the living faculties, word and deed may come forth in noble perfection. Oratio, meditatio tentatio, make not only the theologian, but in general every religious, pious, and, in his piety, morally capable, man.

4. The rest which God gives (Jos 1:15) is, first, the secure possession of the land of Canaan which had been promised to the people of Israel. This however is not, according to the view of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Jos 4:8), the true rest, rather, since God long after Joshua offered through David (Heb 4:7) an entrance into rest, must go there still be another rest; for if Joshua had brought them to the rest, He (God) would not speak of another day after this time (Jos 1:8). Therefore, the conclusion is from these arguments, there yet remains () a Sabbath rest () for the people of God. For he who has entered into his (Gods) rest, has given himself also rest from his works (i. e. the works of the labor-week). It is still to be carefully noted that to express this rest of God, not but, in allusion to Jos 1:4, or to Gen 2:2, the word , occurring nowhere else in the N. T., is employed. The is the completed , the holy and blessed Sabbath rest in eternity for the people of God, the , after the pilgrimage of life is finished with the toils of the hard week of our earthly existence. Of this rest the in the earthly Canaan is a type. So speak the Rabbins also of the (Tr. Thamid. f. 33, 2; Jabk. Rub. f. 95, 4). Compare also the beautiful, profoundly tender hymn by Jno. Sigmund Kunth (1779), A rest there is which yet awaits us.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Gods command to Joshua that he should cross the Jordan, indicates (1) the task proposed to him; contains (2) the promise of his assistance in its accomplishment; but requires also (3) the conscientious observance of his law, in order to success; and closes (4) with another enlivening exhortation to the new leader of Israel.As Moses was a servant of the Lord, so should we also be his servants, that we may be found faithful like him. (Num 12:7; Heb 3:2)Moses the servant of the Lord. Joshua as a type of a good servitor (not slave).The earthly Canaan a type of the heavenlyGod is faithful (Jos 1:5). I will not fail thee nor forsake thee,a promise; (1) its rich import; (2) under what conditions to be appropriated by a Christian to himself.Be strong and firm, comforted and undismayed, a text in connection with Psalms 27, 46 of inexhaustible use for the field-worship of God.Of fidelity to the commands of God.How should a true general be characterized? (1) He should be strong and firm, but (2) also pious and conscientious, that all may go well with him.Fear not, neither be dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee in all which thou shalt do; to be well considered before the outbreak of a war, as well as before a battle.Joshua and the Gileadite tribes; (1) his powerful appeal to them for fraternal assistance; (2) their cheerful answer (Jos 1:12-18).The Rest of the people of God: (1) Who gives it? (2) In what does it consist? (3) How do we attain to if? (Jos 1:13). How beautiful when the call of a commander, or a governor of the people, meets with a joyful readiness on their part! Should we not so meet the claims which God himself by his Word makes on us, and especially those which call for brotherly help, even though sacrifices also be required?

Starke: O soul, remember here first of all the true Joshua, thy Saviour Jesus Christ, who has for thy good acquired the heavenly Canaan, to prepare for thee a place there, that thou also mayest dwell there and remain; fight, therefore, and subdue thy foes under the lead of thy Jesus, that thou mayest also one day take it. Whom God sends, him He also qualifies and procures for him authority and respect. The Bible and the sword with Christian rulers go very well together. O that these would also avail themselves rightly of both! One Christian should take upon him the necessity of anotherand bear his burden. In the strife of Christianity also one should not be pusillanimous, but strong and firm (2Ti 2:3). A spirit that would all goods and blood fain for thy mere pleasure proffer, and the hearts desires all offer, give me, Supreme Good, through thy precious blood.

Cramer: As the eyes of the servants are to the hands of their masters, and the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so should our eyes also look constantly to the Lord, Psa 123:2. If God is for us who can be against us? (Rom 8:31). Christian rulers also are bound to submit themselves to Gods commands; it should not be with them, quod libet licet, i. e. what I please I do, 1Ki 21:7.

Marginal note (of Luther): He who walks according to Gods words acts wisely and happily, but he who goes according to his own head acts unwisely and to no profit.

Bibl. Wirt.: In dangerous duties and circumstances there is no better comfort than when one has a regular call to the position, and God for his patron and protector. Gods command should be promptly performed without any long discussion as to whether we will do it or not; for God requires obedience.

Bibl. Tub: Consoling promise! O soul mark it well, for what God says to Joshua He says also to thee. Therefore be of good courage in the struggle with sin and Satan; God will stand by thee.

Osiander: We should (in many cases) firs care for our neighbors, for love seeks not her own, 1Co 13:5.

Gerlach: The first revelation of God after the death of Moses installs Joshua formally in his office, gives him the double commission to lead the people into the promised land and to distribute this among them, renews the assurance of divine aid, and admonishes to steadfast fidelity towards Gods law and imperturbable confidence in Him (Jos 1:1-9).

[Darby: Every place that the sole of your feet shall tread upon, that have I given you. They must there, overcome the obstacles with the help and by the power of God, and take actual possession. …. They never took possession of all the land which God had given. Nevertheless to faith the promise was sure, Jos 1:3. Spiritual strength and energy, the courage of faith, are necessary in order that the heart may be free from the influences, the fears, and the motives which act upon the natural man, and that he may take heed to the Word of God.

Matthew Henry: The removal of useful men should quicken survivors to be so much the more diligent in doing good. Such and such are dead, and we must die shortly, therefore let us work while it is yet day. It is a great mercy if, when useful men are taken away in the midst of their usefulness others are raised up in their stead to go on where they broke off, Jos 1:2. It is a great comfort to the rising generation of ministers and Christians that the same grace which was sufficient for those that went before them shall not be wanting to them if they be not wanting to themselves in the improvement of it (Jos 1:5).When God has given us rest we ought to consider how we may honor Him with the advantages of it, and what services we may do to our brethren who are unsettled, or not so well settled as we are (ver.15).We must not so magnify them that are gone, how eminent so ever they were, either in the magistracy or in the ministry as to be wanting in the honor and duty we owe to those that survive and succeed them.

G. R. B.: As Joshua received and doubtless profited by the admonition of his Gileadite brethren, so may the leaders in Israel at all times gain benefit from the pious and well intended, even though superfluous, counsels of Gods plain people.Tr.]

Footnotes:

[1][Jos 1:1. The obvious and exact rendering of the conjunction here by and seems required to in indicate the true grammatical relation of this to the preceding books. It is a circumstance of some, although perhaps not great, significance, in respect to the composition of the historical books of the O. T. that, as the first four books of the Pentateuch are closely joined together by the copulative conjunction at the beginning of each after the first, so the historical books, with out exception as far as to First Chronicles, are thus linked to each other, and all to the Pentateuch as parts of one great whole. The Chronicles appear to make a new beginning; and various reasons might be assigned why Deuteronomy should in this point differ from the three preceding books of Moses.Tr.]

[2][Jos 1:2.. In rare instances the conj. in this compound needs to be understood in an illative sense; but generally it marks the simple succession of thoughts, and what there is of inference is equivalently expressed by our and now. So, invariably, De Wette and Fay; but the English Version almost always renders as in this passageTr.]

[3][Jos 1:2. . Fay also translates: children of Is., De Wette, always, sons. This is exact and much more faithful to the spirit of the East which now, precisely as in ancient times, names a people with reference to its males, the Beni Hassan, Beni Sakkar, etc. So the Hebrew nation were the Beni Israel, even when, in many instances, probably the women and children were distinctly thought of; but generally the men were considered in a political respect as instar omnium.Tr.]

[4][Jos 1:4.The word coast is in this book synonymous with border (boundary line), except in the three places, Jos 9:1; Jos 12:23; Jos 19:29, where it was intended to denote coast in our present sense, but incorrectly, as would appear, in the last two passages. Border is what we should now say, and that, especially in the plural, signifies figuratively, like the Hebrew, territory, tract, country.Tr.]

[5][Jos 1:5.Gesen. s. v. : I will not cast thee off and not forsake thee. So substantially Fay; De Wette, on the contrary: I will not withdraw myself from thee, etc. Fail thee, etc., in our familiar expression, is, perhaps, as near the Hebrew as anything proposed.Tr.]

[6][Jos 1:6. Verbum proprie notat vires qu sunt in manibus ad prehendendum retinendum que viriliter; sicut contra firmitudinem, qu in genibus est, ad consistendum, ne ab alio quis evertatur, Michaelis; (conf. Job 4:4, , 1Ki 12:18, , equus alacer, Zec 6:3. Maurer.Tr.]

[7][Jos 1:7.Fay here renders divide for an inheritance with the English Version, but De Wette gives simply to partition, and Gesenius appears to be abundantly warranted in saying, s. v. , that the specific idea of inheritance in this verb is rare.Tr.]

[8][Jos 1:8The expression is stronger with and, and that vav is put as a disjunctive between words, i. q. or, is hardly supported by a single probable example. Gesen. Lex. p. 266, Robinsons Trans. Fay after this and supplies [not].Tr.]

[9][Jos 1:9. should in consistency with Jos 1:7 be translated shalt thou prosper, and the whole clause might then perhaps be rendered for then shalt thou have success in thy way, and then shalt thou prosper.Tr.]

[10][Jos 1:10.To indicate distinctly the office of the , is desirable, but perhaps (with our scanty data) scarcely possible. While etymologically (r. ) scribe or clerk, would suit very well, yet from the passages cited in the exegetical notes on this verse, and from many others, it appears that the name designates a kind of overseer of a section of the people, in some way ordering them, and on the other hand representing his charge to the judge, governor, or commander to whom he was subordinate. Thus in Egypt they stood between the people and the task-masters. According to Num 16:18, the shoterim appear then to have been chosen from the elders of the people, and to have constituted sometimes a council of advisers, with Moses, and sometimes (Deu 1:16; Deu 16:18) a sub-magistracy who, in connection with the Judges dispensed justice to the people. Superintendent, overseer, or director (Fay: Vorsteher, Ordner), probably gives substantially the sense, but is not so clearly specific as we could wish.Tr.]

[11][Jos 1:14. . This phrase constantly denotes the region beyond the Jordan where the speaker then was: Scriptor ex eo, in quo ipse constitutus erat, loco, i. e. ex Palestina rem metitur. Maurer.Tr.]

[12][Jos 1:14.Fay, in Schaaren. See the authorities in exegetical note.Tr.]

[13][Jos 1:14.De Wette, Fay: alle streitbaren Manner. But while the English phrase mighty men of valor, implies something too marvelous, it may well be doubted whether does not often convey the idea of special ability in the military service, from natural endowments or extraordinary experience of war, something like heroes, or veterans in war.Tr.]

[14][Jos 1:17.A little more exactly for the sense: In all respects as we hearkened unto Moses, etc.Tr.]

[15][It will be noticed by the reader of the English Bible that in references to the Psalms, the title sometimes counts as one verse.Tr.]

[16][The article on the Jordan in Smiths Dict. of the Bible, will be found quite full and satisfactory. See also the art. Palestine in the same work; Bibl. Sacra, Aug. 1848, p. 396 ff., Nov. 1848, p. 764 ff., Apr. 1850, p. 393 ff. Lynchs Expedition to the Dead Sea; Cruise of the Rob Roy on the Jordan, N. Y. 1870.Tr.]

[17] [In his later work (Bib. Com. in loc.) Keil still denying that the three days here, Jos 1:11, are the same as in Jos 3:2, seeks to reconcile the present date with the actual time of the crossing, by assuming first that it is not meant that they should pass over within three days, but only begin to move towards it; and secondly, that although Joshua did design to reach the Jordan and cross it within three days, his intention was frustrated by the delay which his spies unexpectedly experienced. He says: The designation in three days (i. e., as appears from a comparison of Gen 40:13; Gen 40:19 with Joshua 1:20, reckoning from the day of giving this command, on the third day following) shall ye pass over the Jordan, is not to be taken as an announcement of the time within which the crossing should actually take place, but, with Vatabl, and J. J. Hess, as the term against which the people should be prepared for the crossing; as if he had said: Prepare you victuals in order to go over the Jordan within three days, i. e., in order then to break up from Shittim, to cross the Jordan and be able to commence the conquest of Canaan. Thus apprehended this, statement agrees with chapters 2 and 3 For according to Joshua 2. Joshua sent from Shittim spies to Jericho, who after their escape from that city had to hide themselves three days in the mountain, before they could come to the camp of Israel. They were absent therefore certainly three or four days, and returned at the earliest on the evening or in the night of the fourth day from that on which they were sent out. Not until then did the Israelites break up from Shittim in the morning, and moved to the Jordan, where they still tarried, and then after three days more, crossed over the stream. At the least, therefore, eight full days, 4+1+3, must have passed between the first mission of the spies and the passage of the Jordan by the people. Without doubt Joshua designed to march to the Jordan within three days from the sending of the spies, and to go over the river; and simultaneously with his command to the people to prepare to cross over within three days, he had sent the spies, so that he was warranted in hoping that they would have accomplished their errand and returned within two or three days. But since they, through the unforeseen discovery of their arrival in Jericho, and the chase of the pursuers, were obliged to hide themselves three days in the mountain, Joshua could not until the day after their return break up from Shittim, and proceed to the Jordan. Neither then could he immediately cross the river, but must tarry yet three days after his arrival at the brink.

As this provides for the less of only three days of the eight, it would appear that Joshuas design must have been still a miscalculation by at least two days. In other respects the explanation is not as successful as could be desired.Tr.]

[18][Gesenius derives the word not from but from an assumed root , acrem, strenuum esse; and the sense in which he understands the partic. is strenuus, alacer. Thes. p. 494.Tr.]

[19][After all is said, the derivation remains very obscure and the considerations in favor of the two principal renderings very evenly balanced. For the meaning armed the lexicographers give little authority.Tr.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

Joshua succeeds by the Lord’s appointment to the government of Israel on the death of Moses. Joshua accepts the command. The people are pleased with it. Officers in the inferior departments are appointed. The Reubenites, Gadites, and Manassites whose inheritance was on this side Jordan, are engaged to go over with their brethren to the reduction of Canaan. These are the contents of this Chapter.

Jos 1:1

There is no mention how God spake to Joshua. But as Eleazar had the breast plate of judgment, and acted as high priest, it is remarkable that the commission to Joshua came not through him which was the appointed way. See Num 27:18-23 . I rather think that by way of honouring Joshua in his new commission after the death of Moses, the Lord spake to Joshua as he did to Moses without a medium. See Lev 1:1 . But Reader! do not overlook Jesus our Joshua as represented here. All the sweet words we hear from our God are in, and through, and from him. Joh 1:18 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Joshua Encouraged

Jos 1:1-11

‘Be strong and of a good courage’ (Jos 1:6 ). When Luther was summoned before the Diet of Worms, his friends did all that they could to dissuade him from going. They were afraid that his safe-conduct would not be respected. But nothing would keep the brave Reformer back, and what was thought of his courage is shown in the words which a great captain is said to have addressed to him: ‘Little monk! little monk! you are venturing today on a more hazardous march than I or any other captain ever did. But if your cause is right, and you are sure of it, go on in God’s name, and be of good comfort. He will not forsake thee.’ And it was in the same spirit that in the presence of his enemies Luther himself uttered the famous words: ‘I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand; God help me! Amen.’

‘In a large party at the Grand Master’s Palace in Malta, I had observed,’ says the poet Coleridge, ‘a naval officer of distinguished merit listening to Sir A. Ball, whenever he joined in the conversation, with a mixed expression of awe and affection that gave a more than common interest to so manly a countenance. This officer afterwards told me that he considered himself indebted to Sir Alexander for that which was dearer to him than his life. “When he was Lieutenant Ball,” said he, “he was the officer I accompanied in my first boat expedition, being then a midshipman, and only in my fourteenth year. As we were rowing up to the vessel which we were to attack, amid a discharge of musketry, I was overpowered by fear, and seemed on the point of fainting away. Lieutenant Ball, who saw the condition I was in, placed himself close beside me, and still keeping his countenance directed towards the enemy, pressed my hand in the most friendly manner, and said in a low voice, ‘Courage, my dear boy; you will recover in a minute or so. I was just the same when I first went out in this way.’ Sir,” added the officer to me, “it was just as if an angel had put a new soul into me.”‘

The Character of Joshua

Dr. W. G. Blaikie writes: ‘We must earnestly desire… to draw aside the veil that covers the eight-and-thirty years and see how he [Joshua] was prepared for his great work…. A religious warrior is a peculiar character; a Gustavus Adolphus, an Oliver Cromwell, a Henry Havelock, a General Gordon; Joshua was of the same mould, and we should have liked to know him more intimately; but this is denied to us. He stands out to us simply as one of the military heroes of the faith. In depth, in steadiness, in endurance his faith was not excelled by that of Abraham or of Moses himself. The one conviction that dominated all in him was that he was called by God to his work. If that work was often repulsive, let us not on that account withhold our admiration from the man who never conferred with flesh and blood, and who was never appalled either by danger or difficulty, for he “saw Him who is invisible”.’

References. I. 1-11. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, etc., p. 87. I. 2. J. F. Cowan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxii. 1907, p. 365. I. 2, 3. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No. 2086.

The Message of the Book of Joshua

Jos 1:3

In the book of Joshua we have three sections; the first containing the story of the conquest of the land; the second containing the story of the distribution of the land; while the third gives us an account of the great leader’s farewell to his beloved people.

I. The story of the conquest is contained in the first twelve chapters.

1. In the story of the conquest there are, I think, three keynotes; the first of these is Prepare. The account of the preparation is given in the opening chapters, and given in such a way as to teach us the solemn lesson that God’s soldiers must be right with God before they can fight God’s battles.

2. The second is Pass over. This is the note specially sounded at Jordan, when the people drew their swords and flung away their scabbards, and by crossing the river committed themselves in face of gigantic odds to victory or death. It teaches us that ere God’s soldiers are fit to fight there must be in their lives a definite decisive consecration of themselves to the Lord.

3. And the third is Possess; and this note we have sounded throughout that brilliant series of campaigns which began with the fall of Jericho, and, proceeding from the South to the North, ceased not until the whole of the land was subdued.

To the story of the conquest of the land follows:

II. The story of the distribution of the land. This is the second section of the book, and extends from chapter XIII. to chapter XXI. It has been aptly compared to the Domesday Book of the Norman conquerors of England.

At the twenty-third chapter begins:

III. The story of the Leader’s farewell. This section contains two addresses, and is one of the most touching and impressive parts of the whole book. While the first address was delivered specially to the heads of the people the leaders, the judges, and the officers the second address was delivered specially to the people themselves. From this book we learn:

( a ) God gives, but we must take possession. As it was with Israel so it is with us. As God gave Canaan to Israel, so He gave Jesus Christ to us. And as the gift of Canaan meant the gift of all that Canaan contained, so the gift of Jesus Christ means the gift of all that He is, and of all that He has. But our enjoyment of all this is conditioned by the claim of our faith. Christ is to us actually what we trust Him to be.

( b ) In taking possession of what God has given us our strength is of God. This is the lesson taught by what is in some respects the most singular section of the whole book, the section containing the story of the captain of the Lord’s host. Joshua knew that victory lay before him, but he thought that it lay with him to compass this victory. But on the plains of Jericho he learned that as it was God’s grace which had given them Canaan, so it was God’s power which was to enable them to take possession. For us, in our strength, to live up to our privileges is as impossible as to win the privileges up to which we long to live.

( c ) There is always power enough at our disposal for taking possession of what God has given to us. When we have honestly set out to subdue the land we shall see the vision of the Captain of the Lord’s host. Every place on which the sole of our feet treads becomes ours.

G. H. C. Macgregor, Messages of the Old Testament, p. 73.

References. I. 5. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi. No. 1214. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, God’s Heroes, p. 71; see also Sunday Sermons for Daily Life, p. 404. I. 5, 6. Edward King, Outlines of Sermons on the Old Testament, p. 55. J. Matthews, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxix. p. 300. I. 6. G. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxviii. 1905, p. 75. I. 6, 7, 9, 18. T. Parr, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii. 1900, p. 74. I. 7. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv. No. 796. H. Montagu Butler, Harrow School Sermons, p. 73. I. 7, 8. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Deuteronomy, Joshua, etc., p. 91. I. 8. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. 1899, p. 43. I. 9. A. H. Shaw, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. 1899, p. 56. A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 97. I. 10, 11. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2039. II. J. McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, vol. iii. p. 361. II. 21. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Common Life Religion, p. 205.

Jos 1:6 ; Psa 37:14 ; Psa 31:24 ; 2Ch 32:7

Courage, my soul! now learn to wield

The weight of thine immortal shield;

Close on thy head thy helmet bright;

Balance thy sword against the fight;

See where an army, strong as fair,

With silken banners spreads the air!

Now, if thou be’st that thing Divine,

In this day’s combat let it shine,

And show that Nature wants an art

To conquer one resolved heart.

Marvell.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Man and His Call

Jos 1:1-9

THE book of Joshua has been divided into three sections namely, the conquest of Canaan, Joshua 1-12; the division of the land, Joshua 13-22; while Joshua 23-24, are devoted to a statement concerning the closing days of the soldier Joshua. The main action of the book comprises a period of twenty-five years. The pedigree of Joshua is illustrious; it may be seen in 1Ch 7:20-27 , reaching back through generations to Joseph. His grandfather, Elishama, marched through the wilderness of Sinai at the head of his tribe, and probably he had special charge of the embalmed body of Joseph. The book is indirectly referred to in many places both in the Old Testament and the New; for example in Jdg 18:31 ; 1Sa 1:24 ; 1Sa 3:21 ; Isa 28:21 ; Psa 44:2-3 ; Psa 68:12-14 ; Psa 78:54-58 ; Psa 114:1-8 ; Hab 3:8-13 ; Act 7:45 ; Heb 4:8 ; Heb 11:31 ; Heb 13:5 ; Jas 2:25 . These passages are collated to show that the references to the book of Joshua are not merely incidental or occasional, but that the book is certified by reference and endorsed by application throughout the most of the remainder of the sacred records. Joshua was a prince of the tribe of Ephraim, born in the land of Goshen, and trained as a soldier, kept in repression during many years, because there was really nothing for a soldier-prophet to do. He was appointed to repel the attack of Amalek. He was honoured to accompany the great minister partly up his solitary way which lay towards the meeting-place on the summit of mount Sinai. He was one of the two spies who came back with a good heart and an inspiring word, saying that the work could be done and was worth doing. For a long time he was in the background: nothing was known of him during the years of weary wandering in the Arabian desert. A weird character altogether! Speaking of his house, but with a limitation; without wife, or child, or heir; standing, as it were, midway between Moses and Samuel a period of four hundred years. A soldier always, prompt, obedient, decisive, sharp in expression; his attitude a challenge or a benediction. Great was his honour, too: into his much-meaning name there was inserted part of the name of the Eternal; and Joshua in its Greek form is Jesus the captain of our salvation the name which is above every name. So may our names grow and blossom and fructify into great meanings; they are trusts: we hold them as stewards; shall they vanish like blanks that can never be missed, or live on day after day, a memory, a blessing, an inspiration? Each man must answer the inquiry for himself.

Now let us turn to the book with religious attentiveness. “Now after the death of Moses ” ( Jos 1:1 ). Can there be any “after” under such a circumstance? Does not all time seem to breathe for certain men? And does it not seem as if there would be no need of time if their great figures and generous influence were removed? Does not time seem to focus itself in some noble characters as if all other life were tributary to those eminent personalities, as if all other influence circulated around them and had heaven enough in a subordinate relationship? But God can bury any one of us, and continue the history as though we had never lived. We cannot make great gaps in God’s providence. His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither his ways our ways. He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke; he taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the nations are as a drop of a bucket a poor trembling eye of dew before Him. We cry over this opening line as if some great chasm had been dug in our little heaven. We forget that the man spoken of is only dead to us, not dead to the universe, or dead to God, or dead in any sense equivalent to extinction or destruction. The word is a cold one, and full of hideousness in some aspects; we must use it; no other term touches the reality of things so significantly, but we must, by living in a right course so look down upon all things as to account death as only a word a mere term of expediency, a mark of punctuation, rather than an articulate term, a point a printer might use, but really without any terror or sting or dread. Death is dead to every man who is himself alive with the immortality of his soul. And some great names must be removed to make way for lesser names that have growing sap in them and real capability of beneficent expansion. Some great trees must be cut down to make room for lesser trees that mean to be great ones in their time. We owe much to the cutting-down power of death, the clearing power of the cruel scythe or axe. Death makes history as well as life. Of life death is the servant. The great thing to know about the dead is their character. That character in the case of Moses is indicated here explicitly “the servant of the Lord.” Is the term so definite as almost to amount to an indication or singularity as if the Lord had but one servant? The expression is not “one of the servants,” or “a” servant, but “the” servant Nor is this an ancient term only; it is part of the speech of our day. There are men who are pre-eminently primates. We do not contest their primacy. It is not official. The greater the man the readier he is to own that Moses is above him: for in no domineering or tyrannous sense is the higher above the lower, but in the sense of wisdom, graciousness, fraternity of feeling, willingness to serve, for what child is there, how naked and poor soever, that the sun will disdain to light him home? The greater man is the lesser man in proper form. The least brother has a right to look at the greatest and say that is myself enlarged and glorified; that shining face is mine; that eloquent tongue is uttering my speech; that mighty form is carrying my burdens; so, then, there is no contentious rivalry, or clamour for place or honour. God makes every appointment, and makes it with infinite wisdom.

Whilst all this is true in regard to Moses, surely there is some painfulness of preference with regard to the man who must follow him? Yet who can tell how good God is even here? Men are prepared almost unconsciously: it is but one step that has to be taken. The men did not know all the time that they were waiting to take that upward step. The announcement of elevation may have come suddenly, but then there is an answering voice which says I have heard this before; this but reads the riddle of a dream; now I feel that God is calling me. Let every man, therefore, be faithful in his own place; let every man watch, do his duty, carry his burdens, be ready for enlarging opportunities and new disclosures of gracious providence. Do not force the gate that is closed: there is plenty to do upon this side of the way; in due time the gate will fall back as if an angel invisible had touched it, and by the falling back of the gate know of a surety your opportunity has come.

What is the duty of the Church when the announcement is made, “Moses my servant is dead”? The answer is sublime! The Lord addresses himself to the soldier-spirit of Joshua: “Now, therefore” stopping there for one moment and wondering what the next word can be we think it must be: Bow down your heads in sorrow; weep all your tears, for the loss is irreparable. What is the following word? Take the sentence altogether: “Now therefore arise”! Who can extinguish the animation of the divine word, or throw a shadow upon the divine hope, or discourage the heart of Heaven? Moses is dead: therefore stand up! gird on thy sword, put on thy strength; be thy best self and noblest, for the sphere is large, and to follow Moses is to be created a new and greater man. What is Joshua to do? An epoch opens in reply to that inquiry. We turn over a new page in the world’s history at this moment: we come upon words we have not seen before words which abide in all their energy through the ages. Joshua is referred to written orders. Up to this time there has been no reference to writing in the sense in which that reference is made now. Behold, in all the outgoing of providence there is a book amongst us a written thing a silent scroll, burning with messages from heaven. Moses had no Bible; Moses lived on the spoken word: he heard the tone and translated it into the speech of the people, but there was nothing written in the sense in which the word is used in the eighth verse of this first chapter of Joshua. A new responsibility is imposed upon the Church. This is the difficulty with many men namely, that there is a Book. The Book is so often in the way. We might build a thousand airy churches, and make their glittering pinnacles prick the clouds, but for the Book. There is a written law, a declared testimony, a quotable word, something requiring attention, intelligence, sympathy, grammar. Thus liberty itself passes under the yoke. When there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was good in his own eyes: if there were no book, every one of us might have his dream, his prophecy, his saying, his little pastoral staff and crook. But Joshua is told to begin to read: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy month; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein” ( Jos 1:8 ). An excellent thing this, too, namely, to have a book! The question admits of being put from two opposite points of view. An excellent reflection that there is a writing which may be consulted, and which must be perused if life is to seize the very highest treasures of wisdom. To the law and to the testimony then, not that they are to be interpreted hardly, in some tone of domination that oppresses the soul, but a written word that is to be a living seed, growing its fruits in every clime, answering all the influences of heaven as revealed in civilisation, education, and progress of the broadest and noblest kind. The eighth verse is, however, noticeable in view of the fact that it puts a book into the hand of men. The book has never been changed. Jesus Christ did not change it: he said not a jot or tittle of it should be changed or taken away, unless by fulfilment, completion of purpose, when the meaning intended by the Almighty had been carried out, then there might be a passing away of literal form, but even then veneration would bow down before pillars at which the ages had halted and refreshed themselves in prayer. Where then is liberty? Again and again there comes upon the imagination the wondrous possibility of things under a liberty in which every man might write his own Bible. How we would change its spirit to suit the circumstances! How we would temper its tone to meet the occasion! A little manipulation would give its moralities release from their severest claims: a retrimming of the lamp would throw light in an unfamiliar direction; but man is only allowed to interpret the law to meditate therein day and night, to find out its meaning for though it be so clear, so simple, it is the simplicity that is unfathomable, the simplicity that expresses the last result of divine processes in human education. So, then, we are called to be law students, Bible readers, inquirers into written revelation. Here comes in a great popular liberty. The law is published in our mother tongue: every man may take his own copy into his own sick-chamber, and there peruse it in the light of other history and personal consciousness and experience, and test the book by individual necessities. This is the great answer to the tumult of the day. On the one hand we hear of men who long to resuscitate and reimpose stately theologies, formal creeds, endorsed by illustrious names, and the age will not have them; it says that such theologies and creeds and men served their purpose in their own time, and within the limits of their operation they were good and useful, but the ages grow: the sun has not been sowing all this light upon the earth without an accompanying sowing of light having taken place in the fields of human inquiry and intelligence. On the other hand there are those who say Our refuge must be in science, new discovery, in broad, generous progress; and the age cannot receive that testimony either. The great human heart says That of which you speak is good and noble and most useful, and we thank God for every discovery that makes life brighter, happier, easier to live; but you have not touched the innermost wound the secret pulse of the soul, that seems to lie beyond the reach of your finger. What then is our position in relation to these rival claims? Our position is: let the Bible speak for itself. We want Biblical teaching, thorough exposition, a reading of the word in the light of the present day; not by theology of a formal kind, not by science of a domineering sort, but by the Bible itself is the kingdom of heaven to be advanced. Use Bible words. Do not be ashamed of Bible images and Bible doctrines. Do not make the Bible part of a library, but make it a library by itself. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” If you are controverting, arguing, disputing, setting one opinion against another, what can come of it but dust and noise? Our position as Christian thinkers and teachers is only strong in proportion to our intelligent and reverent study and appropriation of the law meaning by that the whole written revelation of God. Here, again, we must beware of interpreters, and only accept them as friendly helpers. No man is authorised to say, to the exclusion of the opinion and learning of every other man, This is the meaning, and there is none other. The Bible will bear looking at from every point of view. It rises to every occasion. Not a word of it need be changed. The word simply asks for a right utterance, a profound and appropriate exposition. It is wonderful that men can talk about theology and about science, and never say a word about the Bible. Nor will it do to say, “Of course the existence of the Bible is assumed.” The Bible asks for no such recognition: it asks to be read. Its voice would seem to be: Read me night and day; read me aloud; read me in tones appropriate to the occasion: whisper me to the sick and the dying; utter me with tunefulness and fascination of tone to little children and persons who are in the age of wonder or curiosity; read me rudely, stormily, if you will, in the hearing of tumult and the rage of the heathen and the people; I only ask to be read to be all read to be read night and day, until there can be no mistake as to my purpose; do this, and live! Surely this is the meaning of the divine promise made to Joshua: “for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” The word “prosperous” is not a literal translation. The word would read better thus: for then shalt thou deal wisely or act wisely in the spirit of wisdom, having understanding of the times, making allowances for the varieties of human mind and human character, and adapting me to the state of education which may be disclosed from time to time. He acts wisely who lives in the wise God the only wise God, and our Saviour. We are not referred to our own wit, mental agility, intellectual brilliance or genius: the word in answer to temptation is in the law; the word explanatory of righteousness is in the law; the word which will keep us right in business is in the law; the word which will save us from sin is in the written book of God. So, whilst on the one hand men ask you to accept some great scroll of theology, and on the other ask you to accept some great scroll of science, whilst you are reverent and grateful to both of them according to their obvious merits, stand you upon the written law: it grows whilst we read it; it takes upon itself all the colour of the times; it has in it a central constancy and yet an eternal adaptation and variation. The Bible is never obsolete: when all other voices have ceased, its noble majestic tone creates attention for itself, yea, men who do not bow down before it as a spiritual ministry refer us to it as to the noblest English that can be written, the purest, simplest, grandest specimen of our mother tongue. It is so in every language. Wherever it undertakes to represent itself in any language it makes itself the chief specimen of that language. It speaks all the tongues of the world with equal familiarity, grace, and dignity. It only asks to be translated into your mother tongue to lift that tongue up into unknown and unprecedented dignity. A book that asks no other favour can do without our patronage better than we can do without its counsel. Without changing a word, only asking for a broad and just interpretation, we stand upon the Bible, and to the Bible we go when the devil tempts us, when life is a heavy burden, when death is the last foe; and so going we go to victory.

The following is another treatment of the same passage! “Now, after the death of Moses… .” Yes, what after that? Can there be any “after” in such an event? Are there no great gaping vacancies in life which seem to foreclose history and to turn present events into an anticlimax and a humiliation? After the death of Moses there can be no after. After the sun has gone down has God a lap of stars he can shower upon the darkness to alleviate it a little? Doth after vision seem to enlarge it and to mock our memory of a brighter present? Are there not some men who have no successors? Does not the poet say, “Only himself can be his parallel?” Why then do we come upon these mocking words in histories sacred and profane, “after the death of…” as if the road were a common plain, an ordinary level, one milestone and another milestone ahead, the monotony of commonplace, the commonplace itself occasionally vigorous enough, yet still tomorrow shall be as this day, and more abundant in the way of human life and human power and human exaltation and majesty? Does history stand still because of the death of any one man? Are we not always reminded that God can do without the strongest and wisest of us? We remain here just long enough to think that we are needful to God, and when our pride has filled its little goblet, and made itself drunk with its own poison, he removes us, and history rolls on like a wave over a forgotten tomb. We are told that all the great men have gone, the age of miracles has gone, so has the age of inspiration, so has the age of speaking many and divers tongues in the Church, all healings, and marvels of signs and wonders have vanished from the sphere ecclesiastical.

You who make the objection are in your departments of life fellow-sufferers with ourselves. Your Shakespeare is dead, as well as our Moses your Goethe and Dante are dead as well as our Isaiah and Ezekiel. All your great things have been done, your little miraculous role has been played out and shelved as well as ours so let there be no mocking or undue and foolish triumphing the one over the other, but let there rather be sober and earnest meditation upon this question, whether all these things that appear so great in the past have not been displaced by things greater, only less sensuous and demonstrative. Why, the poorest of all time is always the present. When am I richest? When I go back upon my yesterdays, when I retrace my journeys without all the inconvenience of detail which is found in all voyagings and travellings. Seated in my quiet chair, in my pleasant solitude, with closed eyes I look back over all the yesterdays, reclimb the mountains and sail again on the silvery lakes, and move again with might and quiet serenity to the great sea. When I blow the trumpet of resurrection in the churchyard, and call up the dear lost ones, the old and the young, the bright and the sweet, the strong and the patient, then am I very rich. When are you, dear little one, richest? When you are telling me what you are going to do, going to see, going to be. It is the doll you are going to have that is to be the queen of all other dolls. It is the sight you are going to see that is to eclipse all other gaieties. Just now nothing a mere cobble-stone in a brook that may topple over. But all my wealth lies in the past, or glows in anticipation, and “just now” is always the poorest time in any history that is worth living.

“Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord.” Does God let his servants die? Was it the blame of Moses that he died, or is his death to be credited to his Lord? Is there an appointed time to men upon the earth is there just a little length of thread that is long enough for the very strongest and wisest of us, and if an inch were added our past would be put in peril as well as our future? Are things set are there fixed quantities in time, age, wealth, talent, power? Everything is weighed out and measured by the balances and standards of the Lord. He weighed the gold dust of the stars, and not a speck can be lost upon the wind. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father. He is a severe economist: like all great givers he is severely critical in his balances and results. Only the spendthrift keeps no note-book of his outgoings. God hath a book, yea, many a book hath God, for when he had opened book after book, the Apocalyptic writer says then he opened another book wherein was set down everything. Your time is known; you are his servant, yet he will call you into rest. He doth not let us die, he permits us to live. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. I heard this in no whisper; it was not a confidential communication made to me: I heard a great voice behind me, saying, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,… that they may rest;” I knew that word “rest,” I had heard it before, it was one of Christ’s very earliest, sweetest notes, for he said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Dying ones, in his name, accept his hospitality, and go forward into his banqueting-house, quiet, at peace for evermore.

What will the Lord do, now that Moses has gone? He will be put to sore straits. What will Omnipotence do now that the staff in his hand is broken can he make another, or find one more? Does he create a Moses? No, he elevates a Joshua. He means to elevate you next: be ready; do not be in the field when he calls for you in the house.

“The Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ minister,” Moses’ servant. Moses was the servant of the Lord, Joshua was the servant of Moses, and thus we belong to one another. He has no higher title to give. Paul and Timotheus, slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, the servant of our Lord Jesus Christ. Joshua then had served well, and he was called to promotion. “Thou hast been faithful over few things, I will make thee ruler over many things,” is God’s rule. Thou hast been faithful at Jerusalem, thou shalt see Rome also. No metropolis shall shut its gates in thy face: if thou hast been faithful in the little villages and provincial towns and minor capitals, thou shalt surely see the greatest cities and the loftiest places. The first Napoleon was wont to say no man could rule well who could not serve well. If you are unable to serve, you are unable to rule. We know nothing about service in some of its severer senses in our common civil life. Some of you have been under masters and tutors and governors: you know what discipline is you have overgotten the infantile period of controversy and questioning and reasoning: you have learned not to reason why, but to do, and, if need be, die. You are going to make an excellent person, I believe, in the course of about seven years. I tell you you will not. Shall I explain my reason for that discouraging prediction? It is that you were never an obedient child. You cannot, therefore, unless God repeat his miracle of making you over again, be a good husband, or wife, or head of a business. There is a philosophy in these things that you cannot wriggle out of. To be unused to service, unaccustomed to obedience, is to be utterly unprepared for the responsibilities of the house, or of the place of commerce, the legislature, or the church.

Not a word is said in praise of Joshua. How then do we know that he was so excellent a man? Because of his promotion to succeed Moses. God studieth, to use a human phrase for the sake of our littleness, the proportion, measurement, relation, of one thing to another. He who put the stars in their places knows whom to call to high succession. To have called Joshua to this place is to have endorsed and accredited him as no merely formal testimonial could have done. My friend, young and wondering, anxious, impetuous wait: there cannot be two men of the name of Moses, and of the weight and influence of Moses, at the same time. Give the first man his full opportunity thy day will come by-and-by; be ready for it, enlarged with all the nobleness of divine inspiration and qualified by all the patience that comes of obedience to the discipline of Almighty love and wisdom.

“The Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, saying, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore….” Why say, in so many words, that look cold in this dry ink, that Moses is dead? It needed to be said. Sometimes we need to have told us the very plainest things in life in simple strong prose. In the case of Moses, a declaration of this kind was particularly needful. Who knows what wonderings and speculations, what rash conjectures, foolish imaginings and vain hopings and dreamings, might have come out of the disappearance of Moses, but for this plain and undeniable declaration of his decease? No man saw him die, no man closed those weary eyes with gentle fingers, no tender hand stretched out those poor worn limbs, no gentle woman or loving child planted a flower on that high mountain grave. God who took him comes back from Nebo to say, “He is dead; it is over, he is gone. Now therefore….” At this point one’s interest becomes intense. We say, “After Niagara?” Then do we put a huge mark of interrogation, as if we had put to the world a question which has no answer. So when I began by saying, “After the death of Moses, what?” I felt as if any reply given to that inquiry would be unworthy of the occasion, would fall flatly, and would utterly disappoint and discourage us. We have now come to the place wherein the answer is found. “Moses my servant is dead; now therefore sit down; bemoan yourselves, take it so deeply to heart as utterly to disqualify your energies for making even the feeblest effort; it is no use your endeavouring to propagate a race of men after the withdrawal by death of that majestic leader who is now but a memory” does the history read so? God says, “Moses my servant is dead, now therefore, arise” in every sense of the word, arise to nobler manhood, to diviner power, to higher conception, to nobler endeavour, to more devoted and solemn and holy attempt to do God’s will.

That is what you have to do now that your dear little child is dead. I found you with handkerchief pressed to streaming eyes, sitting down as if your bones had melted like heated wax, and you could do no more, and I came to say to you, “Arise, the Master is come, and calleth for thee.” That is what you have to do after your great loss in business. You thought to settle down into nobody. That is not God’s law: the disaster has come, now arise. The loss has taken place, the table is clean swept, not a shadow of the golden coin can be found on the tessellated table now therefore, arise. It is God’s Gospel to the dejected, it is God’s medicine for those who suppose themselves to be wounded incurably. Again and again God says, “Look up, arise, go forward.” And he always does this in the presence of great loss, whether of life or property. This he always says. When poor Jacob called himself a worm, and took up what he thought his appropriate place in the dust; when Zion stripped herself of her white mantle and sat down under the shady tree, and said, “God hath forgotten to be gracious” when she held her fair head far down into the dust which she thought too good for one so dispossessed and disennobled, God found her so, and what said he? “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things.” The straightening of the neck will do thee good a walk out into the living air will help to heal thee. Looking down does no man good. Looking up and locking abroad, arising and going forward, elevating and arousing exertions, are God’s answers to the dejection, the self-limitation of man.

“Arise and go over this Jordan.” How seldom we are allowed to finish our work. It seems as if we could die more happily upon the other side of the river than upon this side. Only let me build my church, finish my house, complete my plan, lay out my grounds, see the youngest trees flourishing into maturity only let me see my children all attaining the age of manhood and womanhood and settled in life, and then I can, I think, die comfortably. This our weak speech, this our staggering eloquence, this our halting argument, before him who carrieth us in his arms, who sets us down and takes us up as it pleaseth him, and who is unrestrained in the high heavens and in the deep places where the lake of fire is and where all darkness dwells.

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” God quotes himself: whom else can he quote? As so. History repeats itself, God repeats himself. I know not of any clearer and fuller vindication of himself as to his providential care and dealing than is to be found in this very expression. Observe to whom it was addressed. To a man who had actually seen God’s way with Moses. He is not invited to meet a providence undeclared and mysterious, he is asked to accept a repetition of that which has passed before his own eyes, and impinged most closely upon his own consciousness and experience. Does God say, “I was but a little with Moses, I will be much with thee I will do much more for Joshua than ever I did for Moses”? Does he tempt him by some unmeasured and enormous bribe? The expression is, “As so.” As was the past, so will be the future. God’s repetitions are creations. Miracles of providence never lose their fascination and their value. This is God’s voice to us to-day as he was with the fathers, so will he be with the children. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. The heavens become aged, and the stars stagger in their journeys, yea, the Lord doth fold up that great blue firmament like a garment outworn, and put it away, but he is the same, and his years fail not. A thousand years are in his sight as one day, and one day is as a thousand years. He says, “I am the Lord, I change not” So when he comes to speak to us he repeats himself. He quotes no other authority; he signs the same sign manual, stamps the book with the same great seal; his promises are yea and amen, repeating themselves like the seasons, constant, yet ever new; old as eternity, yet fresh as the morning just being born in the flush and hope of a new dawn.

“We have then God’s Book to guide us and show us precisely what he has for us, and what he can do for our life. Why dost thou dream, O poor mystic, why dost thou wonder what God will do on the morrow? Thou hast all his yesterdays in human history to go back upon, and his expression to thee is, “As so. As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.” See him giving his omnipotence in pledge to a poor startled secretarial servant of the dead Moses; see him taking up in his great arms the garment of his own almightiness and covering with it the shoulders of this newly-appointed leader. That garment is large enough for us, that almightiness is sufficient to our daily distresses and perpetual wants. What time I am afraid I will trust in God, yea, when the enemy secretly pursueth me I will run into God’s almightiness as into a great tower, and there will I sit down till the pursuer weary himself with beating the air. All God’s promises are before men: he writes in no new ink: he asks for no new hand that he may dictate a new and ampler revelation. It is “As so.” Moses Joshua. John Paul. A repetition without weariness, a reduplication that startles by its originality.

That is all? No. “Be strong and of a good courage…. Only be thou strong and very courageous.” There is something for man to do. God’s almightiness is sent to us as a pledge, not that it may do everything for us, but that it may awaken our strength and call up every energy we possess, and consecrate it to the high and solemn service of the great Lord. Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion, put on thy beautiful garments, O thou beloved of the Lord. Only be thou strong and very courageous: do thy little best; if thou canst not fly, flutter; if thou canst not run, crawl. He will make it all up to thee, only do thy little share. It hath pleased God to adopt the great principle of co-operation in administering the affairs of the lower courts of his universe. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Man is not to trust to his own genius, nor is he thrown back upon his own resources in the high vocations of life. We are not allowed to live upon the empty pittance and miserable inheritance of our own wit. There is written for us a Word, deep, large, loving, clear, accessible, and we must continually meditate therein. Beautiful words, and full of meaning. Some of the print in God’s book I can see best by day, other of the book I can read most clearly by night. Can I tell how this is? It is utterly impossible for me to explain it, but I see angels at night: they do not come out in the garish white light of the midday, but I have seen troops of them in the dusk I have heard many a voice not otherwise articulate in the deep watches of the night. God does great wonders in the darkness: the darkness and the light are both alike unto him. You never knew the meaning of “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God” until you read those words in the night of your great loneliness. Then you saw what priest and presbyter never could explain, what had eluded the touch of the most diligent annotator: you saw God’s meaning, yea, you saw his great outstretched gentle arms taking up the very thing he was blessing.

So it is through and through life. Every heart must make its own application of this great lesson: some part of the book is best read by day, some is most clearly seen by night. God’s book is a book that cannot be exhausted either in the day or in the night. It needs the sun and the moon and every star of the firmament, candles of glory lighted by hands divine to see its deep, its infinite meaning. Poor, poor fool, thou didst say thou hadst read the Bible through and through: rather thou didst mean, if thou wilt let wisdom speak and love interpret, that thou hast begun to read, and that thou art still stumbling over the first lines; or if thou art at all restful, it is with a great amaze, a solemn and glad wonder, because the Paradise grows upon thee, and thou canst not move yet, because of the ever-deepening fascination of the immortal beauty.

Now, faint-hearted ones, let us repent and believe. If all the great men, as we think, are dead, it is that others may take their places. Whose place are you going to take? Who will be baptised for the dead? This may be an awakening time for aught I know: it is a solemn hour; there is a stillness in it which may prelude a great resurrection of intellectual and spiritual energy and a great solemn consecration of personal powers and possessions to the service of the God of Moses. The great merchant in the city is dead: arise! The great political leader is dead: arise! The great preacher is dead: arise! Whose place will you take? There are a thousand vacancies today in the great gallery historical; which of the places will you take? Are you waiting until God has spoken to you? He speaks to you now. What are you ready for? Anything? That is the right spirit. Any time? That is the right answer. In whose strength will you come in Christ’s? It is sufficient, even to redundance and infinite overflow. Hast thou set thyself to some part of God’s work? only be strong and very courageous: keep close to the book: by day read it, by night spell it close, close, close to the book; and as for those who would stand before thee, they shall be melted like wax in the fire; yea, as fences of stubble before the conflagration of the presence of God in the life.

Oh for a Church alive, with its beautiful garments on its shoulders, and all its powers throbbing like an eternal pulse! Then our presence would be felt in the city, in the village, everywhere, and our presence would not be seen, because of the lustre of Him whose we are and whom we serve.

Prayer

Oh, how patient is the Lord! how tender is his mercy! how loving is his kindness! We are amazed with a great amazement, and our hearts are filled with thankfulness. Our steps are guided by the Lord, and our hairs are numbered by him, and there is nothing that concerns us too little for his notice and his care. This is the faith in which we live, and it makes us strong and glad, and gives us brightness of hope and fulness of resort in all the difficulties and perils of life. This faith we have proved. We are ourselves living witnesses of this nearness of the divine hand and this interest of the divine eye. We have been low down, and we have been lifted up; we have been in great distress and have not known which way to turn, but the Lord hath held a light before, and come close to us and said, This is the way: walk ye in it. We cannot contradict ourselves: we cannot put down the testimony of a lifetime; the writing is thine, the voice is thine, the praise be thine, thou glorious Christ! We look back and see thee now as we did not see thee once. The cloud became a night, and in the night no star trembled: the burden was very heavy, and our eyes poured out rivers of tears, and in all the agony we caught the mocker’s tone gibing us about our God and our faith; but we see all now: it was well, it was best; the grave was right, the burden was none too heavy, and the way, though often crooked and invisible, was leading on to Canaan, to rest, to motherland, where there is no night, no death. We delight to look back, for the prophets are there, and the minstrels who cheered us in the night-time. Our life, too, has its Old Testament, its Pentateuch, its moving histories, its painful tragedies, its psalms so noble, its songs so tender, and its prophecy the outlook and the forecast of faith; behold, we cannot give up these: they are thine, and the book is sealed by thine hand. So, too, has our life its New Testament: its birth in Bethlehem, its wondrous teacher, its worker of great miracles, its marvellous speaker we wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth and its cross, its priest, its redemption; wondrous is this life, and it is the writing of God. Help us to read well, to think deeply, to answer thee instantaneously with all the swiftness of eager love; then when what we call the end comes, it shall be no end but a beginning, bright as morning, warm as summer. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

XIX

JEHOVAH’S CHARGE TO JOSHUA

Jos 1:1-9

Our discussion commences in Joshua I, and I shall present it in the form of questions and answers.

1. Where was Israel at this time?

Ans. Israel was camped in what is called the “Meadow of the Acacias,” near the upper part of the Dead Sea and opposite the river Jordan.

2. What time?

Ans. It is forty years after leaving Egypt in the spring of the year, in the month of Abib. Later that month is called Nisan, and it comes nearer to answering to our April than any other time. The Jews had lunar months and we have calendar months; hence every one of our months covers a part of two of their months.

3. What incidental evidences from the text of the time of the year?

Ans. One is that the harlot Rahab had on the top of her house spread out the stalks of flax. That was an April harvest. Flax stalks are dried out and the fibrous covering of the stalk is used to make thread and other things. Another circumstance is that it is stated that after they got over into the Promised Land they ate the new corn. Our text says old corn, but it doesn’t mean old corn. It means the produce of the fields, which was barley. The barley harvest and the flax came in the spring of the year, in April.

4. What are the circumstances of the people of Israel at this time?

Ans. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam are all dead. The entire generation of grown men that set out from Egypt except two are dead. It is a new generation. But while Moses is gone, God is still present, and under a new leader they are to proceed with their history, and they have already conquered all the territory east of the Jordan River, Moab and Gilead, and have settled there two tribes and a half, Reuben is the land of Moab, Gad in the land of Ammon, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead further up. Their organization is compact, they have just sworn to renew the covenant. These arc the circumstances.

5. The book commences in English with the word “now,” it really means “and,” and it is a connective. The question is, What is the force of the connective?

Ans. That has been explained several times before. It shows that it succeeds regularly the preceding book. Genesis, the first of the first group, is followed by Exodus, Leviticus, and then Numbers; then Deuteronomy, the first of the second group, is followed by Joshua, which commences with “and,” and so on until we get through 2 Kings. I have explained before about the force of that connective.

6. What thoughts on succession suggested by the first verse, “After the death of Moses Jehovah spake unto Joshua”?

Ans. The thoughts are these: Human leaders die, God lives. As one human leader drops out, God has prepared another to take his place. If Elijah’s time has expired, Elisha is ready to take his place; and so it is with reference to the church. There has been a succession of the churches from the day that Christ said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” and a succession of preachers. Paul dies, but before he dies he appoints faithful men to come after him to take up the work and carry it on.

7. Cite passages showing how Joshua has been prepared, appointed, qualified, and charged for this work. Ans. Now, here are the passages: Num 27:15-23 , Deu 31:7-8 ; Deu 31:14-15 ; Deu 34:9 . These passages show that a provision was made while Moses was yet well and the leader, to designate a successor, to appoint that successor, qualify that successor, to deliver solemn charges from both God and Moses to that successor. Read very carefully every one of these passages.

8. Moses is called the “servant of the Lord” and Joshua is called “the minister of Moses”: “Jehovah after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, spoke unto Joshua, Moses’ minister.” My question is, Distinguish between the meaning of “servant” and “minister,” and show which one is the higher term, and show when the higher term became Joshua’s.

Ans. To call one “the servant of Jehovah” is the highest title you can confer on him. “Minister” means attendant. It is a different word in the Hebrew. It means Moses’ attendant. In other words, just as the apostles were attendants of Christ (they were about with him while he prepared them to take his place after he is gone), so Joshua was Moses’ attendant or minister. “Servant” was applied to Joshua in Jos 24:29 .

9. Analyze Jehovah’s command to Joshua, its imperative conditions, its promises, its exhortations, and the meaning of “this book of the law.”

Ans. The analysis is: It is very imperative, very peremptory: “Go over this river and take this land that I promised to Israel.” And the exhortation is “be strong; don’t be a weakling; be courageous; don’t get rattled and scared.” And the promises are (1) “I will be to you as I was to Moses.” (2) “I will never forsake you,” and (3) “I will put high honour on you.” Those are the promises. Those promises are to you and to any Christian preacher. Now, the conditions were, “You take this book of the Law.” That shows that the Pentateuch had been written, that everything was recorded at that time, that the Pentateuch was the constitution of Israel and its statute book as well. “You take this book of the Law and meditate on it night and day and observe to do exactly as it says. Don’t you go to the right hand or to the left hand; plumb the track; keep in the middle of the road.” These are the conditions. “Now, if you will rigidly obey orders I will never leave you nor forsake you; never under any circumstances shall enemies be able to stand up before you.”

It is said that preachers are the most disobedient of all Christians; that they understand less than any other class of Christians the principles of rigid obedience. One man asked Wellington concerning a certain mission, “What are we to do about it in view of that difficulty?” Wellington said, “What are your marching orders?” And they turned to the commission and read it and he said, “There is nothing to ask questions about. Do what you are told to do. Don’t stop to consider the difficulties.” I have just been reading of the education of Frederick the Great, and there isn’t a preacher in Texas that could have stood it three days; what he had to go through with from the time he was five years old until he became a grown man. Now I will give you one of the rules, and his whole life had to be according to rule. At six o’clock he had to be waked up, and if it was a week day, had just fifteen minutes in which to say his prayers, bathe, and dress and eat his breakfast, while the servant dressed his hair just fifteen minutes) not a second over; as soon as the servant touched him to wake him up, he must bounce out of bed and say prayers and bathe, dress, and eat his breakfast while they were dressing his hair. Then for every half-hour there was a duty: “You take up grammar there, mathematics here, etc.” After a while in the day would come a rest spell, but there was no vacation, year in and year out.

Now, Joshua was a soldier like Wellington. When God gave him this command, “Go across the Jordan; keep this book in your hand; meditate on it day and night, just obey! obey! obey!” from the day that he was commended until he died he never swerved. This is one of the most remarkable cases of implicit obedience of which we have any record. The meaning of “this book of the Law” is the Pentateuch.

10. What three famous rivers are mentioned in God’s command to Joshua?

Ans. The Nile, the Jordan, and the Euphrates.

11. What is the meaning of “Jordan”?

Ans. It means the Descender. And that is what it strictly is. It is a sharp inclined plane from its spring in Lebanon to its entrance into the Dead Sea. It certainly does descend more than any other river in the world. There is no other river on the map of the world of such a length that descends as much in that distance; therefore, of course, it is not navigable.

12. What is the peculiarity of the usage of this name “Jordan”?

Ans. The Cambridge Bible says on that, “It is never called ‘The River Jordan’ or ‘Brook Jordan.’ It is always ‘Jordan.'” The Cambridge Bible is mistaken. The word “Jordan” is used 189 times in the Bible; fifty times by Moses, sixty-two times in Joshua, fifty-seven times in the other Old Testament books and a number of times in the New Testament; 189 times in all, but one time it is called “the river Jordan,” and that is in Mark’s Gospel, Mar 1:5 : “They were baptized of him in the river Jordan.” But that is a remarkable peculiarity. You apply the word “river” to the Nile, the Euphrates and every other river in the world, but when you come to the Jordan, you don’t say “river.” I got so interested in that that I finally got down my facsimile of the old manuscripts to see if this was in them and it is in all of them, i.e., this one mistake in the Cambridge Bible. That is the peculiarity of the usage of the name.

13. Describe it.

Ans. Now, we are going to have so much to do with the Jordan in Bible history that you ought to be able to describe this river. Take it as it winds (and it winds very much), it is 240 miles long from its springs to the Dead Sea into which it flows or empties. A straight line from the Dead Sea to its springs would be one hundred and twenty miles. So it goes twice the distance going that way. Its general course is straight; it does not go off; it goes in a straight line, like the firing of a rifle ball from a gun. It has two heads, one of them in near Caesarea at Philippi, and those big springs come down and form a lake, called Lake Merom, and it looks like those springs are going to be swallowed up, but they come out of that lake into another lake, the Sea of Galilee; then it comes out of that lake about 70 feet wide and over a great many descents it goes deeper, down and down until it gets to the Dead Sea. Even the Sea of Galilee is five hundred feet lower than the sea level and the Dead Sea is over 1,200 feet lower than the sea level. So you see that river starts and runs into the earth and goes away down. It would be impossible for the Dead Sea to have an outlet; it would have to flow uphill to get out of the hole it is in.

Now, this is a very famous river. Once I preached a sermon, making the river Jordan a string and on it I strung the beads of history, and there was a cluster of beads at the Sea of Galilee and on down, down, down to the Dead Sea, taking the striking events of its history. Then I preached another sermon using the Dead Sea for an illustration of a man who receives and never gives out. The historic Jordan flows into it. Christ’s miracles, walking on the water, Christ’s passage and Joshua’s passage, and yet the Dead Sea swallows all that water up and never gives out anything. Its water is so salty that a fish cannot live in it, and even the apples on trees along the banks) when you touch them, crumble and go up into dust. Now, that is the man that continually takes in from every side and never dispenses anything. You ought always to have in your mind a picture of that Descender, that river Jordan.

14. The command says to go over and take possession of the land which “I have given the children of Israel, which I promised to their fathers, which I repromised to Moses, and now concerning the allotment of that particular piece of land, to the children of Israel.” On this I give a number of subquestions :

(1) What is the principle of this giving?

Ans. Turn to Act 17:26 : “I made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons,” that is, when a nation shall arise, when it shall fall, “and the bounds of their habitation that they shall seek God.” That shows that the location of nations is of divine direction, and that the boundaries of nations are of divine direction, as a general principle.

(2) When was the division of the earth made among the several nations?

Ans. You will find the answer to that question in Gen 10:25 . Concerning Peleg, the son of Shem, it is said, “In his day the earth was divided,” allotted among the nations. That is what Peleg means, and not at the Tower of Babel after the tongues were confused. The order was for each nation to go where it had been allotted.

(3) What was the reason of that division which allots the Holy Land to Israel?

Ans. Turn to Deu 32:8 . Now, God does not always tell us his reasons; he had a reason, and when he allotted that particular section of the country to the people that were to be his chosen people, with a view to their influence over other people, he gave them a strategical position with reference to the countries of the world. He located them in the right place, showing how far-reaching is God’s plan; that he had picked out that section and allotted that section. This has a good deal of bearing on the question of the disposition of the Canaanites.

(4) The descendants of what son of Noah ignored the allotment?

Ans. Children of Ham. When they went from Babel, they took possession of the country that was to be Shem’s. So these Hamites took possession of that country.

(5) Our lesson says that God is giving them this land he promised their fathers. Now, prove that he had made that promise to the fathers.

Ans. Read Gen 15:18-21 : “In that day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.” That is the first promise to the fathers, which was four hundred years before this crowd of people stood on the bank of the river Jordan.

Our section says, “as I spake unto Moses.” Now, I want to see where he said it to Moses. Turn to Deu 11:24 , and Num 34:1 . Now, what was promised to Abram was restated to Moses: “And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines) and from the wilderness unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee,” (Exo 23:31 ). “And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, etc.,” (Num 34:1-12 ). “Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the hinder sea shall be your border” (Deu 11:24 ).

15. What the boundaries of the land?

Ans. Num 34:3 : “Your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the side of Edom, and your south border shall be from the end of the Salt Sea eastward; and your border shall turn about southward of the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass along to Zin; and the goings out thereof shall be southward of Kadesh-barnea; . . . unto the brook of Egypt [that is a bad translation; it is river, i.e., “river of Egypt”] and the goings out thereof shall be at the Sea.” Notice that these translators are not willing that the Nile shall be one of the boundaries. They changed the word “river” to brook of Egypt, which is as dry as a powder house. So instead of brook, I shall read river. “Now for the western border, ye shall have the great sea [Mediterranean] and the border thereof; this shall be your west border. And this shall be your north border: from the great sea ye shall mark out for you Mount Hor; from Mount Hor ye shall mark out unto the entrance of Hamath;… and the border shall go forth to Ziphron; . . this shall be the north border. And ye shall mark out your east border from Hazar-enan to Shepham; . . . and the border shall go down to the Jordan, and the goings out thereof shall be at the Salt Sea. [That is the Dead Sea.] This shall be your land according to the borders thereof round about.” Now, I have been thus particular in giving you the Genesis account of the boundaries of the countries and the Mosaic accounts and that leads to the next question.

16. Can you take a map and show the boundaries?

Ans. 1 never saw anyone yet that could do it. I have tried it, I suppose, on 100 Doctors of Divinity. Now, here are some sub-questions:

(1) What the difficulty in determining the boundaries?

Ans. What is meant by the river of Egypt? The translators translate it “brook,” being unwilling to think that it touched the Nile, which is called the river of Egypt.

(2) What bearing has the name, Shihor, in determining what is the river of Egypt?

Ans. Here are the scriptures: Jos 13:3 ; 1Ch 13:5 ; Isa 23:3 ; Jer 2:18 . These passages show that the “river of Egypt” means the Nile. That is where Shihor comes in in all those passages and is what is called the east fork of the Nile, the Pelusium fork. You see when the Nile gets low down it divides itself into a great many channels forming a delta, all of which run into the Mediterranean Sea. The most eastern is called the Pelusium. Now, this is where the Promised Land commenced. It was to be that Nile and follow the fork of the Nile down until it struck the Mediterranean Sea.

(3) What is the southwest starting point in getting this boundary?

Ans. On the Mediterranean where the eastern branch of the Nile comes into the Mediterranean Sea. There you get your start.

(4) Now give the western line.

Ans. You follow the Mediterranean Sea up until you get to what is called the entering in of Hamath.

(5) Northern line?

Ans. I had my son to explore that line for me. He was then studying for his Ph.D. degree in Berlin and he and two other boys explored the boundaries of the Promised Land. And his letter was particularly interesting in which he told of the entering of Hamath. It went above Damascus and beyond Damascus until it struck the Euphrates River. So from the entering in of Hamath is the northern line.

(6) Eastern line?

Ans. Now when it left the Euphrates to get the eastern line it came down the wilderness of Arabia, leaving Gilead, Moab, and the Jordan River, and strikes the lower side of the Dead Sea.

Now, the hardest of all borders is the southern. Moses tells exactly the line to follow in that Numbers passage. You start at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea and go to Kadesh-barnea, going just south of it, and go across to that eastern branch of the Nile. It is an oblique line, Just like the northern line is an oblique one.

(7) What things must determine the southern line?

Ans. The following things must determine: First, it must commence at the southern part of the Dead Sea; second, it must not take in any of Edom: that is Esau’s country; they are expressly forbidden to enter that. Therefore it must not go west from there but it must go northwest, leaving Kadesh-barnea to the left, and go across the desert until it strikes the Pelusium, that eastern branch of the Nile

(8) When were these boundaries realized?

Ans. Certainly not in Joshua’s time, but they were in David and Solomon’s time. All the countries described in the Gen 15 , Num 34 , and Deu 11 , that entire country, embraced the kingdom of David and Solomon.

17. (1) Who the people in the land, and how located?

Ans. These people, as I told you, were the descendants of Ham, who had usurped the country that was never allotted to them. The list of the nations, the great division of the nations, is given three times. I shall give one of them. This list includes seven, though there were many subdivisions: First, the Canaanites. Were these descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham? Some of them were the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham. But the word “Canaanites” simply means lowlanders. The Canaanites dwelt in the low places. Second, the Amorites, that means highlanders. They lived in the mountains. Third, the Hittites. Hittites means descendants of Heth. You remember that Abraham bought Machpelah from the children of Heth. The fourth, the Jebusites, and these people occupied the whole country which included Jerusalem. From Jebus came the name Jerusalem. Now, there were subdivisions until they made thirty-two in all. Joshua tells us that he conquered thirty-two kings in taking possession of this land. (For the location of all these and also the Hivites, the Perizzites and the Girgashites see Bible Atlas.)

(2) What three nations besides these seven are very famous?

Ans. First, the Philistines. They were on the Mediterranean coast. Second, the Amalekites. The Amalekites dwelt in the wilderness of Arabia south of the Holy Land. Third, the Phoenicians. The chief cities of the Phoenicians are Tyre and Sidon.

18. Describe their character.

Ans. Some of them were very learned, but their habits were very bestial. Their religion in its worship was the worst form of prostitution. In other words, the Bible describes their sin as so low down and beastly that the land was ready to spew them out of its mouth.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Jos 1:1 Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,

The Book of Joshua ] Who was a book man as well as a sword man: a and might well give for his motto, Ex utroque Caesar. Julius Caesar wrote his own acts; witness his learned Commentaries – for so he called them, in modesty, rather than histories; and the like did his successors, Augustus Caesar, in four books, and Adrian the Emperor, with great diligence. That Joshua himself was penman of this book, or of most part of it, is probably gathered from Jos 24:26 , and that he wrote also the end of Deuteronomy – viz., from the death of his master Moses – may be gathered from the copulative and, wherewith this book beginneth – And it came to pass, &c.; so the original hath it. See the like in Jdg 1:1 Rth 1:1 1Sa 1:1 2Sa 1:1 , &c. Indeed, the whole law – so the whole Scripture – is but one copulative, say the schoolmen; and “God spake by the mouth” – not mouths – “of his holy prophets which have been since the world began.” Luk 1:1-4 Joshua is here set forth both as a pattern to princes – far beyond Xenophon’s Cyrus or Machiavel’s Borgia – and as a type of Christ, the great Conqueror. Rev 6:2 He had his name changed, when he was sent as a spy into Canaan, Num 13:16 from Oshea to Joshua; from Let God save, to God shall save. Under the Law, which bringeth us as it were into a wilderness, we may desire and pray that there were a Saviour: but under the Gospel we are sure of salvation; and that our Jehoshua hath bound himself to fulfil all righteousness, and to land us safe at the key of Canaan, at the kingdom of heaven.

a Et hae ipso laudem veram meruit quod falsam contempsit. – Dion, Fulgos.

Ver. 1. Now after the death of Moses. ]

“ Sic uno avulso non deficit alter Aureus. ” – Virgil.

The Church shall never want a champion of Christ’s own providing; but Moses shall revive in Joshua, and there shall be a succession of godly governors, till the headstone be laid with, “Grace, grace unto it.” Zec 4:7

That the Lord spake unto Joshua. ] Not immediately, as to Moses, but some other way, Num 12:7-8 probably by Urim and Thummin, as in Num 27:18 ; Num 27:21 . Not so to Saul 1Sa 28:6 – for the high priest Abiathar was fled from him to David, with an ephod in his hand. 1Sa 23:6 Similarily, Christ answered nothing to Herod, Luk 23:9 who had cut off the head of the Baptist, that was vox clamantis, the voice whereby he had cried.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Joshua

THE NEW LEADER’S COMMISSION

Jos 1:1 – Jos 1:11 .

The closest connection exists between Deuteronomy and Joshua. The narrative may be read as running on without a break. It turns away from the lonely grave up on the mountain to the bustling camp and the new leader. No man is indispensable. God’s work goes on uninterrupted. The instruments are changed, but the Master-hand is the same, and lays one tool aside and takes another out of the tool-chest as He will. Moses is dead,-what then? Does his death paralyse the march of the tribes? No; it is but the ground for the ringing command, ‘Therefore arise, go over this Jordan.’ The immediate installation of his successor, and the uninterrupted continuance of the advance, do not mean that Moses is not honoured or is forgotten, for the narrative lovingly links his honorific title, ‘the servant of the Lord,’ with the mention of his death; and God Himself does the same, for he is thrice referred to in the divine command to Joshua, as the recipient of the promise of the conquest, as the example of the highest experience of God’s all-sufficing companionship, and as the medium by which Israel received the law. Joshua steps into the empty place, receives the same great promise, is assured of the same Presence, and is to obey the same law. The change of leaders is great, but nothing else is changed; and even it is not so great as faint hearts in their sorrow are apt to think, for the real Leader lives, and Moses and Joshua alike are but the transmitters of His orders and His aids to Israel.

The first command given to Joshua was a trial of his faith, for ‘Jordan was in flood’ Jos 3:15,-and how was that crowd to get across, when fords were impassable and ferry-boats were wanting, to say nothing of the watchful eyes that were upon them from the other bank? To cross a stream in the face of the enemy is a ticklish operation, even for modern armies; what must it have been, then, for Joshua and his horde? Not a hint is given him as to the means by which the crossing is to be made possible. He has Jehovah’s command to do it, and Jehovah’s promise to be with him, and that is to be enough. We too have sometimes to face undertakings which we cannot see how to carry through; but if we do see that the path is one appointed by God, and will boldly tread it, we may be quite sure that, when we come to what at present seems like a mountain wall across it, we shall find that the glen opens as we advance, and that there is a way,-narrow, perhaps, and dangerous, but practicable. ‘One step enough for me’ should be our motto. We may trust God not to command impossibilities, nor to lead us into a cul de sac .

The promise to Moses Deu 2:24 is repeated almost verbally in Jos 1:4 . The boundaries of the land are summarily given as from ‘the wilderness’ in the south to ‘this Lebanon’ in the north, and from the Euphrates in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. ‘The land of the Hittites’ is not found in the original passage in Deuteronomy, and it seems to be a designation of the territory between Lebanon and the Euphrates, which we now know to have been the seat of the northern Hittites, while the southern branch was planted round Hebron and the surrounding district. But these wide boundaries were not attained till late in the history, and were not long retained. Did the promise, then, fail? No, for it, like all the promises, was contingent on conditions, and Israel’s unfaithfulness cut short its extent of territory. We, too, fail to possess all the land destined for us. Our charter is much wider than our actual wealth. God gives more than we take, and we are content to occupy but a corner of the broad land which He has given us. In like manner Joshua did not realise to the full the following promise of uniform victory, but was defeated at Ai and elsewhere. The reason was the same,-the faithlessness of the people. Unbelief and sin turn a Samson into a weakling, and make Israel flee before the ranks of the Philistines.

The great encouragement given to Joshua in entering on his hard and perilous enterprise is twice repeated here: ‘As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee.’ Did Joshua remember how, nearly forty years since, he had fronted the mob of cowards with the very same assurance, and how the answer had been a shower of stones? The cowards are all dead,-will their sons believe the assurance now? If we do believe that God is with us, we shall be ready to cross Jordan in flood, and to meet the enemies that are waiting on the other bank. If we do not, we shall not dare greatly, nor succeed in what we attempt. The small successes of material wealth and gratified ambition may be ours, but for all the higher duties and nobler conflicts that become a man, the condition of achievement and victory is steadfast faith in God’s presence and help.

That assurance-which we may all have if we cling to Jesus, in whom God comes to be with every believing soul-is the only basis on which the command to Joshua, thrice repeated, can wisely or securely be rested. It is mockery to say to a man conscious of weakness, and knowing that there are evils which must surely come, and evils which may possibly come, against which he is powerless, ‘Don’t be afraid’ unless you can show him good reason why he need not be. And there is only one reason which can still reasonable dread in a human heart that has to front ‘all the ills that flesh is heir to,’ and sees behind them all the grim form of death. He ought to be afraid, unless-unless what? Unless he has heard and taken into his inmost soul the Voice that said to Joshua, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee: be strong and of a good courage,’ or, still more sweet and peace-bringing, the Voice that said to the frightened crew of the fishing-boat in the storm and the darkness,’ It is I; be not afraid.’ If we know that Christ is with us, it is wise to be strong and courageous; if we are meeting the tempest alone, the best thing we can do is to fear, for the fear may drive us to seek for His help, and He ever stretches out His hand to him who is afraid, as he ought to be, when he feels the cold water rising above his knees, and by his very fear is driven to faith, and cries, ‘Lord, save; I perish!’

Courage that does not rest on Christ’s presence is audacity rather than courage, and is sure to collapse, like a pricked bladder, when the sharp point of a real peril comes in contact with it. If we sit down and reckon the forces that we have to oppose to the foes that we are sure to meet, we shall find ourselves unequal to the fight, and, if we are wise, shall ‘send the ambassage’ of a humble desire to the great King, who will come to our help with His all-conquering powers. Then, and only then, shall we be safe in saying,’ I will not fear what man can do unto me, or devils either,’ when we have said,’ In God have I put my trust,’ and have heard Him answering, ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

NASB (UPDATED TEXT): JOSHUA Jos 1:1-9

1Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, that the LORD spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, 2 Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. 3Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 4From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory. 5No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 7Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. 8This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. 9Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Jos 1:1 Now it came about This book begins with the Hebrew phrase And it came to pass, which shows that Joshua is continuing the history which began in the Pentateuch (Torah), although it must be stated that ancient Hebrew regularly started books with and.

after the death of Moses The chosen leader is dead, but Israel’s God is not! See Deuteronomy 34.

the servant of the LORD The title Servant of the LORD is an honorific one which is used of Abraham in Gen 26:24; of David in 1Ki 8:66; and of Joshua only after his death in Jos 24:29. This seems to be the background for the Servant Songs of Isaiah 40-53 and possibly the background of Paul’s famous phrase slaves of Christ.

SPECIAL TOPIC: NAMES FOR DEITY

the LORD spoke to Joshua Originally he was to consult the High Priest for guidance (cf. Num 27:18-23). YHWH is said to have spoken to Joshua like He had to Moses (cf. Jos 1:1; Jos 4:1; Jos 4:15; Jos 5:9; Jos 6:2). He was one of the two spies who brought a positive report and he lived through the Wilderness Wandering period (cf. Num 26:25). He was Moses’ right-hand man from the time of the Exodus from Egypt to the crossing of the Jordan. This shows that although leaders come and go, God is the consistent power and strength of the people.

Jos 1:2 Moses, my servant is dead The question is often asked, Why could Moses not enter the Promised Land after being such a faithful, effective leader? The reason is seen in Num 20:12; Num 27:14; Deu 3:26. One major theological truth again and again in the history books of the OT is that when God reveals to someone what to do, but they slightly change it, the result is judgment. God is no respecter of persons. When Moses publically disobeyed God, he reaped the consequences.

arise, cross Both of these VERBS are Qal IMPERATIVES:

1. arise – BDB 877, KB 1086, e.g., Deu 2:13; Deu 2:24; Deu 10:11

2. cross – BDB 716, KB 778, e.g., Jos 1:11; Jos 1:14; Jos 2:23; Jos 3:1

The time had come. It was time to act!

Jordan The term Jordan is from a word which means descending (BDB 434). This river plunged almost 1,500 feet in just 80 miles. At this particular time of the year it was at flood stage (cf. Jos 3:15). It was just as much an act of faith to cross this torrent as it was to have trust in God during the Exodus.

to the land which I am giving to them This was a significant act because of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, which was later repeated to Isaac and Jacob and then, through Moses, to all Israel. This was the promised land, given to them by God (cf. Gen 15:12-21). In the OT and in Assyrian documents it is called the land flowing with milk and honey because of its fertility.

Jos 1:3 Notice the emphasis on God’s sovereignty and His complete revelation to Moses concerning these matters. This reflects YHWH’s promises to Abraham (cf. Gen 12:7; Gen 13:15; Gen 15:18).

There are several places where the dimensions of the Promised Land are given:

1. Num 34:1-12

2. Deu 1:6-8; Deu 3:12-20; Deu 11:24

3. Jos 1:3-4; Jos 13:8-12

4. Jdg 20:1

They are not all exactly the same. The only time Israel came close to these boundaries was during the kingdoms of David and Solomon.

Jos 1:4 from the wilderness The termwilderness (BDB 184) refers to the Negev, which is usually translated the south (BDB 616). It refers to the semi-arid pastureland which was uninhabited, because of lack of ground water, located between Beersheba and the desert of Sinai.

Lebanon This is literally white (BDB 526), which refers to (1) the snow-capped heights of Mt. Hebron or (2) the color of its cliffs. It designates the northern reaches of the Promised Land (cf. Deu 1:7-8; Deu 11:24).

as far as the great river, the river Euphrates This refers not to the mouth of the Euphrates (BDB 832), but to the headwaters, which are northeast of the Sea of Galilee.

all the land of the Hittites The exact location of this area is uncertain. It may refer to northern Syria. In the Bible there are three different groups of Hittites. The largest and most famous one was in central Turkey (Anatolia). There was a group by this name that also lived within Palestine. This same basic description is found in Deu 11:24. Hittite names of these were found in written documents during the reigns of David and Solomon. See Special Topic: Pre-Israelite Inhabitants of Palestine .

as far as the great sea This refers to the Mediterranean, often called the upper sea and, therefore, is a designation for the west.

Jos 1:5

NASBNo man will be able to stand before you

NRSVNo one shall be able to stand against you

TEVNo one will be able to defeat you

NJBNo one will be able to resist you

Because of Deu 7:24; Deu 11:25, this phrase has military overtones. Joshua passed this word of encouragement on to his army (cf. Jos 10:8). The you is SINGULAR here and refers to Joshua. In Jos 1:4 it was PLURAL and referred to all the people.

just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you What a tremendous promise! This is the same type of phrase used when God called Moses (cf. Gen 26:3; Gen 31:3; Exo 3:12; Deu 31:6; Deu 31:8; Jos 3:7; Jdg 6:16; 1Ki 11:38). The promise was YHWH’s personal presence!

I will not fail you nor forsake you The Hebrew word fail (DBD 951, KB 1276, Hiphil IMPERFECT) implies weakness and the Hebrew word forsake (BDB 736, KB 806, Qal IMPERFECT) implies non abandonment. This reflects Deu 31:6-7. These were covenant terms which imply that YHWH would be with Joshua (cf. Jos 1:9), even though problems would arise. God’s presence and promises are His greatest gifts!

Jos 1:6 Be strong and courageous This was Moses’ message to Joshua (cf. Deu 31:7-8; Deu 31:23). This is God’s command to Joshua (BDB 304, KB 302, Qal IMPERATIVE and BDB 54, KB 65, Qal IMPERATIVE, cf. Jos 1:6-7; Jos 1:9; Jos 1:18). This is Joshua’s message to the people (cf. Jos 10:25, same grammatical form). Notice the covenantal need for continuing human response.

the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them The promise was given to Abraham in Gen 12:7; to Isaac in Gen 26:3; to Jacob in Gen 28:13; and to all Israel in Exo 6:8.

Jos 1:7 be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you The phrase Be careful to do is made up of two Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTS (BDB 1036, KB 1581 and BDB 793, KB 889). This is a repeated theme throughout this period of Israel’s history. There is the covenant relationship between God and Israel which had stipulations on both sides (cf. Deu 5:32-33; Deu 6:1-4; Deu 6:17; Deu 6:24-25).

God’s covenant(s) are both conditional and unconditional. Some covenant promises are based solely on God, e.g., (1) Noah, cf. Gen 8:20-21; Gen 9:8-17; (2) Abraham, cf. Gen 15:12-21. God will redeem mankind (cf. Gen 3:15), but individuals are united to Him by personal faith and obedience (conditional covenant, cf. Genesis 12). The literary form of the conditional covenant is usually if they. . .I will. . . (cf. Deu 28:1-2; Deu 28:9; Deu 28:13; Deu 28:15).

In my opinion the theological tension of the sovereignty of God versus the free will of humanity can best be explained in these covenantal categories.

do not turn from it to the right or the left The VERB (BDB 693, KB 747, Qal IMPERFECT) is used in a JUSSIVE sense. This phrase (cf. Deu 5:32; Deu 17:11; Deu 17:20; Deu 28:14; Jos 23:6; 2Ki 22:2; 2Ch 34:2; Pro 4:27) reflects the Hebrew words for sin, which were always a deviation from the standard (i.e., God Himself). The Hebrew term righteousness is literally a measuring reed. All the terms for sin in Hebrew, and to some extent, followed by the terms for sin in Greek, mean a deviation from the standard or crookedness or perverseness or falling short. God Himself is the standard!

SPECIAL TOPIC: RIGHTEOUSNESS

so that you may have success wherever you go Physical prosperity was the covenantal promise (cf. Jos 1:8; Deuteronomy 27-28). God wanted to bless His people and thereby bring the world to Himself. See Special Topic below. God purposed blessing (cf. Deu 29:9), but fallen mankind was incapable of obedience, reaping only judgment (cf. Deu 28:29).

SPECIAL TOPIC: YHWH’s ETERNAL REDEMPTIVE PLAN

Jos 1:8 this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth There are three emphases made in Jos 1:8 about covenant responsibility:

1. talk about it continually (cf. Deu 6:6-9)

2. meditate (BDB 211, KB 237, Qal PERFECT, cf. Psa 1:2; Psa 77:12; Psa 143:5) on it always

3. perform it continually (the same phrase, be careful to do, from Jos 1:7 is repeated, cf. Deu 6:6-9; Psa 1:2; Psa 119:97)

for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success The covenant blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy 27-29 make it plain that God wants to attract the world to Himself by blessing Israel! God’s goal was prosperity, but the consequences of disobedience resulted in judgment. The world never saw the blessings of YHWH.

Jos 1:9 This includes both the positive aspect to be strong and courageous (cf. Jos 1:6-7; Jos 1:9; Jos 1:18) and the negative aspect to not tremble or be dismayed (both of these VERBS are negated QAL IMPERFECTS used in a JUSSIVE sense, [1] BDB 791, KB 888 and [2] BDB 369, KB 365, cf. Deu 20:3; Deu 31:6). The reason for this is that the LORD is going to go with themthe greatest promise is the presence of God (cf. Exo 3:12).

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Now. Hebrew “And”. Linked on to Pentateuch as the books of Pentateuch are thus linked on to each other; and as the four books of earlier Prophets are linked on to Joshua. See App-1. Joshua not necessarily the author, but doubtless is so, as asserted by Talmud. Book referred to in Old and New Testament: Jdg 18:31. 1Sa 1:3, 1Sa 1:9, 1Sa 1:24; 1Sa 3:21. Psa 44:2, Psa 44:3; Psa 68:12, Psa 68:13; Psa 78:54, Psa 78:55; Psa 114:1-8. Isa 28:1. Hab 3:11-13. Act 7:45; Act 13:19. Heb 11:32. Jam 2:25. No MS. of the five books yet found with Joshua bound up with them, making a sixth (or a so-called and hitherto unheard of ” Hexateueh “).

after the death of Moses, in the eleventh month of fortieth year. Compare Deu 1:3, Deu 1:38; Deu 34:5, Deu 34:9, and see App-50. Compare tho beginning of the Book of Judges.

Moses the servant of the LORD. See note on Deu 34:5, and ere Heb 3:5.

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.

the LORD spake = Jehovah spoke. When Moses is dead. Moses is a type of Law, Joshua of the Messiah. The Law is “until Christ”, Gal 1:3, Gal 1:24. Jehovah spake at four sundry times, and in three divers manners:

To Jos 1:1; Jos 4:4, Jos 4:1.

To Joshua to command the priests, Jos 4:15.

To Joshua to speak to the sons of Israel, Jos 20:1.

minister. Compare Exo 24:13. Num 11:28. Deu 1:38.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

At this time you may be seated and we’ll turn to the book of Joshua.

Now it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying ( Jos 1:1 ),

Moses’ minister; it doesn’t mean that Joshua was Moses’ pastor. The word “minister” there actually is in its true meaning, which is “servant”. It is interesting how that somehow we’ve really sort of twisted the concept of a minister. So many men in the ministry today really don’t look at the ministry as servanthood, but they’re almost wanting people to serve them. “You know you ought to bring it to me because after all, I’m your minister.” That’s totally opposite of what the word minister really means. It means a servant.

Jesus said, “If any man would be chief among you, let him be the servant of all”( Mar 10:44 ). So a true minister is a man who is there not to be ministered to, but who is there to serve the needs of the people. So when it reads that he was Moses’ servant, or his minister, it means that he was Moses’ personal servant. He accompanied Moses, he helped Moses do the things, and Moses was, he was just his valet sort of, just his servant.

Now after the death of Moses, God elevated him from Moses servant, to the servant of all of the people of Israel. Faithful in the little things, now the Lord has entrusted into his hands even greater things. This is always the process of God. Jesus said, “Because thou hast always been faithful in little things, now I will make thee ruler over many” ( Mat 25:21 ). He said, “If I’ve entrusted to you the little things, and you haven’t been able to take care of them, how can I entrust you the things of the kingdom?” As the Lord encourages us to the faithfulness to our service, no matter what avenue of service He may call us to.

Many times we look with disdain on particular ministries within the body. We look with sort of envy or desirability on other ministries within the body. Men are prone many times to put greater honor on certain ministries. Actually, the particular ministry that I have within the body is one that people often look up to in an enviable kind of a way because it is a particular ministry that draws a lot of prominence because I stand before people. But it doesn’t really follow that my ministry is more important than your ministry within the body. There are some ministries that never cause any attention or notice to be drawn to them, which God has placed as some of the most vital and important ministries within the body.

There is that ministry of intercessory prayer. Rarely do you know who it is who has that ministry. Yet what an important ministry within the body. What great honor God places upon that ministry. What great rewards will that person have who has and is faithful to that ministry. I don’t know that they’ll have rows in heaven, I hope not. Because I’m afraid that I’ll have a back row because there is so much feedback to the ministry that I have. It’s so neat to have people like you who display and show so much love, and so much warmth, and so much kindness. I fear lest I often am getting all my rewards here, and they’ll be nothing left for me when I get up there. I’ll have to stand in the back on my tiptoes trying to see down to the front. Some of you people who have never been on the platform, never been in the public eye, you’ll be right down there on the front row, because you have been faithful to God in that ministry that He has called you to fulfill. Though it wasn’t one that caused a lot of attention to be drawn to you, but you were faithful in that to which God called you.

We need to get away from this concept of full-time ministry, looking at that, those who are on the Calvary Chapel staff are those who’ve been hired by some mission board are full-time ministers. You are, all of you called by God to be a full-time minister. Now Sears and Roebuck may pay your salary, or some other corporation, but you have been called of God to full time, serving the Lord. Whatever you’re doing in word or deed, you should be doing for the glory of God, and as unto the Lord. Knowing that from the Lord you are going to receive your reward. So we need to have the proper concept of the ministry, and especially those who do serve on any church staff. We need to get away from that idea that the minister is someone who is especially holy, or is someone above the others, because as a minister, I’m actually a servant. Can you imagine seeking to serve this many people? But yet that’s what God has called me to do. So Joshua was Moses’ minister, that is he was his personal valet or servant.

Now after the death of Moses, the Lord then spoke unto Joshua. His name is a very significant name. It was given to him by Moses, originally his mother called him “Hosea”, which means “salvation”. But Moses after he saw the quality and all in this man, called him “Joshua”, or “Yashua”, which is “Jehovah is”, or “Jehovah’s salvation”, or “Jehovah is salvation.” It is the same name as Jesus. This is in Hebrew “Yashua”, in Greek it is “Jesus”. So we find in Joshua a very interesting type of Jesus Christ, who, Joshua, led the people into the inheriting of the land.

Now Moses could only lead the people so far. Moses led them out of Egypt and to the border of the Promised Land, but Moses could not lead them in. Moses stands for the law. The law cannot lead you into the fullness of God’s blessings for your life. The law can lead you up to the border, but the law can’t take you in. So, Moses the representative of the law, could lead them up to the border of the Promised Land; he could not lead them into the Promised Land. It is necessary now that Moses lay down his leadership. Joshua takes up the leadership to lead them into the promises of God.

Now there have been given unto us exceeding rich and precious promises. God has a life for you that is a super rich abundant life in Jesus Christ. It isn’t God’s will that you be on a spiritual roller coaster, that you be a yo-yo in your spiritual experience. It is God’s desire that you enter into the full, rich life that He has for you in Jesus Christ, that you enjoy that life of victory in Christ. But the law can’t lead you into that. Only Jesus Christ can lead you in. So where Moses had to leave off, Joshua took up, for the law led them as far as it could. Now the new relationship is gonna be one of faith. They’re gonna have to begin by stepping out in faith, coming into this land that God had promised.

Now their conquest of Canaan is typical of the Christians entering into the life of victory that God has for us, as we are conquering over the giants of the flesh that have been entrenched so long in our lives, as we enter into that glorious victory in and through Jesus Christ, that the Lord has for us. Now, it is interesting that Joshua could only lead them so far. He led them into the conquering of the land but he never brought them into a rest. That is something that was reserved for Jesus Christ.

In Hebrews the contrast is made of how that Joshua led them in but could not bring them to the place of rest; that is a work that was reserved for the finished work of Jesus Christ. And once Christ made the work of salvation complete through His death upon the cross, then He has brought us now into the rest where we rest our salvation, our eternal life in that finished work of Jesus. We have that neat rest in the Lord. So Jesus has done for us that which Joshua could not do. He brought them only into the land, not into the rest, but Jesus has brought us into a glorious rest. So you get into some of the typology and it makes a very fascinating study.

Now God spoke to Joshua and the words of the Lord were actually words of encouragement. Commanding Joshua now to take up where Moses left off, and for him to lead the people the children of Israel. The beautiful promise in verse three where God said,

Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses ( Jos 1:3 ).

Now I like that because this is stepping in and laying claim to that which is already yours. Notice it’s in the past tense, “Every place you put your sole, I have already given to you.” Now God has already given to you a glorious, full, rich life of victory. All you have to do is go in and take it by faith, go in. “Wherever you put the sole of your foot”, the Lord said, “I have given to you”. You can go in and begin to lay claim to the blessings of God, to the promises of God. Let us beware lest God having given us the promise that we would fail to receive it, or enter into it. It is important that we begin to lay claim to those victories over the flesh life that God has promised to give to us. “Every place you put the sole of your foot, I have given to you.”

From the wilderness from Lebanon even to the great river, Euphrates ( Jos 1:4 ),

Now the tragic thing is that they didn’t put their sole all the way. So God says, “It’s all yours, every place you put your sole of your foot down, I’ve given it to you.” They only went so far and then they quit. They never did go over the river Euphrates. They never did take all that God had given to them.

Now it is also tragically true that so many times we fail to take all that God has given to us. We fail to enter fully into that life of victory in Jesus Christ. We hesitate, or we become as they did, satisfied, “That’s all we need.” We become more or less complacent in our spiritual growth. We just hit a plateau and we say, “Oh praise the Lord. This is wonderful.” We don’t press on any further.

So when God tells them the area that is theirs, it is sad that they never did take all of the area that was theirs. They never did fully possess their possessions: that which God gave to them. That is why the scriptures are constantly exhorting us. “Let us go on, let us go on into the completeness, into the fullness.” God has so much for you. God wants to do so much for you. If you’ll just press in by faith, lay claim, take it, it’s yours.

Now the Lord is encouraging him.

No man will be able to stand against you: as I was with Moses, so I’m gonna be with you: I will not fail you, nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage: for unto this people you’re going to divide this inheritance, the land. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do all that is written according to the law ( Jos 1:5-7 ),

Now the encouragement for Joshua as God promises His presence, His power. Then as God again tells him the conditions upon which he will experience that presence and power of God.

Be careful that you observe to do the whole law: don’t turn, don’t deviate from it to the right, or to the left. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for thus thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and thou shalt have good success ( Jos 1:7-8 ).

Now God is saying, “Look keep the law, don’t deviate from it, for it is by this observing it day and night, meditating in it, thus thou shalt make thy way prosperous, thus you will have good success.”

As we turn to the first Psalm, we read, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law does he meditate both day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in his season, his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”( Psa 1:1-3 ). People looking for prosperity, people who are looking for success, God has given you the rules. Meditate in it, observe it, and thus shalt thou make thy way prosperous, for these are the rules to prosperity. These are the rules to success. So the conditions upon which he can know the power, the presence, the victory.

So Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the land, and command the people, saying, Prepare your food; for within three days you’re gonna pass over this Jordan, and go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God gives to you to possess. And to the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, he said, [All right now, you promised Moses you were gonna go in and help us, and he reminded them of their promise, told them now to leave their wives and so forth, and to get their fighting men together so that they might cross with them, and take this land that God had promised unto them]; Until the Lord has given [verse fifteen] your brothers rest, as he has given you, and they have possessed the land which the Lord your God has given to them: then you will return and enjoy this land. And they answered Joshua, saying, All that you command us we will do, for whithersoever thou sendest us, we will go. And as we hearkened unto Moses, so will we hearken unto you ( Jos 1:10-17 ).

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

In the Hebrew division of the Scriptures after the Torah or Law came the Prophets, divided into the Earlier Prophets and the Later Prophets. In this section the first Book is the Book of Joshua. Its content is a continuation of the history of the chosen people. The first division (1-12) tells the story of the conquest of the land.

The link of connection between this Book and the preceding ones is arrestingly shown in the use of the word “therefore,” in the charge to Joshua; “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise.” The work of the great leader was completed, but the work of God moves forward. For this Joshua was divinely commissioned. His right of entrance was that God had given the land to His people. His power of entrance was to be that of the divine presence and the consequent inability of any man to stand against him. The conditions of his success were to be that he must be strong and courageous by obedience to the law of God.

Immediately following the account of this commission of Joshua we have his call to the people. It was characterized by urgency and dispatch; “within three days” the hosts were to move forward toward all the conflict and di5culty which had long ago frightened their fathers and turned them back into the wilderness. The call was uttered first to the whole nation and then especially to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, who had already found their settlement on the wilderness side of the Jordan.

It is interesting to notice here the terms of the response of the people to the call of the new leader. They said “Only Jehovah thy God be with thee, as He was with Moses” (verse Jos 1:17); “only be strong and of a good courage” (verse Jos 1:18). The people thus made the same demand on Joshua as Jehovah Himself had already made.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the New Leaders Commission

Jos 1:1-9

Joshua was a prince of the tribe of Ephraim, and was born in Egypt. After the Exodus he became captain of the host, Exo 17:9. With Caleb he brought back a good report of the land of Canaan, Num 14:7. Having been found faithful in the smaller sphere, he was promoted to the wider one. As we have seen, one of Moses closing acts was to give him a charge. He represents the Lord Jesus, in His risen glory, as the Captain and Leader of the Church.

The land of Canaan was Israels by deed of gift; but Israel had to go up to possess it. Similarly Gods grace is ours, but we must claim it by putting the foot of our faith on Gods promises. Though Hittites-our old evil habits-revolt, if we meet them in the power of the Holy Spirit, they must yield. God is with us. Jos 1:5 is the perquisite of all believers. See Heb 13:5-6. But note that the weapon of successful conflict is Gods Word. It is our sword, Eph 6:17. See also Jer 15:16.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister, saying, Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant com manded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whitherso- ever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Jos 1:1-9

The book of Joshua is distinctly the book of the inheritance and links very intimately with the Epistle to the Ephesians in the New Testament. We have the manifestation of divine life in the book of Genesis; redemption in the book of Exodus; then the entrance into the holiest and the believers sanctification typically set forth in Leviticus; the people of God under trial and testing in Numbers; and the government of God in Deuteronomy. Then we naturally move right on to the book of Joshua, in which we have the people of the Lord entering upon their inheritance.

In 1Co 10:11 we read that these things happened unto them for our types. So we are warranted to think of the land of Canaan as a type of the present blessings that are ours in Christ and to see in the wars of Israel a picture of the Christians conflict. Israels inheritance was of an earthly character. We might say they were blessed with all temporal blessings in earthly places in the land of Canaan. We, according to the Epistle to the Ephesians, are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

As we open this book we are introduced to the divinely appointed leader who is to guide the people into their inheritance. It is very significant that the name Joshua is the same as the name that our blessed Lord bore here on earth. Jesus is the anglicized Greek form of Joshua. The word Joshua means Jehovah the Saviour, and we may see in this Joshua of the Old Testament, a type of the Jesus of the New Testament. Moses, the lawgiver, led the people to the very border of the land but was not permitted to lead them into it. Joshua took up where Moses left off. The Apostle Paul tells us that the law was Israels child leader till Christ, but when Christ came they were no longer under the child leader. So we have in type the dispensation of the law passing away and the new dispensation of grace beginning. Of course, the people were actually under the law during all the days of Joshua and the Old Testament, and during the time of our Lords earthly ministry. It was not until the Lords Resurrection that believers were delivered from the law. Joshua typifies the risen One leading us on into the privileges of the new creation.

We read first of the death of Moses. Now after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister. This was when Israel was encamped east of the Jordan in the land of Moab. The Jordan was the eastern border of that part of the land separating Palestine from Moab. At Gods command Moses went up to the top of Mount Nebo and viewed the land and there died. The Lord Himself, we are told, buried him and no one knows where his sepulcher is to this day. Moses was so anxious to go into the land. He pleaded with the Lord to permit it, but he had failed at the water of Meribah, and God told him he could not enter Canaan. Moses prayed earnestly to be allowed to go in. Finally, God said, Speak to Me no more about this matter. But He told him he could view the land from the top of Mount Nebo. Moses got into the land eventually when on the Mount of Transfiguration he and Elijah appeared with the Lord Jesus, and they were speaking of those things which should shortly be accomplished at Jerusalem-the work of the Cross which our Saviour was just about to consummate.

When Moses died God put Joshua in his place. He was to lead the people into their inheritance. The Lord had promised the land to them long before; He gave it to them by title. Now He says very definitely, Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.

It is one thing to have title to an inheritance, but it is quite another thing to make it ones own practically. We who are saved are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, but how much of our inheritance have we actually appropriated? How much do you really enjoy of that which is yours in Christ? Many of us live in doubt, trouble, and perplexity most of the time. We fail to enter into and enjoy that which God has given us in His Son.

I have often likened this to a library. People sometimes come into my little study and look about. I have a few books which I have accumulated in the course of fifty years, perhaps some three thousand or more, and some people who are not used to doing much reading think that I have quite a collection. There are not nearly as many as there would be if a lot of my friends would return borrowed books. Sir Walter Scott once called those people, Good bookkeepers.

But some folks look around and ask, Do all these books belong to you?

I say, Yes; they are all mine. And I wish some other people could say the same thing about all the books they have!

The next question they ask is, Have you read them all?

I reply that I have read all that are worth reading. Sometimes I just get started and find that the book is worthless, so I do not finish it.

Well, the next question will be, Do you know all that is in them?

And I have to say, No; I certainly do not. This little head of mine is much too small to contain all that is in these books.

Now our possessions in Christ are like that. The entire library is mine, but I do not really possess it. God has given us an inheritance, but we do not appropriate all that is ours.

Notice the extent of Israels inheritance. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. That took in the land from Euphrates down to the border of the land of Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, and then from the desert of Arabia on the south to Damascus on the north. God gave all this to Israel; and for a very brief time during Solomons reign they possessed most of it, but they have never actually possessed for themselves all the land to which they were entitled. Some day they will. We are told in one of the Minor Prophets (Oba 1:17) that the house of Israel shall possess their possessions. Oh, I wish that we as Christians might possess our possessions, and so enjoy the riches of our inheritance!

Just what do you mean by that, you ask? I mean, God has given us His Word. In this Word He has put before us our inheritance. He would have us study His Word, make it our own; enter into everything that it reveals. If we did this we would be able always to live a victorious life in Christ; we would really enjoy our inheritance in Him. Instead of dillydallying with the things of this poor world we would find something so much better in Him. A young man, after his conversion, was asked by some former friends of his to go to a movie. No, he replied, thanks, but I have no time; all my time is filled with the things of Christ. That is what it means to be delivered from the things of the world.

There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. God said, You will not have to turn back; Ill drive out your foe before you. Alas, alas, they did not believe Gods Word, and again and again the enemy reigned over them because of their own disobedience.

Now we wrestle not with flesh and blood; we are not engaged in a conflict with other nations. But our foes are spiritual, and the same God who fought for the people of Israel is the One who will give victory while we obey Him. We sing sometimes

Trust and obey, for theres no other way

To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey.

In the next verse we have a word of encouragement. Be strong and of good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. We may take these words home to our hearts today when we are fearful of our spiritual foes.

Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses My servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. Victory de- pended on their adherence to the Word of God, and it is just as true today. We have so much more of Gods Word than they had. They had only the five books of Moses and possibly the book of Job, which may have been written at that time. This is all the Bible they had, and God said, Take this Word and walk in obedience to it, and you wont need to fear any foe; Ill ever be with you.

Now we have the whole Bible, and God calls upon us to search this Word; let it be the man of our counsel, the food of our souls, and the sword with which we face the enemy. God promises that if you will be strong and of a good courage and walk in obedience to His Word you will never need to dread the conflict; you will never need to fear; you will be able, at all times, to say with the Apostle Paul, Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Co 15:57).

If you do not have victory through Christ Jesus, I can tell you why. It is because you are neglecting reading and obeying your Bible. Read your Bible as you ought to and obey it, and you will be able to live a life of victory. John Bunyan had written in the front of his Bible, on the flyleaf, This Book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this Book. We have the Scriptures to read, and we are to walk in obedience to the Word as it is opened to us by the Holy Spirit.

Young people, if you want to know what will make your life prosperous, get Gods own recipe for good success. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. There you have it. Do you want your life to be prosperous? Do you want a successful career? Then take Gods Word, read it, and obey it, and God promises those two things.

Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. There seemed good reason why they should be afraid-unused to warfare as they were, facing seven nations with walled cities and armies, nations that had been constantly quarreling with each other down through the centuries, and the people of Israel were to go against these nations and take possession of their land. They might well tremble if they thought only of their own power and their own ability. But as they walked in obedience to the Word of the Lord He promised to deal with the enemies and to empower Israel to overcome them. Although we belong to a different dispensation we may take these words as an exhortation delivered to us personally, and as we read them and walk in obedience, we can count on God for victory.

Joshua was commanded not only to read but to meditate on the law of God. It is by meditation that we really make the Word our own. To read attentively is like eating the Word. Meditation answers to digestion of the truth. Mere intellectual acquaintance with the letter of Scripture avails little. It is as we weigh carefully what God has revealed that we obtain from it that spiritual power that enables us to rise above our difficulties and triumph by grace over all our foes. Thus we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We become weak and are easily overcome when we neglect this important spiritual exercise, for the Word fed upon alone gives strength.

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Jos 1:6

There are two kinds of strength and courage. There is animal strength and there is moral strength; there is animal courage and there is moral courage. And although the strength of active limbs and firm muscles and the courage which men share with the lower animals are not to be despised, but praised and sought after in their degree, yet it is to the nobler qualities the text chiefly refers when it says, “Be strong and of a good courage.”

I. The need of strength and courage. God gave this word of good cheer to Joshua, and repeated it thrice over, so that he might never forget it. Joshua and his men needed it, or God would not have said it to him thrice so earnestly. You will need to hear this cheering cry: (1) in the hour of confession; (2) in the hour of temptation; (3) in the hour of misfortune; (4) in the hour of death.

II. The source of strength and courage. “Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” This is the secret. It is to have God ever near, a Friend unseen to others, but visible to us. Christ with us-that will make us strong and courageous. He knows all the dangers that are before us. Our enemies are strong-the wicked heart, the tempting world, the unknown future. But greater is He that is with us than they that are with them. No power can stand against us if He is on our side. And, best of all, He loves us. If we know that Christ loves us and that He has all power and knows all that is before us, what have we to fear?

J. Stalker, The New Song, p. 141.

Jos 1:6-7

This exhortation to be strong and very courageous is given solely with moral application, is applied to the keeping of the law of God. The words of Divine injunction rise to the point of greatest emphasis and intensity when the thing commanded is a simple, continuous, unswerving obedience. Applying the subject to ourselves, we have-

I. A sufficient rule of guidance for life. Joshua had; we have. There was a law of God then by the keeping of which he and all his people might approve themselves to the Lord, and be strong men and heroes. There is a law of God now, fuller, richer, more spiritual, more complete, in the keeping of which we may approve ourselves to the Master, Christ. Our law is the whole Gospel, as requiring from us a practical, and loving, and continuous obedience. To be “strong” is to make endeavour to go forward and grasp something in the Divine life; it is to take up a certain position in practical obedience and say clearly, “I am here: I stand by this.” To be “of good courage” is to maintain that position against the force of temptation and opposition of every kind. (1) Strength and courage are needed at home and with ourselves before we meet the world at all. The critical part of the struggle is within. (2) Strength and courage are needed in the Church; i.e. among Christian people. (3) Strength and courage are needed when we go more fully out into the world. We need courage to live honestly, courage to live simply, courage to speak frankly and boldly in condemnation of the speech or the action of others.

II. We have in the context direction how we may attain this temper and habit of Christian courage. It is fed by truth, by the law or the revealed truth of God. When the soul has found the flowing fountains of strength, and drinks of the same day by day, her courage will be day by day renewed.

A. Raleigh, The Way to the City, p. 89.

References: Jos 1:6, Jos 1:7.-A. P. Stanley, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 17. Jos 1:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 796; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 132; J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Sundays after Trinity, Part I., p. 31; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 209; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, 1st series, p. 73. Jos 1:8.-G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 193.

Jos 1:9

This expression “Be strong” does not mean “Be strong in body,” but “Be strong in mind;” “Be strong in spirit;” “Be brave.”

An order like this could not have been a mere mockery, an order which Joshua was unable to obey. The word which bade him be strong was an assurance at the same time that if he would, he might be strong according to his day.

I. The first secret of true courage is to know and be sure that we have some power. Hence the wisdom of the maxim of the ancients, “Know thyself”-learn to see what thy real capacity is, and knowing that, shrink not from venturing on putting it to the proof. It is not too much to say that all men go wrong by underestimating themselves? For what deeper self-depreciation is there than for a man to live in the world forgetful of what he is brought here for-forgetful of his Christian privileges, of his Christian name, of his Christian freedom?

II. We all have some power; the question is, How much and what? That is the question we should ask ourselves every day; it is the great question of our early life especially, for on the right answering of it all our success depends. Our weaknesses guarded against often become our strength; and our best lessons, if we heed them, are our mistakes. Joshua’s strength was a knowledge of his weakness. Beware of thinking you have no strength because you are not omnipotent. God says to us all, whatever worthy work we are entering upon, “Be of good courage; be strong!”

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 97.

References: Jos 1:9.-J. Ellison, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xv., p. 305; Congregationalist, vol. vii., p. 400. Jos 1:16-18.-Parker, Pulpit Analyst, vol. i., p. 626. 1, etc.-G. Gilfillan, Alpha and Omega, vol. i., p. 156. 2-A. Saphir, Found by the Good Shepherd, p. 383.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

Analysis and Annotations

I. THE ENTRANCE OF THE PEOPLE INTO CANAAN AND THE CONFLICTS

1. The Entrance Commanded and Success Promised

CHAPTER 1

1. The Lord speaks to Joshua (Jos 1:1-9)

2. Joshua speaks to the people (Jos 1:10-15)

3. The answer of the people (Jos 1:16-18)

The little word now with which this book begins is in the Hebrew and. It links the book with Deuteronomy and the other books of the Pentateuch. It also shows that the previous books were in existence, for the mention of Moses, his death, and Joshua, the minister of Moses, presupposes that the reader knows all about them. But there is a stronger evidence in the eighth verse of the chapter, that the Pentateuch was then completely written. The term This book of the law applies to the five books written by Moses.

Joshua begins with the statement of Moses death and ends with the record of Joshuas death. The book which follows, the book of judges, begins with the statement of Joshuas death. Moses and Joshua are closely linked together. Both are beautiful types of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses, the servant, is the type of Christ, the perfect servant of God. Joshua typifies Christ in and among His people in the power of His Spirit.

He leads His people victoriously into the promised possession. Moses death also typifies Christ. The people could not enter the land as long as this servant of God was living. After his death the land could be possessed. So after the death of Christ the heavenly inheritance is thrown open.

The Lord mentions once more the death of His servant. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His Saints (Psa 116:15). After that the command to enter the land is given. The land promised to the seed of Abraham is Gods gift. The land which I do give unto them. They beheld that land across the river with its beautiful hills and mountains and its fertile valleys. The third verse contains a condition. Every place that the sole of your feet shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. They had to appropriate what God had given and as they appropriated it, they would possess and enjoy the land. If they made it their own by putting their feet upon the land, whether mountain or valley, it became theirs in reality. This required energy. As stated in our introduction, Canaan typifies the heavenly places mentioned in the Epistle to the Ephesians. We are blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3). All is the gift of the grace of God. Unsearchable riches, far greater than that land, even in its widest dimensions, belong to us. The unsearchable riches of Christ are by the death of Christ put on our side. We must take possession in the energy of faith, as Israel had to plant their feet upon the territory and conquer it. If we are apprehended of Jesus Christ, we also must apprehend. I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Jesus Christ (Php 3:12). Israel failed in the wilderness and Israel failed in the possession of the land. And greater still is our failure in not claiming in faith our possessions in Christ.

The words the Lord addressed to Joshua are extremely precious. I will be with thee, stands first. He was with Joshua and gave him the promise There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. And this is true of us. He is with us, indwelling us; His Spirit is with us and His power on our side. God is for us; who can be against us? I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. He never fails His people. Divine strength and power are on our side. In the midst of the conflict He will never forsake His people.

After these assuring and encouraging words come the exhortations to obedience. Be strong and very courageous. Notice the courage is linked with the law (the Word of God) and obedience to it, as well as meditation in it day and night. Joshua was put in dependence on the written Word. So are we. Spiritual growth and enjoyment are impossible apart from meditation in the Word and obedience to it. The Word and obedience to it, separates us, and keeps us separated. And we need courage to obey. It requires courage in an ungodly age, a blinded world with its eyeblinding god (Satan) to observe to do according to all that is written. It becomes more difficult as the present age draws to its close, to fight the good fight of faith, to appropriate in faith the spiritual blessings, to stand and withstand the wiles of the devil. But if we are obedient His strength will sustain us and give us victory. We constantly need the courage of faith, which looks to God and which is expressed by obedience to His Word. Gods strength is employed in helping us in the paths of Gods will, not out of it. Then no matter where we go, what the difficulties are, how long the journey seems, He makes our way prosperous.

Joshua addressed the officers of the people and especially the Reubenites, Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh. They had made their choice and had found rest on this side of Jordan. But they were not to be exempt from the approaching warfare; they are commanded to help their brethren by passing with them over Jordan. Then after their brethren had found rest, they were to return to their rest. They could not escape the conflict, though they had no reward in the land itself.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

the death: Jos 12:6. See on Deu 33:1, Deu 34:5, Act 13:36, Act 13:37, Rom 1:1, Tit 1:1, Jam 1:1, Rev 1:18

Joshua: Exo 17:9-13. See on Num 13:8, Num 13:16, Deu 1:38, Deu 31:3, Deu 31:23, Deu 34:9, Act 7:45, Jesus

Moses’ minister: Exo 24:13, Num 11:28, 1Ki 19:16, 2Ki 3:11, 2Ki 4:27-29, 2Ki 5:25-27, Mat 20:26, Mat 20:27, Luk 16:10

Reciprocal: Gen 22:17 – thy seed Gen 49:24 – the shepherd Jos 1:2 – Moses Jos 1:7 – which Moses 2Ki 2:5 – thy master 2Ki 2:14 – smote 2Ki 18:12 – Moses 1Ch 6:49 – Moses Neh 8:17 – Jeshua Neh 9:23 – broughtest 2Ti 2:24 – the servant Heb 11:31 – she had

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Joshua and the Canaan Rest

Jos 1:1-9

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

Joshua comes in as the complement to the work of Moses. Joshua stands as the type of the Lord Jesus; for “Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.”

1. Typology is one of the great studies of the Bible. The Children of Israel in their exit from Egypt, by the way of the shed blood; in their baptism unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; in their eating of the manna, and in their drinking of the water from the flinty rock; in their wilderness journeys, and in their entering into Canaan were types given for our admonition upon whom the end of the ages is come.

2. The typology of Israel elucidated. We will not go into the type of Israel coming out of the land of Egypt. We want to note particularly the things which concern Israel and their Canaan rest.

(1) Their failure to enter in when first they came to Kadesh-barnea. Two years they had spent in covering the distance across the wilderness, until they came to the borders of Canaan. God gave command for them to enter in, but they rebelled and would not go up. With Canaan blessings just ahead of them they became afraid, and therefore back into the wilderness they went.

When Christ came the first time, He was heralded as King of the Jews. However, Israel rejected Him and delivered Him over to Pilate for crucifixion. Thus Israel once more lost the open door to rest and deliverance. Christ was crucified King of the Jews-a rejected King.

(2) The bodies of the elders of Israel strewing the wilderness. Of all who came out of Egypt, by Moses, only two of the elders of the men of Israel entered in-those two were Caleb and Joshua. What about the rest? Their bodies fell in the wilderness-they missed their “rest.” The third and fourth chapters give the warning, lest we also fall after the same example of unbelief. Read 1Co 10:1-33.

3. The typology of Israel elucidated. What is the meaning of these things? They missed their Canaan, we are warned lest we miss our rest, Canaan was Israel’s rest-what is our rest, the rest that remaineth for the people of God, the rest that we are in danger of missing?

Canaan cannot be shown as a type of Heaven, for several reasons:

(1) Canaan was infested with “giants,” and by seven nations antagonistic to Israel. There are no enemies, and no giants in Heaven to resist the saints from entering in.

(2) Canaan was entered by the fall of Jericho, its walled cities had to be thrown down. There are no walls around Heaven, which we must march about seven days, and which must fall before we can have access.

(3) In entering Canaan, the Israelites met defeat at Ai-there will be no turning of our backs on the enemy as we enter Heaven.

Canaan can, however, be shown as a type of the Millennial rest that awaits the children of God.

The giants will infest the land-the antichrist, and the false prophet, and the world ripened in sin under their reign will be overthrown and subdued at the coming of the Lord. The cities of the nations will fall. The saints will not have reached a state of never-failing sinlessness in the earth Kingdom of Christ As there were olives and pomegranates, the grapes of Eschol, milk and honey-so will there be an earth of marvelous fruitfulness during the Millennium.

I. JOSHUA EXALTED TO LEADERSHIP (Jos 1:1-2)

1. Joshua’s exaltation came after the death of Moses. The death of Moses took from among men one of earth’s greatest noblemen, and one of Gods greatest generals. Some may have thought that the loss caused by Moses’ death was irreparable. Not so. God always finds other men to fill in the great gaps. Luthers, and Savanarolas, and Calvins, and Wesleys, and Spurgeons, and Moodys may come, and they may go, but God always has in preparation others to take their places.

2. Joshua’s exaltation came from servant to master. Is it not always true, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much”?

Joshua, as Moses’ minister, had proved faithful. He had, as a servant, learned much by way of leadership. In each menial task he had proved himself faithful and true,

3. Joshua’s exaltation had come as a befitting reward. The Lord is not forgetful of our labors of love and patience. God knew how Joshua had, forty years before, brought back a good report of the land; God knew that Joshua had not been cowed by the Anakim who infested the land of promise.

Let us stop and think. Shall we not go with Christ outside the camp? Shall we not share with Him in His reproach, and bear with Him the bane of a mocking world? Shall we not serve Him with faithful heart? If we do, He will surely exalt us in due season. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.”

II. JOSHUA ENCOURAGED OF GOD (Jos 1:9)

1. A promise given. To Joshua God said, “There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life.” The Lord was transferring to Joshua His power. Does not our Lord do the same toward us? Has He not said, “All power (authority) is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. Go, * * and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”?

2. A good courage urged. This may seem strange. Was not Joshua always of good courage? Was it not because of his courage and valor that he was now being commissioned as Israel’s leader? When all the spies but two had returned a bad report to the people, Joshua, in the fire of his faith, had said, “We are abundantly able to go up and possess the land.”

Joshua was about to step into a place of responsibility and under burdens such as he had never known.

God knew that Joshua might well have trembled before this new and added responsibility. Joshua had more than once seen Moses almost in despair. Joshua had heard Moses’ plaintive cry to God, “I cannot bear this people alone.” He had known of many a time when Moses, mighty man that he was, had well nigh slipped under the tremendous weight of a disobedient and rebellious people. Yes, Joshua the brave, and Joshua the valiant, needed just the encouragement that God was giving him.

III. A COMMISSION TO STUDY THE WORD (Jos 1:8)

1. The strong and stalwart need the blessings of the Book. We might have thought that Joshua could paddle his own canoe, and hoe his own row. Not so. Joshua could not afford to fail in building upon the inerrant Law of God, The “Word” was to be constantly in Joshua’s mouth; it was to be ever the burden of his meditations. By day and by night he was to be saturated with the “Law.”

2. The leader of the people needed himself to be guided by the Word. Joshua was to study the Word in order that he might observe to do according to all that was written therein.

God seemed to be telling Joshua that in doing the Word he would never be in danger of acting contrary to God’s Word. God never says one thing in His Word, and another thing by His voice, or vision. Remember, if any speak contrary to the Word, there is no truth in them. Our constant cry should be-Back to the Law and the Testimony.

3. Joshua was promised prosperity and success through obedience to the Law. God said, “Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” True success and prosperity as God reckons it, is that which is achieved alone by knowing and doing the Law. We need to learn this secret.

IV. CROSSING THE JORDAN (Jos 3:15-17)

1. The precedent to victory.

(1) An invincible faith. We read in the last verses of chapter two-“They said unto Joshua, Truly the Lord hath delivered into our hands all of the land.” Here was a faith that claimed the blessing before the blessing came. They took God’s promise as a fact before the fact had been realized. This is the call of the New Testament, “What things soever ye desire, * * believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

(2) Lodging by the Jordan. They came to the Jordan, Joshua and all the people, and they lodged there. We need to pitch hard up against any proposition that we may have to face. Victory does not come by standing aloof and dreading our task. We must begin at once to undertake. We must move in the direction of our commanded task, as rapidly as we can.

(3) After three days. It was not immediately that they went over Jordan-it was after three days. Of course our mind goes at once to Christ, three days and three nights in the tomb, and how, afterward, He came forth with the keys of death and of hell in His hands.

Three days stands, therefore, for death, burial and resurrection-not that of Christ alone, but it stands for our union with Christ in it all.

2. The crossing of the Jordan.

(1) The Ark of the covenant leading the way. When we journey in victory, we must not start forward until the Lord, our God, steps into the way before us. If the Lord is not in the house they labor in vain that build it. If the Lord does not lead us, we go out to sure defeat.

(2) The priest went with the Ark. God still has chosen men, ordained of God, to direct and lead His flock. The saints should follow their leaders providing their leaders are following the Ark.

(3) They stood first with their feet in the Jordan. As they began their journey the priests, bearing the Ark, came to the brink of the Jordan, and stood there while Joshua spoke unto the people and magnified God. As the soles of their feet rested in the water, the Jordan stood up in a heap, and the people passed over against Jericho.

3. The memorial stones. In the midst of the Jordan, twelve stones were placed, and on the other side of the Jordan there were likewise twelve stones. These were placed there as a memorial unto the Children of Israel forever, for Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan in the place where the feet of the priests stood, and the people came up out of the Jordan and encamped in Gilgal; and, the twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal.

Once more we see in marvelous picture the story of the Cross and of the resurrection, for the Lord said unto Joshua, “This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.” Even so was the. reproach of our sins rolled away at the Cross-our Gilgal.

V. THE FALL OF JERICHO (Jos 6:20)

1. Jericho straitly shut up. Here is the picture of a city closed against the Children of God. It is illustrative of many a heart which has shut God out.

The story of Jericho is interesting in the extreme. When Joshua first came to the Jordan, he sent spies over to investigate. These spies entered into Jericho itself. They came into the house of Rahab and lodged there. The king of Jericho sent men to search out the spies, but Rahab first hid them upon the roof, mid the stalks of flax, and then let them down off the wall. This woman, who was a sinner, told the spies,-“I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us.” She said, “We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt.” A miracle of forty years’ standing, had not yet lost its message.

2. The march about the walls. For seven days the Children of Israel marched around the walls of the city of Jericho. The angel of God’s wrath moves slowly. God seemed to be saying to the men of Jericho, “Throw open your gates, and let Jehovah enter in.”

The seventh day Israel marched around seven times. It must have been a wonderful sight. The seven priests, bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the Ark; and the seventh day, the seven journeys around the city wall. The perfection of warning had been given. The day of grace was passed. Then it happened, that when a long blast was made with the trumpets, all the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall of the city fell down flat. Thus every man moved straight before him, and they took the city and utterly destroyed all that was in it.

This earth is hastening on in its sin to a state of wickedness rivaling that of Jericho; soon it must fall.

3. The salvation of Rahab. Rahab the harlot was saved alive because she received the spies, and because she threw out the scarlet cord. When the wrath of God finally falls, he who is under the Blood will find that he is not appointed unto wrath.

Rahab was as safe on the wall of the doomed city as though she had been safely housed in the camps of Israel. Her part of the wall did not fall, and it could not fall, because God’s judgments cannot touch the one who shelters in the Rock of Ages.

AN ILLUSTRATION

THE CLOCK OF PROVIDENCE

Joshua proved God’s clock, and in the moment that the clock struck he led Israel out “‘There is a clock with which Providence keepeth time and pace, and God Himself getteth it.’ So that everything happens with Divine punctuality. Israel came out of Egypt on the self-same night in which the redemption was appointed, and afterwards wandered in the wilderness till the hour had come when the iniquity of the Amorites was full. Our time is always come, for we are in selfish haste; but our Lord when on earth had His set times and knew how to wait for them. The great God is never before His time, and never too late. We may well admire the punctuality of Heaven. Our trials come in due season, and go at the apointed moment Our fretfulness will neither hasten nor delay the purpose of our God. We are in hot haste to set the world right, and to order all affairs: the Lord hath the leisure of conscious power and unerring wisdom, and it will be well for us to learn to wait. The clock will not strike till the hour; but when the instant cometh we shall hear the bell. My soul, trust thou in God, and wait patiently when He says, ‘My time is not yet come.’ “

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Division 1. (Jos 1:1-18; Jos 2:1-24; Jos 3:1-17; Jos 4:1-24; Jos 5:1-15; Jos 6:1-27; Jos 7:1-26; Jos 8:1-35; Jos 9:1-27; Jos 10:1-43; Jos 11:1-23; Jos 12:1-24.)

The Entrance into the Land.

The first twelve chapters of the book give us, evidently, the entrance into the land, as the second half has for its general subject, its apportionment among the tribes. The entrance has to be in power, in the first place, where no enemies can oppose. Conflict there is not until they are across the river, and in the camp at Gilgal. And after this, they themselves begin it. So with us, Christ’s work it is that carries us through death, and gives us our place in heaven. Then if the land is to be practically ours, we must conquer it.

There are seven subdivisions, ending with rest attained: “the land had rest from war.” (Jos 11:23.)

1. The first chapter is plainly introductory, and gives the principles which govern the advance of the people into the land.

Moses was now no longer in the midst of Israel, and the leader of the people is his minister Joshua. The spiritual significance of this has been already before us, and needs only to be briefly repeated. It is this spiritual significance found ill the typical meaning which alone invests the whole history here with its true interest for the child of God. We are in the midst of things which “happened unto them for types” (1Co 10:11, marg.): words which justify the fullest importance that can be given to them in this character, and magnify them in every detail given, amazingly beyond mere historical proportions.

Moses and Joshua, as we have elsewhere seen, both speak of Christ: Moses, of Christ down here in the world, living among men; Joshua, of Christ (in spirit, not in person,) acting by the Holy Ghost in His people. Thus Joshua it is who leads into the land; and while Moses is the “servant of the Lord,” the picture of Jehovah’s perfect Servant as given in the prophet (Isa 52:13), Joshua is “Moses minister,” waiting upon and representing this personal Christ.

The divine call now summons the people of God to take possession of their inheritance, Moses’ (Christ’s) death being necessary to have taken place before the land can be opened and entered. To take possession there must be the energy of faith: “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread on shall be your own.” Then come the definite limits in the meantime, which (though not the full final limits,) have been so narrowed in the thoughts of those who have taken what the people actually possessed as all that God promised them. In fact we are only beginning to realize that the “land of the Hittites” itself, which was yet less, not more, than the land of Canaan, went up far beyond Lebanon to the Euphrates itself; “all” of which to the sea-coast of the Mediterranean belongs to Israel by promise, and waits only faith on their part, to be made good to them. Keil even -an orthodox commentator, in one of the best of critical commentaries, -speaks of the “oratorical” character of the promise here! May we, then, without sin, ascribe exaggeration to God? What if the promise of a heavenly inheritance for us be equally “oratorical”? And though Israel has failed to lay hold of what is truly theirs, is it not simply what man has always done?

In fact they are, even in their unbelief, only the more fully our types. Had they taken possession of all that is here promised them as theirs, it would take much from the exactness of the picture which we may find of ourselves in them. How little have we indeed “apprehended that for which we have been apprehended of Christ Jesus” (Php 3:12)! And if our final possession of what is ours in Christ were to be limited, as we have limited Israel’s, by what we have, any of us, laid hold of in faith now, how little would be our portion! Thank God, His thoughts for us are far above our thoughts!

But we cannot pretend as yet spiritually to show these boundary-lines. As we go on we may trust that what our inheritance is will little by little dawn on us. This is the way ordinarily in which God teaches us, and we must go humbly, if we go in faith.

Enemies there are in this path, and we need therefore the encouraging exhortation which follows. “No enemy shall be able to stand before thee,” God says to Joshua. And when we remember who our Leader is, it is simple that it must be so. Christ is the “Captain of our salvation,” and in proportion as we identify ourselves with Him, we shall find strength given us which will not be wanting for any need; it will be not our own, but His who says, “I will not fail thee nor forsake thee;” words which the apostle teaches us so to apply to ourselves as boldly to say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” (Heb 13:6.) This strength of an arm which is not our own arm is the sweetest kind of strength that creature can know. It is companionship, communion, perfect security, -all holiness in it, all wisdom. God with us means all that God is.

Well He may say, therefore, “Be strong and of a good courage.” And again, “Only be thou strong and very courageous.” Just because the strength needed is not our own, we may be strong, and in this, honor Him who has identified His glory with our blessing. Courage is the virtue by which we walk according to His Word; as it is added here, “that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law that Moses My servant commanded thee;” and this is the condition of success, -“turn not thou from it to the right hand, nor to the left, that thou mayest do wisely whithersoever thou goest.” And this is repeated with emphasis in the next verse. How needful for us this absolute insistence on the Word of God, so prone as we are to let expediency govern in divine things, to judge by results instead of by principles, and to count preciseness but Pharisaism. Indeed, in days such as ours, when the Word of God is spread abroad, and in a certain way there is much inquiry into it, how few are they who honestly, according to their light, carry out all that they know is enjoined! how few who have no questions in reserve which they dare not fully face! how many who do not wish to be disturbed by inquiries of which they cannot tell where they may end Let us all -readers and writer -make it a personal question for ourselves, neither as ready to judge others, nor excusing ourselves by others, and a question entertained before Him who can answer it, -“Lord, is it I?”

And what a grand word is this to give strength, -“Have not I commanded thee?” How good to bow ourselves to this yoke, and to remember that where God has spoken we must be either servants or rebels; let the matter of the command be what it may. And then again the exhortation, -not a word, be sure, more than is needed, “Be strong. and of a good courage; be not afraid, nor be thou dismayed; for Jehovah thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

We have next the words of the leader himself; addressed to the people, and the first word is, to prepare food for themselves, for within three days they are to cross the river. One might think such an injunction scarcely needed, but the people of God undergo but too many willing fasts from spiritual food, whereby they are never strengthened, but weakened. The “three days” here make a difficulty for those whose critical wisdom these difficulties are to accredit. They wait for the spies who are detained three days across the river, and then take three days more mustering, as it would seem, before they pass over. In an ordinary history it would not have been necessary to invent three writers on this account, to make a patchwork of various accounts very indifferently put together. It would have been said simply that Joshua had not anticipated the delay which in fact took place. Why not say so? Is it necessary to accredit Joshua with infallibility, in order to discredit Scripture with a mistake? Let the mistake be with Joshua, and it may still be no mistake with Scripture, possibly even some spiritual thought attaching to these “three days” three times repeated. Gleams of resurrection break out through all these scenes, for it is by resurrection-power alone that we can cross the river of death into our inheritance.

A special injunction is needed by the two and a half tribes, because of the divergence of their interests from that of the whole nation, from which they have in measure separated themselves. They are now to have the fighting without the personal reward; just as from the conflict with the power of Satan no Christian can be excused; and yet for many it may not have its true significance.

Nevertheless, even from these, in the flood-tide of present enthusiasm, there comes back an encouraging response. And that it is not mere excitement Joshua would surely realize, as their answer re-echoes the Lord’s words. “We will hearken to thee as unto Moses,” is their reply: “Jehovah be with thee, as He was with Moses; . . . only be strong and of a good courage.”

2. We have now in Rahab’s story, very plainly, the testimony of salvation, and the answer of faith. Joshua sends spies across Jordan to “view the land, even Jericho.” Jericho, at the entrance of the land, presents the opposition of the enemy in those cities walled up to heaven which Israel before had spoken of so despairingly. But the power of the enemy, as we have seen, acts through the world, which, as darkness, opposes the light, in which is the inheritance of the saints. (Col 1:12.) Jericho, at the entrance of Canaan, and significantly close by Jordan, the river of death, is the world, upon which faith must, as it were, execute the judgment of God before we can possess ourselves of our heavenly portion.

The story of Rahab, with its New Testament comments, is so plain in its meaning that this is recognized by all who see any spiritual meaning in these histories at all. “Rahab” means enlargement.” As the psalmist says, “Thou hast set my feet in a large room,” so could this Canaanitish woman say. Not in figure merely, but in fact, she is a sinner saved from impending judgment. One of those nations upon whom, as having filled up the measure of their iniquities, the curse was already pronounced; among these a harlot, sinner among sinners; she is a witness that from whatever “end of the earth” a soul looks to God, there is salvation for it. And how beautiful to see that in such a case as this it is, where the lesson is one so needful beyond all others, the vail, elsewhere maintained, drops almost altogether, and fact and type come together as one!

But why does the story of Rahab occur just here?

In relation to the literal history it showed that even the doomed Canaanites, according to a principle openly announced by the prophet afterward (Jer 18:7-8), might have escaped their doom, by such a repentance and turning to God as was found in Rahab. It was a gospel of fact for all and every nation, before a gospel of words there could be.

In relation to the typical meaning, it shows that if, on the one hand, Christianity proclaims, as it does, the judgment of the world, it has, on the other hand, its assurance of goodwill and blessing for all who out of this world turn to God.

It may seem, in some sense, a turning aside from the line of things before us here; but God is always ready to turn aside for such a purpose; or rather would show us that such a thing as this is never foreign to His purpose, as it is never absent from His heart.

“Jericho” means “fragrance;” and such is the world to the men of it, though it lies, as they own, too near the river of death. Indeed, though the earth be full of the Lord’s mercies, and there is abundant testimony in it to the Creator-God, yet death is never out of view, and judgment lies the other side of death, as Israel’s camp lay beyond Jordan. God is for its inhabitants in the enemy’s camp, and how are they to distinguish Him froth the enemy? nay, is He not the One upon whom all the power of the enemy depends? Yes, that is plain; and the hearts of the men of Jericho sink as they realize it. Alas, faint hearts may yet make stubborn resistance, and the power of sin and Satan is nowhere more fully seen than here. Where God is seen but as an enemy, and His judgment against sin treated but as an enemy’s act, the soul hardens itself against Him, and would rid itself of the presence of those who are His people, and identified with the hated truth. The king of Jericho sends to apprehend those whom faith in Rahab welcomes as the means of deliverance. Yet they stand in the same relationship to her as to them; but faith argues, must there not be good in God? and there is the germ of repentance also, for if there be good in God realized, we must be with Him against ourselves.

Rahab hides the spies therefore, identifying herself at her own personal risk with those who are the people of God. Her works justify her as a believer, show by their character that she has faith, which is what James speaks of; not justify her as righteousness before God, which is what Paul denies absolutely as to Abraham. (Rom 4:2.) The harlot Rahab has no righteousness to trust in, no moral character to commend her to God. But she has the faith of a poor sinner that clings to Him; and that faith, as all true faith will, manifests itself as living and real, spite of her lying to the king of Jericho’s messengers, in which we see at once her faith and the weakness of it.

Rahab’s confession of God, and where He is, is full and clear: “Jehovah your God, He is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath.” And then she puts in her prayer for mercy, in which she includes all her father’s house. And good it is to see how promptly and confidently the men of Israel are able to pledge themselves to the fullest extent that faith can ask. Theirs is no may-be gospel, but positive enough to give confidence to a soul in need. And such is the gospel of God today: it is a gospel the reception of which gives peace to the soul. It is not yea and nay, but yea. For if “blessed are all they that put their trust in Him,” self need not occupy or terrify me: the object of faith it cannot be. I am free to rest all upon a Saviour, and then not confidence is presumption, but the lack of confidence.

But Rahab wants a “token,” and the spies are able to give her that. The line of scarlet thread by which she lets them down out of the window is bound in the window as a sign, not to herself of course, but to the messengers of judgment when they come, that judgment is not to fall upon any in that sheltered house. What has been the means of their own deliverance they give to her as hers; and the likeness to the blood-sheltered houses in the night of the passover is at once evident. The “scarlet” was in fact the blood of an insect (vol. i. p. 487, n.) the “worm” of Psa 22:1-31, and in this way how plain the reference to the Lord! There is but one thing that can secure the sinner in the day of judgment, and of that God gives us many assurances.

Still Rahab has another witness for her, and without this the scarlet line would be of no avail, -a living witness -two being, as we know, sufficient testimony -in the camp of Israel. And this has its meaning for us: Christ risen from the dead is the living Witness for us before God. What would His death for us have been but the direst calamity, apart from resurrection? And thus if the apostle speaks of our “being justified by His blood” (Rom 5:9), he no less speaks of Him as being “raised from the dead for our justification” (Rom 4:25). If His death be, as it were, Christ for us, His resurrection is God for us; and thus we “believe on Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead” (24), for this is what characterizes Him toward us as a Saviour-God. That the men tarry three days before they cross the river may be a further hint of this very thing.

3. We now come to another most impressive type of resurrection, most evident surely as this, the passage of the people through Jordan into the land. Our thoughts are necessarily carried back to the similar passage through the Red Sea which lay at the beginning of their wilderness-journey as this at the end of it, and of which it is thus, as it were, the completion. And so the history itself presents it, for when they have come to Gilgal Jehovah says to them, “This day have I caused the reproach of Egypt to pass from you;” and as then it was said that the “hosts of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt,” so at Gilgal the angel of Jehovah comes as Captain of Jehovah’s host.

We shall find help, then, surely, in comparing these two passages, the one, the departure from Egypt and the entrance into the wilderness; the other, the departure from the wilderness and the entrance into Canaan. The wilderness was but necessary discipline by the way; the land is the end of the way, and rest.

We have already looked at the passage of the Sea, and found in it the vivid representation of the truth in Romans, that as dead with Christ we are dead to sin and to law. It is the backward glance at what we are brought out from; and resurrection with Christ, though implied, is not dwelt on. This is exactly the case in Romans: we have just suggested the “newness of life,” “the likeness of His resurrection” in which we are called to walk but we must go on to Colossians to find “risen with Christ” put in direct antithesis to “dead with Christ.” Ephesians carries us on still further to “seated together in Him in heavenly places,” and the side of truth in Romans, “dead with Christ,” is now omitted. The New Testament, like the Old, takes these things, as it were, apart, that we may consider them better.

Resurrection with Christ is at Jordan very strikingly shown forth, but our being dead with Christ is not omitted we go on also, as in Ephesians, into the land. Thus the whole truth is put together here.

We must examine it, however, now in detail.

(1) Strikingly and beautifully, in the first place, we have the ark of the Lord put in its unique place, as that which alone does the work, and manifests its power in behalf of the people. This is jealously maintained. Two thousand cubits separate between it, and those that walk in the track it opens. This two thousand is, of course, 2 x 103, and may speak to us of realized capacity for salvation: this is indeed the impassable distance between the cross and all that would seem to approach it. Let us remember what this ark is: that it not merely represents the throne of the Lord, but that it carries the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, -that it is the throne of grace founded on propitiation. How necessary to maintain in its full breadth this separation between that peerless work and all else! How else should we know the way by which we should go?

And now Joshua is to be honored in the sight of all Israel, and it is to be shown that God is with him. The link is plain enough spiritually; the living Christ glorified in what His death accomplishes. All enemies must give way when God manifests Himself for Christ, in behalf of His people. Seven nations here exhibit the complete power of the enemy, only to show the power of the Lord supreme above it.

The ark too is the throne of the “Lord of all the earth.” We have seen that Satan acts through the power of the world to hinder our entrance into the heavenly portion. But though he has usurped power over the world through man’s lust to which he ministers, the earth is yet the Lord’s, and owns His sway. He maketh all things work together for good to them that love Him, and godliness to have the promise of the life that now is, as well as that which is to come. Our home is not on earth, but who enjoys even things here as he who can look up to the Lord of heaven and earth as his Father? The bitterest pain is eased, the heaviest blow finds us shielded from it, the front of an enemy becomes the salutation of a friend, when God is seen as everywhere, and every where for us; and this is what Ephesians, the book of the heavenly places, itself reminds us of -“one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all” (Eph 4:6): not an unsuited truth to keep the dust of the world out of your eyes as you march to the conquest of the heavenly places!

Jordan fills all its banks all the time of harvest: for Christ, when He rolled back its stream for us, death had all its terrors. But its flood is stopped, its waters are heaped very far off, so that they should not come near His people at their crossing. It was our death He bore: it is taken then out of the way; we pass over to our inheritance, untouched and unhindered by it.

(2) This passage is ever to be remembered. Effected once for all, it is to be continually recalled. Joshua therefore commands twelve men, one being chosen of each of the twelve tribes, so as to represent clearly the whole of them, to take up out of the bed of the river, from the place in which the priests’ feet stand firm, twelve stones, to be placed as a memorial in the lodging-place they occupy that night. Twelve other stones Joshua has set up in the bed of Jordan at the same spot; but although they also clearly are representative, they are not connected with these living representatives: and in this the minute accuracy of the type is apparent. For the spiritual mind, the spiritual meaning, and the most perfect spiritual order, govern all.

Christ has been through death for us, and that death was our death: it was burdened with the weight of our sins, a death of wrath and curse, to deliver the children of wrath. Dying thus in our stead, we who believe in Him have died -are dead -with Him. It is not an individual experience; it is not experience at all: it is a fact independent even of our faith in it, but our faith in which imports much as to the character of our Christianity. We have died with Him, not die ourselves, but are dead, -“dead to sin,” “dead to the law,” “crucified to the world,” “our old man crucified with Him” (Rom 6:1-23; Rom 7:1-25; Gal 6:14): these are absolute statements of Scripture, true of every real Christian, and by faith to be translated into the sphere of practice: “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11, Gk.)

Here are the stones in the bed of the river, with which no living personality is connected, because they speak of death, not life; yet with which is connected the thought of representation, because it is in our Representative we died. We reckon ourselves dead, not feel or find: we impute that (upon God’s warrant) to be true which experience does not assent to, for it knows nothing of it; it is not within its sphere to know. How can we experience the death of Christ? We believe in it, and rejoice believing; we believe what it has accomplished for us, and experience its practical value for our souls.

Alive in Christ before God, we can look back upon what we were, and own it, yet refuse it. It is our old man that was crucified with Christ. As in the resurrection-day that (not far off) beckons us, we shall he able to look back upon our present selves as the men that were, so are we able to look back upon what we were before conversion as “our old man.” It is singular, however, not plural, for it is what we were in Adam that is intended by this, and there was no “second man” till Christ. We are now in Christ, a new creation, and so with a new standing. In Christ’s death we died out of the old. The “flesh” is in us, and “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1Jn 1:8), but we must distinguish between “flesh” and the “old man,” which is never spoken of as in us, but as “put off” (Eph 4:22, Gk; Col 3:9), even as in natural death the “tabernacle” is put off. (2Pe 1:14.) The flesh is in us, but we are not in it (Rom 8:9), not identified with it before God: the nature is there, but the person has passed away; we are alive in Christ Jesus.

This, then, is what we find in the twelve stones in Jordan; how distinctly is shown the change that has taken place, when now twelve other stones are taken from the bed of Jordan to be set upon the dry ground. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2Co 5:17.)

But we must remember that it is in Christ he is looked at; and this alone can justify the absoluteness of the expressions. If we make it read, “If any man be converted,” or born again, and think simply of condition as experience declares it to us, who can say, “all things”? There is a change indeed, a marvelous change, as “new creature” testifies: the man in Christ is a man born again, and a possessor of eternal life; but, as already said, he has still the flesh in him, even when he has the Spirit; “and the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye should not” -not “cannot” -“do the things that ye would.” (Gal 5:17.) Looked at in Christ, however, we are seen as only in the new nature, not the old; and thus “all things new” cannot be too absolute.

The living men, therefore, are identified with these stones, which are taken out of Jordan and put on the Canaan side of the river. We are risen with Christ out of death: once more what is true of Christ is on that account true of His people. They are associated with Christ in His triumph over death, and in the new place He has taken. Resurrection is more than receiving a new life, -not a deeper, but a further thing; and always distinguished from it: “He hath quickened us together with Christ,” says the apostle, “and raised us up together.” (Eph 2:5-6.) And in Colossians we find death contrasted with life (quickening), as burial with resurrection. (Col 2:12-13.) Burial is the recognition of death; resurrection, of life out of it. Burial is putting the dead into the place of death and away from the living. Resurrection is, on the other hand, the bringing the living out of the place of the dead into that of the living. Christianity separates (as Judaism did not) the living from the dead, and the saint from the world. Christ is the Heavenly; and “as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” (1Co 15:48.) “They are not of the world,” He says, even as I am not of the world.” (Joh 17:14; Joh 17:16.)

And these things are to be remembered. We are dead; we must reckon ourselves dead. The memorial stones were not intended more strictly for Israel’s eyes than the admonition of them is for us. They “happened unto them for types, and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” We ought to know them: we are responsible to walk in the power of this knowledge.

Only for the people of God is Jordan dried: they having passed through, it returns to its strength, and flows over all its banks as it did before.

(3) The people are now, as it were, on resurrection-ground. What the passage through the Sea implied is now accomplished: deliverance is now for the first time fully realized. True, there are now enemies before them, while at the Red Sea they were behind them; and the river now behind them cuts them off from retreat. God’s word to us is also, “Forward!” and in all the panoply of God which we are exhorted to put on, there is no armor for the back. All depends upon this for us, and with our faces to the foe we shall never be beaten.

(a) Gilgal is their first camp in Canaan, where the stones are pitched; and to it after their battles they constantly return. It is their impregnable stronghold, and base of support. How should they not be strong in the remembrance of that marvelous deliverance! God is for them: who shall be against them? who shall force them back into that flood through which He has so marvelously brought them? It would be His dishonor. The stones abide here solidly with their firm assurance: “Israel came over this Jordan on dry ground.” Thus “as the hills are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people.” To reach them their enemies must strike through Him!

For us also the place of resurrection is our impregnable defense: it is upon this Rock Christ builds His church, and the gates of hades cannot prevail against it. We are dead with Him, and out of the old creation; with Him, and beyond death itself. Nay, we are “seated together in Him in the heavenly places,” -we have a secure lodgment, whence not all the power of the enemy can drive us back. But from thence the pleasant land our portion lies before us, and if there are foes to meet, we have the assurance that wherever we plant our foot, the land is our own.

(b) The news of the passage of Jordan fills the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites with terror; their hearts melt, and there is no spirit left in them. Satan knows well with whom in all this conflict he has really to do, and before the strength of the Lord he cowers. When we go forth in our own, he lifts his head again; and thus we go on now to learn afresh the lesson of circumcision, as we need to realize it afresh in every new sphere on which we enter.

(c) And here we come to that from which Gilgal gets its name. It is when Israel is circumcised afresh at the hill of the foreskins that God says, “This day have I rolled away from you the reproach of Egypt:” and so the place is called Gilgal, “a rolling, away.”

But what was the reproach of Egypt? If we realize the whole connection here, there can hardly be a doubt that it was the reproach of their bondage there which circumcision now, the token of their covenant with Jehovah, rolls away. For us this is to be a type and an admonition, and well it may be.

The bondage in Egypt answers to the natural condition as experienced in its bitterness by the awakened man. Egypt is the world in its independence of God, walking by its own light, doing its own will, following its own way. And this is sin: “we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.” Our way is the way of death; and this death He had to take for our salvation. When the soul is once awakened by God’s grace, the misery of our own way is felt as the bitterest bondage, but we cannot, at will, deliver ourselves. God must come in, and by redemption break our bonds, and set us free.

Israel had long left Egypt, however, and were then a circumcised people. Circumcision is the judgment of the flesh, the breaking of confidence in it, the putting it off as judged by the cross. (Php 3:3; Col 2:11; Gen 17:1-27, notes.) But this, if real, is the breaking of our wills therefore, that we may be yielded up to Another’s perfect will. It is the principle of holiness, of consecration; though in the consciousness of utter weakness, in which His strength alone can be perfected.

Israel came out of Egypt a circumcised people, as souls in the first joy of salvation devote themselves to God. But they came into a wilderness in which they lingered, refusing to go into the land; and in the wilderness lost largely their circumcised character. In the wilderness they had not circumcised: the toil of the way, as it seems, had pleaded excuse from a painful rite, and it had dropped out, as it would appear, unnoticed. Now, in the land, as soon as they reach it, the word of the Lord arouses them to their condition. Uncircumcised, they could only be, but for the Lord’s grace, cut off as outside His covenant. Grace alone it is that here comes in for them, and restores the broken link: how blessed to see in the face of all this assurance of man’s helplessness and ruin the grace of God thus shining forth!

Power for the mortification of the flesh, -power to keep it, that is, in the place of death that belongs to it, -cannot be maintained by the joy merely of salvation, of deliverance from Egypt. There must be entrance into the land, appropriation of a heavenly portion, the joy of what lies beyond that world, subject to death, through which we pass. Otherwise we get quietly accustomed to the fact of deliverance, and the grey hairs of the desert show that the vigor of life has declined. The uncircumcised cannot eat the passover: redemption fails more and more to minister to us; the pilgrimage becomes a toil, less and less relieved.

For this there is no remedy till the land is reached, and the fullness of our blessing spreads itself before eager eyes. Then, as in a moment, circumcision is recovered. “If then ye be risen with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are upon the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God . . . Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.” (Col 3:1-5.) Here is the ground of circumcision realized and maintained. Its power lies in the development of a life which is hid with Christ in God, and must find its satisfaction in that which is heavenly and eternal. Here, on the other side of Jordan, consecration becomes easy, and strength is renewed.

Cowles well calls our attention to this act of Joshua in circumcising the men of war at this point as, humanly speaking, “a most unmilitary act.” “With apparently not the least fear lest the Canaanites should muster their forces, and fall suddenly upon them -with a deep feeling obviously that his first concern was to be right before God, and to have all his soldiers and people right in heart, and true to every precept of their God, he suspended all military movements; gave his enemies time to recover from their panic; halted his army, not only for some days of circumcision, but for the feast of the passover, seven days, -all as if religion was infinitely more than military strategy -as it truly was.”

For us, how much more important that we should tarry here by the banks of Jordan, until we are in our place before God, and have our souls fed, and our spiritual strength renewed. All this connects with the truth before us: “We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”

(d) Accordingly we have now brought together two things which give us the beginning and the end of the blessings of redemption, the passover and the old corn of the land. In the first, we are looking back to the work that sheltered us in Egypt, feeding on the lamb of atonement, remembering to keep the feast with the unleavened bread also of sincerity and truth. But along with this there is a new experience: the manna ceases the day after the passover, and they eat of the old corn of the land to which they have come, -unleavened cakes and parched corn. It is still, of course, typically Christ, for He is all the food of the soul; but it is no more the bread from heaven, Christ humbled as come down into the world. This land being typically heaven, it is the produce of the land itself, a heavenly Christ in heaven. It is ours not merely to know Him as come down into the world, but to know Him also as gone up where He was before. He is the same blessed Person, whom circumstances cannot change, and this is our joy to know. Were He in glory different from the One we have seen on earth, then we could not know Him now at all, for our knowledge of Him was gained in His humiliation here; and this is what the manna carried into Canaan, the “hidden manna” of Revelation, emphasizes for us. Yes, He is the same, unchanged, the same yesterday, today, and forever; but for that very reason, what joy and satisfaction to the heart to follow Him in faith beyond the clouds that hid Him from the disciples gazing after Him as He went up, and to know Him in His present glory, with the divine glory in His face!

This, as the apostle tells us, is the only Christ that now we can know: “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know Him so no more.” (2Co 5:16.) For there is but one Christ, not two: and He is in heaven: blessed be God, the very One who wrought redemption; Priest on earth to do it; Priest now within the sanctuary, and upon the throne.

That He is still Man this old corn of the land assures us; and what sustenance for our souls to know Him there, “faithful to Him that appointed Him,” bearing us upon His heart, as the typical high-priest bore the tribal names on the jewels of the breastplate. What blessedness to know that He is there also God still incarnate, the “very image of the Invisible,” “the effulgence of His glory”! This is indeed wondrous food for the sustenance of the new life; manna still, but in its golden vessel in the ark: food which from the hidden sanctuary makes the life of him who partakes of it practically a life hid with Christ in God, -a life which shall be manifested only when Christ who is our life shall appear, and we shall appear with Him in glory. (Col 3:4.)

(e) And now, before the beginning of a conflict which is imminent, the angel of Jehovah appears to Joshua as the Leader of Jehovah’s host. Commentators in general seem to decide that this host is angelic, and Keil to the reminder that Israel are spoken of as the hosts of the Lord when they come out of Egypt, makes the strange reply that the Israelites are “never called the host of the Lord in the singular.” Now in Dan 8:1-27, Keil himself agrees that Israel are called the “host of heaven,” and there is even seen a “prince of the host,” as here, who is clearly Christ. All that can be said against this is, that it is figurative language: and that is no doubt true; but the figure seems to be more in their being called the host of heaven, that is, compared to this, which leaves the rest scarcely affected.

When he says “never called,” moreover, it is only in Exo 12:1-51 that they are called so in the plural: why then should they not be once called this here, and no more?

We have seen, too, that this entrance into Canaan, completing the deliverance out of Egypt, recalls some of its features very distinctly. The reproach of Egypt is but now rolled off. The drying up of Jordan repeats the miracle of the Sea. What more natural than that the “hosts of the Lord” (which seems already to look forward to the warfare now at hand) should reappear after their long burial in the wilderness as the “host of the Lord” under their heavenly Leader?

Even a reason for the slight change from “hosts” to “host” may be suggested. In Egypt their number, to which they had so wonderfully increased, spite of all the opposition of the enemy, might naturally be implied by the plural. The wilderness, on the other hand, had not allowed even ordinary increase; but its discipline had at last compacted and unified them; the generation that went into the land with Joshua was in this respect superior perhaps to any other.

Israel, then, is Jehovah’s host, at the head of which Jehovah is putting Himself. He has unsheathed the sword, and the conflict to follow He Himself leads His people into; the judgment they execute is His judgment. If Joshua already speaks of Christ in us, it may seem strange that we should have Another introduced here, higher than Joshua, and the real leader of the people. We have already found, however, double representations of Christ contemporaneous with one another. Here if Joshua represent Christ in us, it may be yet necessary, because of our readiness to mistake, to guard this by showing us another Christ external to us to whom that which we account to be the Christ within yields the first place. For in all this line of things we have to remember that we have to do with those subjective experiences in which we are prone to go astray, and need, perpetually, correction by the Word. If we speak of Christ in us, it may easily be that impulses not really of Christ may simulate His voice, and that we may need the warning emphasized that there is a Voice external to us altogether, to which before all we must be in subjection. Christ is every where the same, and His Voice, wherever heard, must be of equal authority; but just on that very account what is of Christ in us will conform itself to, and own, the authority of the Christ without us, speaking by His Spirit through His Word. Here, indeed, the lowliest spirit becomes us, prostration of self, and the unshod foot. Only so can we be led surely, preserved alike from rationalism and from fanaticism, in a path of steady progress and of assured victory.

4. The fall of Jericho follows. We have seen it to be a special type of the world: to man, a savor of a sweet smell, in truth, a most fertile and attractive place, yet by the river of death, and for which beyond death lay judgment in the camp of Israel. The judgment had now come near, and in the details of it we see evident reference to the judgment of the world that shall be, but which faith anticipating makes a present thing. “And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” (1Jn 5:4.)

Thus we have a prophetic and a present significance. As to the prophetic, we have to remember that it is of course not the judgment of the great white throne that is presented here. Then the heavens and the earth shall flee away from before the face of Him who sits upon the throne, and the dead -that is, those not raised in the resurrection of the blessed, a whole millennium before -small and great, stand before God to be judged out of the books, according to their works. But there is a judgment of the quick (the living) also, at the former time, when the Lord appears; and here not only do the “armies that are in heaven” follow in the train of their glorious Leader, but Israel also take their own place once more as of old, as solemn executioners of God’s sentence upon the ripened iniquity of the nations. (Comp. Rev 19:1-21; Rev 20:1-15 with Zec 12:6, Zec 14:14; Mic 5:7-9; Oba 1:14-21.) Thus Israel in the book of Joshua may well be here a type of Israel in the coming day: a day which in the book of Revelation the seven trumpets usher in (Rev 8:1-13; Rev 9:1-21; Rev 10:1-11; Rev 11:1-18), as here for seven days ring out the trumpets which precede the ark, the throne of the Lord, and on the seventh day, during seven circuits.

Note, too, that they are “trumpets of jubilee.” The word used here is the regular word for that, and there is no real warrant for “rams’ horns,” though the revisers of the common version have retained it. The trumpet was, no doubt, a cornet or horn, and is expressly called “horn” in the fifth verse (“horn of jubilee”) but this very verse proves that jobel does not mean “ram’s horn;” for horn of ram’s horn,” would hardly do, and the revisers could only settle the difficulty by dropping one of the words. That it was a “horn” may, according to the recognized idea of power associated with this, direct our attention to the Word of God, which, whether men recognize it or not, is that by which all events are governed, and in obedience to which the lingering judgment surely comes at last.

But “jubilee” seems in unnatural association with this thought of judgment; and here, no doubt, has been the reason for discarding the word. The prophetic meaning, if grasped, clears up at once the difficulty, and converts it into one of the strongest arguments for the deeper view. Earth’s jubilee not only lies beyond the judgment of the nations, but involves and calls for it. God’s blessing cannot rest upon an unpurged scene and with the casting out of the “prince of this world,” the whole system of it, which he sustains and inspires, must come to an end. And in this end God’s hand must be seen against it. To use the symbol of the prophet, the stone cut out without hands, the kingdom of Christ, which no human power can introduce, must first dash to pieces the image (of Gentile empire) before it becomes a great mountain and fills the whole earth. (Dan 2:1-49. )

Thus every voice of nearing judgment is yet a trumpet of jubilee. Upon the wreck of what at best is but the lifeless form of true humanity, is to be established the glory of the kingdom of the Son of Man.

On the seventh day, at the end of the seven circuits of the city, with the final blast of the trumpet and the people’s shout, the walls fall flat; the breath of the Lord has smitten down their defense, and the city is taken. So in the last days will the Lord, as prophecy shows, Himself intervene for His people, and the power of the world be prostrate as in a moment. Yet, as we hear of a spared Rahab in the type, so in the antitype are there those spared among the nations (Isa 66:19; Mat 25:31-40); and the sessional judgment prophesied in Matthew reads much like the story of Rahab: “I was a stranger, and ye took Me in, . . . I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me.”

This judgment of the world by God stamps it for faith already with its character. The ground of judgment is, as with all the heathen, primarily the rejection of God, which leads them into idolatry, the changing the Creator into an image of the creature, for the gratification in fact of their own lusts and passions without rebuke. The rejection of Christ when He came was but this primal sin in a form aggravated in proportion to the display of His glory, in the fullness of grace and truth. Hence the cross was the judgment of the world, a sentence it pronounced upon itself long since, though the long-suffering of God has delayed its execution. But for him who believes upon the Crucified One as Son of God the world is overcome. (1Jn 5:5.) “God forbid,” says the apostle, “that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Gal 6:14.)

Egypt indeed, which is the world, has been long since by Israel left behind; hut as we have seen in other ways, here alone is the complete realization of this deliverance. Passing the sea, they had come into the wilderness, and such is the world for the redeemed of the Lord. But the wilderness in its very nature is not the place of satisfaction for the heart, which the land is; the land flowing with milk and honey, their inheritance and rest. Looked at as in the wilderness, the people of God are still in the world, and with all its barrenness the heart can seek its own in it. Power there must be found in that which is beyond it. We must be fully outside that which is to be judged, to accept heartily that judgment; and thus it is that what seems strange at first sight is most fully in order, that it is on the entrance into the land that Jericho falls.

It is the first thing also for the conquest of the land, because, as we have seen, the conflict in heavenly places is with the “rulers of the darkness of this world;” and therefore the judgment of the world is the first necessity for successful warfare. We shall have this illustrated for us and emphasized in the very next section; and we must remember it as a practical reality, if this book of Joshua is to be translated for us into living experience. God grant that it may be so; for otherwise all these things so blessed in themselves will be but a shame and reproach and witness against us.

The details of the fall of Jericho seem not, however, to be facts of present experience, but prophetic of actual judgment when it comes; and this is quite as we might expect. We see by them, however, that the people of God have to maintain the testimony as to these things: compassing the city and blowing the trumpets until the city falls; although it be only in the meantime to awaken the scorn of the men of the world, as they hear the frequent alarm of that which seems never to come. But it comes, comes steadily nearer, is surely even now at the door, and how urgent should be our testimony, which, if of no effect upon the mass, yet helps to fill Rahab’s house, where the true scarlet line, as despicable in men’s eyes as that of old, shields with the power of the Almighty the prisoners of hope.

5. We have now a very different lesson, in which Ai and Achan are united together. Ai, in its meaning, a “heap,” -to the present time known as Et-Tell, “the heap,” -naturally enough connects it with Jericho, just reduced to one; still more when we remember that the “principalities and powers in heavenly places,” with whom our conflict is, are the “rulers of the darkness of this world,” and that these cities, therefore, naturally represent the world in some shape. Ai is the world seen in its ruin as faith sees it, which yet apart from God’s presence with us we are not able to overcome. Unjudged evil in us will yet make the world too strong for us, and this the sin of Achan does for Israel.

(1) The unity of Israel in God’s sight is also clearly shown. As one sin ruined the world at first, so here one sin unjudged brings judgment upon all Israel. But it is plain also that there is carelessness otherwise, judging by the report of the spies instead of taking counsel of the Lord, and counting on their own strength for an enemy of little power, -our own behavior, alas! too often, and a simple reason why small difficulties often overcome us, while greater ones, casting us on God, are in His strength overcome.

But Israel’s unity, as realized in this way, made them every one in very deed his brother’s keeper, and enforced powerfully upon them a care for holiness such as hardly any thing else could be imagined to produce. While an habitual walk with God, step by step, according to his direction, would be the only possible rule for the detection of whatever stood in the way of blessing, the only condition of success.

(a) To come to details: we have first of all the rebel pointed out to us, with his genealogy, which is carefully repeated afterward when his sin is brought to light. Doubtless this has a meaning: whether we can trace it or not is another matter. But our own descent from Adam has much to do with our being sinners: “heredity,” great word as it is now in the mouths of men of science so-called, is found in what it represents in Scripture just as much. The difference is that what is mere “natural” science takes account only of nature, leaves out God, and binds all together in a fatalistic succession under materialistic law. Upon this understanding of it, sin disappears: it is misfortune. God disappears on the other side: He would be anomalous in such a scheme; and, instead of accounting for any thing, would need Himself to be accounted for. The iron wheel grinds out man’s destiny; and he is part of the wheel: how can he complain?

Heredity there is, however, and in the history of a sinner God counts his ancestry, -his birth, and, as men say now, his environment. For these, moreover, he is not condemned: thus far Scripture agrees with materialism. But when man acts according to the nature he is born with, and according to his environment, then for this it declares him guilty, and to be punished! Somehow man is responsible to live contrary to his very nature morally, and to stem the stream he is in. And Scripture not only declares this, but a voice within man, spite of all reasonings, adds its confirmation, and makes out the man obedient to his nature to be disobedient to his God!

And “the testimony of two is true.” And God can appeal to man’s reason and conscience against himself, that there is, after all, in him that which should be for God, and power that he should have from God, if he has not. That he cannot have power but from God, cannot have it in independency, is simple, and the law of creaturehood; and of this he has no title to complain.

Walking apart from God, his nature and his environment govern him absolutely: and thus a sinner’s genealogy counts for much. Nay, a saint slipping away from God falls under the same iron rule, and his conduct may be accounted for after the “scientific” fashion, without any more excuse for the one than for the other. This much, without going further, Achan’s genealogy as given here may preach to us.

(b) Next we hear of Ai. It is beside Beth-aven, the “house of vanity,” and in front of Bethel, the “house of God.” In Abram’s time, when he first comes into the land, Bethel and Ai lie on either side of him, and thus opposed to one another. (Gen 12:1-20.) Ai is known plainly by what it associates itself with and what it is opposed to, and the stamp of the world is evidently upon it.

Jericho the greater has been overcome: they think but little of Ai; if the world has been judged in gross, it may be supposed a little thing to overcome it in detail, in the little things in which it still presents itself in our path. Just here, and perhaps on this very account, we may suffer unexpected defeat. Israel’s detachment of two or three thousand turn their backs before the men of Ai, who smite them on the descent -we are always apt to be smitten upon the descent, -and inflict a loss of thirty-six men, a number which, if small, yet plainly speaks of the government of God (3 x 12) against them. In this there is hope, however, for those that know Him.

(c) And Joshua turns to Him at once. Yet he is in dismay at so unforeseen a calamity; all the more as he knows no reason for it. Alas! how easily we slip out of communion with God, and are not aware of it! “Deliver me from secret faults,” says the psalmist. How easily, too, with most of us, God’s ways, if in the dark, provoke murmuring! How unbelief dogs faith, as if it were its shadow! After all God’s glorious deeds, one little check, and the whole future darkens. Yet even with its burden of unbelief on its back, faith is seen in its turning to God; and in His presence finds deliverance.

There is really no mystery about it. What has happened can have but one solution of it. Israel has sinned. All shadows that have darkened the world find their explanation in a similar manner. Own it, and the cloud begins to clear. “The humble He guides in judgment; the humble He teaches His way.” “What wilt Thou do for Thy great name?” asks Joshua. The answer is simple: God is caring for it in the very thing which now perplexes the soul of the inquirer. What poor reasoners are we, when we do not begin with God! That He will care for His name is an axiom for faith, and needs no demonstration. How shall we prove that every event has a cause? The thing is plain: the difficulty is created by trying to prove it. Suggest the doubt, and reason itself is useless, except to recall faith to its vacated post.

Doubt it not: God will care for His great name. Let no man labor to get Him out of a strait which never existed; which, if it existed, all creature resources would be too little for. Let us despair indeed, if God cannot uphold the honor of His name! Nor will He give up His people: just on this account will He chasten them. Had they not chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then they would be bastards and not sons.

But all must learn this where the Psalmist did, in the sanctuary, And there it is we learn to kiss as well as to know the rod. “So foolish,” he says, “was I, and ignorant; I was even as a beast before Thee. Nevertheless” -spite of all my doubts -“I am continually with Thee: Thou hast holden me with Thy right hand.” (Psa 73:1-28.)

(d) Israel has sinned: but who is the actual offender? To discover this they are made to present themselves by tribes, by families, by individuals, the lot being cast and unfailingly determining all. This slow approach toward conviction, when it might rather have been expected that the sinner would have been at once named by Him under whose eye he was, seems perfectly suited to exercise the consciences of all, and to lead the guilty one to anticipate conviction by a free confession. But it comes all too late, pressed out at last, when concealment can no longer avail any thing. Then he owns: “I saw, I coveted, I took:” the old, ever-repeating story of sin, in which heredity clearly manifests itself, kleptomania from our first mother; but there is no justification on this account.

It was on the new earth, risen out of the flood of Noah’s day, that Babylon was first developed. Here among Israel, on typical resurrection-ground, we find connected with this first sin, a “mantle of Shinar.” With this, too, silver and gold are not difficult to associate, standing here, of course, just for what they represent to those who lust for them. Shinar is not indeed precisely Babylon, though more in name than in reality separate. It was the plain in which the city stood, in the same relation to it as Lot’s coveted “plain of Jordan” to Sodom, into which he gravitated from it.

(e) Judgment follows the discovery of Achan’s sin; and it is plain that his family suffer with him. As the law forbad the putting to death of children for their father’s sins, we are shut up to the conclusion that they were involved with him in the guilt of what he had done, as the burial of the stolen things in the midst of his tent would otherwise make probable. It would seem out of place to infer, as some have done, mob violence in a solemn judgment executed in the presence of Joshua and all Israel.

(2) And now what hindered God’s power acting for them being removed, Joshua is encouraged to go up again against Ai. But their former presumption still needs rebuke and thus they are made to labor in the capture of the city, spite of its littleness. All the people take part in it. An ambush is placed behind the city, and they are made to feign that they are fleeing as they fled before. All this is clearly humiliation for their pride. How much in that which is work that we do for God has to conform itself to the need there is in us! God shapes His instruments, even while He works with them.

Ai is taken, however, and destroyed, her king hung upon a tree, and then taken down, and a heap raised over him, as before with Achan. They had been indeed partners in evil and Achan a worse trouble than the king of Ai could have been. Evil indulged among the people of God is the ally of the foe without, and the only true hindrance to continuous progress.

(3) And now the seal of their covenant with Jehovah is set upon the land, according to Moses’ commandment, an altar of whole stones being reared upon Mount Ebal, along with other great stones plastered, upon which the law was written. (Comp. Deu 27:1-26.) The blessings were then read from Gerizim, the curses from Ebal. Thus the whole land was declared to be under the authority of the law, and sanctified to Jehovah.

6. Hardly, however, is this accomplished before we are called again to see the incompetence of the hands which have just graven the law upon the stones of Ebal. The “wiles of the devil” are in Ephesians that against which we are especially called to “stand.” Canaanitish wiles we find here prevailing against the people of God and once more the secret of failure is the lack of seeking guidance from God.

How hard it is to learn aright the lesson of dependence upon God! And our own wisdom, how continually does it deceive us! It is the last thing perhaps to which we apply the cross. Yet it is plain that Satan, with his thousands of years of acquired knowledge, will have immeasurable advantage over us, except as revelation is adhered to, and the Spirit of God gives us ability to use the point and edge of the Word. For “the sword of the Spirit” is not the “Word of God” exactly, but rather “the saying of God.” (Eph 6:17, Gk.) We must have, not the book merely, but the text: and thus even the Lord, as a perfect example for us, met Satan in the wilderness.

The Gibeonites are able to talk piously. They have a certain kind of faith grounded on Jehovah’s miracles, and concede to the people of God their title to the land. They are friends, not foes, and seek alliance. They have come a long way (if they are to be believed) to seek it, have endured privations, and brought themselves to destitution. The evidences of this are not indeed infallible, but their profession is without a flaw, and charity would accept it. This the Israelites do: Joshua and the princes swear to them in Jehovah’s name, and in three days find that they are dwellers in the land and Canaanites.

Gained by deceit, must this covenant stand? Yes, it must: for had Israel been with God, no deceit could have prevailed against them. And thus there are yokes which, though unequal, we cannot escape from. If we may without injustice to another, then indeed we are bound to do so as a matter of course, if the work for which we have yoked ourselves is itself evil. If I have married an unbeliever, the oath of the Lord forbids withdrawal from it and there may be in like manner business relations, from which, after having contracted them, simple righteousness would forbid us to withdraw. But the spiritual yoke, the yoking of believer and unbeliever in the things of the Lord, is what the words of the apostle in the fullest way apply to (2Co 6:14-18): “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father to you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

Had the Gibeonites come openly as what they were, to subject themselves to Jehovah’s yoke, they in whose camp Rahab was, with her whole family, could not have refused it but they came in craft, and though they may not be slain, are subjected as bondmen to the service of the people of God, as hewers of wood and drawers of water for the sanctuary. So perforce must it be, thank God, that all must serve the glorious Lord we own: willingly or unwillingly, as free or bond, this is the only choice permitted: but how momentous are the issues of that choice!

7. Needful as are the lessons as to failure, the history as a whole is here full of abundant encouragement; and the last part of the first division, upon which we now enter shows us the complete subjugation of the land under Israel’s feet. The power of their enemies is prostrated, although it is true that at the end of it we still find that there is very much land to be possessed, -much even that in fact they never do possess. But the work that needs the combined power of all the tribes is accomplished. The rest is left to individual energy, such as is so strikingly illustrated for us in the case of Caleb. What he achieved might have been achieved by all the rest: the thing needed for it was simply what his name and his history expressed, -“whole-heartedness.” It was this which, as we are told, preserved in him to eighty-five the strength of forty, and to see dispossessed before him the giant owners of the land he had explored. It was of God that there should be such testing, though the result might be to make the failure sorrowfully apparent, a failure only briefly indicated in the present book, while Judges treats of it from end to end.

(1) The first section alone gives the history, the second simply summing up the general results. In the history the principal lesson is evident, that their power was wholly of God, who demonstrates it by what has seemed to many even disproportionate miracles; but who can measure the magnitude of the necessity of what indeed ought to appear to us so simple a lesson! It is the first and foundation one for the Ephesian conflict which we are tracing in type here, -to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” The grace of it in the illustration is seen in its coming after the sin of Achan and the failure as to the Gibeonites. Yet does it display itself unweakened, -never more gloriously divine. This is the power which has acted for us to make the land our own, and which is ready to act in us, if there be but faith in it. We need it as much as they did, for our warfare is “not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and with powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” Yet of the meaning of this conflict even how many are not aware, who know it, as all must, but perceive not the object aimed at, to keep us out of the realization of our inheritance. Here we must remember the condition, “Every place that the sole of your feet shall tread on shall be your own.” This is the need we have of an activity of faith which will call up to resist us all the power of Satan, and will make us prove the need we have of the “whole armor of God.”

(a) The enemies seldom appear single: they are a mighty confederacy, leagued together by a common hatred to God and to His people. Canaan swarms with kings, which, independent of each other and often at strife, make peace and common cause against the “hosts of the Lord.” So the jarring forces of evil are compacted together by the presence of that which is of God; and the first king of this company startles us with his evident apostasy: Adonizedek, “lord of righteousness,” king of Jerusalem, “the foundation of peace,” the awful mockery and antagonist to “that Melchizedek, King of Righteousness, King of Salem, that is, ‘peace,’ Priest of the Most High God, who met” Israel’s forefather, “Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.” In what striking contradiction, made so evil by the resemblance, is this man and his attitude, an Antichrist (one might well say) to the true Melchizedek, the Christ of God! Not that we are to suppose any special Antichrist here, which would seem unsuited, but rather that primitive type which is found in Satan, the adversary, wherever Satan is found, enmity working in disguise and by imitation, “as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses.” He is “lord of righteousness,” as where on the ground of it, coming among the sons of God, he pleads against Job. And he is not “king of peace,” as Christ is, but only of the foundation of peace,” -which is righteousness again. (Isa 32:17.) He can plead righteousness, but only against, not for men; therefore “priest of the Most High God” he is not: he is no saviour; readily discovered by this fact. His darts are “fiery darts,” flaming with wrath, and putting distance between the soul and God, while Christ’s voice, even in the discovery of sin, wins to God; He does not accuse, but is a refuge from the accuser. Therefore with the “shield of faith” shall we “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”

The next named to Adonizedek in the confederacy which he heads is Hoham king of Hebron, a city which we already know in connection with Abraham’s history, and by that most interesting note upon it upon occasion of the visit of the spies. Hebron, which according to its derivation speaks of companionship, stands throughout as the symbol of communion.” But we have heard of it as in the hands of the Anakim, and even in Genesis as the city of Arba, the father of them all. The Anakim are the “long-necked,” giants in stature, and children of pride, of whom the vain-glorious boast is uttered, “Who can stand before the children of Anak?” (Deu 9:2.) “Arba” is supposed by Fuerst to mean “hero of Baal,” and this is accepted by many; but it seems too purely conjectural; while the word is common Hebrew for the numeral four, which has more easily the significance of “square, four-square,” suited to the father of a giant race. That the number four is that also of the creature, and of weakness, is in no wise against this, but a divine comment on the other side. It is upon what is loftiest in nature that God puts the mark of nothingness and abases it.

Hebron is thus dedicated to man worship, the utter destruction of its true character; and the Hoham here is king but of the Anakite Hebron, where the enemy has massed his strongest force to keep out of it its divinely appointed possessors. The meaning of “Hoham” is variously given, but the last syllable has the same root idea with our similarly formed “hum,” the confusion of sound as in the noise of a multitude, and from which it is transferred to the multitude itself. The first syllable seems most naturally to be abbreviated from hovah, another form of havvah, which speaks of “a sinking of the mind into a corrupt, depraved state, into a gulf of lusts and insatiable desire.” (Wilson.) These two thoughts are certainly completely opposed to that of Hebron, most suitable therefore, to its Anakite usurpation. Hebron figures largely in the report of the spies, -largely again in the conquest of the land, -and we might expect its Canaanite king to figure in the resistance to its conquerors. Certainly we may expect that Satan will keep us off if possible from that communion with God in an enjoyed heavenly portion which Hebron represents to us; and that in no way could he better succeed than by stirring up in us that tumult of desires which are veritable sons of Anak, only to be subdued by such a spirit of “wholeheartedness” for God as was found in Caleb.

The third of these confederates is Piream king of Jarmuth; and as to neither of these names does there seem much dispute. Jarmuth signifies elevation; Piream is from pere, the wild ass. The latter is what man is born as (Job 11:12), and it is his obstacle to finding wisdom. Free and independent, he brooks no yoke nor restraining hand. Nebuchadnezzar, forgetting in the pride of his heart Him who had raised him up, “was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was make like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses” (Dan 5:21), -he was made to take his place with those which his moral state resembled. This may throw light upon the connection of the two names here, -the wild-ass king and his city of “elevation.” Thus, “man being in honor abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.” (Psa 49:12.) He who can abide is the one who recognizes and is subject to the hand that raised him. How completely does the glorious place that God has given us declare that such exaltation is of His grace alone! how simply, then, as owing all to His love should we act as in that place!

Japhia king of Lachish is the fourth confederate. Lachish is again a difficult word. Gesenius from the Arabic gathers the meaning “obstinate,” as referring to its impregnability to assault. Young makes it similar to Jarmuth -“height;” but he has at least twelve other names of Israelitish cities translated in the same way: we may well suppose there is some difference of meaning among so many different words. In Hebrew we can only find a meaning, as it would seem, by dividing it. Lach-ish may then mean walk (as) men.” In fact Lachish stood longer than most cities of the land against Joshua, though not long; for it was taken the second day.

Japhia corresponds with his city: his name means “shining, resplendent.” In the world at large the manly virtues are thus lustrous; but there is manifest danger when shining qualities are prized as such. When lustre is king then the king is surely Canaanite. Lachish comes thus into the confederacy against Joshua, and is not the least among the enemies of Israel. A world of show and splendor is such “darkness” for the people of God as the “principalities and powers” which are “rulers of” it love to work with. Dazzle is easily read as darkness: and alas! the children of God can both be dazzled, and love to dazzle. Eyes that see the glory of God are alone strong enough to meet the resplendent king of Lachish.

So far, then, we can realize meaning in these confederate kings. It will be seen too that they answer exactly to the numerical significance of their order, which is a test one could hardly have insisted on perhaps in this case. That they should so answer may encourage us to a closer and more complete application of the symbolism of numbers, which ought thus to be proportionately more fruitful. When we come now to the fifth of these confederate powers we shall need to avail ourselves of it, as we shall find here a deeper mystery facing us, -and even this is accordant with the numerical place.

The names, happily, are here simple. God has planted stepping stones firmly for us to prevent slipping, according to His constant mercy. First, “Eglon” is “round” or “circular,” its root-meaning showing applicability either to form or motion. Thus the derivatives from it are words such as agil, “ring;” agalah, “chariot,” “cart,” -which, as moving on its circular, revolving wheels, combines form and motion; and from this, maagalah, the roadway for these wheels; galgal is the ordinary word for wheel, nearly identical with the Gilgal we have met before; gal is billow, wave; and so on.

How are we to take it here? The town very likely was circular, and it may have derived its name from this; but as in the wheel form implies motion, so may it be spiritually in this case. Indeed, the wheel itself is found in the visions of Ezekiel as that of the chariot of Deity, a prominent symbol in connection with the divine government. Five, the number attaching here to Eglon, is, let us now remember, the symbol of God’s governmental ways!

In the book of Ecclesiastes we find the wheel in motion, but that it is the wheel of God’s triumphal chariot is not seen. On the contrary, “vanity of vanities” is inscribed upon it; and that God has ordained the wheel is the cause of infinite perplexity. “One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth forever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north: it whirleth about continually: and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. . . . The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Thus “to every thing there is a season,” and a season only; but the generations pass, and do not return: if they do, experience, at least, knows nothing about it; and thus the bat’s wing of death throws its sombre and sinister shadow over every thing: beyond, “who knoweth?” Here God, who is light, can alone give light; and revelation is our, one source of certainty. Then, indeed, still the wheel turns; but the wheel of destiny becomes the chariot-wheel of God, as in Ezekiel.

Now there is purpose in it, -a double purpose: Man is abased, God glorified. Man needs abasement, and divine goodness has ordained it; otherwise that would be fulfilled which the psalmist declares, “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” (Psa 55:19. ) But for man, too, there is a resurrection, not within the cycle of change, but beyond it; and “he that humbleth himself” to accept God’s lesson, turning to Him thus, “shall be exalted.”

Eglon speaks, I doubt not, of this wheel of destiny, which by its mystery exercises so man’s heart, and which, while it has its good, and is meant for good, can yet bring out the rebellion that is in it, and urge man also to all kinds of secret arts to discover the mystery. From the heathen oracle of old to the Spiritism and theosophy of modern times Satan has used this craving of man to enthrall him in the bonds of superstition and slavish dread, or to lure him by the fascination of unearthly spectacles. Thus Debir is the true king of Eglon: for “Debir” on the one hand may mean “speaker,” while on the other it is the word used for “oracle” of the temple, out of which the voice of God was to be heard. Here indeed Debir has no evil sense. God lies responded to the need of man in view of the mystery of existence, as we know; but there are Canaanite “debirs,” and satanic mockeries of the divine answer. And thus we find the fifth confederate against Israel in the scene before us.

(b) It is not indeed directly against Israel that they gather, but against Gibeon which has made peace with Israel. Satan often, as it were, sidles up to the attack. Gibeon, false all round, may well provoke the onslaught of the “lord of righteousness;” but Joshua, remembering the oath of the Lord, comes up against the Canaanite host with haste, and smites them with a great slaughter, pursuing them the way of Beth-horon (the “place of wrath”), as far as Azekah (“fencing round”) and Makkedah (“bowing the head”). Thus God puts to defeat His enemies, and they are as cattle in the hands of the slaughterer. Beth-horon proves its title by the fall there of a great hail from heaven, slaying more than the swords of the Israelites.

(c) And here occurs the notable miracle which has awakened so much discussion and provoked so much the scorn of unbelief. The language of Scripture being so purely phenomenal every where, -dealing with things as they appear to us, rather than with the scientific explanation, -I see no reason for any actual stoppage of the sun and moon, which must in that case be rather of the earth’s own revolution, and so not literally according to the description after all. The economy of miracle which the Bible shows to one who attentively considers it, notwithstanding the large actual amount, would suggest that, for the purpose Joshua desires to have accomplished, the extreme supposition need hardly be the fact. For him and for all beholders the sun and moon did actually stop, and that is all that the words fairly taken imply; and the miracle is mighty enough, if it were accomplished by means of refraction or mirage or what not: it is not worth the labor to speculate upon how it might be done. Whatever the means that might be used, the day stands alone in the world’s history, -surely miracle enough. And there is no tampering with the record involved in this, no trifling with revelation, no giving way in the least to the infidelity of the day. It is to us the sun rises or sets, as to them it stood still in the heavens: why should language be pressed in the one case in a way which would be admitted to be straining it in the other?*

{*The author of “Joshua’s Long Day” believes, however, that he has demonstrated by the double aid of astronomy and chronology, the occurrence of the miracle in the full extent which many give it. But this involves a chronology from the creation of man exact to the very hour; a precision it can hardly be hoped even ever to attain. According to his view also the moon could not have been visible in the position indicated, and Joshua must have addressed what was to all observers but a blank spot in the heavens! This, although Joshua spake, it is said, “in the sight of Israel,” -evidently implying that the objects of his address were before their eyes.}

The spiritual lesson more concerns us here, and this seems to be the manifestation of divine power as acting for Israel. Sun and moon were both worshiped in many forms by the nations around them, Baal and Ashtoreth standing for them respectively among the Canaanite population. Hence Israel’s God was proclaimed here to be “God of gods.” The very deities of Canaan lengthened the day to accomplish their destruction! as indeed they had in every generation been the destruction of their worshipers. But Israel warred not in their own strength, and it was not their right hand saved them. If they or their enemies imagined this, the significance of their victories was wholly lost and turned to the glorification of man. Hebron could never in this way have been redeemed from the Anakim, but would have been Kirjath-arba still. Lachish would have kept its resplendent Japhia; and Eglon’s wheel have revolved but to grind out “vanity of vanities.” So important is it that Israel’s victories should be seen not as their own but God’s!

But then how wonderful to be leagued with supreme and omnipotent power! Should not sun and moon standing still impress this upon us? How can it be sufficiently emphasized for us that it is really Jehovah who fights for Israel? All this magnificent blazonry upon the face of the heavens to convey to us what appears perhaps so simple a truth! The need, then, of the lesson must be great indeed, and hard it must be to raise to its proper height the enthusiasm of the Lord’s host for the banner they fight under! a banner not to be dishonored by cowardice or half-heartedness or fleshly confidence. The quotation from the book of Jashar fittingly therefore is a song; and the appeal is to the joyful experience of the “upright” (Jashar). Songs like these are easily remembered: the heart retains what it has welcomed in this way.

(d) We have to see that the victory that the Lord has gained is followed up, and that the foe is not merely in retreat, but in rout. Many a victory has been lost by slackness of pursuit. The enemy must be pursued to his stronghold; and after all may escape.

(e) But the kings are in the caves of Makkedah. Now they are brought forth and judgment executed upon them. Our spiritual foes cannot indeed be slain as yet; and this is but the anticipation of faith: a picture such as we have seen in the case of Jericho. Faith can pass its judgment upon them, foreseeing the divine one that shall be: branding them thus with their infamy.

It is a great thing to know enough to call Satan Satan; and to meet him with the assurance of with whom we are contending; to draw him forth from the darkness of the cave in which he may have taken refuge, and, in the light of day, convict and put him under the doom that awaits him.

(f) And now the strongholds yield, one by one. Six cities are marked especially here, exactly in the midst of which we find the attack and destruction of the king of Gezer. The series in this way becomes a septenary one, and the first four a 3+1, after the usual manner: three cities taken and one army destroyed. By such slight yet sufficient indications is the structure of a part made known to us.

The cities taken are not to be looked at simply as strongholds of the enemy. They belong by the gift of God to Israel, and many of them figure afterward in Israel’s history: hence what they signify for us is of the more importance. Their meanings too will be essentially good, as we see in Hebron, which is called by this name continually, although to the Canaanites it was Kirjath-arba. Indeed, in general, the Canaanite possessors are of little account, except as hindrance to the true heirs, and their names even in most cases are not recorded. Nor are there here details given of the assault, nor any account save of the extirpation of the inhabitants. The names of the acquired cities seem to be alone significant.

The first is Makkedah, “bowing the head.” It is the place where we have seen the five kings were forced to bow those proud Amorite heads which only divine power could humble. As an Israelite habitation it has a better significance, and as its place in this series may denote, the thing itself is a choice blessing and leading to many others. How good when the stiff neck first gives way, and man the rebel is subdued to allegiance! when God becomes God indeed, and man too, as he abases himself, rises from the level of the beast to real manhood. The use of the word is in connection with homage -the owning of a superior, though not always God. And Canaan, which sets forth the highest -heavenly -blessing, is just the place where we should find this acknowledgment constant and complete. Nearness to God produces of necessity, and may be measured by, the filial fear of Him and submission to Him. In Ephesians it is that God’s will is emphasized in the strongest way.

The second city is Libnah, “whiteness:” which, read spiritually, and in connection with its numerical place, we may take as “separation from evil.” Its following subjection to God guards it from pharisaism, and defines it, according to the Word, a measure of evil much less observed among the people of God than is supposed; simple morality or popular conscience governing everywhere the mass. In their associations for benevolent, moral, and even religious purposes, how many permit themselves the greatest license that can be imagined, and on public platforms the friends and the enemies of Christ are found commonly together. Nay, as in Masonic lodges, for instance, they can even exclude Christ, that “good” fellowship may not be hindered. Libnah has, in fact, few citizens in the Israel of today.

The third city is Lachish, which we have seen under its Canaanitish king already, but which we have now to see as a possession of Israel. In this sense, and in its numerical place here, the spiritual application is easy. The number is that of resurrection; it is a city of the land beyond Jordan, the heavenly country: how else, then, can this “walk as men,” which is the meaning of “Lachish,” read but as “walk as in the risen Man, -not as of the world, but as heavenly, as Christ is”?

Thus the three cities here connect naturally in meaning, and at the same time fill their numerical place, while they develop in fullness and positiveness as they go on. But in the fourth place in this series, as usual under that number, we find what is not in the order of progression hitherto, but distinct and peculiar. Horam king of Gezer comes up to assist Lachish, and is smitten, -he and his people; but there is no taking of his city at this time. In fact, the Canaanites were not really expelled from it till Solomon’s reign, and by that the city seems to have lapsed into separation from Israel. For it is Pharaoh king of Egypt who takes it then, and gives it to his daughter, Solomon’s wife.

“Gezer” means a place “isolated,” or “cut off.” “Horam,” according to its apparent derivation, most literally would mean “tumid, swollen.” May not this speak of the pride of man’s nature, which, maintaining itself in independence, refuses the judgment of the first Adam, even though it be for exaltation in the Second? Certainly this is no fictitious antagonist of Joshua, or of Israel in our day at least, and Lachish, the “walk as men,” is still hotly contended for in behalf of the Canaanites, ignoring God’s true Man, in whom all believers have a common place.

In the allotment of the land, Gezer falls to Ephraim as a Levitical city of the family of Kohath, and in this differs again from the other cities named here, whether before or after, which are given to Judah. The enumeration of them now proceeds, Eglon filling the fifth place, as in the list of the confederate kings. We have seen already of what it speaks to us, and may easily perceive now how it connects with Horam and with Lachish. The wheel of destiny finds its place in the chariot of God’s providence when Eglon is subdued by Israel, and the humiliation of man’s changes gives us profitable exercise, but is no hopeless, no impenetrable mystery any longer.

Hebron comes next, and with its meaning we are quite familiar; but it fills another place from that we might expect, -the sixth instead of the second; for, as following Eglon, it shows us communion maintained amid all changes, which are but the fruitful discipline which is ordained “for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness.” What is this -to be partakers of His holiness -but to be in practical communion with Himself?

Debir, therefore, ends this series, -the name that before we found attached to the king of Eglon, but which here is that of an Israelitish city: a wonderfully blessed name to end with, speaking as it does of the dwelling with man of Him who, if He be nigh, cannot be mute; whose voice has answered faith’s questioning wherever faith has been, -yea, gone before to win men to Himself. How well the numerical place suits here! It is the voice that spake once openly to the winds and seas, and hushed them; and which gives rest still, whatever be the cause of trouble.

These are all the cities specified here, and of course for a special purpose. It is added to this now that Joshua took all the land (connected with these cities) -the southern part of Canaan. “And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.”

(g) The northern part of the land remained yet unconquered. Excited and alarmed by the ruin that had come upon their kindred tribes, the kings of the north now gather together in a vast confederacy, of which the Spirit of God points out, however, only four, and names but two. Jabin king of Hazor is the leader now, Hazor being the head of all these kingdoms. “Hazor” means “enclosed;” “Jabin,” “discerning.” The city was strong in its defenses and in the wisdom of its king. The only other king whose name is given is Jobab, the “shouter,” whose city is Madon, “contention.” There seems no reason to doubt of these meanings. But what, then, do they represent? It would certainly seem that Jabin was the Sihon of this side Jordan, -the human wisdom which would intrude itself into the things of God, always hostile to faith and to God, and which always has its “enclosure” within which it permits neither the one nor the other. There is a charmed circle of science today which is thus agnostic, and from which it has made raids upon Scripture in the shape of “higher criticism.” This is only illustration; but the rational spirit is one from which in all time -never, perhaps, more than now -Christians have suffered, and by which they have been deprived of much of the good land God has called them to possess. That it allies itself often with the spirit of strife which exalts mere noise rather than reason, is not difficult to see, and may be the meaning of Jobab’s place here. Reason alone would soon have to submit to faith as to what is highest reason, if it were not for this. To these the king of Shimron -“keeping,” from a word which is the common one used for the keeping of law, adds the thought of a spirit of legality, which readily unites with the reasoning of unbelief; while the king of Achshaph -“sorcery,” supplementing the whole, speaks of the deep satanic spell which works with all this to give it a power that after all without it would be unintelligible still. “Who hath bewitched you,” the apostle asks of the Galatians, “that ye should not obey the truth?”

These are the leaders; with them is gathered a multitudinous host of other powers less precisely marked, and which we cannot attempt to particularize. They gather at the waters of Merom, “the high place;” and with such enemies are not the highest levels of truth just what they would lay hold upon and deprive us of first of all? For what is highest is for that reason what mere reason can least grasp, and legality least believe our portion, and Satan envy us most. But Joshua, with the energy of faith, and specially encouraged by the divine assurance, falls upon them there, and inflicts upon them an overwhelming defeat, Israel pursuing them as far as Zidon and Misrephoth-maim, and east into the Lebanon-valley (?). They hamstring their horses and burn their chariots in the fire; for if “some trust in chariots and some in horses,” they are to “remember the name of Jehovah their God.” (Psa 20:7.)

Joshua then turns back to smite Hazor. “God will in no wise allow the world’s seat of power to become that of His people; for His people depend exclusively on Him. The natural consequence of taking Hazor would have been to make it the seat of government, and a centre of influence in the government of God, so that this city should be that for God which it had been for the world; ‘for Hazor before-time was the head of all those kingdoms.’ But it was just the contrary. Hazor is totally destroyed. God will not leave a vestige of former power: He will make all things new. The centre and source of power must be His, -entirely and conclusively His: a very important lesson for His children, if they would preserve their spiritual integrity.” (

Synopsis, vol. i., p. 370, 371.)

The Word of God governs every thing for Joshua, and all that he does prospers. How needed a lesson, amid the constant temptations to self-will! It is precisely to obtain success that we are urged to adopt all sorts of unscriptural methods. Expediency is the constant plea for latitudinarianism, -a plea than which nothing could be more foolish: as if to depart from God’s way would insure His blessing. “As Jehovah commanded His servant Moses, so did Moses command Joshua; and so did Joshua: he let nothing fail of all that Jehovah had commanded Moses.” So according to the Word of God does our Joshua lead today. May we follow Him!

(2) The results are now summed up: the land within its limits for the time, from Mount Halak, the “smooth” or bald mountain bordering Seir upon the south, to Baal-gad, under Mount Hermon, in the north. Not a city except Gibeon that yielded itself to God: all were taken in battle. This was the effect of God’s retributive justice, making the hearts firm in resistance to Israel’s power that had shut themselves up against the God of Israel. Thus they met the judgment rightly decreed upon them.

The extirpation of the Anakim is specially recorded, and with reference once more to the seats of their power, Hebron and Debir, a connection so important that we are reminded of it again and again. Communion and the living voice of God, all the power of the enemy will be indeed employed to keep us from the realization of these. Both of these cities in Anakite hands, let us remember, had very different significance: they were Kirjath-arba and Kirjath-sepher, the city of man and of books respectively; we are soon to have their capture, by Caleb and Othniel, related to us. Yet the children of Anak are not wholly destroyed: there are some left in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, cities still held by the Philistines; and there we find them at a later time. All this has meaning, not obscure, if we consider who these Philistines are: their history is elsewhere. (Gen 20:1-18; Gen 26:1-35, notes.)

Now the land rests from war.

The enumeration follows of the kings dispossessed and slain on both sides of the river, by Moses and by Joshua.

Joshua

F. W. Grant.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

JOSHUA IN COMMAND

This book might have for a secondary name, The Book of Conquest and Division, with reference to the events it records. The marginal chronology indicates that it covered a period of about twenty-five years, but we have seen that this chronology is not part of the inspired text, and is not to be taken as absolute authority. It is safer to say that we do not know how long a period may have been covered by these events. According to Martin Ansteys The Romance of Chronology, seven years elapsed from the entry into Canaan to the division of the land.

The book is a record of a military campaign, and criticisms of it from that point of view have placed Joshua in the first rank of military leaders.

THE CALL OF JOSHUA (Jos 1:1-9)

Here note that the Lord spake unto Joshua (Jos 1:1), just how we do not know, but as He may have spoken unto Moses out of the cloud of glory, or by Urim and Thummin (Num 27:21).

Note also the renewal of the promise of the land which had been given to Moses and to Abraham (Jos 1:2-4), and with this a reassurance of the divine support to Joshua as it had been with his predecessor.

Observe the reference to the Hittites. They were the dominant nation of Canaan and rivals of Egypt, and to merely human eyes it seemed preposterous that Israel could dispossess them, but, Is anything too hard for the Lord? Notwithstanding the greatness of the Hittites secular history has known nothing about them until recently, and archaeological discoveries revealing their record have been one of the triumphs of the past century and one of the strongest evidences to the historicity of the Old Testament.

Only one condition is required of Joshua for the fulfillment of these promises strength and courage. But this strength and courage is not physical, but the moral quality found in obedience to God. And even this is narrowed to one thing the observance of the written law, knowledge of and meditation upon which will produce this virtue within him (Jos 1:6-9). Thus God provides our requirements and rewards us for exercising them!

THE PREPARATION OF THE PEOPLE (Jos 1:10-18)

The victuals in Jos 1:11 could scarcely have been the manna, which would have spoiled in the keeping, but the corn, cattle, etc., which may have been gotten in the enemies country through which they had passed.

The reference to the two and a half tribes (Jos 1:12-16) recalls their wish to Moses and his consent that they might locate east of the Jordan for the sake of their flocks; provided, that leaving their families for the time being, the men of war should cross the river and aid in the conquest of the land (Num 32:1-42).

The point that strikes one here is the relation of faith and works in the execution of Gods plans by His people. Why should these tribes be required to cross the Jordan since in one sense they were not necessary? Could not God have conquered Canaan without them? But God does not work miracles unnecessarily, and what man himself can do, consistently with the divine glory, he is obligated to do, a principle which has a wide sphere of application.

THE RECONNOITERING OF JERICHO (Joshua 2)

We cannot pass by Rahabs falsehood (Jos 2:1-7), which we must not suppose God endorsed, notwithstanding the commendations she received in Heb 11:31 and Jam 2:25. It is her faith that is spoken of in those instances, but God was no more pleased with her lie than her unchastity. Lying is a common vice among the heathen, and Rahab probably had no consciousness of its moral guilt.

Rahabs faith was very simple (Jos 2:8-14). Like the heathen round about, she believed that each nation had its own god, and that some gods were stronger than others. The god of the Hebrews seemed the strongest of all, for she had heard what He had done for them (Jos 2:10). Her city could not stand before such a God and hence she surrendered at once. The other inhabitants of Jericho from the king down had the same evidence as she, but did not act on it. In other words she had faith and they had not. There was fear mingled with her faith, and ignorance, and superstition, and selfishness, but God overlooked these things.

In the same way we are not expected to have a perfectly intelligent faith in our Lord Jesus Christ before we can be saved, nor must we know the whole Bible, or be able to explain its great mysteries. Do we apprehend our danger, and are we disposed to fly to the refuge He offers, that is all.

Every Christian is impressed with the symbolism of the red cord in the window (Jos 2:15-22). It forces itself upon us in the light of all the Bible teaches about the blood of Jesus Christ and the token of our salvation from the more awful destruction than that awaiting Jericho. It was Rahabs sign of the covenant the men had made with her. It was her mark of identification as one to be saved in the day of calamity. And it was that which her deliverers required as the condition of the fulfillment of their pledge. The story affords many points of resemblance to that of our redemption through Christ, and will repay a study as a basis for a Bible reading or address.

QUESTIONS

1. Give a secondary name to this book.

2. How has Joshua been estimated?

3. What can you say about the Hittites?

4. What gives moral courage to men?

5. Give an illustration of how God uses second causes.

6. Does God commend men for bad deeds?

7. Describe the nature of Rahabs faith?

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

A Leader for Israel’s First Steps

Since Moses could not lead the people into the promised land, God had to choose a new leader to direct their steps. God selected another man of faith, Joshua. It was Joshua, along with Caleb, that had spied out the land of Canaan and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” They rejected the faithless report of the ten who saw themselves as grasshoppers in the eyes of the inhabitants of the promised land. Their confidence was based in the Lord and his ability to give them the land ( Num 13:1-33 ; Num 14:1-10 ).

When God selected a leader to succeed Moses, it was only fitting that it should be such a great man of faith. Despite his strong desire to take Israel over Jordan, Moses was told Joshua would lead the people ( Deu 3:23-28 ). God had used a number of different circumstances to prepare Joshua to be a leader. It was he who led the people in battle against Amalek ( Exo 17:8-16 ). When Moses went unto God on the mount, Joshua was with him ( Exo 24:12-13 ). He was there when Moses came down from the mount with the tables of stone and found the people worshiping the golden calf ( Exo 32:15-20 ). Joshua also got to see the unselfish nature of Moses when he would not forbid Eldad and Medad to speak for God in the camp ( Num 11:24-30 ).

In Num 27:15-20 , Moses asked God to select a man to be the leader of Israel when he was dead. God had him lay his hands on Joshua to symbolize the transfer of authority, much like laying hands on a sacrifice symbolized placing the sins of the people upon it (see Exo 29:10-14 ; Num 8:5-13 ). This was done in front of all the people so they would recognize that the honor of Moses was now on Joshua. So, when Moses died, the people followed Joshua because he was full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom ( Deu 34:9 ).

Joshua’s first instruction from God was to lead the people over the Jordan ( Jos 1:1-9 ). One author says there are 27 fierce rapids between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Jordan River falls some 700 feet in the space of 60 miles. McGarvey says it plunges with terrific force when it is at flood stage, which it was when Joshua took command. He also said it swells to a width of from one-half to one mile. Joshua was to lead from 2 to 3 million people and their herds across such a swollen torrent.

He did receive God’s promise that they would be given all the land they walked on within the boundaries promised to Moses. Notice, the reception of this gift of land from God was dependant upon them meeting God’s conditions. The land that was theirs for the taking was from the Arabian desert on the south to the mountains of Lebanon on the north and from the Euphrates River on the east to the Mediterranean Sea on the west.

Just as God had supported Moses in all of the works he did in his behalf, he promised to sustain Joshua. Joshua knew that no man, even powerful Pharaoh, had been able to successfully oppose Moses. God promised none would be able to oppose Joshua either (compare Heb 13:5-6 ). Of course, God’s strength would be his only as long as he obeyed his commandments. Prosperity and success actually come from keeping the law which was designed for man’s good.

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Jos 1:1. After the death of Moses Either immediately after it, or when the days of mourning for Moses were expired. Joshua was appointed and declared Mosess successor in the government before this time; and here he receives confirmation from God therein. The servant of the Lord This title is given to Moses here, and Jos 1:2, as also Deu 34:5, and is repeated, not without cause, to reflect honour upon him, to give authority to his laws and writings, in publishing whereof he acted as Gods servant, in his name: and that the Israelites might not think of Moses above what was meet, remembering that he was not the Lord himself, but only the Lords servant; and therefore not to be too pertinaciously followed in all his institutions, when the Lord himself should come and abolish part of the Mosaical dispensation; it being but reasonable that he, who was only a servant in Gods house, should give place to him who was the son, and heir, and lord of it. The Lord spake Either in a dream or vision, or by Urim, Num 27:21. Mosess minister Who had waited upon Moses in his great employments, and thereby been privy to his manner of government, and so was prepared for it.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jos 1:1. The Lord spake to Joshua. Messiah, the Angel of the covenant, called him anew, and encouraged him to enter on the conquest of the promised land. All gentile mythology is built on this foundation, that God at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets. Heb 1:1.

Jos 1:2. Arise, and go over Jordan. Christian, be alive like Joshua, whenever the Lord shall address this word to you.

Jos 1:4. Lebanon. Liban, white. This mountain being nine thousand feet high was covered with snow nine months in the year. The southern point of the promised land was the small river Sichor, about fifty miles south-west of Gaza; the eastern boundary was the range of mount Gilead. Num 34:2. Deu 1:7. Jos 3:15. The northern was the entering of Hamath in the pass of Lebanon.

Jos 1:6. Be strong. Christian princes, on their ascension to the throne, should always be addressed in this manner by some venerable minister, with regard to their duties to God and their country. Sovereigns in their high duties need divine counsel, and the best of ministers.

Jos 1:11. Prepare you victuals, of the spoils already gathered from the conquered countries. The manna required preparation when kept. Besides, the land of Bashan abounded with cattle and corn.

REFLECTIONS.

We have just seen Israel mourning for Moses, which was highly proper from natural affection, and the consideration of all the great things which God had done for the people by his ministry. The grand pillar of Israel was taken away, but the church still stood, for God was her rock and her support. Joshua succeeded in all the duties of Moses, and in the accomplishment of all the divine pleasure.

The Lord was graciously pleased to qualify him for government and command. He instructed him in his duty, and inspired him with courage by exhortations adequate to the conquest, and with wisdom requisite for the government of the people. No prince, no minister can acquit himself in the duties of his high station, without the guidance and care of providence. Man elevated to power, and embarrassed with a multitude of objects, is not always able distinctly to trace his duty. He is limited in his foresight, and all beyond is vague conjecture. He infers the future from the past, but providence, fertile in resources, takes unexpected turns, leaving speculation far behind. Hence the rulers of nations, though they watch appearances, and act according to the most recent changes of affairs, need nevertheless in all things, direction from Him to whom futurity is without a veil. A single false step may involve themselves and their country in misery or ruin. Hence the divine counsel and blessing should more especially be sought for commandants and kings, when they enter on the important duties of their station.

The diligence of Joshua in public affairs, the wisdom and accuracy of his arrangements, the precision of his orders, and the boldness with which he executed all his designs, soon convinced the Israelites that the Lord had graciously filled the place of Moses with a qualified prince. How great a blessing is the gift of such a magistrate to a nation! He applies himself to the public weal, he rules his affairs with discretion, and is the best gift of God to his country.

The people congratulated Joshua on his accession to the offices of supreme judge, and captain-general of all Israel. They revered him as Gods vicegerent; they avowed allegiance to him as formerly unto Moses, denouncing death, at the same time, against the man or the faction who should dare to oppose his power. The hands of a sovereign and his ministers, engaged in the great act of defending their country, should not be fettered with faction, but supported by the prayers and congratulations of the whole state. This is pleasing to God, who has appointed civil government for the paternal protection and defence of all the people.

Jesus Christ, who like Joshua, has undertaken to heal the breaches of a broken law, to vanquish our foes, and give the promised inheritance to a victorious people, should in like manner receive the homage and congratulations of all the earth. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish quickly when his wrath is but a little kindled. He is wicked who delays allegiance; and he shall surely die who opposes the Lords anointed.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I. Joshuas Commission; Preparation for the Passage of the Jordan.This chapter does not call for much comment. It is, for the most part, an introduction to the whole book from a Deuteronomic writer. There may have been a Deuteronomic account of the conquest of the land which the compiler of our book used, but more probably the old narrative of JE was taken over by the Deuteronomist, who managed to superimpose his own views by means of an introduction and various additions. These additions are very considerable; hardly any chapters have escaped.

Jos 1:4. The boundaries of the land are strangely indicated, and the passage should no doubt read, From the wilderness in the south to Lebanon; and from the river Euphrates to the western sea (i.e. the Mediterranean) shall be your borderor rather, territory. In reality, the kingdom never extended as far as this from E. to W., though the N. and S. boundaries would hold good for Davids time.

Jos 1:12-15. See Numbers 32.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

THE LORD’S CHARGE TO JOSHUA

(vv. 1-9)

Since Moses had passed off the scene, the Lord now speaks directly to Joshua.Joshua had been prepared for leadership by his close association with Moses for many years. Never is there any indication that he aspired to this place of honor, but in God’s time he was able to fit into this place because he was God’s choice for it.

The Lord gave him clear, simple instructions to cross the Jordan, and all Israel with him, into the land provided them by God (v. 2). There was to be calm decision in steadily going forward, for the Lord promised that “everyplace that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you” (v. 3). They were expected to take possession of it, just as believers today are expected to take possession of the vital truths connected with their present inheritance in “heavenly places.”

The borders described in verse 4 are more extended than Israel has ever yet possessed, for it included the wilderness (in the south), Lebanon (in the north) and eastward as far as the Euphrates River. Or, if looking westward, all the land of the Hittites (toward the east), and to the Great Sea (the Mediterranean) was included. In Gen 15:18-21 God’s promise to Abram gave the borders from a viewpoint further south –” from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the great river, the River Euphrates.” Israel will eventually, in the millennium, possess all this property, but only when they have received their Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Then He will clear the way for them to claim their full inheritance.

How wonderful the encouragement given to Joshua then, that no one would be able to stand against him all the days of his life, for God would be with him as He was with Moses.This encouragement is intended too for all now who are “in Christ Jesus.” As we depend on Him, no enemy can prevail against us, for we read concerning the Church built by Christ, “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:18). Let the words of the Lord burn deeply into every believer’s heart, “I will not leave you nor forsake you” (v. 5). Such a promise is a wonderful basis for faith to “be strong and of good courage” (v. 6). Yet it is not a selfish courage, for Joshua was to divide the land as an inheritance for all the children of Israel.He was to be a leader whose concern was first for the glory of God, and which therefore also involved concern for the children of Israel.

Verse 6 emphasizes Joshua’s strength and courage in relationship to the people; now in verse 7 he is urged to be strong and very courageous in observing to act upon the law Moses had given.This involved his relationship to God, which was of vital importance if his relationship to the people was to be maintained in faithful integrity. He was to be consistently well balanced, not to waver in one direction or the other, in which way he would prosper. We today are not under law, but God’s governing hand is still over us, and we are called to so value the grace of God that we should be willingly obedient to the truth revealed in the New Testament.

The Book of the Law was to be the meditation of Joshua day and night, in order that he might do all that was written therein (v. 8). We today need, not only the Old Testament, but the whole truth of the New Testament if we are to have spiritual prosperity and success.

It is the living God who commanded Joshua. Therefore again he is told to be strong and of good courage (v. 9). He had no reason to give way to fear or discouragement, for the Lord God was with him wherever he went. Even when we have learned the Word of God there may be still a danger of giving way to fear, so that we need constant encouragement from the Lord.

INSTRUCTIONS IN VIEW OF CROSSING JORDAN

(vv. 10-18)

There was to be no rushing to cross the Jordan and yet no delay either, but calm deliberation and action. Joshua commanded the officers of the people to tell the people to prepare provisions for themselves, for in three days they would pass over Jordan (vv. 10-11).

Then Joshua addressed the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh, who had obtained possessions for themselves on the east of Jordan. They were not on this account to be exempt from warfare. Moses had made it clear to them that, though they were allowed to settle east of Jordan, and their wives, children and livestock could remain there, yet all able bodied men were to accompany the rest of Israel into Canaan to help them in conquest of the enemy (vv. 12-14). Not till all Israel were settled in peace in the land were these warriors to return to their possessions east of Jordan (v. 15). This was to be an effective testimony to the unity of Israel. We too should have such concern for the blessing of all the children of God.

Theresponse of these men is commendable, being fully agreeable to do just as Joshua commanded. They desired to be as subject to Joshua as they had been to Moses, and expressed the desire that the Lord God would be with Joshua as He was with Moses (vv. 16-17). There was general unity in this, yet they added that if any individual among them rebelled against Joshua’s command, he would be put to death. Then they repeated to Joshua what God had told him, “Only be strong and of good courage.” How deeply does every believer need this positive message!

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

1:1 Now after the {a} death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,

(a) The beginning of this book depends on the last chapter of Deuteronomy which was written by Joshua as a preparation to his history.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

1. God’s charge to Joshua 1:1-9

In one sense Jos 1:1-9 are a preamble to the whole book. They contain the basic principles that were to guide Joshua and Israel so they could obtain all that God had promised their forefathers.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The first word of the book is a conjunction translated "now" or "and." It shows that this book picks up where Deuteronomy ended.

"’Servant of the LORD’ is a title of honor shared by Abraham, David, and the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah. (It is used most frequently of Moses: Exo 14:31; Num 12:7-8; Deu 34:5; and thirteen times in Joshua; ’my servant’ occurs twice.) The term ’servant’ was used to designate even the highest officials of a king. . . . Only at the end of his life was he [Joshua] honored with the title ’servant of the LORD’ (Jos 24:29)." [Note: Madvig, p. 255.]

Joshua was from the tribe of Ephraim (Num 13:8; 1Ch 7:27).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

CHAPTER III.

A SUCCESSOR TO MOSES.

Jos 1:2.

THERE are some men to whom it is almost impossible to find successors. Men of imperial mould; nature’s primates, head and shoulders above other men, born to take the lead. Not only possessed of great gifts originally, but placed by Providence in situations that have wonderfully expanded their capacity and made their five talents ten. Called to be leaders of great movements, champions of commanding interests, often gifted with an imposing presence, and with a magnetic power that subdues opposition and kindles enthusiasm as if by magic. What a bereavement when such men are suddenly removed! How poor in comparison those who come next after them, and from among whom successors have to be chosen! When the Hebrews mourned the death of Samson, the difference in physical strength between him and his brethren could not have appeared greater than the intellectual and moral gulf appears between a great king of men, suddenly removed, and the bereaved children that bend helpless over his grave. A feeling of this sort must have spread itself through the host of Israel when it was known that Moses was dead. Speculation as to his successor there could be none, for not only had God designated Joshua, but before he died Moses had laid his hands upon him, and the people had acknowledged him as their coming leader. And Joshua had already achieved a record of no common order, and had been favoured with high tokens of the Divine approval. Yet what a descent it must have seemed from Moses to Joshua! From the man who had so often been face to face with God, who had commanded the sea to make a way for the redeemed of the Lord to pass over, who had been their legislator and their judge ever since they were children, to whom they had gone in every difficulty, and who for wisdom and disinterestedness had gained the profound confidence of every one of them; – what a descent, we say, to this son of Nun, known hitherto as but the servant of Moses – an intrepid soldier, no doubt, and a man of unfaltering faith, but whose name seemed as if it could not couple with that of their imperial leader!

Well though Joshua did his work in after life, and bright though the lustre of his name ultimately became, he never attained to the rank of Moses. While the name of Moses is constantly reappearing in the prophets, in the psalms, in the gospels, in the epistles, and in the apocalypse, that of Joshua is not found out of the historical books except in the speech of Stephen and that well-known passage in the Hebrews (Heb 4:8), where the received version perplexes us by translating it Jesus. But it was no disparagement of him that he was so far surpassed by the man to whom, under God, the very existence of the nation was due. And in some respects, Joshua is a more useful example to us than Moses. Moses seems to stand half-way in heaven, almost beyond reach of imitation. Joshua is more on our own level. If not a man of surpassing genius, he commends himself as having made the best possible use of his talents, and done his part carefully and well.

The remark has been made that eras of great creative vigour are often succeeded by periods dull and common place. The history of letters and of the fine arts shows that bursts of artistic splendour like the Renaissance, or of literary originality like the Augustan age in Roman or the Elizabethan in English literature, are not followed by periods of equal lustre. And the same phenomenon has often been found in the Christian Church. In more senses than one the Apostles had no successors. Who in all the sub-apostolic age was worthy even to untie the latchet of Peter, or John, or Paul? The inferiority is so manifest that had there been nothing else to guide the Church in framing the canon of the New Testament, the difference between the writings of the Apostles and their companions on the one hand, and of men like Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Hermes on the other, would have sufficed to settle the question. So also at the era of the Reformation. Hardly a country but had its star or its galaxy of the first magnitude. Luther and Melancthon, Calvin and Coligny, Farel and Viret, John a Lasco and John Knox, Latimer and Cranmer, – what incomparable men they were! But in the age that followed what names can we find to couple with theirs?

Of other sections of the Church the same remark has been made, and sometimes it has been turned to an unfair use. If in the second generation, after a great outburst of power and grace, there are few or no men of equal calibre, it does not follow that the glory has departed, and that the Church is to droop her head, and wonder to what unworthy course on her part the degeneracy is to be ascribed. We are not to expect in such a case that the laws of nature will be set aside to gratify our pride. We are to recognise a state of things which God has ordained for wise purposes, although it may not be flattering to us. We are to place ourselves in the attitude in which Joshua was called to place himself when the curt announcement of the text as to Moses was followed by an equally curt order to him – “Moses My servant is dead; now, therefore arise.”

The question for Joshua is not whether he is a fit person to succeed Moses. His mental exercise is not to compare himself with Moses, and note the innumerable points of inferiority on every side. His attitude is not to bow down his head like a bulrush, mourning over the departed glory of Israel, grieving for the mighty dead, on whose like neither he nor his people will ever look again. If there ever was a time when it might seem excusable for a bereaved nation and a bereaved servant to abandon themselves to a sense of helplessness, it was on the death of Moses. But even at that supreme moment the command to Joshua is, “Now therefore arise.” Gird yourself for the new duties and responsibilities that have come upon you. Do not worry yourself with asking whether you are capable of doing these duties, or with vainly looking within yourself for the gifts and qualities which marked your predecessor. It is enough for you that God in His providence calls you to take the place of the departed. If He has called you, He will equip you. It is not His way to send men a warfare on their own charges. The work to which He calls you is not yours but His. Remember He is far more interested in its success than you can be. Think not of yourself, but of Him, and go forth under the motto, ”We will rejoice in Thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners.”

In many different situations of life we may hear the same exhortation that was now addressed to Joshua. A wise, considerate, and honoured father is removed, and the eldest son, a mere stripling, is called to take his place, perhaps in the mercantile office or place of business, certainly in the domestic circle. He is called to be the comforter and adviser of his widowed mother, and the example and helper of his brothers and sisters. Well for him when he hears a voice from heaven, “Your father is dead; now therefore arise!” Rouse yourself for the duties that now devolve upon you; onerous they may be and beyond your strength, but not on that account to be evaded or repudiated; rather to be looked on as spurs provided and designed by God, that you may apply yourself with heart and soul to your duties, in the belief that faithful and patient application shall not be without its reward!

Or it may be that the summons comes to some young minister as successor to a father in Israel, whose ripe gifts and fragrant character have won the confidence and the admiration of all. Or to some teacher in a Sunday-school, where the man of weight, of wise counsel, and holy influence has been suddenly snatched away. But be the occasion what it may, the removal of any man of ripe character and gifts always comes to the survivor with the Divine summons, ”Now therefore arise!” That is the one way in which you must try to improve this dispensation; the world is poorer for the loss of his gifts – learn you to make the most of yours!

It was no mean impression of Moses that God meant to convey by the designation, ”Moses My servant.” It was not a high-sounding title, certainly. A great contrast to the long list of honourable titles sometimes engraved on men’s coffins or on their tombs, or proclaimed by royal herald or king-at-arms over departed kings or nobles. One of the greatest of men has no handle to his name – he is simply Moses. He has no titles of rank or office – he is simply “My servant.” But true greatness is ”when unadorned adorned the most.” Moses is a real man, a man of real greatness; there is no occasion therefore to deck him out in tinsel and gilt; he is gold to the core.

But think what is really implied in this designation, “My servant.” Even if Moses had not been God’s servant in a sense and in a degree in which few other men ever were, it would have been a glorious thing to obtain that simple appellation. True indeed, the term “servant of God” is such a hackneyed one, and often so little represents what it really means, that we need to pause and think of its full import. There may be much honour in being a servant. Even in our families and factories a model servant is a rare and precious treasure. For a real servant is one that has the interest of his master as thoroughly at heart as his own, and never scruples, at any sacrifice of personal interest or feeling, to do all that he can for his master’s welfare. A true servant is one of whom his master may say, ”There is absolutely no need for me to remind him what my interest requires; he is always thinking of my interest, always on the alert to attend to it, and there is not a single thing I possess that is not safe in his hands.”

Does God possess many such servants? Who among us can suppose God saying this of him? Yet this was the character of Moses, and in God’s eyes it invested him with singular honour. It was his distinction that he was “faithful in all his house.” His own will was thoroughly subdued to the will of God. The people of whom God gave him charge were dear to him as a right hand or a right eye. All personal interests and ambitions were put far from him. To aggrandise himself or to aggrandise his house never entered into his thoughts. Never was self more thoroughly crucified in any man’s breast. Beautiful and delightful in God’s eyes must have seemed this quality in Moses, – his absolute disinterestedness, his sensibility to every hint of his Master’s will, his consecration of all he was and had to God, and to his people for God’s sake!

It was thus no unsuggestive word that God used of Moses, when he told Joshua that “His servant” was dead. It was a significant indication of what God had valued in Moses and now expected of Joshua. The one thing for Joshua to remember about Moses is, that he was the servant of God. Let him take pains to be the same; let him have his ear as open as that of Moses to every intimation of God’s will, his will as prompt to respond, and his hand as quick to obey.

Was not this view of the glory of Moses as God’s servant a foreshadow of what was afterwards taught more fully and on a wider scale by our Lord? ”The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Jesus sought to reverse the natural notions of men as to what constitutes greatness, when He taught that, instead of being measured by the number of servants who wait on us, it is measured rather by the number of persons to whom we become servants. And if it was a mark of Christ’s own humiliation that ”He took on Him the form of a servant,” did not this redound to His highest glory? Was it not for this that God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above every name? Happy they who are content to be God’s servants in whatsoever sphere of life He may place them; seeking not their own, but always intent upon their Master’s business!

And now Joshua must succeed Moses and be God’s servant as he was. He must aim at this as the one distinction of his life; he must seek in every action to know what God would have him to do. Happy man if he can carry out this ideal of life! No conflicting interests or passions will distract his soul. His eye being single, his whole body will be full of light. The power that nerves his arm will not be more remarkable than the peace that dwells in his soul. He will show to all future generations the power of a “lost will,” – not the suppression of all desire, according to the Buddhist’s idea of bliss, but all lawful natural desires in happy and harmonious action, because subject to the wise, holy, and loving guidance of the will of God.

Thus we see among the other paradoxes of His government, how God uses death to promote life. The death of the eminent, the aged, the men of brilliant gifts makes way for others, and stimulates their activity and growth. When the champion of the forest falls the younger trees around it are brought more into contact with the sunshine and fresh air, and push up into taller and more fully developed forms. If none of the younger growth attains the size of the champion, a great many may be advanced to a higher average of size and beauty. If in the second generation of any great religious movement few or none can match the “mighties” of the previous age, there may be a general elevation, a rise of level, an increase of efficiency among the rank and file.

In many ways death enters into God’s plans. Not only does it make way for the younger men; but it has a solemnizing and quickening effect on all who are not hardened and dulled by the wear and tear of life.

“Can death itself when seen in the light of this truth [the adjustment of every being in animated nature to every other] be denied to be an evidence of benevolence? I think not. The law of animal generation makes necessary the law of animal death, if the largest amount of animal happiness is to be secured. If there had been less death there must also have been less life, and what life there was must have been poorer and meaner. Death is a condition of the prolificness of nature, the multiplicity of species, the succession of generations, the co-existence of the young and the old; and these things, it cannot reasonably be doubted, add immensely to the sura of animal happiness.” – Flint’s “Theism,” p. 251.

What a memorable event in the spiritual history of families is the first sudden affliction, the first breach in the circle of loving hearts! First, the new experience of intense tender longing, baffled by the inexorable conditions of death; then the vivid vision of eternity, the reality of the unseen flashing on them with living and awful power, and giving an immeasurable importance to the question of salvation; then the drawing closer to one another, the forswearing of all animosities and jealousies, the cordial desire for unbroken peace and constant co-operation; and if it be the father or the mother that has been taken, the ambition to be useful, – to be a help not a burden to the surviving parent, and to do what little they can of what used to be their father’s or their mother’s work. Death becomes actually a quickener of the vital energies; instead of a withering influence, it drops like the gentle dew, and becomes the minister of life.

And death is not alone among the destructive agencies that are so often directed to life-giving ends. What a remarkable place is that which is occupied by pain among God’s instruments of good! How many are there who, looking back on their lives, have to confess, with a mixture of sadness and of joy, that it is their times of greatest suffering that have been the most decisive in their lives, – marked by their best resolutions, – followed by their greatest advance! And it sometimes would seem as if the acuter the suffering the greater the blessing. How near God seems at times to come to the height of cruelty when really He is overflowing with love! He seems to select the very tenderest spots on which to inflict His blows, the very tenderest and purest affections of the heart. It is a wonderful triumph of faith and submission when the sufferer stands firm and tranquil amidst it all. And still more when he can find consolation in the analogy which was supplied by God’s own act, – “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

And this brings us to our last application. Our Lord Himself, by a beautiful analogy in nature, showed the connection, in the very highest sense, between death and life – ”Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but if it die it beareth much fruit.” “Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” When Jesus died at Calvary, the headquarters of death became the nursery of life. The place of a skull, like the prophet’s valley of dry bones, gave birth to an exceeding great army of living men. Among the wonders that will bring glory to God in the highest throughout eternity, the greatest will be this evolution of good from evil, of happiness from pain, of life from death. And even when the end comes, and death is swallowed up of victory, and death and hell are cast into the lake of fire, there will abide with the glorified a lively sense of the infinite blessing that came to them from God through the repulsive channel of death, finding its highest expression in that anthem of the redeemed – “Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us TO God by Thy blood.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary