Jos. 24: A Brief History of Jew Time

Joshua 24:14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD."

A 110-year-old Joshua knew his time was drawing to a close. It was time to address the Israelites one last time. He gets them together and begins to go through the history of God's work in and through the nation of Israel. The first name he drops is Terah, the father of Abraham, and reveals (to me) how they served other Gods...other than the LORD.

And at first that struck me. Abraham was this great, mythic figure in Biblical history, yet at some point before God got a hold of his life, even he was into idolatry? This serves the purpose of a couple things, I think. First, so that when the Israelites go around bragging about who they are, they don't forget that even their most prized ancestors were sinners, who had to be collared by God, and put on the right track. The second is a reminder that it is God alone who accomplishes great things through men.

And we know the story of Jacob going to Egypt, Moses leading them out, and then here in verse 7, Joshua reports that God "put darkness between you and the Egyptians." Which I didn't recall from the original story. So I went back and looked and sure enough, in Exodus 14:20, where there was darkness on one side, and light on the other. The darkness bringing confusion, the light, rescue.

Lets see...defeat of the Amorites, Balaam, crossing the Jordan, defeating the HACPHAJ,...

Ooh...he sent the hornet to drive out the enemies. Can you imagine a swarm of hornets so nasty they'd clear an entire city? And I imagine these being big God-hornets...like the size of your fist, and being able to jab out a person's eyeball with a stinger the size of a golf pencil...yeah...scary. But maybe that didn't happen, but I wonder if it did.

So Israel might be feeling pretty cocky. After all they just cleaned out the entire promised land...until God drops verse 13 on them, and its a verse I need to remember when I get too big for my britches.

"So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant."

A great verse that forces one to remember just who it is that is doing great things. So Joshua presents them with a challenge, and it's the verse thats in all those plaques at Kregels that you give to people who need a housewarming gift..."As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD..." and so on. He takes a stand, knowing full well that there are people giving him lies when he asks if the LORD is their God, since people apparently still have their idols. He even tells them to throw them away. Has God told you to throw an idol away in a (not so) subtle way? I'm going to have to take stock, because I know there are things I hang onto that I shouldn't.

The most damning verse about this hidden sin is verse 19, where Joshua basically says, "You are not able to serve the LORD...he is holy and jealous." Loving? Not mentioned. Merciful? Nah. Unforgiving? Bingo. The point here cannot be missed. If you serve another god, it is impossible to serve God. It can't be done. God will not be served "too." Will not be served "also."

So Joshua sets up the witness stone. The earth, the land, is also a witness to what happens with God and with man. Another anthropomorphization of creation. I need a better word for that...

So Joshua dies and is buried in his inherited land. And so is Joseph, whose bones were apparently being hauled around all this time. He was buried at Shechem, where Jacob had bought land like a million years ago or something.

Eleazar died too. So, I'm not sure who the next leader is, or who the next high priest is. These people weren't lined up as specifically as Joshua and Eleazar were. Who is the next mediator between God and Israel?

Jos. 11: More Hineys Kicked.

Joshua 11:20 "For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses."

JRR Tolkien had to have read this chapter and drawn inspiration from it. At least when naming his characters and settings. It's all here...the kings of Shimron, Naphoth Dor, the waters of Merom, Misrephoth Maim.

Anyway, there's a lot of action here, too. It's kind of mentioned in passing, but Joshua takes way more land in this chapter, and exterminates (from the sounds of it) the entire HACPHAJ.

All the HACPHAJ kings come together to fight Joshua after hearing about his Van Dammage back in chapter ten. Probably a big army. Huge. More than has even been seen before. Lot's of nations. 12 groups are listed in chapter 11, but who knows how many men there are. But there goes God again. "Do not be afraid of them, because by this time tomorrow I will hand all of them over to Israel, slain. You are to hamstring their horses and burn their chariots." The command to hamstring the HACPHAJ horses is interesting here. It is an "afterthought" it seems. But what it really serves to do is to give Joshua even more confidence that God would deliver the HACPHAJ into Israel's hands. If God was commanding him to hamstring some horses, how could Joshua refuse? How could God give Joshua a command like that without wiping out the owners of those horses first?

And I hear you, man. Hamstringing horses sounds so very mean. Apparently a tendon is cut, rendering the horse crippled. I don't know how crippled. I would imagine very crippled, to the point of being useless. Completely useless to haul chariots, soldiers...messages...to work...

Joshua goes in and wreaks his special brand of havoc, slaughtering and exterminating human beings. Killing them off like they're nothing. Like they are not valued. The humanitarian side of me is sickened by all this. How can you not be? I wonder where God's heart was with all this death and killing. Did these people have a chance? Not really. They were part of another race. Is it possible that there were people that mattered not to God, and whose mere existance was in the context of the nation of Israel? Sounds horrible.

But I guess I am learning about what God is doing with the nation of Israel. So far, there's only been a couple of brief references about God's love for people, even then, only the nation of Israel. I must be overlooking some things here, and I'm not suggesting that couldn't love certain people. That whole business with Adam...but even then, that was the only man alive. Was creation an act of love? Moses describes God as "abounding in love" in Exodus. Deuteronomy could lead one to believe that God loves those who keep His covenant. If that's the case, then maybe at this point, it would be reasonable to expect God to harden the hearts of the Pharaohs and the HACPHAJ. The idea that there could be people (at any point in time) that God just didn't love is an amazing and horrifying thought that never occurred to me. And then I think, well, these nations came to fight against Israel. To attack God, essentially. But would this attack have been necessary to begin with? Could Israel have lived peaceably with these other nations? What would the cost have been? What would Israel have fallen into? Curious, ponderous, unsettling.

Then the land had rest from war. Another in the line of the planet rising and falling as man does. War takes a toll not only on those who fight the war, but the land that has to endure it as well. I wonder if this is the same sense of rest that the land enjoys after being planted and harvest for six years.

Ex. 17: Drink Struck Rock, Amalekites Get Doomed

In Chapter 17, there are a couple of very interesting stories. The first is how the Israelites get fresh water from a rock, and the second is the Israelites' first big military victory.

In the middle of the Israelites' wandering, they set up camp at a place called Rephidim. Great place to set up camp, Israel, there's no water there. So what do they do? Freak out and get mad at Moses. Of course. They set their requests too low. They don't really recognize at this point that it isn't by Moses' power that they are fed or able to drink fresh water.

Again with the melodrama. Again with the pining to be back in Egypt.

And Moses, losing his cool, cries out to God, saying, "Help, these people are ready to stone me! What do I do?"

God instructs Moses to take up the same staff with which he struck the Nile back in chapter 7, bring some of the elders out to this rock at Horeb, and strike the rock. God, who will be standing there with him, will cause potable water to flow from the rock. He was probably invisible, or in His cloud. What an amazing miracle! This rock, probably fairly big since it was named "the rock at Horeb," bursts forth with a spring of water that everyone can drink. Awesome stuff. God didn't just make water come up from the ground. Moses had to hit a rock with a stick. Why is that? Couldn't God have just done the underground water thing? I wonder why God chose to go through a man. And water poured out. A lifesaving water. From the rock.

Moses called this place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested God.

God was among them.

Verse 8 begins the second half of the chapter with Israel under attack from the Amalekites (the same Amalekites who were defeated by the king of Elam in Gen. 14:7). Apparently the Amalekites were not too fond of Israel settling there in Rephidim, temporary as it may have been. So Moses goes and finds a man named Joshua to raise an army to fight them.

As Joshua and his men fight the Amalekites, Moses stands on a hill above the battle. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites would be winning. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Israelites would begin to lose. How completely weird. Why would it be like this? Moses raises his hands, I don't know if it was a touchdown type of pose or perhaps it was more like his arms were outstretched from his sides, like a "T." When the hands are lowered, Israel faces defeat. One can only speculate.

Anyway, as you'd expect, Moses arms get tired eventually, so Aaron and Hur (I don't know who Hur is yet, I just met him now) get a rock for him to sit on, and then hold his hands up until sunset, giving Joshua enough time to put the Amalekite army to the sword. Victory in battle comes through someone else's actions and power.

God wants this series of events remembered, so he instructs Moses to write it all down on a scroll as such, and to make sure Joshua knows about it, which may be what we are reading here. The name of Amalek will be completely blotted out from under heaven. Was this the son of Esau in Genesis 36:12? Amalekites existed before then though, too. Scary stuff though, to have God say He would blot your name out from under heaven. There's no reason to carry on at this point. And why weren't the Egyptians subject to this kind of fate? Sure, they lost their entire army, but they held the Israelites in cruel bondage for 430 years. God deals with certain people differently at His will, apparently.

Moses' altar to the LORD here is called "The LORD is my Banner." Moses said there was a precedent set here. With the hands lifted up to Him, God will be at war with the Amalekites from now on.