Video Transcript: Early Life in the Promised Land

Towards the end of Israel's 40 years in the wilderness, Moses gathered the  people to give him his parting blessing and words of wisdom. He reminded them of all the Lord had done for them to this point and reiterated the conditions under which they could prosper in this land into which the Lord was about to bring  them. He also outlined the blessings and curses that would follow their conduct.  Afterwards, since he himself had been disqualified from entering the land, he  appointed Joshua as his successor, and before he died was granted an  overview of Canaan from the top of nearby mount Nebo. And that brings us to  the final installment of Israel's journey from slavery to freedom, their entrance  into the promised land and early life there. The book that describes this is titled  Joshua. But Israel's new leader is not its primary character. That is, the title of  the book does not so much proclaim the man as it does the meaning of his  name. The name Joshua means the LORD saves. The Lord God is the one who gives the victory. That's why the author begins by showing where Joshua's  instructions came from and who should get the credit for all that is to follow  among Moses, concluding words to Israel had been these from Deuteronomy  31:6, Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified or afraid because of them.  For the Lord your God goes with you, He will never leave you or forsake you.  Moses repeated this to Joshua, in the presence of the people. Be strong and  courageous. The Lord Himself goes with you and before you and will be with  you, He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be  discouraged. It's noteworthy that as recounted in the first few verses of Joshua,  the Lord repeats these very words to Israel's new leader three more times, right  after he takes over from Moses. The reason that Joshua can be strong and  courageous is that the upcoming campaign to secure the land as inheritance for  Israel is not his or Israel's campaign. First of all, it's the Lord's. That's reinforced  by an encounter Joshua had a little bit later as he contemplated the fortifications of Jericho, which stood is the first barrier to the conquest of Canaan. All of a  sudden, this is in Joshua 5, Joshua saw a man in front of him with a sword in his hand, a man who identified himself as commander of the Lord's army. He told  Joshua the same thing that Moses had been told 80 years before at the burning  bush, he told him take off your sandals for the place you are standing is holy.  The early Christian church speculated that this mysterious man was the second  person of the Trinity Jesus, before his incarnation, we cannot know but this was  important business, important enough that the Lord Himself would attend to it.  You see, the land of Canaan, Palestine, was really much more than a certain  piece of real estate. It did have physical dimensions, but the land carried with it  many spiritual implications. This was a place chosen by God to be a new garden of Eden with a new Adam and Eve Israel. The installation of Israel into the  Promised Land was to be a model and a new beginning for God's redemption of  the whole world. Joshua prepared for the conquest of Canaan by sending two  spies to Jericho. They sneaked into the city and found lodging in the ancient 

equivalent of a motel, the house of Rahab the prostitute, it was the best place to  avoid arousing suspicion. Even so their arrival did not pass unnoticed, and it  was only by Rahab's intervention, that the spies avoided capture the reason she risked her own life and this was clear in her explanation to the spies. Joshua  2:9-11, She spoke of the great fear of Israel that she and her fellow citizens  shared terror. To be sure, Israel was a big hoard to be so close and even if the  flooding river, Jordan River still separated them from Jericho, but what multiplied the fear of the Canaanites as Rahab told the spies was two reports they had  received. The first was a news of how the God of the Israelites had delivered  them from Egypt's army by making a path for them through the Red Sea. And  second, the news of how God had helped Israel defeat the armies of the  Amorites. As to the second matter, varicose forces were small compared to the  Amorite territories. Jericho was built to withstand the attacks of other city  kingdoms, not the attacks of armies capable of defeating such people as the  Amorites with their vast resources and territories. But in the minds of Canaan's  inhabitants, a miracle at the Red Sea was even more frightening. In their  religious mythology, Baal ruled the land because he had overcome the powerful  god of the sea. But when the God of Israel overcame the sea, and supposedly  the sea god, making a path through it to save his people, he thereby proved  himself to be the God of all gods, more powerful even than Baal of the  Canaanites. Naturally, the future opponents of Israel were afraid and they had to make a choice. There was no possibility for neutrality would they submit to the  God who had proved his sovereignty so dramatically? Or would they resist?  Most decided to resist but but Rahab's actions to say the spies of Israel gave  evidence not only of her faith that the Lord would be victorious, but also of her  willingness to change her allegiance, and serve him the true God of land and  sea. Rahab's, testimony and actions on behalf of the spies had an impact on  their morale as well. They took it as a sign from God that Israel's victory was  certain. And that's how Joshua and Israel took it too when they got the report  and what had happened in Jericho. And they were glad to have the eventual  opportunity to preserve Rahab and her family and welcome them into the  community of God's people. After the spies report, Israel was ready to follow  God's next instructions. The next day, the priests carrying the Ark of the  Covenant walked into the flooding Jordan River, where upon its water stopped  flowing. And all of Israel crossed over into Canaanite territory on dry land. With  that the terror that Rahab had spoken of to the spies had to have increased  even more, and the faith of Israel was simultaneously strengthened before they  had even fought a single battle. It seemed the entire land was theirs for the  taking. Such a miracle deserved a memorial, which is exactly what God  commanded to be built. Like all memorials this one was meant to help keep the  story alive. Although the eyewitnesses to this miracle, surely would not soon  forget what God had done, it would be a different matter for future generations. 

Unless the story of God's miracle were told and retold. In this brief period of  calm before the storm of war, the Israelites were reminded of the terms of their  covenant with God. And He instructed that older men and boys be circumcised.  This mark of the covenant, which remember was introduced to Abraham way  back when this mark of the covenant had not been used during Israel's  wilderness years. But now that God's people had crossed over into their own  land, a land of freedom and life they could properly honor the Lord their God. As  God told them, the rolling away of the foreskin and circumcision marked the  rolling away of the shame God's people had endured as slaves of the unclean,  and uncircumcised Egyptians. Here in this land of the promise, above all places, the laws of God had to be properly observed and the covenant had to be  maintained and honored if things were not as they should be here, then what  would be the point of all God's activity on behalf of Israel. There were a couple  of other significant things that also happened during this time together, they  marked the end of Israel's wilderness experience. One was the first time the  Passover was celebrated since Israel's deliverance from Egypt. And the other  This coincided with the beginning of the barley harvest in Canaan, so that the  Israelites could now also begin to eat of the produce of the land God was giving  them. This meant that God could stop sending the daily Manna and he did so.  The religious rituals of circumcision and Passover were Israel's testimony to the  true faith. There were many times when the people had doubted there would be  future times when they would falter. But now in this new land, they saw with the  eyes of faith and they ate and drank and celebrated in the shadow of Jericho's  walls. The story of Jericho subsequent fall as well known as instructed by the  commander of the Lord's army, Israel's role at first was merely to march around  the city for seven days in succession, and then blow their trumpets and shout at  the appropriate time. Then only then after God brought the walls down, would  they be released to destroy every living thing? In Jericho. This first battle was  important not only for strategic reasons, it was also to be the model for all  Israel's battles, it was not a model for battle techniques. Not every city would  have its walls supernaturally demolished. But it was a model in that it showed  that the Lord alone was to get the credit for every success. To be sure, Israel  would have to fight to secure their inheritance, but they were not ever to make  the mistake of thinking they had done it in their own strength. There was a  further instruction from the Lord that was particularly important in this first and  precedent set setting battle, it was at every living creature, and everything  connected with the city be subjected to the ban, that is, be completely  destroyed, except for those articles of gold, silver, bronze and iron, which were  to be brought into the Lord's treasury. Everything had to be destroyed except for  that, this command was a repetition of what God had told his people in several  prior occasions, one of those was Deuteronomy 20:17-18 in which God says,  completely destroy them. Why? Otherwise they will teach you to follow all the 

testable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the  LORD your God. Under the rules of the ban, there were only two alternatives.  Everything and everyone was to serve the Lord or be totally destroyed. The  Canaanites had made their choice. For many years, they had flaunted their  worship of false gods instead of give, instead of giving God the leniency  demanded, now was the day of judgment in which they would reap the reward  for their sin. With the benefit of hindsight, and further information from Scripture,  we today can see that what was to happen in Jericho was to be a preview of  God's final judgment. When everyone who has persisted in their rebellion  against the one true God, will be subject to eternal destruction. After afterwards,  after the battle of Jericho, it seemed that everything had been done precisely as  God has had instructed, and Israel was eager to press the war against other  cities and nations of Canaan. But then they were shocked by a resounding  defeat by what looks like an easy target Ai. What was soon revealed was that  God's strict command against seizing any of the spoils of the battle with Jericho  had been violated by an Israelite Akin, and not until Akin and his family had  themselves been subjected to God's punishment could Israel continue. In this  way, it was driven home to God's people that they needed to be very scrupulous about obeying the Lord in every particular. After that Israel's advance through  Canaan went better. The tribes of Israel fought together to take over large  chunks, chunks of the land. The conclusion of the entire series of battles to do  that is given in the final verse of Joshua 11. So Joshua, took the entire land, just  as the Lord had instructed Moses or directed Moses, and he gave it as an  inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. And then the land had rest from war. That rest was not perfect and complete since each tribe had further  work to do to ensure its safety. Indeed, Joshua later scolded the leaders of the  various tribes by asking how long will you wait? Before you begin to take  possession of the land that the Lord the God of your father has given you, that is even after each tribe had received its inheritance, the people were not to be lax  in dealing with the opposition that remained in each territory. But enough work  was done so that each tribe could be assigned a portion of the land. That  distribution is described in Joshua 13-21. Here there are a long list of cities and  descriptions of boundaries and names of people that mean very little to most  readers today. But there are some important themes in the section that have to  do with their fulfillment of God's promise to give Israel an inheritance until the  land was divided. And until all of Israel's tribes came into possession of their  own piece of land, the promise remained incomplete, in in and unfulfilled that's  why every tribe, and every family in every tribe was allotted a piece of land as  their inheritance. Furthermore, special provisions were enacted so that the  inheritance of each family would continue down through the generations. Among these as described in Joshua 17 was an exception to the usual practice of  distributing the inheritance through the males of Israel. In this story, the 

inheritance due a man of Manasseh named Zelophehad was given to his  daughters because he had no son. And other provision was that any land that  our family and hardship had to sell for some reason, would be returned to that  family in the year of Jubilee, which happened once every 50 years, it would be  returned because an Israelite without land could not experience the full benefits  of the Abrahamic blessing. Special provisions were also made for the Levites.  As a tribe of Israel's priests, their function was to serve all the other tribes  scattered throughout Israel. As a result, their inheritance was the gift of certain  towns with pasture lands in each of the tribal territories. And finally, although this is not singled out for special mentioned in Joshua, foreigners, such as the  Egyptians who threw in their lot with Israel when they left Egypt, and Rahab, the  Canaanite saved from the destruction of Jericho could also participate in the  blessings of the Abrahamic covenants how, by marrying into an Israelite family.  God had gone to a lot of trouble to give Israel a home. He had begun hundreds  of years earlier and just now finished the job. That's the meaning of these final  words of chapter 21 of Joshua, the Lord gave them rest. On every side just as  he had sworn to their forefathers, not one of their enemies withstood them, the  Lord handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the Lord's good  promises to the house of Israel failed, every one was fulfilled. These words are  reminiscent of God's verdict after he had finished creating the universe.  Remember Genesis 1:21, God saw all that hehad made it was very good. Here  again, God saw all that he had done in this new Paradise. And it was good. The  Lord had done his work well, all the enemies, vanquish all the promises fulfilled,  had very serious implications for the relationships that Israel would form with  other nations that had to be done very carefully. So as not to compromise the  nation's loyalty to God. Here's how Joshua put it in his speech to Israel's leaders toward the end of his life. This is in chapter 23:6, he said, be very strong. Be  careful to obey all that is written in the in the Book of the Law of Moses without  turning aside to the right or left, do not associate with these nations that remain  among you. Do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them, you must  not serve them or bow down to them, but you are to hold fast to the Lord your  God as you have till now. The Lord has driven out before you great and powerful nations. To this day, no one has been able to withstand you, one of you routes  1000 Because the Lord your God fights for you, just as He promised. So be very careful to love the Lord your God. But if you turn away and ally yourselves with  the survivors of these nations that remain among you, and if you intermarry with  them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares  and traps for you. Whips on your back and thorns in your eyes until you perish  from this good land which the Lord your God has given you. Joshua's final  admonition to Israel given shortly before his death at the age of 110 included this challenge and testimony. This is from Joshua 24:14-15. A well known statement 

now fear the Lord and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods,  your forefathers worshiped beyond the river in Egypt and serve the Lord, but if  serving the Lord seems undesirable for you then choose for yourselves this day  whom you will serve, whether the god your forefathers served beyond the river,  or the gods of the Amorites, and whose land you are living, but as for me, and  my household, we will serve the Lord. And then the people responded in the  affirmative, we will serve the Lord our God and obey Him. And Joshua told them  it would be hard, but they persisted, we will do that. And they sealed their  promise by reaffirming the conditions of the Covenant they had had with God.  After Joshua's death, he was buried in the territory of his own inheritance. And  also Joseph;s bones were re buried in his family plot as he had requested long  before. Things were good for now. But in the years to come, Israel would fail to  do what they promised they would fail to drive out the Canaanites completely.  And as a result, the false gods and misplaced loyalties of these nations would  pose ongoing problems for the tribes of Israel.