Now after the death of Moses the servant of Yahweh, Yahweh spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go across this Jordan, you and all these people, to the land which I am giving to them, even to the children of Israel. I have given you every place that the sole of your foot will tread on, as I told Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon even to the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail you nor forsake you.
“Be strong and courageous; for you shall cause this people to inherit the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Don’t turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success. Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be dismayed, for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go.”
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 As to the Author of this Book, it is…
As to the Author of this Book, it is better to suspend our judgment than to make random assertions. Those who think that it was Joshua, because his name stands on the title page, rest on weak and insufficient grounds. The name of Samuel is inscribed on a part of the Sacred History containing a narrative of events which happened after his death; and there cannot be a doubt that the book which immediately follows the present is called Judges, not because it was written by them, but because it recounts their exploits. Joshua died before the taking of Hebron and Debir, and yet an account of it is given in the 15th chapter of the present Book. The probability is, that a summary of events was framed by the high priest Eleazar, and furnished the materials out of which the Book of Joshua was composed. It was a proper part of the high priest’s duty not only to give oral instruction to the people of his own time, but to furnish posterity with a record of the goodness of God in preserving the Church, and thus provide for the advancement of true religion. And before the Levites became degenerate, their order included a class of scribes or notaries who embodied in a perpetual register everything in the history of the Church which was worthy of being recorded. Let us not hesitate. therefore, to pass over a matter which we are unable to determine, or the knowledge of which is not very necessary, while we are in no doubt as to the essential point — that the doctrine herein contained was dictated by the Holy Spirit for our use, and confers benefits of no ordinary kind on those who attentively peruse it.
Although the people had already gained signal victories, and become the occupants of a commodious and tolerably fertile tract of country, the Divine promise as to the land of Canaan still remained suspended. Nay, the leading article in the Covenant was unaccomplished, as if God, after cooping up his people in a corner, had left his work in a shapeless and mutilated form. This Book, then, shows how, when the intolerable impiety of the people had interrupted the course of deliverance, God, while inflicting punishment, so tempered the severity of justice as ultimately to perform what he had promised concerning the inheritance of Canaan.
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This suggests the very useful reflection, that while men are cut off by death, and fail in the middle of their career, the faithfulness of God never fails. On the death of Moses a sad change seemed impending; the people were left like a body with its head lopped off. While thus in danger of dispersion, not only did the truth of God prove itself to be immortal, but it was shown in the person of Joshua as in a bright mirror, that when God takes away those whom he has adorned with special gifts, he has others in readiness to supply their place, and that though he is pleased for a time to give excellent gifts to some, his mighty power is not tied down to them, but he is able, as often as seems to him good, to find fit successors, nay, to raise up from the very stones persons qualified to perform illustrious deeds.
First, we see how, when the wandering of forty years in the wilderness had almost effaced the remembrance of the passage of the Red Sea, the course of deliverance was proved to have been uninterrupted by the repetition of the same miracle in the passage of the Jordan. The renewal of circumcision was equivalent to a re-establishment of the Covenant which had been buried in oblivion by the carelessness of the people, or abandoned by them from despair. Next, we see how they were conducted by the hand of God into possession of the promised land. The taking of the first city was an earnest of the perpetual aid which they might hope for from heaven, since the walls of Jericho fell of their own accord, shaken merely by the sound of trumpets. The nations, however, were not completely routed by a single battle, nor in one short campaign, but were gradually worn out and destroyed by many laborious contests.
Here, it is to be observed, that arduous difficulties were thrown in the way of the people when the kings entered into a league, and came forth to meet them with united forces, because it became necessary not only to war with single nations, but with an immense body which threatened to overwhelm them by one great onset. Ultimately, however, all these violent attempts had no other effect than to make the power of God more manifest, and give brighter displays of mercy and faithfulness in the defense of his chosen people. In fact, their uninterrupted course of success, and their many unparalleled victories, showed the hand of God as it were visibly stretched forth from heaven.
More especially, a signal proof that they were warring under divine auspices was given when the sun was checked in his course at the mere prayer of Joshua, as if the elements had been armed for his assistance, and were waiting ready to obey him. Again, while the delays which occurred in the progress of the war were useful trials of the constancy of the people, we must not lose sight of another admirable use of which Moses, to prevent them from fainting in their minds, had at an earlier period forewarned them, viz., that God was unwilling to destroy the nations at once, lest the country, from being converted into a kind of desert, might be overrun by wild beasts.
But the provision which God had thus most graciously made for their security, they wickedly perverted to their own destruction: for having obtained what they deemed a large enough space for commodious habitation, they turned backwards to indulge in sloth and cowardice. This one crime brought others along with it. For after they had been enrolled under the banners of the Lord, they treacherously and disobediently refused to fulfil their period of service, in the very same way as deserters, regardless of the military oath, basely quit their standards. The dominion of the land, which had been divinely offered, they, with flagrant ingratitude, rejected, by taking possession of only a part.
Moreover, though they had been ordered to purge the sacred territory of all pollutions, in order that no profanation of the pure and legitimate worship might remain, they allowed the impious superstitions which God abhorred to be practiced as before; and though they also knew that the order had been partly given as a security for their own safety, lest, through intermixture with the nations, they might be ensnared by their impostures and insidious arts, yet, as if they had determined to court danger, they left them to furnish the fuel of a dire conflagration.
Their obstinate incredulity betrays itself in their disregard of the penalty denounced against such transgression. But they at length learned by experience that God had not threatened in vain, that those nations whom they had wickedly spared, would prove to them thorns and stings. For they were harassed by constant incursions, pillaged by rapine, and at length almost oppressed by tyrannical violence. In short, it was not owing to any merit of theirs that the truth of God did not utterly fail.
On this point, indeed, a question may be raised: for if the promise given to Abraham was founded on the mere good pleasure of God, then, be the character of the people what it might, it is absurd to say that it could be defeated by their fault. How are we to reconcile the two things, — that the people did not obtain the full and complete inheritance promised to them, and that yet God was true? I answer, that so far was the faithfulness of God from being overthrown, or shaken, or in any way impaired, that we here perceive more clearly how wonderful are His workings, who, in unsearchable wisdom, knows how to bring light out of darkness.
It had been said to Abraham, (Genesis 15:18) To thy seed will I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates. Joshua affirms that the event drew near, and was actually at hand. But the Israelites, overcome by sloth, do not reach those boundaries; nay, in settling down of their own accord within narrow limits, they in a manner oppose barriers to the divine liberality. In this way the covenant of God seemed to suffer a kind of eclipse.
And there is no doubt that pious minds were often filled with anxiety when they saw His work cut short. But the punishment inflicted on the people for their wickedness was so tempered, that what might otherwise have been a grievous and perilous trial of faith, was converted into a powerful support. The apparent failure reminded the children of God that they were to look forward to a more excellent state, where the divine favor would be more clearly displayed, nay, would be freed from every obstruction, and shine forth in full splendor. Hence their thoughts were raised to Christ, and it was made known to them that the complete felicity of the Church depended on its Head. In arriving at this conclusion, they were assisted by new prophecies. For the rehearsal which Joshua here makes of the ancient covenant is applied in the Psalms (Psalms 72 and 89) to the Messiah’s reign, unto which time, the Lord had, for the purpose of rendering it more glorious, deferred the full fruition of the promised land. The same thing was exemplified in David, who bore a typical resemblance to Christ, and in whom it was shown that the divine promises were only established and confirmed in the hand of a Mediator.
No longer, therefore, does it seem strange that the result promised, after being retarded by the wickedness of the people, was not, fully accomplished till the state of the Church was rightly arranged, seeing that in the person of David the image of the Mediator, on whom the perfect the moderate foretaste which believers received of the divine favor, must have sufficed to sustain them, preparatory to the more complete realization.
Nor, indeed, was the partition made by Joshua and the heads of the tribes, to whom that duty was intrusted, elusory or fallacious; but the inheritance, in possession of which God had placed them by His own hand, was truly and distinctly divided by His orders. In this respect, too, the sacred observance of the covenant made with Abraham was conspicuous. Jacob, when about to die, had destined certain settlements to some of his children. Had each tribe received its portion simply by the determination and suffrages of men, it might have been thought that they had merely followed the directions of the Patriarch. But when the lot, than which nothing is deemed more fortuitous, confirmed the prophecy, the stability of the donation was as clearly ratified as if God had visibly appeared. Accordingly, after the sluggishness of the people put an end to the war, Joshua sent back the tribes of Reuben and Gad, with the half tribe of Manasseh, as if their period of service had expired.
Next follows a remarkable narrative, clearly showing how zealous the Israelites who dwelt in the land of Canaan were to maintain the pure worship of God. For when these two tribes and half tribe had erected a monument of fraternal alliance, the others, thinking that it was an altar intended for sacrifice, and consequently an abomination, immediately determine to declare war, and prepare sooner to destroy their kindred than allow religion to be torn asunder by a bastard worship. At the same time they are commended for their moderation, in being so easily appeased on obtaining satisfaction, after a sacred zeal had suddenly roused them to arms.
In the end of the book it is shown how anxious Joshua was to advance the glory of God, and how diligently he endeavored to obviate the fickleness and treachery of the people. With this view, not only the most impressive exhortations, but protestations, were employed, and more especially the covenant was renewed in regular form with the solemnity of an oath.
1. Now, after, etc Here, first, we see the steadfastness of God in watching over his people, and providing for their safety. The sanction given to Joshua’s appointment, as new leader by a renewed commission, was intended to indicate the continuance of his favor, and prevent the people from thinking themselves forsaken in consequence of the death of Moses. Joshua, indeed, had already been chosen to rule the people; and not only invested with the office, but also endowed with spiritual gifts. But as the most valiant, however well provided, are apt to halt or waver when the period for action arrives, the exhortation to Joshua to make ready forthwith for the expedition was by no means superfluous. Still, however, the call thus formally given was not so much on his own account, as to inspire the people with full confidence in following a leader whom they saw advancing step by step in the path divinely marked out for him.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 8 The beginning of this book dependeth on the last…
The beginning of this book dependeth on the last chapter of Deut. which was written by Joshua as a preparation to his history.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Jos 1:1 Now after the death of Moses the…
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.
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{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.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–9 After the death of Moses; either immediately after it,…
After the death of Moses; either immediately after it, or when the days of mourning for Moses were expired. Joshua was appointed and declared Moses's successor in the government before this time, and therefore doubtless entered upon the government instantly after his death; 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 oft repeated, not without cause; partly, to reflect honour upon him; partly, to give authority to his laws and writings, in publishing whereof he only acted as God's servant, in his name and stead: and partly, that the Israelites might not think of Moses above what was meet, remembering that he was not the Lord himself, but only the Lord's servant; and therefore not to be worshipped, nor yet 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 God's house, should give place to him who was the Son, and Heir, and Lord of it, as Christ was. See Heb 3:3,5,6. The Lord spake; either in a dream or vision, or by Urim, Num 27:21.
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Moses's minister, i.e. who had waited upon Moses in his great employments, and thereby been privy to his managery of the government, and so fitted and prepared for it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Honour is here put upon Joshua, and great power…
Honour is here put upon Joshua, and great power lodged in his hand, by him that is the fountain of honour and power, and by whom kings reign. Instructions are given him by Infinite Wisdom, and encouragements by the God of all consolation. God had before spoken to Moses concerning him (Num 27:18), but now he speaks to him (v. 1), probably as he spoke to Moses (Lev 1:1) out of the tabernacle of the congregation, where Joshua had with Moses presented himself (Deu 31:14), to learn the way of attending there. Though Eleazar had the breast-plate of judgment, which Joshua was directed to consult as there was occasion (Num 27:21), yet, for his greater encouragement, God here speaks to him immediately, some think in a dream or vision (as Job 33:15); for though God has tied us to instituted ordinances, in them to attend him, yet he has not tied himself to them, but that he may without them make himself known to his people, and speak to their hearts otherwise than by their ears. Concerning Joshua's call to the government observe here,
I. The time when it was given him: After the death of Moses. As soon as ever Moses was dead, Joshua took upon him the administration, by virtue of his solemn ordination in Moses's life-time. An interregnum, though but for a few days, might have been of bad consequence; but it is probable that God did not speak to him to go forward towards Canaan till after the thirty days of mourning for Moses were ended; not, as the Jews say, because the sadness of his spirit during those days unfitted him for communion with God (he sorrowed not as one that had no hope), but by this solemn pause, and a month's adjournment of the public councils, even now when time was so very precious to them, God would put an honour upon the memory of Moses, and give time to the people not only to lament their loss of him, but to repent of their miscarriages towards him during the forty years of his government.
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II. The place Joshua had been in before he was thus preferred. He was Moses's minister, that is, an immediate attendant upon his person and assistant in business. The Septuagint translates it hupourgos, a workman under Moses, under his direction and command. Observe, 1. He that was here called to honour had been long bred to business. Our Lord Jesus himself took upon him the form of a servant, and then God highly exalted him. 2. He was trained up in subjection and under command. Those are fittest to rule that have learnt to obey. 3. He that was to succeed Moses was intimately acquainted with him, that he might fully know his doctrine and manner of life, his purpose and long-suffering (Ti2 3:10), might take the same measures, walk in the same spirit, in the same steps, having to carry on the same work. 4. He was herein a type of Christ, who might therefore be called Moses's minister, because he was made under the law and fulfilled all the righteousness of it.
III. The call itself that God gave him, which is very full.
1. The consideration upon which he was called to the government: Moses my servant is dead, v. 2. All good men are God's servants; and it is no disparagement, but an honour, to the greatest of men to be so: angels themselves are his ministers. Moses was called to extraordinary work, was a steward in God's house, and in the discharge of the trusts reposed in him he served not himself but God who employed him; he was faithful as a servant, and with an eye to the Son, as is intimated, Heb 3:5, where what he did is said to be for a testimony of the things that should be spoken after. God will own his servants, will confess them in the great day. But Moses, though God's servant, and one that could ill be spared, is dead; for God will change hands, to show that whatever instruments he uses he is not tied to any. Moses, when he has done his work as a servant, dies and goes to rest from his labours, and enters into the joy of his Lord. Observe, God takes notice of the death of his servants. It is precious in his sight, Psa 116:15.
2. The call itself. Now therefore arise. (1.) "Though Moses is dead, the work must go on; therefore arise, and go about it." Let not weeping hinder sowing, nor the withering of the most useful hands be the weakening of ours; for, when God has work to do, he will either find or make instruments fit to carry it on. Moses the servant is dead, but God the Master is not: he lives for ever. (2.) "Because Moses is dead, therefore the work devolves upon thee as his successor, for hereunto thou wast appointed. Therefore there is need of thee to fill up his place; up, and be doing." Note, [1.] 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 day. [2.] It is a great mercy to a people, 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. Joshua must arise to finish what Moses began. Thus the latter generations enter into the labours of the former. And thus Christ, our Joshua, does that for us which could never be done by the law of Moses, - justifies (Act 13:39), and sanctifies, Rom 8:3. The life of Moses made way for Joshua, and prepared the people for what was to be done by him. Thus the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ: and then the death of Moses made room for Joshua; thus we are dead to the law, our first husband, that we may be married to Christ, Rom 7:4.
3. The particular service he was now called out to: "Arise, go over this Jordan, this river which you have in view, and on the banks of which you lie encamped." This was a trial to the faith of Joshua, whether he would give orders to make preparation for passing the river when there was no visible way of getting over it, at least not at this place and at this time, when all the banks were overflown, Jos 3:15. He had no pontoons or bridge of boats by which to convey them over, and yet he must believe that God, who had ordered them over, would open a way for them. Going over Jordan was going into Canaan; thither Moses might not, could not, bring them, Deu 31:2. Thus the honour of bringing the many sons to glory is reserved for Christ the captain of our salvation, Heb 2:10.
4. The grant of the land of Canaan to the children of Israel is here repeated (Jos 1:2-4): I do give it them. To the patriarchs it was promised, I will give it; but, now that the fourth generation had expired, the iniquity of the Amorites was full, and the time had come for the performance of the promise, it is actually conveyed, and they are put in possession of that which they had long been in expectation of: "I do give it, enter upon it, it is all your own; nay (Jos 1:3), I have given it; though it be yet unconquered, it is as sure to you as if it were in your hands." Observe, (1.) The persons to whom the conveyance is made: To them, even to the children of Israel (Jos 1:2), because they are the seed of Jacob, who was called Israel at the time when this promise was made to him, Gen 35:10, Gen 35:12. The children of Israel, though they had been very provoking in the wilderness, yet, for their fathers' sakes, should have the entail preserved. And it was the children of the murmurers that God said should enter Canaan, Num 14:31. (2.) The land itself that is conveyed: From the river Euphrates eastward, to the Mediterranean Sea westward, Jos 1:4. Though their sin cut them short of this large possession, and they never replenished all the country within the bounds here mentioned, yet, had they been obedient, God would have given them this and much more. Out of all these countries, and many others, there were in process of time proselytes to the Jewish religion, as appears, Act 2:5, etc. If their church was enlarged, though their nation was not multiplied, it cannot be said that the promise was of no effect. And, if this promise had not its full accomplishment in the letter, believers might thence infer that it had a further meaning, and was to be fulfilled in the kingdom of the Messiah, both that of grace and that of glory. (3.) The condition is here implied upon which this grant is made, in those words, as I said unto Moses, that is, "upon the terms that Moses told you of many a time, if you will keep my statutes, you shall go in and possess that good land. Take it under those provisos and limitations, and not otherwise." The precept and promise must not be separated. (4.) It is intimated with what ease they should gain the possession of this land, if it were not their own fault, in these words, "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon (within the following bounds) shall be your own. Do but set your foot upon it and you have it."
5. The promises God here makes to Joshua for his encouragement. (1.) That he should be sure of the presence of God with him in this great work to which he was called (Jos 1:5): "As I was with Moses, to direct and strengthen him, to own and prosper him, and give him success in bringing Israel out of Egypt and leading them through the wilderness, so I will be with thee to enable thee to settle them in Canaan." Joshua was sensible how far he came short of Moses in wisdom and grace; But what Moses did was done by virtue of the presence of God with him, and, though Joshua had not always the same presence of mind that Moses had, yet, if he had always the same presence of God, he would do well enough. Note, 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. It is repeated here again (v. 9). "The Lord thy God is with thee as a God of power, and that power engaged for thee whithersoever thou goest." Note, Those that go where God sends them shall have him with them wherever they go and they need desire no more to make them easy and prosperous. (2.) That the presence of God should never be withdrawn from him: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, v. 5. Moses had assured him of this (Deu 31:8), that, though he must now leave him, God never would: and here God himself confirms that word of his servant Moses (Isa 44:26), and engages never to leave Joshua. We need the presence of God, not only when we are beginning our work to set us in, but in the progress of it to further us with a continual help. If that at any time fail us, we are gone; this we may be sure, that the Lord is with us while we are with him. This promise here made to Joshua is applied to all believers, and improved as an argument against covetousness, Heb 13:5, Be content with such things as you have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee. (3.) That he should have victory over all the enemies of Israel (Jos 1:5): There shall not any man that comes against thee be able to stand before thee. Note, There is no standing before those that have God on their side. If he be for us, who can be against us? God promises him clear success - the enemy should not make any head against him; and constant success - all the days of his life. However it might be with Israel when he was gone, all his reign should be graced with triumphs. What Joshua had himself encouraged the people with long ago (Num 14:9) God here encourages him with. (4.) That he should himself have the dividing of this land among the people of Israel, v. 6. It was a great encouragement to him in beginning this work that he was sure to see it finished and his labour should not be in vain. Some make it a reason why he should arm himself with resolution, and be of good courage, because of the bad character of the people whom he must cause to inherit that land. He knew well what a froward discontented people they were, and how unmanageable they had been in his predecessor's time; let him therefore expect vexation from them and be of good courage.
6. The charge or command he gives to Joshua, which is,
(1.) That he conform himself in every thing to the law of God, and make this his rule v. 7, 8. God does, as it were, put the book of the law into Joshua's hand; as, when Joash was crowned, they gave him the testimony, Kg2 11:12. And concerning this book he is charged, [1.] To meditate therein day and night, that he might understand it and have it ready in him upon all occasions. If ever any man's business might have excused him from meditation, and other acts of devotion, one would think Joshua's might at this time. It was a great trust that was lodged in his hands; the care of it was enough to fill him, if he had had ten souls, and yet he must find time and thoughts for meditation. Whatever affairs of this world we have to mind, we must not neglect the one thing needful. [5.] Not to let it depart out of his mouth; that is, all his orders to the people, and his judgments upon appeals made to him, must be consonant to the law of God; upon all occasions he must speak according to this rule, Isa 8:20. Joshua was to maintain and carry on the work that Moses had begun, and therefore he must not only complete the salvation Moses had wrought for them, but must uphold the holy religion he had established among them. There was no occasion to make new laws; but that good thing which was committed to him he must carefully and faithfully keep, Ti2 1:14. [3.] He must observe to do according to all this law. To this end he must meditate therein, not for contemplation sake only, or to fill his head with notions, or that he might find something to puzzle the priests with, but that he might, both as a man and as a magistrate, observe to do according to what was written therein; and several things were written there which had particular reference to the business he had now before him, as the laws concerning their wars, the destroying of the Canaanites and the dividing of Canaan; etc.; these he must religiously observe. Joshua was a man of great power and authority, yet he must himself be under command and do as he is bidden. No man's dignity or dominion, how great soever, sets him above the law of God. Joshua must not only govern by law, and take care that the people observed the law, but he must observe it himself, and so by his own example maintain the honour and power of it. First, He must do what was written. It is not enough to hear and read the word, to commend and admire it, to know and remember it, to talk and discourse of it, but we must do it. Secondly, He must do according to what was written, exactly observing the law as his copy, and doing, not only that which was there required, but in all circumstances according to the appointment. Thirdly, He must do according to all that was written, without exception or reserve, having a respect to all God's commandments, even those which are most displeasing to flesh and blood. Fourthly, He must observe to do so, observe the checks of conscience, the hints of providence; and all the advantages of opportunity. Careful observance is necessary to universal obedience. Fifthly, He must not turn from it, either in his own practice or in any act of government, to the right hand or to the left, for there are errors on both hands, and virtue is in the mean. Sixthly, He must be strong and courageous, that he might do according to the law. So many discouragements there are in the way of duty that those who will proceed and persevere in it must put on resolution. And, lastly, to encourage him in his obedience, he assures him that then he shall do wisely (as it is in the margin) and make his way prosperous, Jos 1:7, Jos 1:8. Those that make the word of God their rule, and conscientiously walk by that rule, shall both do well and speed well; it will furnish them with the best maxims by which to order their conversation (Psa 111:10); and it will entitle them to the best blessings: God shall give them the desire of their heart.
(2.) That he encourage himself herein with the promise and presence of God, and make these his stay (Jos 1:6): Be strong and of a good courage. And again (Jos 1:7), as if this was the one thing needful: Only be strong and very courageous. And he concludes with this (Jos 1:9): Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. Joshua had long since signalized his valour, in the war with Amalek, and in his dissent from the report of the evil spies; and yet God sees fit thus to inculcate this precept upon him. Those that have grace have need to be called upon again and again to exercise grace and to improve in it. Joshua was humble and low in his own eyes, not distrustful of God, and his power, and promise, but diffident of himself, and of his own wisdom, and strength, and sufficiency for the work, especially coming after so great a man as Moses; and therefore God repeats this so often, "Be strong and of a good courage; let not the sense of thy own infirmities dishearten thee; God is all-sufficient. Have not I commanded thee?" [1.] "I have commanded the work to be done, and therefore it shall be done, how invincible soever the difficulties may seem that lie in the way." Nay, [2.] "I have commanded, called, and commissioned, thee to do it, and therefore will be sure to own thee, and strengthen thee, and bear thee out in. it." Note, When we are in the way of our duty we have reason to be strong and very courageous; and it will help very much to animate and embolden us if we keep our eye upon the divine warrant, hear God saying, "Have not I commanded thee? I will therefore help thee, succeed thee, accept thee, reward thee." Our Lord Jesus, as Joshua here, was borne up under his sufferings by a regard to the will of God and the commandment he had received from his Father, Joh 10:18.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Now after the death of Moses,.... Or "and after"…
Now after the death of Moses,.... Or "and after" (h); the book begins as if something went before, it is connected with; and indeed it seems to be the last chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, which treats of the death of Moses; and Joshua being the penman of Deu 34:5, as say the Talmudists (i), and of this book, as has been seen, having wrote them, he goes on with the history of his own affairs in strict connection with that account, beginning where that ended; namely, at the death of Moses, whose character here given is
the servant of the Lord; and a faithful one he was in all things belonging to it, and in whatsoever was enjoined him by the Lord, see Deu 34:5,
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and it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of Nun,
Moses's minister; either in a dream, or vision, or by an articulate voice out of the sanctuary: of Joshua's descent and relation, see Exo 33:11; and of his office under Moses, not as a menial servant, but a minister of state, see Exo 24:13,
saying; as follows.
(h) "et factum est", V. L. "et fuit", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus. (i) T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 14. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–9 In this chapter,
In this chapter,
1. God appoints Joshua to govern in the stead of Moses, and gives him instructions and encouragement, ver. 1-9.
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2. He enters on his office immediately, giving orders to the officers, and to the two tribes and an half, ver. 10-15.
3. The people accept him as their governor, ver. 16-18
After the death of Moses - Either immediately after it, or when the days of mourning for Moses were expired. Joshua was appointed and declared Moses's 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 ver. 2, as also Deut. xxxiv, 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 God's 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 Lord's 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 God's 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. xxvii, 21. Moses's minister - Who had waited upon Moses in his great employments, and thereby been privy to his manner of government, and so prepared for it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 -Year before the common Year of Christ, 1451.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
-Year before the common Year of Christ, 1451.
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-Julian Period, 3263.
-Cycle of the Sun, 10.
-Dominical Letter, B.
-Cycle of the Moon, 10.
-Indiction, 15.
-Creation from Tisri or September, 2553.
CHAPTER I
Moses being dead, God commissions Joshua to bring the people
into the promised land, 1, 2.
The extent of the land to be possessed, 3, 4.
Joshua is assured of victory over all his enemies, and is
exhorted to courage and activity, 5, 6;
and to be careful to act, in all things, according to the law of
Moses, in which he us to meditate day and night, 7, 8.
He is again exhorted to courage, with the promise of continued
support, 9.
Joshua commands the officers to prepare the people for their
passage over Jordan, 10, 11.
The Reubenites, Gadites, and half tribe of Manasseh, are put in
mind of their engagement to pass over with their brethren,
12-15.
They promise the strictest obedience, and pray for the prosperity
of their leader, 16-18.
NOTES ON CHAP. I
Verse 1. Now after the death of Moses] ויהי vayehi, and it was or happened after the death of Moses. Even the first words in this book show it to be a continuation of the preceding, and intimately connected with the narrative in the last chapter in Deuteronomy, of which I suppose Joshua to have been the author, and that chapter to have originally made the commencement of this book (De 34:1-12). See the notes there. The time referred to here must have been at the conclusion of the thirty days in which they mourned for Moses.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 Jos 1:1. After the death of Moses — Either…
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 Moses’s 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 God’s 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 Lord’s 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 God’s 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. Moses’s 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.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7 Now ... - Hebrew: “and, ...” The statement following…
Now ... - Hebrew: “and, ...” The statement following is thus connected with some previous one, which is assumed to be known to the reader. So Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, etc., are by the same means linked on to the books preceding them. The connection here is the closer, since the Book of Deuteronomy concludes, and the book of Joshua opens, by referring to the death of Moses.
Moses, the servant of the Lord - On the epithet, see the marginal reference “b.”
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Moses’ minister - It is impossible altogether to pass by the typical application of this verse. Moses, representing the law, is dead; Joshua, or, as that name is written in Greek, Jesus, is now bidden by God to do what Moses could not - lead the people into the promised land. Joshua was “Moses’ minister,” just as Christ was “made under the Law;” but it was Joshua, not Moses, who worked out the accomplishment of the blessings which the Law promised. On the name Joshua, see Exo 17:9 note, and Num 13:16.
Saying - No doubt directly, by an immediate revelation, but not as God spake to Moses, “mouth to mouth” Num 12:8. Though upon Joshua’s appointment to be Moses’ successor (Num 27:18 ff), it had been directed that “counsel should be asked” for him through the medium of Eleazar “after the judgment of Urim,” yet this was evidently a resource provided to meet cases of doubt and difficulty. Here there was no such case; but the appointed leader, knowing well the purpose of God, needed to be stirred up to instant execution of it; and the people too might require the encouragement of a renewed divine command to set out at once upon the great enterprise before them (compare Jos 1:13).
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Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–7 Now: literally, And. Thus the sacred history is connected,…
Now: literally, And. Thus the sacred history is connected, the last chapter of Deuteronomy being, in the opinion of many, a part of the work of Josue. (Haydock) --- Moses died on the 1st of the 12th month, Adar, and as soon as that month of mourning had expired, and the spies had returned on the 4th of Nisan, God ordered the people to prepare for their departure. --- Minister. This was by no means degrading. He was designed for the successor of Moses, as Eliseus was to succeed Elias. The heroes at Troy had servants of the same high character as themselves, attached to their persons by the ties of friendship. See Exodus xvii. 10.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Conquest of the Land of Canaan
PART FIRST
The Conquest of the Land of Canaan
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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 [דִּבַּרְתִּי 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. Joshua’s 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 Lord’s [Jehovah’s] 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, Israel’s 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 עֶבֶּד יי 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 עֶבֶד אֱלוֹהִים. 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 God’s 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 κατ’ ἐξοχήν, 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 מְשָׁרֵח, 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. הַיַּרְדֵּן, almost everywhere in the O. T. with the art., from the r. יָרַך “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, Palästina, 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. הַלִּבָנוֹן (in prose always with the art.) is, from לָבַן “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 חזק ואמץ, since the words, as J. H. Michaelis has noted, signify not firmness and strength in general, but the strength in the hands (חזק) and the firmness in the knees (אמץ, 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 תצליח, Jos_1:3 especially.
Jos_1:9 : “The assurance gains in strength when to the positive חזק ואמץ there is added also the negative אל תערצ ואל־תחת, 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 whom—observe that—the 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 God’s 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 שִׁטרים (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 ימים (Jos_3:2) by which the שׁלשׁת ימים 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 מניח לכם 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 κατάπαυσις, the true σαββατισμός 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 בּעבר, translated by Luther, De Wette, and Eng. Vers. “on this side,” means on that side, or beyond, and is employed from the writer’s point of view.
Jos_1:14. חַמֵשִׁים is variously derived; either (Gesen.18 Fürst, [with whom agree Masius, De Wette, Keil]), from חֹמֶשׁ, lumbus, venter, tanquam, sedes, roboris = lumbis accincti, with which comp. Num_32:27; Num_32:32חֲלוּצִים, or הֲלוּץ צָבָא); also Job_38:3; Luk_12:35; Eph_6:14; 1Pe_1:13,—or, (Ewald) from חָמֵשׁ, 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 חֻשׁים, 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. קָמַץ, 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, חֲזַק וְיַאְמֵץ לִבֶּךָ, 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 סִגֻלַּת יי, 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 preëminent 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 (יְשֻׁרוּן from יָשָׁר) 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 παῖς θεοῦ (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 παῖς θεοῦ 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 God’s 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 Wolfenbüttler 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 one’s 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 מנוחה 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 (ἀπολείπεται) a Sabbath rest (σαββατισμός) for the people of God. For he who has entered into his (God’s) 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 κατάπαυσις but, in allusion to Jos_1:4, or to Gen_2:2, the word σαββατισμός, occurring nowhere else in the N. T., is employed. The σαββατισμός is the completed κατάπαυσις, the holy and blessed Sabbath rest in eternity for the people of God, the Ισραήλ τοῦ θεοῦ, after the pilgrimage of life is finished with the toils of the hard week of our earthly existence. Of this rest the מנוחה in the earthly Canaan is a type. So speak the Rabbins also of the שַׁבֶּת הַנָּדוֹל (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
God’s 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 heavenly—God 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 another—and 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 heart’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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. God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s “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.—ועתָּה. 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 passage—Tr.]
[3][Jos_1:2.—כְּוֵי יִשׂ׳. 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. רָפָה: 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.—חֲזִק וֶאֱמַץ“ ‘Verbum חזק proprie notat vires quæ sunt in manibus ad prehendendum retinendum que viriliter; sicut contra אמץ firmitudinem, quæ in genibus est, ad consistendum, ne ab alio quis evertatur,’ Michaelis; (conf. תְאַמֵּץ Job_4:4, התְאַמֵּץ, 1Ki_12:18, אָמֹץ, 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. נָחַל, that “the specific idea of inheritance in this verb is rare.”—Tr.]
[8][Jos_1:8—The 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, Robinson’s Trans. Fay after this “and” supplies [not].—Tr.]
[9][Jos_1:9.—תַּשְׂכִּיל 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 שֹׁטִרִים, is desirable, but perhaps (with our scanty data) scarcely possible. While etymologically (r. שָׁטַר) 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.—בְּעֵבֶר הַי׳. 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 גִּבּוֹרֵי הַחַיִל 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 Smith’s 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. Lynch’s 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 Joshua’s “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 חֹמֶשׁ but from an assumed root חָמֶשׁ, 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.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–5 now therefore arise, go over this Jordan--Joshua's mission was…
now therefore arise, go over this Jordan--Joshua's mission was that of a military leader. This passage records his call to begin the work, and the address contains a literal repetition of the promise made to Moses (Deu 11:24-25; Deu 31:6-8, Deu 31:23).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–9 JOSHUA’S DIVINE COMMISSION, Jos_1:1-9.
JOSHUA’S DIVINE COMMISSION, Jos_1:1-9.
The date of these events is, according to the common chronology, 1451 years before Christ. The place was Shittim, in the plains of Moab, about seven miles east of the Jordan, and opposite Jericho. Num_33:49. Here, in the shade of the acacia groves, Israel had been beguiled to licentiousness by the Midianites, “in the matter of Peor,” (Numbers 25;) here they had been visited by the Divine judgments for their sin; and here they had witnessed the last works and received the last counsels of Moses.
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1. Now — More properly, and it came to pass. Hebrews ויהי. With this formula most of the historical books begin. It indicates in each case an intimate connection of the narrative with what immediately precedes. Perhaps the Book of Joshua originally began with the last chapter of Deuteronomy, and, for the purpose of completing the biography of Moses, that chapter, containing the details of his death and burial, was accustomed to be read with the scroll of Deuteronomy, and finally, for convenience, was appended to it.
After the death of Moses — These words include the thirty days of mourning in honour of the great lawgiver. Deu_34:8. At the end of these days the succession to the leadership was revealed by the Lord. A long interregnum would have been perilous to a people so inexperienced in the art of self-government.
The Lord spake — Whether by a direct communication through his angel, as in Jos_5:13-15, (see Jos_6:2,) or by the urim of the high priest, is uncertain, but probably the latter, inasmuch as this manner of speaking is prescribed to him in Num_27:21. The urim (lights) and thummim (perfections) are always alluded to as well known, but nowhere described. They were a part of the ephod, the sacred robe of the high priest, and were either the twelve gems on the breastplate or some objects intimately connected with them, and were a divinely appointed medium of revelation. Whether the gems became luminous, or whether there was an audible voice, or whether the priest when arrayed in the ephod was endowed with a miraculous insight similar to the vision of the inspired prophet, cannot now be determined, See note on Exo_28:30.
Joshua — Before the death of Moses this great warrior had been clothed with authority and designated as the commander-in-chief of the Israelitish armies. See Introduction.
Son of Nun — Nothing more is known of Nun than that he was of the tribe of Ephraim. Great military genius is often cradled in obscurity. Nun lived and died undistinguished from the thousands of his brethren, who passed all their days in the Egyptian bondage; but his son, by his valour and piety, rescued his father’s servile name from oblivion. So the poet Horace, by his genius, immortalized the Roman bondman who begat him.
Moses’ minister — Not his menial, but his premier in peace, his lieutenant in war. It was customary for great prophets to be thus attended by ministers or servants, as Elijah was ministered to by Elisha. In this relation Joshua had witnessed Moses’ conversation face to face with Jehovah, (Exo_33:11,) and had been pavilioned with his master in the cloud of Sinai. Exo_24:13. Thus had he been trained in the best possible school, and the people were prepared, by the public honour bestowed upon him, to yield him obedience when their great emancipator was taken away.
[In this verse we notice that Moses is called the servant of Jehovah, and Joshua minister of Moses. A servant is less honourable than a minister, but it is unspeakably greater to be Jehovah’s servant than merely the prime minister of any earthly potentate however good and mighty. The phrase servant of Jehovah is applied in the Old Testament to patriarchs, prophets, kings, the whole body of the chosen people, and in some prophetical passages to Messiah. The highest type of man under the Law was a servant of God; it was reserved for the Gospel to develop the son of God, and perfect man in Christ.]
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 Ch. Jos_1:1-9. The Command of God to Joshua
Ch. Jos_1:1-9. The Command of God to Joshua
1. Now] Rather, And. The usual connective particle. It implies that something has gone before, of which it is the continuation. Compare the opening words of the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Judges. Here, as often afterwards, the Book of Joshua presupposes that of Deuteronomy.
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after the death of Moses] in the land of Moab on the eastern side of the Jordan, where he was buried over against the idol sanctuary of Beth-Peor (Deu_34:6). Through thirty days of stillness, the camp had been full of weeping and mourning for the great Lawgiver.
Joshua the son of Nun] For an outline of his life see Introduction.
Moses’ minister] Joshua is not spoken of as Moses’ “servant,” but as his “minister.” Comp. Exo_24:13; Deu_1:38. For his formal appointment to the office see Num_27:15 ff.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 8 JOSHUA’S COMMISSION (Jos_1:1-9).
JOSHUA’S COMMISSION (Jos_1:1-9).
(1) After the death of Moses . . . the Lord spake unto Joshua . . . Moses’ minister.—Joshua’s commission was the first of its kind, but not the last. No man before Joshua had received orders to regulate his conduct by the words of a written book. Abraham and his household had kept God’s laws. Moses had acted by Divine commission. But Abraham and Moses received their orders from the mouth of Jehovah. Joshua and all his successors must fulfil the orders of “this book of the law.” Thus Joshua was Moses’ minister in more than one sense. He was Moses’ confidential agent and personal attendant while he lived, and afterwards the executor of that which Moses had written. But the position of Joshua, though at first unique and without precedent, was the position designed for all his successors, more especially for that great Personage whose name Joshua was the first to bear. Joshua and the Book of the Law come before us together, without introduction, in the same passage of the law (Exo_17:9), “Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek;” and in Jos_1:14, “Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.” The book was prepared for Joshua; Joshua came to fulfil the words of the book. Compare Psa_40:7, “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God.” “Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers” (Rom_15:8; see also Mat_5:17).
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For the use of the word “minister” (Heb., m’shârêth) compare 2Ki_4:43; 2Ki_6:15; 2Ch_9:4; Ezr_8:17; Psa_103:21; Psa_104:4; Pro_29:12; Eze_44:11. From these references it will be seen that the word may signify a personal attendant, a minister of state, or a minister of religion.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Now after the death of Moses. The form of…
JOSHUA"S COMMISSION.
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 periods first 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_34:2-3, etc.) It is also applied to the Messiah. (Zec_3:8; comp. the word paiv 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 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, 15 5:2, 9 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, 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. Ihsouv ) 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: 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 Eze_14:5 Joe_1:9, etc. In these places it seems to be equivalent to the LXX leitourgov . 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 yerapwn , 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.
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Vers. 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 Mat_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 answer is
(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.
1. 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.
2. 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, 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.
3. 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.
4. 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, 10 7:4 Gal_2:19 Gal_5:24 Eph_2:15, 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 Moses i.e., the law is 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
a. the whole world, or
b. 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 need the supply of our wants, means of defence against our enemies, and the means, moreover, of happiness and enjoyment provided always that we do not cease the combat until all our enemies be destroyed.
HOMILIES BY E. DE PRESSENSE Vers. 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 task this 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". E. (Joh_4:3-6) D. P.
HOMILIES BY J. WAITE Vers. 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 adifferent kind miraculous manifestations, Divine revelations had 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 (Deuteronomy 31). 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 NOW after the death of Moses . . .…
Jos_1:1-9
NOW after the death of Moses . . . the Lord spake unto Joshua.
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The death of the old lawgiver
I. The death of Moses was ushered in by no decay.
In this respect it was a striking exception to the rule. His mental vigour wan unimpaired when he passed away. We have evidence of this in that wonderful book of Deuteronomy, which Jesus loved to ponder and to quote. Witness also the grand swan-song into which he bursts before its close, pouring forth the sum and substance of all his warnings and exhortations in a flood of molten emotion. Witness the beatitudes that follow, wherein the seer pierces with prophetic eye the dark future and perceives the final consummation, when Jehovah shall remove all iniquity from Israel and write His law upon their hearts. Surely such exercises as these betoken a mind in a state of the highest vigour and activity. And as it was with the mind so was it with the body. Moses had no look of a dying man as he left the camp and climbed to Nebos brow; no painful and protracted illness, no decrepit old age. What a blessed exodus was this; more a translation than a death. An active, useful, holy life; a speedy death--could there be a greater blessing if we have to die?
II. The death of Moses was embittered by no regret. Moses was not dragged up that hill unwillingly, like a malefactor to his doom. There was no indulgence in rebellious sentiment and anxiety; no nervous and fearful activity in winding up the affairs of life; but contrariwise, there was profound, calm, and courageous submission to the Divine will. In good time let us honestly face all the possible sorrow and disappointment, and learn, like him, to overcome through faith, obedience, and humility.
III. His death was darkened by no dismay. Of all the multitude in Israel that loved him, not one was with him. Alone, alone, alone, he has passed into the presence of his Maker. Yes, and we too, whatever the circumstances of our end, however tender and unsleeping the ministry of loving hearts and gentle hands that soothes our dying moments, alone must enter deaths dark door and be ushered into the presence of our God. Alone, yet not unfriended, if we know Jesus who is there; alone, yet undismayed, if like Moses we trust in Him, for He has said, I will be with thee.
IV. The death of Moses was brightened by great consolation. (A. B. Mackay.)
Death enters into Gods plans
Joshua must succeed Moses and be Gods 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. 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 Buddhists 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. In many ways death enters into Gods 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. 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 fathers or their mothers 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. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Death makes room for others
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. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Onward, through, and over
Moses was dead. His work was done. It was rounded off so far as he was concerned, and so he went to his reward. There is a lesson of no small importance to you and me. Our business is to do the duty that lies next us. That duty may only seem to be a fragment of what we desire to accomplish, but it is all we are answerable for, and to do our portion well is to stand clear with conscience and with God. In the construction of a door, one man makes the panels, another makes the frame, another fits it together, and a fourth hangs it by its hinges. The panel maker has a very imperfect portion of the work to show as the result of his toil, but he has done his part and fulfilled his mission whether the door ever swings in its place or no. Your business and mine is to fulfil the injunction, whether in our daily toil, in the training of our children, in the work of the Church or whatever other duty may fall to us--Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Our hearts may find to do a good deal more; if our hand cannot find the opportunity to work out the hearts desire, we are accepted for what we have done and what we would do and cannot; and whatever and how-much soever remains undone, we shall ascend, like Moses, to our own Mount Nebo and die in a flood of rosy light with Canaan before our eyes and Gods Well done sounding in our ears. The man who carries the hod of mortar up the ladder does not lay a single brick, but in his measure his service is essential and as worthy as the architect that planned the building, or the mason that rears its walls. From this point of view, servant is a grander name than seraph or archangel, for what would these be if they did not serve or stand and wait? Their wings would droop and their celestial glory would be quenched in night. Moses minister. That is what Joshua is called. It is another word for servant. He ministered to, that is, he served Moses; and herein lies another lesson, for he was thereby a servant also of the Lord. He who well serves the Lords servant serves that servants Master, and He says, Ye did it unto Me. Oh for a full and perfect measure of this rich interchange, this interlinking of lives and sympathies, servants of each other, vying in a holy rivalry as to who shall be the lowliest, readiest, willingest servant of the servants of the Lord! Spake to Joshua. Joshua was born when Moses was an exile and a stranger hidden for his life among the wilds of Midian. Theres another lesson of great value in this. It did not seem likely then, did it? that Moses should ever be a leader of men, the emancipator of a nation. Providence sees and plans for a long time ahead of our to-day, and holds in reserve agents and forces that we cannot see; and because we cannot see them we doubt and question and in the face of the unlikely we say, It cannot be. That solitary pale-faced and half starved monk in a German cell; how is he to shake all Europe and make the Pope tremble on his throne? There is nothing more unlikely: and yet Frederic, Prince of Saxony, is being placed by God upon his throne to be a ready and brave helper when the time came; and before Luther left his cell, Providence had sprung upon the world the printing press, which was to be Luthers deadliest artillery. Gods plans are laid; His movements are in process, and for the fulfilment of every purpose that He cherisheth there shall come the hour and the man. Now mark, that this is true in our own individual history and experience. Every humble and trustful disciple of the Lord Jesus is the ward of Divine Providence. Listen: The God of my mercy shall prevent me; that is, shall go before me, You look forward with an anxious eye and heart to some possible contingency, and say, It is sure to happen. Time passes, and perhaps it does happen; but you find that meanwhile God hath stationed at that point something or somebody that acts as a buffer to the blow, and although your Moses may fail you at your need, some Joshua comes in to fill the gap and meet the need of the moment to the full. Therefore arise. There is an old saying that there is much virtue in an if; it appears to me that there is much virtue in this word therefore. Moses is dead, therefore arise. Remembering who Moses was and how entirely Moses was depended on, it would seem more natural to say, Therefore lie still; this is a blow from which you cannot recover. When he was alive you often asked him to take you back to Egypt for safetys sake. Now that he is dead, you had better take yourselves back, for if you are not drowned in an attempt to pass the river, the Canaanites will dig your graves on the other side. Now is not that the kind of therefore with which the Church of God is sadly familiar, and with which those who have relationship with faint-hearted people have a saddening acquaintance? A stay and pillar of the Church dies or removes, therefore nothing can be done; what can we do without him? Here is a man who starts in business. Things do not advance as he wishes. He therefore must shut up his shop, be content to collapse. Surely that logic will be laughed at. Well, do not let us hear it in the Church; do not let us say it in presence of our obstacles. If the axe is blunt, grip it with both hands and put more strength into the blow. No fretting, no retreating, no conferring with doubts and fears. Is Moses dead? Therefore arise! Cross hands over the dead heros coffin, and vow to Heaven to take his name as a new watchword, and to cross the Jordan while the earth is still fresh upon his grave. Go over this Jordan. In measuring the chances of doing a thing you must take into account who orders it. It was Napoleon who said to the French army, Go over the Alps. It would not have been done under anybody elses guidance. It was God that said to Joshua, Go over this Jordan. Then though it be as deep as the sea, though it swirl like a whirlpool, though it rush like Niagara, he will go to yonder side. There is just one other lesson that I would fain gather from these suggestive words--The land which I do give them. First, God had said to them while in Egypt, The land which I will give them. Oh! what weary years of waiting followed! At last they had given it up. They said, Where is the promise of His coming? Then the lash of the taskmaster fell and silenced them. Now they are in sight of it, and He says, The land which I do give them. The promise is in the very act of being fulfilled. By and by the waters parted and let them through, and, as they stand on the plains of Sharon, or lie at rest under the shadow of the hills of Lebanon, God says, The land which I have given them! Mark the tenses, how they change: I will give, I do give, I have given. Men and brethren, that is Gods order. He is faithful that promised. (J. J. Wray.)
Dignity of Gods service
The first graveyard which meets the eye in the Moravian cemetery of Herrnhut bears the inscription, Christian David, the servant of the Lord. This was in life the high distinction of the humble and apostolic colleague of Count Zinzendorf, and was even recognised by the Imperial Council of Russia when the Moravian carpenter had occasion to appear before it.
Moses and Joshua
Moses work ended at Jordan--Joshuas began at Jordan. History is vested in the life of its representative men, and has in it no gaps. The mantle of Elijah falls on Elisha, and the next generation was provided for before Moses went up into Nebo. Moses wanted to go over Jordan. It seemed to him, most likely, that he died before his time. And yet his work, as we can see it now, was a completed and a nicely-rounded one. His commission was to bring the Hebrews to the Jordan; Joshuas commission was to bring them over the Jordan and establish them in Canaan. We are to learn from such representative instances that when a man is interested in nothing but to do the work that God sets him, he will never die till the work is done thoroughly and successfully. Among the little servants of God there are no fallen buds, and among the adult servants of God no broken columns. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
The new leader
It has been said, Great men have no successors. But if we mean by successor one who takes up the work where his predecessor has left it, and develops it according to the Divine ideal, then all men, great and small alike, have successors. As Pascal puts it, You cannot produce the great man before his time, and you cannot make him die before his time; you cannot displace nor advance him, nor put him back; you cannot continue his existence, and replace him, for he existed only because he had his work to do; he exists no longer, because there is no longer anything for him to do; and to continue him is to continue a useless part. A worthy successor to the great leader had been found. The Divine choice, a choice which had been revealed to Moses before his death, and which greatly gladdened his heart, had fallen upon Joshua. There were reasons for this choice of Joshua which we do well to consider; for if his preparation for this high place was not so romantic or so miraculous as that of Moses, it was none the less effective and Divine. His training was, like ours, of a more homely pattern.
I. It can scarcely be doubted that Joshuas lineage had something to do with Gods choice. His parents were slaves, and though the bloody edict enacted in Moses infant days had long since been repealed, these serfs had felt to the full the bitterness of bondage. But notwithstanding all, they had not lost faith and hope in God; and we get a glimpse into their souls state through the significant name they gave their firstborn. They called him Hoshea, that is Salvation. Surely their infants name is the very echo of their father Jacobs dying words to Dan, I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord. We can well believe that Joshua was brought up in an atmosphere of hope. It is more than likely, from what we know of the habits of the ancient Egyptians, that in a corner of his fathers lowly dwelling stood an object which often excited his childish wonder and curiosity. It was a mummy case, painted all over with strange devices and curious figures, which with its somewhat faded richness presented a strange contrast to the mean furniture of the dwelling. Within it, we can easily imagine his mother telling him, are preserved the bones of Joseph. But why do you keep Josephs bones? Because when he lay dying he gave commandment concerning them, &c. The child would listen and ponder, and look with new solemnity on that sacred trust; then he might ask, Mother, was that true which Joseph said when he was dying? Yes, my boy. Then why do we not go at once--
Mother, oh where is that blissful shore,
Shall we not seek it and weep no more?
We must wait Gods time. We are His people, and He knows what is best. Will it be long till that day comes? I cannot tell, but I do not think it will be very long, for God said to our great father Abraham that we would go back to it in the fourth generation, and the time must be near. Thus the influences that surrounded Joshua in his youth must have moulded his character and prepared him for the place he took, first as Moses lieutenant, then as leader of Israel; and the assurance of the truth of Josephs dying words must have mollified the bitterness of that cruel bondage. Every visitation of judgment would be a confirmation of his faith, and every trial a purifying furnace to remove his dross. He would hear from his father and grandfather, who were elders of the important tribe of Ephraim, the precise particulars of the Divine commission, and while they, with the other elders, were under Moses and Aaron attending to the more difficult and important matters in connection with the proposed Exodus, it is very likely that, following his natural bent of mind, he would be actively employed in attempting to organise the people and prepare them for a simultaneous movement. Thus while this champion first steps into the arena when Israel confronts Amalek, we may well suppose that he had done yeomans service before, and his fitness and aptness for his lifes work must have depended in great measure on home surroundings.
II. Joshuas character had also to do with this choice. Its constituent elements were noble and simple, easily understood and readily appreciated. He was every inch a soldier, brave and manly, simple in habit, straightforward in speech, cool-headed, warm-hearted, energetic, swift in thought and action. He was firm as a rock, true as steel. Nothing could exceed his fidelity. How true was he, above all, to his God! So was he with his master. He never failed Moses. At all times he was jealous for his honour, and would tolerate nothing derogatory to his dignity and authority. He was even true to his enemies. He kept his word and carried out his engagements, in the spirit as well as the letter, though trapped by guile into the making of them. His courage also was of the loftiest kind. It could face not only enemies, but, harder far, misguided friends. Like all noble natures, Joshua was also unselfish, humble, and modest. He had learned to obey, and was therefore fit to command. His patience and hopefulness were also very marked, and much needed in the leader of such a people as Israel. He was able to endure the fatigues of the march as well as the rush of battle, not fainting under the hardships of the weary campaign, but ever on the alert to push every advantage to its utmost limit, and always, by his cheerful bearing and cheery words, keeping up the hearts of the people. He was a leader alert, circumspect, prudent, leaving nothing to chance or the chapter of happy accidents, but doing everything that foresight could suggest for the attainment of the end in view.
III. Joshuas training had also to do with this choice. When he was put at the head of the people he was no novice. Joshua was the oldest man in the camp with the single exception of Caleb; therefore he was a man of experience and ripened wisdom. We have already spoken about that home school, in which his parents were the teachers. This was the granitic foundation of all his subsequent greatness. He was also taught in the grand and stirring school of the Exodus. Here God Himself was Joshuas teacher. Great national events have a high educational value. The stimulus of stirring times is deep, formative, and all pervasive. Still another school furnished Joshua with valuable instruction, and that was the camp of Israel. If by the wonders of the Exodus he was taught to know God, by the conduct of Israel he would learn to know man. Day by day he would be learning how to command and lead. Find without doubt the crowning lessons in this long preparatory course would be imparted in the tent of Moses. Moses tent was Joshuas college. And the very fact that he had been associated so long with Moses as his lieutenant would not only prepare himself but also the minds of the people for this change.
IV. This choice of Joshua had also reference to the character of the work that had to be done. The great work now before Israel is to conquer and divide the land. This was a kind of work most congenial to Joshua, and for which he had received special preparation. He is the right man for the present work, as Moses was the right man for the past.
V. Also, this significant choice had reference to the great plan of god in the economy of redemption. Moses My servant is dead. Thus said Jehovah. Therefore Moses brought no one into the inheritance. Israel lost sight of him for ever, before they put down a foot in Canaan. If they are to pass over that Jordan, and possess the land, it cannot be under Moses. This act of leadership is deliberately taken out of his hands by God Himself. Surely the lesson is plain to all who know the essence of the gospel. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight. The law brings no one into Gods heritage. But what Moses could not do Joshua was raised up to accomplish. If we would enter into Gods inheritance we must turn from Moses and look to Joshua. Who was he? A man in all points made like his brethren; not nurtured in Pharaohs palace like Moses, but born with them in Goshen, sharing their burdens, labouring side by side with them, afflicted in all their afflictions, bearing their griefs and carrying their sorrows. Who cannot see here a picture of Gods own Son, made of a woman, made under the law? Turn from the law to the gospel. What is your hope of glory, Moses or Jesus? Yet we must never dream that Moses and Joshua are antagonistic. There is no quarrel in Gods economies. Just as Moses and Joshua wrought together for the same great end, so is it with the law and the gospel. (A. B. Mackay.)
Whom do I succeed?
Every age succeeds an age marked by greatness peculiarly its own. We are born now into a grand civilisation; it admits of no indolence, or reluctance as to work, and it cannot be satisfied by what is petty, perfunctory, and inexpensive as to the strength which is laid out upon it. History brings its responsibilities. To be born immediately after such and such leaders have played their part in the worlds theatre is itself to have a cross of no mean weight laid upon the shoulder. We may close our eyes and think nothing about these things, but we do not thereby make them the less realities, nor do we thereby destroy the standard of judgment which they force upon us and by which our life will be tested. Every man should say, Whom do I succeed? Whose are these footprints near the place whereon I stand? Has a giant been here--a great leader, a noble sufferer, a patient student, a father great in love, a mother greater still?--then my responsibility begins with their greatness and goodness; what I have to do, the soliloquist should say, is to go on: where they have been great, I must try to be greater still--or if not along their line, along some line of my own--so that the ages may not stagger backwards, but with steadiness and majesty of strength advance from one degree to another as the light increases to the perfect day. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Promotion
When a merchant has a vacancy in his establishment, he promotes to it that one of his servants who in the post which he has been occupying has displayed the greatest measure of fidelity and perseverance; and, when a youth applies for a situation, the success of his application will depend on the report which his former employer gives regarding him or on the record which he has written for himself in school. But it is not otherwise in the providence of God. Those who fill best the spheres in which they have been placed are, in general, those who are in the long run advanced to higher positions; while they who despise the small things of their present duties are left to sink into still deeper obscurity. (Christian World Pulpit.)
Death and its lessons
The man to whom the charge is addressed is the inferior, in every way, of his master. A good man, a brave soldier, a disinterested head of the State--this he is. But the zest and the sparkle has gone out of the history with Moses; the passage of the river is a feeble repetition of the passage of the sea; and the scene to which it admits Israel is one, for the most part, of comparatively common day--alternations of fighting and resting, victories imperfectly followed up, acquiescences, languid and faithless, in a virtual partition of Canaan between Israel and Israels foe. It is the more lifelike as a picture of the fortunes of our race. It is thus that earths history is written, it is thus that the stream of time flows on. The Moses is followed by the Joshua, the morning of promise by the noonday of disappointment, both alike pointing onward, onward still, to a sunset long delayed, and an evening time which shall at last be light. The hero of strategy or prowess--the genius of discovery or imagination--the prophet of earth or heaven--lives not to reap, leaves the harvest to another, looks abroad from his Pisgah upon worlds unconquered, feels at last that he rather stops the onward march of a generation whose turn is come. It is well. Man must be little if he would be great--must see himself but an atom in the universe of life if he would do anything that is real in the work which is all Gods. And he has his reward. The man that knows the blessedness of being little is disembarrassed of the self-consciousness which is battling to be great. That energy is all free for action which loses no time in contemplating itself. That ability grows apace in vigour which remembers that it is of Gods giving. It was so with Moses. His one prayer was, Let the God of the spirits of all flesh set a man over His congregation. Upon him, when he was found, he laid his hand, presented him instantly to the congregation as the man of the future, and put some of his own honour at once upon him, that the congregation might understand and be obedient. He has his reward. This it is which eases life of its carefulness. This it is which makes greatness endurable as well as possible--the thought that God has no need of it, can raise up even from the stones a workman and a patriot, metes not with mans measure and reckons not by mans years. I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of men can both quietly serve and peacefully fall on sleep. Moses My servant is dead. Yes, My servant, though he once spake unadvisedly; yes, My servant, though he was refused his hearts prayer; yes, My servant, though he might not go over Jordan. Moses My servant is dead: even when we are judged, we are but chastened; yea, if we not only suffer for our sins, but even sleep! Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan. The work of God is not ended. Rather are we always on the brink of a river that must be crossed, and in sight of a land that has to be conquered. Who can look around him on the face of this earth, and so much as dream that Jordan is crossed, that Canaan is occupied? Who could live this life if he did not feel and know that effort, that progress, is its law? What we look forth upon, from the spot which is this present, is a work, and it is a warfare. With our guides or without them, it is quite evident that there rolls a deep and a rapid river between us and rest, between us and a land of promise, which is that new heaven and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We cannot pretend to say that intelligence such as we possess, that civilisation such as we have attained, that religion such as a Christendom realises, is satisfactory, is successful, is victorious, whether in the aspect of happiness or in the aspect of good. Everything is in conflict, everything is in struggle, everything is (at best) in a condition of movement and in a condition of hope. The plain of Moab is our world--a cold, broad stream divides us from any thing that we can call rest, from anything that we can call possession. My servant is dead, now therefore arise, and go over. There is a vacancy, which you must fill. That is one lesson of death. It is a summons to the living. God has lost a workman--will you take his place? Terrible would it be for this nation if either growing luxury or spreading vice should diminish the supply of strong men for the carrying on of the work of God in England. It is not the decay of genius which is formidable--it is the decay of strength. Joshua was (in many senses) the inferior of Moses, but that inferiority was no loss, on the whole, to his country; he had his work, as Moses had his--and, like Moses, he did it. My servant is dead; therefore arise and go over, If there is a call in death, there is also an encouragement. See, it says to us, what life is. See the blessedness of Gods service. Hear Him say of the departed, My servant still. The man who has served God in his generation shall never die. He is in the hands of God, though it be out of the sight of the living. My servant is dead; arise therefore, and go over, whither he, we trust, is gone. In the words of the historic parable of Ascension Day, Take ye up the mantle that fell from him, and with it smite the waters--that, like him, and after him, you in your turn may pass over dryshod. (Dean Vaughan.)
Arise, go over this Jordan.
The campaign commenced
I. What the Lord spake unto joshua; or, the issue of the order. Never was a mightier task assigned to any man than to Joshua; and yet never did any man start forth better equipped than he, for observe, the Lord gives him--
(1) An express warrant;
(2) glorious and gracious promises;
(3) hearty encouragement;
(4) clear directions.
II. What Joshua commanded the people; or, his proclamation of the lords order.
1. His obedience is prompt and unquestioning. No wherewith is interposed; no sign asked. He does not pause or procrastinate, but then (verse 10) and there, like a man of activity, he issues the order to the tribes through their officers, bidding the people at once prepare them victuals for the journey; yea, strong in faith, and full of the Holy Ghost, he announces that within three days they are to cross the Jordan.
2. As Joshuas obedience was prompt, so was it thorough. He will not do Gods work by halves, nor go to war without all the army.
III. What the people answered Joshua; or, their acceptance of the lords order. Only be strong, and of good courage! They indicate that Joshua had rehearsed in their ears the charge that God had given him. The key to their import is found in the clause, thou and all this people (verse 2). They recognise their union with their captain. Thus their exhortation may be regarded as an echo, and an acceptance of the call to effort and endurance.
Lessons:
1. There is great encouragement here for all who, like Joshua, are called to occupy posts of authority, responsibility, or difficulty.
2. The same consolation belongs to every Christian. We all have a warfare to accomplish, a Jordan to pass over, an inheritance to seek. The call of God, the promises of God, and the presence of God are our warrant.
3. A deeper lesson remains, respecting the office of Jesus. He is the Captain of the Lords host. (G. W. Butler, M. A.)
Joshua successor, to Moses
1. Every man who is doing anything worth working at is some ones successor, and in time must be succeeded by some one. Alas for the man who succeeds only to a place to occupy, and not to a work to do! Joshua was successor to a grand man in wonderful work.
2. Every mans work is a continuation. The workmen die, but the work goes on.
3. Every mans work is his own. It differs from that of him who went before, and of him who will come after. Moses had been trained in Pharaohs court and among Jethros flock; Joshua in the brickyards of Egypt and in the army of Israel. Each had been fitted for the work he was to do. And every mans work is shaped by that of his predecessor.
I. God gives men definite work to do. It is important that you know your vocation. God has called you to His likeness and His service; to be as Christ was in the world, with His mind in you and His work upon your hands; to manifest the Father to men, and to lead men to the Father. It is your definite work, your one great aim as Christians, as Gods children, whether you accept it or not--your only worthy aim.
II. A definite work demands an equally definite law. If the work be given, the law for its prosecution must be given also from the same source. God has been good to His people in perpetuating for them the written Word, enlarged and modified for their changing conditions. The object-lessons, which were needed in the childhood of the race, gave way to the precepts which might better guide its youth; and these in turn yielded to the statement of the great principles of all right feeling and conduct, with the declaration of which the canon is closed, and which need no addition, because they are adaptable to every variety of condition and culture.
III. A divine helper. When the Lord gives a man a work to do which is beyond his power, He always promises the needed aid. Go over this Jordan, and divide this land among My people, says the Lord; but God says also, As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. But, beside the promise of a Divine Helper, Joshua had both the vision of His person and the experience of His aid. We, too, may listen, and hear the promise coupled with the command. We also may look up and see, not in vision, but in the mirror of His Word, the Captain of our salvation, the Lord of war and righteousness, armed for our defence, at hand for our deliverance. No life is worth the living unless it sets before itself a work worthy to be done. No life tan do a worthy work save as it recognises the Divine law, and avails itself of the Divine Helper. With these three outward conditions of his success, there needed one quality on Joshuas part to make it sure, and that was--
IV. A brave heart. But the courage came from his confidence in the Divine mission, the Divine law, and the Divine Helper. So, too, may it be for us all. If we know that the Lord our God is with us, we shall not be afraid nor dismayed; but we too shall be prospered, and shall have good success. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
The commission of Joshua
I. The divine commission is given to men who are peculiarly fitted for the work. In one respect all men are weak; but in their weakness they must not be weaklings. God can use all men; but He never calls one to a burden that is beyond his ability to carry. Man must become worthy or willing before God will commission him to any work. God cannot make much of any man who does not make much of himself. We too often speak as if God gives man his character; it is all wrong. By Divine help every man makes himself and develops his own powers, for the exercise or misuse of which he alone is responsible. It is every mans privilege to be worthy of receiving the Divine call.
II. The source of all strength is God.
1. God wants strong men. There is no strength without symmetry. Samsons strength was counterbalanced by his moral weakness. Benedict Arnold ranked among the nations heroes at Ticonderoga, but the lurking perfidy of his heart betrayed the traitor at last. The intellectual brilliancy of an Aaron Burr could not raise him to any greatness so long as his moral nature was corrupt. Washington was as great a power in national affairs on account of his moral nature as from his civic deeds; so of Lincoln and Grant.
2. All strength springs from within. You cannot make any man stronger than he is. Place him in favouring circumstances, but these cannot control him, except as they mark his weakness. You may bolster men, but this gives no manhood; may extol them above their deserts, but all the puffs of adulation make them no stronger. The whole world cannot make any man to be worth more than he is in himself. This strength is possible to all. Take away bodily fear, or timidity as to others opinions, and every man can be strong. There is no sight more sublime than man enduring the flames that scorch him in the path of duty; mightier than the mighty rebukes of millions as he walks alone; undismayed, as Christlike he stands with some repentant child of sin, for Christs sake. The image of God can surpass in sublimity and divinity all else the world has ever seen, because the measure of the obstacles he overcomes marks the heroism of his own soul.
3. God promises help in thus gaining strength. What power in the words: As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee, &c. Stronger yet the promise: The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. There is no strength without God. Power comes only when the watchward is Immanuel. I can do all things, &c. There is no truly great man who is ungodly. It takes a great hope to give great courage.
III. They whose strength is in God are invincible. There is no such bulwark as the truth; no such power as comes from the consciousness of doing right. There is no such strength as the man possesses whose conscience is clear. One such man can chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. It is not necessary for men with truth on their side to take up the worlds methods in their plans and plottings. Men in whom God dwells are as truly unharmed by evil as they are by the storms that can do no more than wet their cheeks. The world cannot crush Gods children; it can crown with thorns, but it cannot, with all its might, cast off from memory the crown of the just. It can build bonfires, make dungeons, and sharpen sabres, but it cannot weaken the joys that count all these only as symbols of their swift entrance upon a better life.
IV. The bounds of all successful service are in the written word. So far as history has a voice, God has never left Himself without a witness of His truth. Sinais law was but the expression of principles long before partially known. Twice in the record of this commission of Joshua the condition of prosperity is given as obedience to all the law made known through Moses: Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, &c. It was this same law that should never depart out of his mouth; day and night he should meditate upon its precepts, and watch closely to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, &c. The truth of this grand principle has been stamped upon the world wherever civilisation has gained a hold. (David O. Mears.)
Taking possession of our inheritance
I. Take a survey of the inheritance.
1. I would say of this inheritance which God has prepared for His saints, and has given to them by a covenant of salt, that it is exceeding broad. All that we can think or desire is ours in the covenant of grace. There are immeasurable breadths and lengths, but we confine ourselves to close quarters. Truly there is very much land yet to be possessed! Some graces you must have, or you are not saved; some sins must at once be driven out of your life at the swords point, or you are not the Lords. As for the choicer graces, you are foolish indeed if you think of doing without them; and as for the less violent sins, you err greatly if you spare one of them.
2. This heritage is exceedingly desirable. When sin is driven out, and we come to live in Gods own land, then we find precious treasure; we dig, and we are enriched. We have all things in Christ; yea, in Him we have all that our utmost want can require.
3. This heritage, upon which we are now looking down from the summit of our faith, is full of variety. Here are Hermons of experience, Tabors of communion, Jabboks of prevailing prayer, and Cheriths of Divine providence. The revelation of God is a blessed country, full of all manner of delights. They that live in Christ dwell in spiritual realms, which for light and joy are as heaven below. Above all things, it is Thy land, O Immanuel!
II. Glance at the title deeds of our inheritance. I would not mind exhibiting our title before the whole bench of judges, for it has no flaw in it, and will stand in the highest court.
1. First, notice its covenant character: I have given it to you. You will find the full conveyance in Gen_15:18-21. Each believer may say, He hath in Christ Jesus made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; and therefore do I possess all spiritual blessings, and shall possess them world without end.
2. Observe, next, that this deed of gift is notable for its graciousness. How does it run? Which I do sell to them? Ah, no! It is no sale, but a free gift.
3. Note well the righteousness of our title: Which I do give to them. The Lord God has a right to give what He pleases, for the earth is the Lords, and the fulness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. Of His own has He given unto us. In the great sacrifice of His dear Son He has satisfied all claims of justice, and He acts justly when He blesses largely those for whom Jesus died.
4. Do not fail to see its sureness: The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. I do give, saith He, and thus He stands to His act and deed. Oh, children of God, what do you think of your title-deeds? You stand possessed of your kingdom by the gift of Him who has a right to give what He pleases. The kingdom is given you because it is your Fathers good pleasure to give it to you. Not only was it His good pleasure, but it remains so. What great simpletons we are if we do not take possession of the brave country which is ceded to us!
III. Let us make a move towards our possessions. There is your land, but Jordan rolls between.
1. The first thing to do in this matter is to go over this Jordan. Come out from the world, and be separate. The land of gracious experience is meant for you to dwell in, so that you may be recognised as the Lords peculiar people, separated unto the Most High. Oh, for that decisive step by which, like Abraham, you conic out from your fathers house that you may be a sojourner with God in the land which His grace will show you!
2. Having decided for the Lord, you are next to take possession by an act of simple faith. Every place in the grace country upon which the sole of your foot shall tread is yours. You will remember that the Red Indians agreed to sell to William Penn as much land as a man could walk round in a day; and I do not wonder that at the end of the day they complained that the white brother had made a big walk. I think I should have put my best leg foremost if whatever I could put my foot upon would be mine; would not you? Why, then, do you not hurry up in spiritual matters? Do you value earthly things more than spiritual? Mark, then, that if you put your foot down upon a blessing, and say, This is mine, it is yours. What a very simple operation is the claim of faith! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you.--
The commission for the conquest
I. It was divine. It is important to bear this in mind, otherwise we shall misunderstand not only the whole teaching of this book, but the whole history of Israel as a nation. Deus vult is written on every page, however stained with blood. Joshua was no bandit or freebooter, eager for plunder; no Alexander or Napoleon, consumed by the lust of power and the greed of empire. He was simply a servant, carrying out the commands of a superior. And in truth there was a Divine necessity for this commission. If the Divine purposes are to be carried out, if He is to keep His place as the Judge of all the earth, some such commission was a necessity. Is there anything analogous to this in the spiritual sphere? There is. God does not in these days call the Christian to any war such as that to which He called Joshua; yet there is a holy war, a glorious crusade, in which He would have us all warriors. Before every one of us He places a double battlefield. There is an outer fight, and the field of battle is the whole world, according to the gospel commission, Go ye into all the world, &c. There is also an inner fight, and the field of battle is the heart, according to that holy exhortation which urges us to bring every thought into subjection to the Lord Jesus.
III. It was clear in its terms. No doubt could arise in the mind of Joshua as to what God desired him to do. Arise! The wilderness journey is at an end; the time to take possession has come. Arise from these weary disciplinary wanderings to high and heroic achievements. Even so our commission as Christians for our twofold fight is clear as day, and as emphatic as the Divine lips could make it. Therefore the removal of every valiant soldier of the Cross should be a mighty stimulus to those left behind. We best revere the memory of the good and great who have passed away by giving all diligence to the work which was so dear to them.
III. It was difficult to carry out. Go over this Jordan. Joshua is here put in as great extremity as was Moses at the Red Sea. Aye, and the crossing of the Jordan is only the first great difficulty among many. Often, in like manner, obedience to the gospel commission implies the facing of difficulties which to the eye of sense are insuperable. The fight of faith is never easy.
IV. It was terrible in its consequences. When we think of its bearing on these Canaanites, we can conceive nothing more appalling. These nations were like the grass of the field, and Israel was Gods scythe to cut them down. What a contrast to all this have we in the commission of the gospel and the present work of the Lord Jesus. When on earth He said, I came not to destroy mens lives but to save them, and the work He has given His followers now to do is a work of salvation. Surely, then, we should be all the more eager to carry it out.
V. It was also righteous. In this case nothing was done in undue haste. The Divine patience that had borne with these evil tenants for four hundred years was marvellous; and they grew worse and worse all the time. The gracious pause of forty years, after He had made bare His mighty arm before all flesh, by the wonders done in Loans field, and proclaimed that the time had come when He was to give this land to Israel, should have won submission. If now they resist His action, it is at their peril. If the war in which Joshua was engaged was righteous, how holy is that war by which righteousness and peace, joy and goodwill, are multiplied on the earth. The man who consecrates all his faculties to the downfall of evil, first within and then without, whose life is one long struggle against spiritual wickedness, acts according to the principles of eternal rectitude.
VI. It was beneficial in its results. He who reads history cannot fail to see that impure and enfeebled races and nations have been the prey of those who have been comparatively pure and strong; and thus, by conquest, take it all in all, civilisation has been advanced, and the state of the race as a whole ameliorated. Better a bad limb be cut off than the whole body mortify. Such national surgery may be terrible, but it is beneficial. In like manner, by unflinching valour in the fight of faith, the children of God become the worlds best benefactors. In conquering evil within and without, we not only do good to ourselves but to the whole human race. Ye are the salt of the earth. Without this preserving salt of Christlike souls how soon would the carcase become corrupt and the eagles of judgment alight.
VII. It had also a wide reference and a narrow application. It spoke of the country which stretched from the wilderness and this Lebanon. Thus the inheritance of Israel embraced a territory of great richness, beauty, variety, and compactness. Yet while Joshuas commission embraced the whole land, the land become the possession of Israel only as it was subdued acre by acre. These ancient warriors had not only to take the title-deeds, but also to enter into possession. To do the first was easy; to do the second was hard. Even so is it with the Christian. He has indeed a goodly heritage--a whole heaven of spiritual blessedness. All things are yours. Blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. But we cannot enjoy one of these blessings apart from the conflict of faith. (A. B. Mackay.)
Ownership and possession
Here is a great promise with a sharp limitation: Every place is yours--but every place only as you tread upon it, occupy, subdue, possess it. A most instructive parallel might be drawn between the subjugation of Palestine by Israel and the settlement of America by the English. In both cases tyranny at home had much to do with the movement, for the Stuarts of England and the Pharaohs of Egypt held essentially the same views of royal prerogative, In both cases the country was already occupied by aborigines, and the free, wild life of the Jebusites and the Amorites was not unlike that of the Iroquois and Sioux Indians. In both cases the land was parcelled out before it was actually possessed. In both cases possession was achieved only through long and obstinate struggle with an enemy continually defeated, but stubbornly refusing to submit. According to the royal grants, Massachusetts and Virginia reached through to the Pacific Ocean. It required five minutes to draw the long parallels on the royal map; it needed two centuries actually to push civilisation across the continent, and the work is not yet finished. Ownership comes before possession, and is useless without it. The Divine giving is always done along this line. In dealing with the fields and the forests, God pours out sunshine and rain unasked, and the earth can only lie helpless, now flooded and now parched with heat. But in dealing with men made in His image, Gods giving is a far finer and more subtle process. There is in it a wondrous delicacy that seems to fear refusal, that is busied chiefly with finding a place in which the gift is wanted. He gives us the title-deed, the motive-power, the strength, the gladness, and then says, Enter and possess. We are all familiar with this in the intellectual realm. You put into your sons hand a Virgil or a Shakespeare. Now, you say, he has the works of Shakespeare, or Virgil. Has them?--he has the possibility, the opportunity! It is a great thing to have that; thousands have remained ignorant for want of that. But when you possess an author, the book in the hand will be only a subordinate affair. You will know the man himself; lines will flash out upon you at your toil, great sweet thoughts will recur in dreams, passages will intertwine with all your daily task, and when you possess Shakespeare, he will possess you. You give your son teachers and schools--there your power stops. You seat your daughter at the piano, but for musical power, culture, achievement--she must enter into and possess these, or she will for ever stand outside. You buy a home. The papers are signed, the deed is recorded; instantaneously the house is yours. But then comes the process of moving into it. Every season you move a little further in; through days of birth and bridal when the joy bells ring, through days of grief when all the bells are muffled, you are growing into that house, and when men ask, Why dont you move up town? you say, My heart is here; this place I love. So Jesus Christ comes to a man at the entrance of Christian life, and puts him into ownership. To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. He bestows upon us the title-deeds unencumbered. He spreads before us a great territory, and says, That is yours. Forgiveness for sins that are past, an inner quietness which naught can ruffle, a balm for lifes hurts and bruises, a daily strength for daily needs, a courage that rises with obstacles and never knows defeat, all this is ours--if we will make it ours. Ours to possess, to enjoy, to experience. There is an old-fashioned phrase that had a deal of truth in it experiencing religion. A man has just as much religion as he has experienced; only when talking of our experience let us not go back twenty years--let us review the last twenty-four hours. How was it with me last evening? Was God last night in my soul, was I filled with serenity and courage and devotion to other souls, not twenty years ago, but last night? Our Bible is no larger than our reading of the Bible. Some men have a Bible consisting of a few Psalms and half a dozen chapters in the Gospels. Others have a Bible that is a patchwork of half-remembered texts, put together in childhood and now badly faded. A man with a rich, deep Christian experience cannot be content with a few threadbare chapters, he is ever reaching into new territory. So it is with the various great truths of the Christian religion--all are ours, but ours only as we possess them. The true use of a creed is not to set forth what men must believe, but to record what men do believe. And the man who is growing will find his creed growing too, growing indeed more simple, but growing stronger, and deeper, and broader. A grown man with a childs religion is like a man trying to content himself with nursery toys--he is soon disgusted with his attempt. But when a man is constantly moving onward, then one truth after another will reveal its inner meaning to his soul. We cannot expect that all truths will be equally precious in any one day. There is a rotation of crops in the spiritual life, and everything is beautiful in his time. There is always one truth that shines brightest, as there is always one star on the meridian. Other stars will follow and culminate in their season. I think often with a strange awe of the first settlers of the Atlantic States, as they came across the sea, bearing the maps which gave them rights extending to the Pacific. This is just the conditions of some of us to-day. The boundless possibilities of Christianity lie before us Jesus Christ comes to us saying, It is all yours--a Christian life, a Christian death, a Christian heaven, it is yours if you will take it. And if we do not by voluntary act enter into what He offers, then the offer is to us absolutely worthless. The truth heard Sunday after Sunday is then only a genuine damage, making the heart each week less sensitive, less responsive--it hardens all within and petrifies the feeling. But let us return to the text again. Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon--surely there is a hint here of the slow and toilsome process of spiritual acquisition. I do not hold out before any man a Christian life that is free from effort. Christianity at sight is always a delusion. At sight of Jesus we are indeed ushered into new relation and position. But then comes the path, sometimes winding through the shadow, sometimes leading straight uphill, always leading heavenward and always bright with an unseen Friend. So it is with the entire advance of the Church of Jesus Christ. Sometimes when we are impatient and fretful let us remember that here, too, walking is the normal movement. Why God doesnt convert India to-day is to us a mystery. That great movements should pace so slowly, and the advance be so measured and unequal, seems to us incomprehensible. One other suggestion is here--a hint that the farther a man travels the richer he becomes. Mountain range or lowly valley, forest or verdant meadow, whatsoever experience of Gods love and grace we pass through, that is ours for ever. We learn more of mans weakness but more of Gods power, and the more we truly know the gladder shall we really be. New experiences are to be ours, and the best is yet to come. (W. H. P. Faunce.)
Foothold
There are many curious legends regarding the way in which land grants were given in former times. We read of one man who got from his king as much land as he could ride round while the king slept; of another who was granted as much land as could be covered by a bulls hide, which he cut into a continuous narrow strip, capable of enclosing a large area; of a third who was promised as much land as a bushel of barley would sow, which he was careful to sow as sparsely as possible, so that it might extend the borders of his farm to the utmost limits. At an annual fair, held in August, at the village of Carnwath, in Scotland, a foot-race is run as the tenure by which the property in the neighbourhood is held by the Lockhart family. The prize is a pair of red hose or stockings, and the proprietor used to have a messenger ready whenever the race was run to tell the result to the Lord Advocate of Scotland. In conformity with these ancient methods of land-measuring, God promised to Moses first, and renewed His promise to Joshua after the death of Moses, that He would give the Israelites every place that the sole of their foot should tread upon. It was a primitive custom to measure out the land that was to be cultivated or built upon by the foot; and a foot is still one of the terms of measurement among us derived from the human member. By primitive people the footprint was regarded as the symbol of possession, denoting that the land had been marked out by the foot of the individual, and so acquired as his own property. Some scholars derive the origin of the word possession itself from pedis positio, the position of the foot; and it was a maxim of the ancient jurists that whatever a persons foot touched was his. On the tombs of the ancient Romans, Christians and pagans alike, is often sculptured the symbol of a foot, to indicate that these tombs were the property of the persons who reposed in them. This primitive ceremony will also explain the allusion in Psa_108:1-13., where God speaks of dividing Shechem and meting out the valley of Succoth, casting His shoe over Edom, and triumphing over Philistia, and in this way taking possession for His people of the whole land of Canaan, while the Book of Ruth informs us that taking off the shoe from the foot signified the transfer or renunciation of property or of rights. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)
Something to be done to gain possession
In all primitive methods of allotting land--strange as some of them may appear to the modern legal mind--there was something to be done by the possessor himself in order to get possession. His tenure was made valid only by some personal act in connection with the property. He could not own a tract of land which he had not seen, as you might do in Australia, or New Zealand, or in the backwoods of America, although you were never there. It was necessary, in order that the land should become his, that he should do something in connection with it which implied a personal appropriation on the spot. This is the true significance of the curious antique rites by which persons got possession of land. They measured it with their feet, not only in marking it off, but also by passing frequently to and fro over its surface in ploughing and sowing, and all the other labours required for its cultivation, and thus literally obtained a foothold in it. And the same principle holds good still, although these quaint archaic customs have long been discontinued. As regards the new lands in the colonies bestowed upon emigrants by Government, it is absolutely necessary that the persons to whom they are allotted should cultivate the ground and erect buildings on it in order to secure their right of possession. They cannot hold their lands merely upon paper, without ever coming near them, or doing anything to reclaim them from the wilderness. It is thus a universally recognised principle that the right of ownership of the earth is acquired by human labour, man bringing himself in some form or other into direct personal contact with the soil. This is the ultimate ground of ownership to which all can appeal. God gave Abraham the promise of possessing the Holy Land, but Abraham did not get the fulfilment of that promise by remaining in Ur of the Chaldees. He had to leave his home, journey over the wide intervening desert, and traverse on foot the land of promise from end to end. God intended the Israelites to measure out with their feet, and so take possession, according to immemorial custom, of the whole region from Lebanon to the desert, and from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. But they stayed their feet, and actually measured only a little strip of land, which was parcelled out among the twelve tribes; while the Canaanites, the Philistines, and the Syrians, and all the desert tribes, were allowed, by the easy terms which the Israelites made with them, to possess in peace by far the largest part of the heritage of the chosen people. Even in the palmiest days of David and Solomon, when the possessions of the Israelites were most extensive, they never reached the limits which God had intended for them. The great lesson, then, which the text conveys to us is that the Israelites owned only as much of the land of promise as they actually trod with the sole of their foot. They had a large promise, but it was to be made good by their own exertions. It is Gods law, true of your spiritual inheritance as of the ancient literal inheritance of Israel, that only as much as you measure out with the sole of your foot is truly your own. You have the Bible, and you think you know it well; and yet of this vast religious literature you only really know a mere fragment. You confine your reading to your favourite passages, while you leave the rest unstudied; and yet it is in these neglected parts that new truth is most often to be found. Then you have the privileges and blessings of grace! They are great and extensive, but they are conditioned by the same law that only what you live up to, appropriate, and realise of them is your own. Gods superabounding grace is limited by the bounds you yourselves put upon it. If you are made straitly, Gods blessing must needs straiten to you. Your salvation is just as much as, and no more than, you yourselves experience of it. Christ says to you m every case, According to your faith be it unto you. Then there is your own individual Christian life. What a vast, unclaimed, untrodden land of promise it is l You have each a boundless capacity; you are made to seek, to long for the infinite truth, the infinite good, the infinite love. How little have the greatest saints been able to fill up the grand outline which God sketched out at first when He made man in His own image! How far short have you all come of Gods design for you, and even of your own ideal! You have contracted the bounds of your being and the bounds of your world to the smallest dimensions by your devotion to the petty and passing things of earth. And then there is the heavenly Canaan, the true land of promise, towards which you profess to be walking day by day as pilgrims and strangers on earth. God has given it to all His true Israel; but they shall only possess as much of it as they shall tread with the sole of their foot. You will only get as much of heaven as you are fit for; and in the case of many I fear that will be but a very small bit. (H Macmillan, D. D.)
All the land of the Hittites.--
The land of the Hittites
One geographical expression, in the delimitation of the country, demands a brief explanation. While the country is defined as embracing the whole territory from Lebanon to the Euphrates, it is also defined as consisting in that direction of all the land of the Hittites. But were not the Hittites one of the seven nations whose land was promised to Abraham and the fathers, and not even the first in the enumeration of these? Why should this great north-eastern section of the promised domain be designated the land of the Hittites? The time was when it was a charge against the accuracy of the Scripture record that it ascribed to the Hittites this extensive dominion. That time has passed away, inasmuch as, within quite recent years, the discovery has been made that in those distant times a great Hittite empire did exist in the very region specified, between Lebanon and the Euphrates. The discovery is based on twofold data: references in the Egyptian and other monuments to a powerful people, called the Khita (Hittites), with whom even the great kings of Egypt had long and bloody wars; and inscriptions in the Hittite language found in Hamah, Aleppo, and other places in Syria. There is still much obscurity resting on the history of this people. That the Hittites proper prevailed so extensively has been doubted by some; a Hittite confederacy has been supposed, and sometimes a Hittite aristocracy exercising control over a great empire. The only point which it is necessary to dwell on here is, that in representing the tract between Lebanon and Euphrates as equivalent to all the land of the Hittites, the author of the Book of Joshua made a statement which has been abundantly verified by recent research. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
There shall not any man be able to stand before thee.--
Joshua on the march
There shall not any man be able, &c. Well, you say, it does not require any great courage to go out with a backing like that. I reply, God promised Joshua no more than He promises you and me in our conflicts. The framer of the universe, the chieftain of all eternity, has pledged all His resources to see us through, and He promised no more than that to Joshua. His first undertaking was to cross the river Jordan in a spring freshet. You might as well talk of wading across the Hudson river at Yonken as to think of wading the river Jordan at the season of which I am speaking. The Canaanites on the other side felt perfectly secure. But one day Joshua orders out his troops, and tells them to fall into line. Forward: march! They pass on towards the river, and it seems as if the light armed troops, and the spearmen, and the archers, and all their leaders, must be swept down in the fearful flood. Let them prepare, you say, for a watery grave. March on. Come to the other bank. They reach the bank, and they pull themselves up its steep, thirty or forty feet in height--they pull themselves up the bank by the oleanders, and the tamarisks, and the willows, until they reach the top. No sooner have they climbed up this high bank than with dash, and roar, and terrific rush, the waters of the Jordan break loose from their strange anchorage. God never makes any provision for the Christians retreat. He clears the path to Canaan if we go ahead; if we go back we die. Victory ahead! Darkness, flood, ruin, and death behind! You say: Why didnt those Canaanites destroy Joshua and his troops while they had a chance? Here they were, on a bank thirty or forty feel high. There were the Israelites under Joshua down in the bed of the stream. Why didnt the Canaanites fight back these invaders? The promise had been given, and the Lord God keeps His promise. There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. But we cannot stop here. It is no place for Joshuas troops to stay. What is that in the distance? At the end of a grove of palms eight miles long is the chief city Jericho, the great metropolis. Take it Joshua must. Take it Joshua cant, say the unbelievers. Joshua rises up to his full stature, and he gives the command. He feels the right moment has come, and he says: Shout! for the Lord hath given you the city, and the command is heard, and the people all together cry: Down, Jericho! down, Jericho! and that long line of solid masonry begins to quiver, and then crash go the walls, the temples, the palaces, until the earth quakes, and the heavens are blackened with the dust, and the shriek of the crushed city and the huzza of the victorious Israelites commingle. This is no place to stop. Forward: march! There is city of Ai to be taken. Oh! says a scouting party just come back from that city, you can take that very easily. Joshua, you need not go; you stay, and few of us will go and take that city. They started out in pompous order to take the city of Ai. The men of Ai came out and gave one yell, and away ran the Israelites like reindeer. Our northern troops, at Bull Run, made slow time compared with those Israelites with the men of Ai after them. We have no right to go into the Lords conflict having only half our force. Body, mind, soul, reputation, property--everything--must be marshalled, equipped, launched for God, and against our enemies. And soon the retreating army come up. They say: Oh! general, we are all cut to pieces. Those men of Ai are awful people. We are all cut to pieces. Joshua falls down on his face in chagrin. But how did God arouse Joshua? Did He address him in some complimentary apostrophe? No. He says: Get thee up. Why liest thou thus on thy face? Joshua arose, I suppose, looking mortified; but his old courage came back again. He marshals all the Israelites, and he says: We will go up en masse, and we will take the city of Ai. And as I see the smoke of the burning city curling in the sky, and as I hear the groans of the defeated men of Ai, and the victorious shout of the Israelites, Joshua hears something better than that: There shall not any man be able, &c. Joshuas troops cannot stop yet. Forward: march! says Joshua; for there is the city of Gibeon; it has put itself under the wing of Joshuas protection, and Joshua must defend it. Joshua makes a three days march in one night. Prepare now to see the Gettysburgh, the Waterloo, the Sedan of the ancients. It is not yet quite sundown in Joshuas day, and we will have time for five royal funerals. Who will preach their funeral sermon? Massillon preached the funeral sermon of Louis XIX. Dr. Robert South preached a sermon commemorative of Charles
I. Who will preach the funeral sermon of these five bad kings? Joshua. And what shall be his text? There shall not any man be able, &c. Oh, you say, it is a pity to bury these five kings so ignominiously. No, sir; before that rock is sealed up I want to put in five more beings, first having them beheaded--King Alcohol, King Fraud, King Lust, King Superstition, King Bigotry. Have them all in. Cover them over with a mound of broken decanters and the debris of their miserable doings. Roll a rock against that cave so they never can get out. Then chisel for these last five kings the same epitaph you had for the other five kings; and let all the Christian reformers and philanthropists, before the sun of their protracted day of usefulness is ended, come up and read it. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Victory assured
There is no foe to your growth in grace, no enemy in your Christian work, no dreaded form of evil dominating and cursing the souls of men, which was not included in your Saviours conquests. You need not be afraid of them. When you touch them, they will flee before you. God has promised to deliver them up before you. There shall no man of them be able to stand before you. Neither Anakim nor fenced cities need daunt you. You are one of the conquering legion. Claim your share in the Saviours victory. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.--
A great promise
I. The import of the promise.
1. It includes in it more than that natural and essential presence of God which surrounds all beings and all things; for the essence of God is diffused through the trackless path of immensity.
2. It refers to Gods special and gracious presence.
(1) Friendship;
(2) observation;
(3) direction;
(4) protection;
(5) provision.
3. A more than ordinary communication of Gods presence is vouchsafed to those who are called out to services of peculiar difficulty, to offices of high responsibility.
II. The certainty of the fulfilment of this promise. I feel assured of its fulfilment when I reflect--
1. On the Author of this promise. I will be with thee. I will not leave thee, &c. God is not a man that He should lie, neither the Son of man that He should repent.
2. The terms in which the promise is couched. Repetition, but no tautology.
3. Experience. Was not God with Moses?
III. The advantages which the fulfilment of this promise will throw over your whole life. Oh, let but this be fulfilled, and you are safe for both worlds, for time and for eternity! Mark its influence--
1. On the hours of solitude. Every real Christian will wish to be alone: he will say, I am never less alone than when alone.
2. On your intercourse with society. Others will take knowledge of you, that you have been with Jesus.
3. On your conduct. Prudence; benevolence; sanctity.
4. On afflictions and distresses. If God be with us, no weapon shall prosper against us, no trap shall catch us, no pit shall ensnare us.
5. On the days of lifes decline, and in the immediate prospect of its conclusion. All earthly attachments are doomed to be dissolved; but God is ever with His servants, especially when most needed.
Lessons:
1. Admire the astonishing condescension and grace of God, that He should thus address Himself to worms of the earth, to sinful worms, to such as you and I are!
2. Let me ask you if you have an interest in this promise.
3. Be very thankful for any measure of the fulfilment of this promise which you may have enjoyed. (G. Clayton, M. A.)
God with us through life
I. The interest which God takes in mens lives.
1. Every event is closely observed by Him.
2. He often comes unsolicited and unthought of. Like the mother who, while attending to the duties of her household, still keeps her eye on the little one at play, that she may interpose in time of danger.
II. God appeals to his past conduct to encourage his servant to trust in him.
1. We are influenced more by the past conduct of a friend than by his promises.
2. There are degrees of manifested interest, care, and love. God was with Moses--
(1) Continuously, from beginning to end.
(2) Notwithstanding a variation of conduct on the part of His servant.
(3) Under circumstances of great provocation.
(4) As a Friend of infinite resources.
(5) As an unerring Guide.
(6) To uphold his position against any usurpation on the part of others.
III. The bestowal of the blessings included in this declaration was made dependent upon Joshuas obedience. He who will not keep Gods law cannot have the presence of God with him. (A London Clergyman.)
A great promise
I. It is a great promise. For it includes everything. Gods presence can supply wisdom, can give strength, and will insure success.
II. It was to a great man.
1. He was humble.
2. He was trained had followed the Jews from Egypt.
3. He was good. Not one notorious sin or evil habit is recorded of him as there is of nearly every other noted character in Scripture. He was the only one who withstood the test of the wilderness journey.
III. It was in reference to a great work.
1. The conquering the promised land.
2. The organising the people.
3. The vindicating the power and glory of God. (Homilist.)
Strengthening medicine for Gods servants
I. The suitability of the consolation which these words gave to Joshua. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
1. This must have been very cheering to him in reference to himself. Joshua may possibly have been somewhat despondent under a very pressing sense of his own deficiencies; and this cheering assurance would meet his case. If God be with our weakness it waxes strong; if He be with our folly it rises into wisdom; if He be with our timidity it gathers courage.
2. The consolation given to Joshua would be exceedingly suitable in the presence of his enemies. Surely, in the presence of God, Anakim become dwarfs, strongholds become as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, and chariots of iron are as thistledown upon the hillside driven before the blast. If God be for us, who can be against us? They that be with us are more than they that be against us, when once the Lord of hosts is seen in our ranks.
3. This consolation, too, was sufficient for all supplies. Perhaps Joshua knew that the manna was no longer to fall. I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee was a supply which would meet all the demands of the commissariat. When the Lord opens all His granaries none shall lack for bread, and when He unlocks His wardrobes none shall go bare.
4. Surely this word must often have brought consolation to the heart of Joshua when he saw the people failing him. Oh, what a blessed thing it is in a false and fickle world, where he that eats bread with us lifts up his heel against us, where the favourite counsellor becomes an Ahithophel, and turns his wisdom into crafty hate, to know that there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, one who is faithful and gives us sure tokens of a love which many waters cannot quench!
II. At what times may we consider this promise to be spoken to ourselves?
1. Surely it is when we are called to do Gods work. Joshuas work was the Lords work. Do you know that God has put you where you are, and called you to do the work to which your life is dedicated? Then go on in Gods name, for, as surely as He called you to His work, you may be sure that to you also He says, as indeed to all His servants, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
2. But I hear some of you say, We are not engaged in work of such a kind that we could precisely call it work for God. Well, but are you engaged in a work which you endeavour to perform to Gods glory? Is your ordinary trade one which is lawful--one concerning which you have no doubt as to its honest propriety; and in carrying it on do you follow right principles only?
3. We must, if we are to have this promise, take God into our calculations. A great many persons go about their supposed lifework without thinking about God. You must walk by faith if you are to enjoy the privileges of the faithful.
4. We must also be careful that we walk in Gods ways. Observe that the next verse to the text runs thus, Be strong and of a good courage, and then the seventh verse is a singular one, Only be thou strong, &c. What for? To obey! Does it want courage and strength to obey? Why, nowadays, that man is thought to be courageous who will have no laws of God to bind him; and he is thought to be strong-minded who ridicules revelation. But let us rest assured that he is truly strong of mind and heart who is content to be thought a fool, and sticks to the good old truth, and keeps the good old way.
III. What this promise does not preclude.
1. This promise does not exclude effort. If you want to succeed, use every faculty you have, and put forth all your strength; and if it is a right cause you may then fall back on this promise.
2. Neither does this promise preclude occasional disaster. Yes, and without the violation of any law, the best man in the world must expect in the most successful enterprise that there will be some discouragements. Look at the sea: it is rolling in, it will rise to full tide before long, but every wave that comes up dies upon the shore; and after two or three great waves which seem to capture the shingle there comes a feebler one which sucks back. Very well, but the sea will win, and reach its fulness. So in every good work for God there is a back-drawing wave every now and then. God will certainly test you, but He will not fail you, nor forsake you.
3. Nor, again, does this promise preclude frequent tribulations and testings of faith. In the autobiography of the famous Francke of Halle, who built, and, in the hand of God, provided for, the orphan-house of Halle, he says, I thought when I committed myself and my work to God by faith, that I had only to pray when I had need, and that the supplies would come; but I found that I had sometimes to wait and pray for a long time. The supplies did come, but not at once. The pinch never went so far as absolute want; but there were intervals of severe pressure. There was nothing to spare. Every spoonful of meal had to be scraped from the bottom of the barrel, and every drop of oil that oozed out seemed as if it must be the last; but still it never did come to the last drop, and there was always just a little meal left. God has not promised to take any of you to heaven without trying your faith.
4. This promise does not preclude our suffering very greatly, and our dying, and perhaps dying a very sad and terrible death, as men judge. God never left Paul, but I have seen the spot where Pauls head was smitten off by the headsman. The Lord never left Peter, but Peter, like his Master, had to die by crucifixion. The Lord never left the martyrs, but they had to ride to heaven in chariots of fire.
IV. What, then, does the text mean, if we may have all this trial happening to us?
1. Your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. Press on. We have heard of a minister who added only one to his Church through a long year of very earnest ministry--only one, a sad thing for him; but that one happened to be Robert Moffatt, and he was worth a thousand of most of us. Go on. If you bring but one to Christ, who shall estimate the value of the one?
2. And then there shall be no desertion as to yourself, for your heavenly Friend has said, I will not forsake thee. You will not be left alone or without a helper. You are thinking of what you will do in old age. Do not think of that: think of what God will do for you in old age. Oh, but your great need and long illness will wear out your friends, you say. Perhaps you may wear out your friends, but you will not wear out your God, and He can raise up new helpers if the old ones fail. Oh, but your infirmities are many, and will soon crush you down: you cannot live long in such circumstances. Very well, then you will be in heaven; and that is far better. But you dread pining sickness. It may never come; and suppose it should come, remember what will come with it--I will make all thy bed in thy sickness. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee--so runs the promise. Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God.
V. Why may we be quite sure that this promise will re fulfilled to us?
1. I answer, first, we may be quite sure because it is Gods promise. Did ever any promise of God fall to the ground yet?
2. Rent ye well assured that if a man be called to do Gods work God will not fail him, because it is not after the manner of the Lord to desert His servants. He will not push His servants into severe conflicts and then fail them.
3. Besides, remember that should Gods servants fail, if they are really Gods servants, the enemy would exult and boast against the Lord Himself. This was a great point with Joshua in after-days (Jos_7:9). If the Lord raises up Luther, and does not help Luther, then it is not Luther that fails; it is God that fails, in the estimation of the world.
4. Besides, if God has raised you up to accomplish a purpose by you, do you think He will be defeated? Were ever any of His designs frustrated?
5. Besides, if we trust God, and live for God, He loves us much too well to leave us. It is not to be imagined that He will ever put a load upon His own childrens shoulders without giving them strength to bear the burden, or send them to labours for which He will not give them adequate resources. Oh, rest in the Lord, ye faithful. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Be strong and of a good courage.--
A great -promise and a stirring exhortation
What the heathen gods are fabled to have done with some of their favourite warriors, God here and now does to this His first soldier-saint, sending him forth to the fray invulnerable, invincible. By faith in this great promise, Joshua is more than conqueror. Poor and tame in comparison is the Veni, vidi, vici! of Romes great hero. Gods presence is pledged to Joshua unconditionally and unalterably. Oh, highly favoured Joshua! Yes, and also highly favoured saints, for even with a like great and precious promise do we go a warfare against evil. In regard to both the outer and the inner conflict in which we are engaged we should always remember that we are on the winning side. The battle is the Lords. Forward is the Divine command. We are not to make up our minds for defeat, but to march in the assurance of victory. My grace is sufficient for thee. This promise gives us power as we face error of every kind. The enemies of the gospel in these days are proud and boastful. If we were to judge by their shouts, we should think that the whole fabric of Christianity was falling to pieces. Have we anything to pit against these enemies? Most assuredly. The Divine presence, as in the case of Joshua, is pledged to be with us. This great promise given to Joshua was followed up by a stirring exhortation. Courage! this peal of bells rings out in all its changes. Why? Because Joshua was a coward? Nay, he had the heart of a lion, but because courage is the fundamental virtue in every saint of God, in every soldier of righteousness, in every witness for the truth. One of the great wants of the day is courage, courage to confess Christ in every company and on all occasions; courage to hold fast to His every word; courage to do all His will; courage to follow wherever He leads. It is called a good courage, and no virtue better deserves the epithet, for it is good whether we consider its qualities or its achievements, the throne on which it sits or the crown with which it is adorned. It is good courage because it is obedient, not self-willed, obstinate, headstrong. Again and again the greatest exploits of courage have been summed up in the words, I must obey God. Such courage is of the highest quality. It can never quail, because conscious of eternal rectitude. It is a good courage also because it is studious and humble. Its aim being to obey all Gods will, in the spirit as well as in the letter, it gives all diligence to know Gods will. Accordingly, the hero of Jehovah meditates in Gods law day and night; takes counsel not with flesh and blood, but with the living oracles, and finds therein all his comfort, strength, and light. This good courage, being obedient and studious, is also intelligent. It observes with watchful care the hints of Providence and the checks of conscience. It learns better every day what Gods will is in all things. Remember that such courage is the great secret of success. This above all things frightens our great adversary the devil. Satan has no dread of learning, or wisdom, or riches, but he does fear tile courage of a soul resting in communion with God. And well he may, for this courage arms the soul with Divine might. (A. B. Mackay.)
The sources of Joshuas strength
I. A faithful past The aloe blooms but once in a hundred years, but every hour of all that century is needed to produce the delicate texture and resplendent beauty of the flower. The deed of a Grace Darling is not the sudden outburst of the moment that gives it birth, but the result of long years of self-discipline, courage, and ministry to others. And this summons of Joshua to the leaders place in Israel was the guerdon of more than eighty years of faithful service. None of us can tell for what God is educating us. We fret and murmur at the narrow round and daily task of ordinary life, not realising that it is only thus that we can be prepared for the high and holy office which awaits us. We must descend before we can ascend. Gods will comes to thee and me in daily circumstances, in little things equally as in great; meet them bravely; be at your best always, though the occasion be one of the very least; dignify the smallest summons by the greatness of your response; so the call will come to you as to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses minister.
II. A distinct call The supreme inquiry for each of us, when summoned to a new work, is not whether we possess sufficient strength or qualification for it, but if we have been called to it of God; and when that is so there is no further cause for anxiety. If it is in His plan that we should march through a river, or attack a walled town, or turn to flight an army, we have simply to go forward. Rivers will dry up, walls will fall down, armies shall be scattered as snow in summer. There is no such thing as impossibility when God says, Forward, soul, arise, go over this Jordan!
III. The sense of the presence of God. There have been generals whose presence on the field of battle has been the presage and guarantee of victory. Not only have they inspired the soldiers with a sense of confidence in their leadership, but they have encouraged them by their personal prowess and bravery. There is a marvellous sense of security and courage when a Christiana, a Mr. Fearing, or a Miss Much-Afraid is assured of the presence of a Greatheart, who has never turned his back on a foe. And a lonely, trembling soul dares to step bravely across the margin of life into the unknown beyond: to go down unabashed into the chill waters of death, because it can sing, Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
IV. The indwelling of the word of God. Coal contains within its texture the strength absorbed from the sun in bygone ages; so words will pass on to men the heroic thoughts which thrilled the souls of those who spake them first. There are words, as there are strains of music, which cannot be uttered without nerving men to dare and do, to attempt and achieve. A woman will be strong to wait and suffer for long years in the strength of a sentence spoken by her lover as he parted from her: An army has before now forgot sleepless nights and hungry marches in the stirring harangue of its general. And is not this what the prophet meant, when he said, Thy words were found and I did eat them, and Thy words were unto me a joy, and the rejoicing of my heart? and what Jesus meant when He said, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life ? We can do all things when Christ is in us in unthwarted power. The only limit lies in our faith and capacity, or, in other words, in our absolute submission to His indwelling. Little children can overcome when there is within them a Stronger than their foes. Weaklings may do exploits when the Mighty Conqueror who travels in the greatness of His strength makes them the vehicle of His progress. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
The strength and courage needed for common life
Be thou strong and very courageous. What to do? To lead the army? To batter down strong walls and enter into the imminent, deadly breach? Nay, all this is left out of sight; the exhortation to be strong and very courageous is given solely with a moral application. A man shows himself more brave in an inflexible adherence to the law of God as the the rule of his life in all things than in any feats of arms or deeds of daring.
I. A sufficient rule of guidance for life. Joshua had; we have. 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 (not ostentatiously yet 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; is to say firmly, Here I shall abide, I cannot go back from this. Well, but a life that consists of gaining new positions, and grasping new things, and defending all that is thus attained, is of necessity a life of enterprise and progress. And such a life, in this world, will certainly meet with a great deal of opposition, silent and declared, and will require a great deal of strength and courage in those who seek to lead it.
1. Indeed, we might truly say that strength and courage are needed at home, and with ourselves, before we meet the world at all. The critical point of the struggle is within. Let me be strong, then, against my inferior self! Let me grip him hard, and wrestle with him, until he is overthrown! Let me be very courageous against his withering and insidious suggestions.
2. Then also, strength and courage are needed constantly and much in the Church, i.e., among Christian people. One Christian needs to be strong against other Christians--in this way as well as in others--that every Christian has his own inner thought of what he ought to be and do; his own ideal, as we call it.
3. Then still more is courage needed, and strength, when you go more fully out into the world. Here are certain principles in the law of Christ, as the regulative system of a Christians life, principles of honour and-honesty, of purity, sobriety, love, and self-denial, of humility and gentleness, which are clearly different from the principles that obtain in the world generally. Not that contrary principles are professed openly in the world except by a few; but that contrary, or at any rate far inferior, principles are acted upon, through the world, in its different spheres, commercial, political, literary, social, is just as certain as it is that there is a world at all. One great point of duty with Christians just now, I think, ought to be the endeavour to live simple lives, so as, if possible, to pull back this drifting society of ours towards the simplicity it has lost.
4. Again, it is sometimes necessary to speak frankly and boldly in condemnation of the action or in opposition to the speaking of others.
II. 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. What men call spirit, the mere clash and effervescence of nature, will soon evaporate; but 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. Again, not only must we take the Word of God into our daily thought and meditation, but believing the wonderful assurance it gives us of the actual presence of the speaker, the Lord, with those who serve Him, we must make room for Him in our daily life, and lean upon the almighty arm, and even in the darkest and most unsuccessful moments sit silent to hear the great reviving words, The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. (A. Raleigh,D. D.)
The charge to the soldier of the Lord
I. The duty of courageous strength. Christianity has altered the perspective of human virtues, has thrown the gentler ones into prominence altogether unknown before, and has dimmed the brilliancy of the old heroic type of character; but it has not struck those virtues out of its list. Still, there is as much need in the lowliest Christian life for the loftiest heroism as ever there was. All Christian progress is conflict, and we have to fight, not only with the evils that are within, but if we would be true to the obligations of our profession and loyal to the commands of our Master, we have to take our part in the great campaign which He has inaugurated and is ever carrying on against every abuse and oppression, iniquity and sin, that grinds down the world and makes our brethren miserable and servile. Be strong! Then strength is a duty; then weakness is a sin. Then the amount of strength that we possess and wield is regulated by ourselves. We have our hands on the sluice. We may open it to let the whole full tide run in, or we may close it till a mere dribble reaches us. For the strength which is strength, and not merely weakness in a fever, is a strength derived. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Let Christs strength in. Open the heart wide that it may come. Keep yourself in continual touch with God, the fountain of all power. Trust is strength, because trust touches the Rock of Ages. But courage is duty, too, as well as strength. Power and the consciousness of power do not always go together. In regard of the strength of nature, courage and might are quite separable. There may be a strong coward and a weak hero. But in the spiritual region, strength and courage do go together. The consciousness of the Divine power with us, and that alone, will make us bold with a boldness that has no taint of levity and presumption mingled with it, and never will overestimate its own strength.
II. The duty of implicit obedience to the word of command. Courage and strength come first, and on them follows the command to do all according to the law, to keep it without deflection to right or left, and to meditate on it day and night. These two virtues make the perfect soldier--courage and obedience. But the connection between these two is not merely that they must co-exist, but that courage and strength are needed for, and are to find their noblest field of exercise in, absolute acceptance of, and unhesitating, swift, complete, unmurmuring obedience to, everything that is discerned to be Gods will and our duty. For the Christian soldier, then, Gods law is his marching orders. The written Word, and especially the Incarnate Word, are our law of conduct. Christ has given us Him self, and therein has given a sufficient directory for conduct and conflict which fits close to all our needs, and will prove definite and practical enough if we honestly try to apply it. The application of Christs law to daily life takes some courage, and is the proper field for the exercise of Christian strength. If you are not a bold Christian you will very soon get frightened out of obedience to your Masters commandments. Courage, springing from the realisation of Gods helping strength, is indispensable to make any man, in any age, live out, thoroughly and consistently, the principles of the the law of Jesus Christ. No man in this generation will work out a punctual obedience to what he knows to be the will of God, without finding out that all the Canaanites are not dead yet, but that there are enough of them left to make a very thorny life for the consistent follower of Jesus Christ. And not only is there courage needed for the application of the principles of conduct which God has given us, but you will never have them handy for swift application unless, in many a quiet hour of silent, solitary, patient meditation, you have become familiar with them.
III. The sure victory of such bold obedience: thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest; thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then shalt thou have good success, or, as the last word might be rendered, then shalt thou act wisely. You may not get victory from an earthly point of view, for many a man that lives strong and courageous and joyfully obeying Gods law as far as he knows it, and because he loves the Lawgiver, goes through life, and finds that, as far as the worlds estimate is concerned, there is nothing but failure as his portion. The success which my text means is the carrying out of conscientious convictions of Gods will into practice. That is the only success that is worth talking about or looking for. The man that succeeds in obeying and translating Gods will into conduct is the victor, whatever be the outward fruits of his life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Strength and courage
Joshua must be strong and very courageous. But are strength and courage really within our own power? Is strength not absolutely a Divine gift, and as dependent on God in its ordinary degrees as it was in the case of Samson in its highest degree? No doubt in a sense it is so; and yet the amount even of our bodily strength is not wholly beyond our own control. As bodily strength is undoubtedly weakened by careless living, by excess of eating and drinking, by all irregular habits, by the breathing of foul air, by indolence and self-indulgence of every kind, so undoubtedly it is increased and promoted by attention to the simple laws of health, by activity and exercise, by sleep and sabbatic rest, by the moderate use of wholesome food, as well as by abstinence from hurtful drinks and drugs. And surely the duty of being strong, in so far as such things can give strength, is of far more importance than many think; for if we can thus maintain and increase our strength we shall be able to serve both God and man much better and longer than we could otherwise have done. But in Joshuas ease it was no doubt strength and courage of soul that was mainly meant. Even that is not wholly independent of the ordinary conditions of the body. On the other hand, there are no doubt memorable cases where the elasticity and power of the spirit have been in the very inverse ratio to the strength of the body. By cheerful views of life and duty, natural depression has been counteracted, and the soul filled with hope and joy. The joy of the Lord, said Nehemiah, is the strength of His people. Fellowship with God, as our reconciled God and Father in Christ, is a source of perpetual strength. Who does not know the strengthening and animating influence of the presence even of a friend, when we find his fresh and joyous temperament playing on us in some season of depression? The radiance of his face, the cheeriness of his voice, the elasticity of his movements seem to infuse new hope and courage into the jaded soul. When he is gone we try to shake off the despondent feeling that has seized us, and gird ourselves anew for the battle of life. And if such an effect can be produced by fellowship with a fellow-creature, how much more by fellowship with the infinite God!--especially when it is His work we are trying to do, and when we have all His promises of help to rest on. God is near thee, therefore cheer thee, is a perpetual solace and stimulus to the Christian soul. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Christian fortitude
1. Fortitude in bearing.
2. Fortitude in attempting or assailing. (D. Featley, D. D.)
Gods strength made perfect in human weakness
What f must all they whom God uses be strong? Is it essential that there should be strength of limb and muscle in the physical and moral constitution of those who are called to do the Divine biddings in the world? Because, if that be so, we who are like Ehud, left-handed, like Gideon, least in our fathers house, or like Saul of Tarsus, painfully conscious of weakness, can never get beyond the rank and file in the army of the Lord. And yet, may not this reiterated appeal indicate that the heart of Joshua misgave him, and that he was conscious of his utter inadequacy to fulfil the great commission that was thrust upon him? Probably he had never dreamt of so high an honour, so vast a responsibility. When, therefore, the call came to him to assume the office which Moses was vacating, his heart failed him, and he needed every kind of encouragement and stimulus, both from God and man. Be strong means that he felt weak; Be of good courage means that he was affrighted; Be not thou dismayed means that he seriously considered whether he would not have to give up the task. He was a worm and no man; how should he deliver Israel? It is when men are in this condition that God approaches them with the summons to undertake vast and overwhelming responsibilities. Most of us are too strong for Him to use us, too full of our own schemes and plans and ways of doing things. He must empty us, and humble us, and bring us down to the dust of death, so low that we need every straw of encouragement, every leaf of help; and then He will raise us up, and make us as the rod of His strength. The world talks of the survival of the fittest. But God gives power to the faint, and increases might to them that have no strength; He perfects His strength in weakness, and uses things that are not to bring to nought things that are. (F. B. Meyer, B. A. )
Courage necessary
It is said of Cromwell that when he had gathered some raw troops, being much in doubt about their courage, he determined to put it to the test before employing them in active service. He therefore placed a number of soldiers in ambush, in a wood through which he had occasion to lead his new regiment, and when these rushed out suddenly upon the new levies all the timid among them turned and fled. These Cromwell sent to their homes as unfit for his service, and so commenced the training of the men who became known to history as his Ironsides.
A dauntless spirit
Pleopidas hearing that his enemy was coming to give him battle with double the number that he possessed himself, replied to his informant, So much the better for us: we shall beat so many the more. So should the Christian view the trials and sorrows of this life, be they never so many. Through Christ they may all be overcome. (Handbook of Illustration.)
Unto this people shalt thou divide . . . the land.--
The right people for the land
First of all, the land had to be conquered; and there is no difficulty in seeing how necessary it was for one who had this task on hand to be strong and of a good courage, and to meditate on Gods law. Then the land had to be divided, and the people settled in their new life, and Joshua had to initiate them, as it were, in that life; he had to bind on their consciences the conditions on which the land was to be enjoyed, and start them in the performance of the duties, moral, social, and religious, which the Divine constitution required. Here lay the most difficult part of his task. They had not only to be planted physically in groups over the country, but they had to be married to it morally, otherwise they had no security of tenure, but were liable to summary eviction. It was no land of rest for idolaters; all depended on the character they attained: loyally to God was the one condition of a happy settlement. Thus we see the connection between Joshuas devotion to the book of the law and success in the great work of his life--then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. No doubt he would have the appearance of success if he simply cleared out the inhabitants who were so degraded by sin that God was compelled to sweep them off, and settled His people in their room. But that, after all, was but a small matter unless accompanied by something more. It would not secure the people from at last sharing the fate of the old inhabitants; so far at least that though they should not he exterminated, yet they would be scattered over the face of the globe. And so at all times, in dealing with human beings, we can obtain no adequate and satisfying success unless their hearts are turned to God. Your children may be great scholars, or successful merchants, or distinguished authors, or brilliant artists, or even statesmen; what does it come to if they are dead to God, and have no living fellowship with Jesus Christ? (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
Turn not . . . to the right hand or to the left.--
Joshuas obedience
I. Obedience is the highest practical courage. The world counts obedience to be a mean-spirited thing, and speaks of rebellion as freedom. We have heard men say, I will be my own master; I shall follow my own will. To be a free thinker and a free liver seems to be the worldlings glory. Take the worlds own martial rule. Who is accounted to be the boldest and the best soldier but the man who is most thoroughly obedient to the captains command? There is a story told of the old French wars which has been repeated hundreds of times. A sentinel is set to keep a certain position, and at nightfall, as he is pacing to and fro, the emperor himself comes by. He does not know the password. Straightway the soldier stops him. You cannot pass, says he. But I must pass, says the emperor. No, replies the man, if you were the little corporal in grey himself you should not go by, by which, of course, he meant the emperor. Thus the autocrat himself was held in check by order. The vigilant soldier was afterwards handsomely rewarded, and all the world said that he was a brave fellow. Then surely it is not a mean and sneaking thing for a man to be obedient to Him who is the Commander-in-chief of the universe, the King of kings, and Lord of lords.
II. The exactness of obedience is the essence of obedience. The world saith, We must not be too precise. As one said to an old Puritan once, Many people have rent their consciences in halves; could not you just make a little nick in yours? No, he said, I cannot, for my conscience belongs to God. We must live, you know, said a money-loving shopkeeper, as his excuse for doing what he could not otherwise defend. Yes, but we must die, was the reply, and therefore we must do no such thing. We are probably better dead if we cannot live without doing wrong. The very essence of obedience lies in exactness. Probably your child, if sometimes disobedient, would still, as a general rule, do what you told him. It would be in the little things that thoroughgoing and commendable obedience would appear. Let the world judge of this for itself. Here is an honest man. Do people say of him, He is such an honest man that he would not steal a horse? No, that would not prove him to be very honest; but they say, He would not even take a pin that did not belong to him. That is the worlds own description of honesty, and surely when it comes to obedience to God it ought to be the same. If I profess to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, the crucial test will not be in great actions, but in little ones.
III. The path of obedience is generally a middle path. There is sure to be a right bond, there is sure to be a left hand, and both are probably wrong. There wilt be extremes on either side. I believe that this is true in ten thousand things in ordinary life, and also true in spiritual things in very many respects. With regard, for instance, to our words; the course of speech generally is, on the one hand to say too much, or on the other hand to say too little; to be silent when the wicked are before us, or else to be rash with our lips and betray a good cause through our rashness in defending it. There is a time to speak, and there is a time to be silent, and he that judgeth well will mark his opportunities and take the middle course. He will neither be garrulous with advice that is not required, nor will he be cowardly and dumb when he ought to bear testimony, for his Master. The same holds good with regard to zeal. We have some abroad nowadays whoso heads are very hot. They talk as if they would turn the world upside down, whilst it is their own brains that need first to be turned into a right condition. Theirs is a fire which burns down the house instead of burning in the grate and warming the household. But shall we therefore not be zealous? God forbid! There is a middle course of true, sensible, prudent zeal--adhering to the truth, and never believing that people can be converted by lies, however earnestly bawled into their ears; walking within the bounds of Gods truth, and being persuaded that the best seed to sow is that which God puts into the basket of His Word, and that sinners are not to be saved by rash statements nor by extravagant declamation, but that they are brought to Christ, as they were of old, by the simple telling out of the story of the Cross affectionately, and by the power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Here, again, turn neither to the right hand nor to the left.
IV. The path of right is the path of true prosperity. God does not invariably make the doing of the right to be the means of pecuniary gain to us. On the contrary, it frequently happens that for a time men are great losers by their obedience to Christ. But the Scripture always speaks as to the long run; it sums up the whole of life--there it promises true riches. If thou wouldst prosper, keep close to the Word of God, and to thy conscience, and thou shalt have the best prosperity. The thief, though he takes a short way to get rich, yet takes such a dangerous way that it does not pay; but he who walks straight along the narrow road shall find it to be the shortest way to the best kind of prosperity, both in this world and in that which is to come. If not, if we get no outward prosperity here, I trust you and I, if we love Christ, and are filled with His Spirit, can do without it. Well, if we must be poor, it will soon be over, and in heaven there shall be no poverty. Let us, then, run all risks for Christ. He is no soldier who cannot die for his country; he is no Christian who cannot lose life itself for Christ. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Obedience the condition of victory
Yes, the Lord will be with us in our holy war, but He demands of us that we strictly follow His rules.
1. Our victories will very much depend upon our obeying Him with all our heart, throwing strength and courage into the actions of our faith. If we are half-hearted, we cannot expect more than half a blessing.
2. We must obey the Lord with care and thoughtfulness.
3. We must obey with universal readiness. We may not pick and choose, but must take all the Lords commands as they come.
4. In all this we must go on with exactness and constancy. Ours is to be a straightforward courage, which bends neither to the right nor to the left. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein.--
A good working Bible
Rare botanical specimens are found by diligent searching. It is by earnest and prayerful study of the Bible theft we discover truths that we may call our own. We have a brother who has been working in the gold mines of California for many years. He has a watch-chain that he greatly values because the gold in it is what he searched and dug out of the mountain himself by hard labour and much sacrifice. Truths discovered as the result of hard study are very precious to us. The Bible should be an every-day book to us. A very handsome and expensive Bible on the parlour stand, covered with a bric-a-brac, is of little value as compared with a good working Bible. A well-known Sunday-school worker tells of going into a house in North Wales. As he sat by a table talking with a little girl, he picked up a Bible, when she instantly said, Thats my mothers every-day Bible, sir; Ill give you the Sunday Bible if you want to read. We all need an every-day Bible, one that can be handled easily and conveniently--a Bible with every precious promise and every verse that has been especially helpful to us marked. The Jews were commanded to read the Scripture all the time, to write it upon the door-posts; to have it as frontiers between their eyes; to talk of it by the way, and teach it to their children and childrens children. (Home Messenger.)
Gods revealed wilt the only safe rule for all individual guidance, and the only legitimate foundation for all national law
I. It is of the utmost importance that every man should have a sure guide for the direction of his steps.
1. If you consider the character and condition of man, the truth before us must claim universal acknowledgment. Man is the creature of God. His being, powers, and blessings are all derived from his Maker. He is therefore bound to please Him in all his ways and works. But how is this to be done? By what measure, so to speak, or after what manner, is this love to be expressed, and this obedience to be rendered?
2. If you consider man not only as the mere creature of God, but as a creature endued with an immortal soul, the truth before us will be still more apparent.
3. If you consider man as a sinner before God, exposed to all the dreadful consequences of his rebellion, and utterly without ability to help himself, the truth of this position must still more strikingly appear.
4. If you consider man as exposed to all the vicissitudes of this life--as subject to sorrow, suffering, and pain, as liable to sickness, affliction, and all the other evils incident to our present existence--the truth of this position must claim the approbation of all.
5. If you consider man in reference to death, judgment, and eternity, no voice can ever be lifted up in opposition to this truth.
II. Where is this sure guide to be met with?
1. Is man capable of furnishing himself with such a rule? Evidently not; and that not merely as the negative applies to him as he now is, but even supposing him to be what he once was.
2. Consider the greatness and importance of the matters at stake, and it must be confessed that it would not be safe to trust in any provision coming from such a human source, even supposing it possible that it could be provided.
3. A provision of this kind, coming from any human source, would fall below the circumstances and condition in which we are placed, and therefore could never meet the exigencies of our case, nor, consequently, answer the end proposed.
4. The law, or revealed will of God, is the only safe rule for all individual guidance, as well as the only legitimate foundation for all national law. No mans ways or works can be acceptable in the sight of God who throws aside that rule and walks by the light of his own fire.
III. The benefit and advantages of following that rule and abiding thereby.
1. We shall have a sure guide for the direction of our steps.
2. We shall find everything plain before us.
3. We shall avoid the grievous mistakes and blunders into which others have fallen.
4. We shall find abundant provision for every emergency.
5. We shall be safe and prosperous here, and happy and blessed hereafter.
Conclusion:
1. What an invaluable deposit are the sacred Scriptures as committed to any nation or people!
2. How widely have we departed from these sacred rules!
3. How needful it is that we should make these Holy Scriptures our constant study and daily counsellors! (R. Shittler.)
The Christians law
This book of the law, saith God to Joshua. And both in our text and in the verse preceding it is set forth as a rule claiming his observance and obedience, from which he may not swerve. In a peculiar sense we apply this term to the five books of Moses, and in a yet more limited one to the Decalogue. And since the New Testament contains so fully and so peculiarly the revelation of the gospel of the grace of God, and thus abounds with the language of invitation, promise, and privilege, it may seem as though to us the oracles of God had no other voice, and that the Bible is not to us the book of the law of God. But while we are jealous of Gods grace, let us beware of a dangerous error. The Bible does propound to us a law--the very law of the two tables is unrepealed. Not the Jewish law as our code of worship or practice, not any law as the means of our justification, but the laws of Christian holiness and virtue. Our Bibles must be our lamps, our light, of our counsellors- our oracles of duty no less than of comfort. And while the Cross furnishes the motive, while the Spirit is the Teacher, the Author and Giver alike of will and power, the precepts and prohibitions of the Bible must be our guide, as the by-paths of sin and ruin present themselves on the right hand and on the left. We are not to go to this book of God for our creed or system of theology alone, but for our code of morals and practice. For the Bible is neither all doctrine, nor all promise; it has its rules, its precepts, its prohibitions. Its precepts based upon its doctrine, yoked graciously with its promises, but precepts still. You are placed from day to day amid duties and temptations. Your God, your fellow-men have many claims upon you; you stand in many and varied relationships. You are a pilgrim in a road bestrewed with pitfalls and beset with by-paths of sin and error; a soldier amid many and subtle and mighty foes, with a hard field to fight; a voyager over a stormy sea, amid shoals and rocks and quicksands. Your Bible is your guide, O pilgrim--your sword, O soldier--your chart, O seaman l What else shall preserve you even in sound doctrine in these dangerous days but that ye be mighty in the Scriptures, and so reject another gospel, though its preachers wore the garb and semblance of angels, yea, though (were it possible) they were angels of light? Or what, in reference to your practice, shall secure you against the workings of sins deceitfulness--against the deep devices of your arch-enemy, the tempter--against the false and unscriptural principles of the world around, the spurious morality which passes current among men--what but this book of the law?--this book which in its revelations is pure, unerring, truth--which in its precepts is all pure in holiness, all perfect in virtue. But draw near to it ever as remembering that you are listening to the voice of God. Bow down to its revelations therefore as unerring, to its requirements as authoritative and supreme. (J. C. Miller, D. D.)
Meditation and obedience
Many devout Christians tell us that they find it profitable to take even a single verse and make it peculiarly the subject of their thoughts throughout each day--to make it the little vein in the mine which they more particularly work out. There can be no doubt that many of the vain and sinful thoughts which pass through our minds and grieve the devout Christian might thus be shut out were the thoughts and memory preoccupied with Divine truth. And if any particularly mourn that their thoughts, when left to themselves, are so discursive and unprofitable, that they know so little of religious meditation, it may be well for them thus to choose one verse of their daily portion and make it, so to say, the text of their days thoughts. Let them endeavour to fix its meaning, let them follow out the train of thought to which it leads, let them pray over it in a special manner. And all this with a view more particularly to self-application. But our duty ends not here. The seaman studies his chart and has his compasses on board, not for mere scientific experiments, but that he may voyage in safety to the haven whither he would go, amid the rocks and shoals and quicksands which beset his track. We may not then imagine that all is done when our verses or chapters, our portion, however long, is again punctually gone through. There is a danger of this, as there is a danger of a mere formal lip-service in our prayers. For, as to say prayers is not necessarily to pray, so there is a reading of the Word of God with the mind and the lip only. Our hearts must be the readers, as our hearts must be the petitioners. And then throughout the day the duties here enjoined must be practised, the sins denounced forsaken and shunned, the tempers here set forth as unchristian struggled with, the promises here given lived on, the heaven here proffered sought, the Saviour and the God of whom we read glorified. (J. C. Miller, D. D.)
Meditation
When the impious King Antiochus entered the temple of Jerusalem to lay it waste, his first act was to remove the golden altar and the candlestick, which was also of gold. The devil acts in the same manner when he intends to deprive of spiritual good that soul which is the temple of the living God: he takes from it the altar that is, fervour of mind; he removes from it the candlestick that is, the light which makes known the eternal maxims.
Then thou shalt make thy way prosperous.--
The prosperous way
Gods blessing is ever upon His people, and lie will ever cause that the way of His commandments shall be found the way of happiness and good. Therefore it is true that His peoples way is a prosperous way, that they have good success. The Old Testament promise is--whatsoever thou doest it shall prosper the New, we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. Is not such a man prospering? All may be disappointment and failure to flesh and blood, and in the estimate of sense. He may not know or see or feel his prosperity at this moment, and while all things are working together. But when they have worked and their end is seen, that end shall be found an end of blessing and prosperity. For in the emphatic language of the Psalm, The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. His path with them may be dark, and hard, and thorny, but it is right; for their path towards Him is obedience and holiness. In what but blessedness can that path issue which the Lord approveth? Would ye know, then, whether Gods blessing is at this moment upon your path? Is it a path in which you are guided by His Word, in which you are taking it as a lamp to your feet, as your counsellor and your delight? If so--let it be hard--it is blessed l Let it be tedious--your Fathers face of love is shining full upon it. Or if at this moment some cloud is casting over it its gloomy shadow, that cloud will soon be gone, having burst in mercy upon your head. (J. C. Miller, D. D.)
The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.--
God with the good
The Lord, whose command is universal; God, whose power is invincible; the Lord thy God, whose mercies are incomprehensible, is with thee whithersoever thou goest. If the Lord thy God be with thee, His wisdom is with thee to direct thee, His power to protect thee, His strength to support thee, His goodness to maintain thee, His bounty to reward thee, His word to encourage thee, and if thou die under His banner, His angels presently to carry thee into heaven. Where the Israelites lamentably deplore their ill success in war, they attribute it to Gods absence. Thou goest not forth, say they, with our armies. The Lacedaemonians, being overtaken by the Persian horse and overwhelmed with great flights of arrows, did notwithstanding quietly sit still, without making any resistance at all, or defence, till the sacrifices for victory were happily ended; yea, though many were sore hurt, and some slain outright before any good sign appeared in the entrails; but as soon as their general, Pausanias, had found good tokens of victory, and persuaded his soldiers of the Divine approbation of their war, they arose, and with excellent courage first received the charge of the barbarians, and after charged them afresh, and slew Mardonius, the Persian general, and many thousands of the rest, and got the day. If the conjectural hope of the aid and assistance of a sainted deity put such courage and resolution into the Lacedaemonians, shall not faith in the true God and confidence in His help breed better blood, and infuse nobler spirits into the hearts of Gods warriors and Christian soldiers? God can save His, and overcome the enemy as well with small forces as with great, but all the forces in the world without Him have no force at all. (D. Featley, D. D.)
An inspiring presence
When Napoleon first started to fight our country and Austria, do you know what our soldiers called him? It was Wee One-hundred-thousand-men. That was a fine name. It was a grand testimony to the power of the little Napoleon in the midst of his army. They asked one another, Is Wee One-hundred-thousand-men in the army to-day? He was worth that number of men. Please tell me at what figure you rate the Son of God. Is He in the battle to-day? (J. Robertson.)
The presence of the Master
Bacon has well said, that a dog is brave and generous when he believes himself backed by his master, but timid and crouching, especially in a strange place, when he is alone and his master away; and a human master, says the philosopher, is as a god to the dog.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 6 CHAPTER III. A SUCCESSOR TO MOSES. Jos_1:2.
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!
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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."
CHAPTER IV. JOSHUA'S CALL. Jos_1:2-5.
JOSHUA has heard the Divine voice summoning him to the attitude of activity - "Arise!" Directions follow immediately as to the course which his activity is to take. His first step is to be a very pronounced one - "Go over this Jordan ": enter the land, not by yourself, or with a handful of comrades, as you did forty years ago, but "thou and all this people." Take the bold step, cross the river; and when you are across the river, take possession of the country which I now give to your people. The time has come for decided action; it is for you to show the way, and summon your people to follow.
It was a very solemn and striking moment, second only in interest to that when, forty years before, their fathers had stood at the edge of the sea, with the host of Pharaoh hurrying on behind. At length the hour has come to take possession of the inheritance! At length the promise made so many hundred years ago to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is ripe for fulfilment! You, children of Israel, have seen that God is in no haste to fulfil His promises, and your hearts may have known much of the sickness of hope deferred. But now you are to see that after all God is faithful. He never forgets. He makes no mistakes. His delays are all designed for good, either to chasten or to try, and thus confirm and bless His people. He will now bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noon-day.
There were two things that might make Joshua and the people hesitate to cross the Jordan. In the first place, the river was in flood; it was the time when the Jordan overflowed its banks (Jos_3:15), and, being a rapid river, crossing it in such circumstances might well seem out of the question. But in the second place, to cross the Jordan was to throw down the gauntlet to the enemy: It was a declaration of war, and a challenge to them to do their worst. It was a signal for them to assemble, fight for their hearths and homes, and strain every nerve to annihilate this invader who made such a bold claim to their possessions. All the children of Anak whom Joshua had seen on his former visit would now range themselves against Israel; all the seven nations would muster their bravest forces, and the contest would not be like Joshua's battle with Amalek, finished in a single day, but a long succession of battles, in which all the resources of power and skill, of craft and cunning would be brought to bear against Israel. According to appearances, nothing short of this would be the result of comphance with the command, "Go over this Jordan."
On the one hand, therefore, compliance was physically impossible, and on the other, even if possible, it would have been fearfully perilous. But it is never God's method to give impossible commands. The very fact of His commanding anything is a proof of His readiness to make it possible, nay, to make it easy and simple to those who have faith to attempt it. ''Stretch out thy hand," said Christ to the man with the withered hand.
"Stretch out my hand?" the man might have said in astonishment, - "why, it is the very thing I am unable to do." "Rise up and walk," said Peter to the lame man at the Beautiful gate. "How can I do that?" he might have replied; "don't you see that I have no use of my limbs?" But in these cases the helpless men had faith in those who bade them exert themselves; they believed that if they tried they would be helped, and helped accordingly they were. So too in the present case. Joshua knew that he and the host could not have crossed the Jordan as it then was by any contrivance in his power; but he knew that it was God's command, and he was sure that He would provide the means. He felt as if God and the people were in partnership, each equally interested in the result, and equally desirous to bring it about. Whatever it was necessary for God to do he was assured would be done, provided he and the people entered into the Divine plan, and threw all their energies into the work. Not a word of remonstrance did Joshua offer, not a word of explanation of the Divine plan did he ask; he acted as a servant should;
"His not to make reply, His not to reason why; "
his only to trust and obey.
This faith in Divine power qualifying feeble mortals for the hardest tasks has originated some of the noblest enterprises in the history of the world. It was a Divine voice Columbus seemed to hear bidding him cross the wild Atlantic, for he desired to bring the natives of the distant shores beyond it into the pale of the Church; and it was his faith that sustained him when his crew became mutinous and his life was not safe for an hour. It was a Divine voice Livingstone seemed to hear bidding him cross Africa, strike up into the heart of the continent, examine its structure, and throw it open from shore to shore; and never was there a faith stronger or steadier than that which bore him on through fever and famine, through pain and sickness, through disappointment and anguish, and, even when the cold hand of death was on him, would not let him rest until his work was done.
Often in the spiritual warfare it is useful to apply this principle. Are we called to believe? Are we called to make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit? Are we summoned to fight, to wrestle, to overcome? Certainly we are. But is not this to tantalize us by ordering us to do what we cannot do? Is not this like telling a sick man to get well, or a decrepit old creature to skip and frisk like a child? It would be so if the principle of partnership between God and us did not come into play. Faith says, God is my partner in this matter. Partners even in an ordinary business put their resources together, each doing what his special abilities fit him for. In the partnership which faith establishes between God and you, the resources of the infinite Partner become available for the needs of the finite. It is God's part to give orders, it is your part to execute them, and it is God's part to strengthen you so to do. It is this that makes the command reasonable, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Faith rejoices in the partnership, and goes forward in the confidence that the strength of the Almighty will help its weakness, not by one sudden leap, but by that steady growth in grace that makes the path of the just like the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
It was a great thing for God to announce that He was now in the act of turning His old, old promise into reality, - that the land pledged to Abraham centuries ago was now at length to become the possession of his descendants. But the gift could be of no avail unless it was actually appropriated. God gave the people the right to the land; but their own energy, made effectual through His grace, could alone secure the possession. In a remarkable way they were made to feel that, while the land was God's gift, the appropriation and enjoyment of the gift must come through their own exertions. Just as in a higher sphere we know that our salvation is wholly the gift of God; and yet the getting hold of this gift, the getting linked to Christ, the entrance as it were into the marriage covenant with Him involves the active exertion of our own will and energy, and the gift never can be ours if we fail thus to appropriate it.
As soon as God mentions the land, He expatiates on its amplitude and its boundaries. It was designed to be both a comfortable and an ample possession. In point of extent it was a spacious region, - ''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, towards the going down of the sun." And it was not merely bits or corners of this land that were to be theirs, they were not designed to share it with other occupants, but ''every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it, as I spake unto Moses." It was in no meagre or stingy spirit that God was now to fulfil His ancient promise, but in a way corresponding to the essential bountifulness of His nature. For it is a delightful truth that God's heart is large and liberal, and that He delights in large and bountiful gifts. Has He not made this plain to all in the arrangements of nature? What more lavish than the gift of light, ever streaming from the sun in silver showers? What more abundant than the fresh air that, like an inexhaustible ocean, encompasses our globe, or the rivers that carry their fresh and fertilizing treasures unweariedly through every meadow? What more productive than the vegetable soil that under favourable conditions teems with fruits and flowers and the elements of food for the use and enjoyment of man?
And when we turn to God's provision in grace we find glorious proofs of the same abundance and generosity. We see this symbolized by the activity and generosity of our Lord, as He went about ''preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." We understand the spiritual reality of which this was the symbol, when we call to mind the Divine generosity that receives the vilest sinners; the efficacy of the blood that cleanses from all sin; the power of the Spirit that sanctifies soul, body, and spirit; the wisdom of the providence that makes all things work together for good; the glory of the love that makes us now "sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And once more it appears in the glory and amplitude of the inheritance, of which the land of Canaan was but the type, prepared of God's infinite bounty for all who are His children by faith. Our Father's house is both large and well furnished; it is a house of many mansions; and the inheritance which He has promised is incorruptible and undefiled and fadeth not away.
It is a grand truth, of which we never can make too much, this bountifuhiess of God, and the delight which He has in being bountiful. It is emphatically a truth for faith to apprehend and enjoy, because appearances are so often against it. Appearances were fearfully against it while the Israelites were groaning in their Egyptian bondage, and hardly less so, despite the manna and the water from the rock, during the forty years' wandering in the desert. But that was a period of correction and of training, and in such circumstances lavish bounty was out of the question.
The most bountiful man on earth could not pour out all the liberality of his heart on the inmates of a hospital for the sick; he may give all that sick men need, but he must wait till they are well before he can give full scope to his generosity. While we are in the body we are like patients in a hospital, and the kindest feelings from God toward us must often take the form of bitter medicines, painful operations, close restraint, stinted diet, and it may be silence and darkness. But wait till we are well, and then we shall see what God hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him! Wait till we go over Jordan and take possession of the land! Two things will be seen in the clearest light - the supreme bountifulness of God, and the sinfulness of that impatient and suspicious spirit to which we are so prone. What a humiliation, if humiliation be possible in heaven, to discover that all the time when we were fretting and grumbling, God was working out His plans of supreme beneficence and love, waiting only till we should come of age to make us heirs of the universe!
It is natural to ask why, if the boundaries of the promised land were so extensive, if they reached so far on the north-east as the Euphrates, and if they extended from Lebanon on the north to the confines of Egypt on the south, there should have been any difficulty about the two and a half tribes occupying the land east of the Jordan, where only by a special permission they obtained their settlement. For it is plain from the narrative that it was contrary to God's first intention, so to speak, that they should settle there, and that the land west of the Jordan was that to which the promise was held specially to apply. It will hardly do to say, as some have said, that the extension of the land to the Euphrates was a figure of speech, a poetical fringe or ornament as it were, intended to show that places adjacent to the land of Israel would share in some degree the radiance of its light and the influence of the Divine presence among its people. For the promise of God was really of the nature of a charter, and figures of poetry are not suitable in charters. It is rather to be understood that, in the final purpose of God, the possession included the whole of the ample domain contained within the specified boundaries, but that at first it would be confined within a narrower space. If the people should prove faithful to the covenant, the wider dominion would one day be conferred on them; but they were to start and get consolidated in a narrower territory. And the narrower space was that which had already been consecrated by the residence of the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The country west of Jordan was the land of their pilgrimage; and even when Lot and Abraham had to separate, it was not proposed that either should cross the river. The little strip lying between the Jordan and the sea was judged most suitable for the preparatory stage of Israel's history; but had the nation served God with fidelity, their country would have been extended - as in the days of David and Solomon it really was - to the dimensions of an empire. The rule afterwards announced was to be virtually brought into operation - "To him that hath shall be given." Hence the view taken of the settlement of the two and a half tribes east of the Jordan. It was not illegitimate; it was not inconsistent with the covenant made with the fathers; but it was for the time inexpedient, seeing that it exposed them to risks, both material and spiritual, which it would have been better for them to avoid.
One geographical expression, in the delimitation of the country, demands a brief explanation. While the country is defined as embracing the whole territory from Lebanon to the Euphrates, it is also defined as consisting in that direction of ''all the land of the Hittites." But were not the Hittites one of the seven nations whose land was promised to Abraham and the fathers, and not even the first in the enumeration of these? Why should this great north-eastern section of the promised domain be designated ''the land of the Hittites"?
See "The Empire of the Hittites." By William Wright, D.D., F.R.G.S. London, 1886.
The time was when it was a charge against the accuracy of the Scripture record that it ascribed to the Hittites this extensive dominion. That time has passed away, inasmuch as, within quite recent years, the discovery has been made that in those distant times a great Hittite empire did exist in the very region specified, between Lebanon and the Euphrates. The discovery is based on twofold data: references in the Egyptian and other monuments to a powerful people, called the Khita (Hittites), with whom even the great kings of Egypt had long and bloody wars; and inscriptions in the Hittite language found in Hamah, Aleppo, and other places in Syria. There is still much obscurity resting on the history of this people. That the Hittites proper prevailed so extensively has been doubted by some; a Hittite confederacy has been supposed, and sometimes a Hittite aristocracy exercising control over a great empire. The only point which it is necessary to dwell on here is, that in representing the tract between Lebanon and Euphrates as equivalent to "all the land of the Hittites," the author of the Book of Joshua made a statement which has been abundantly verified by recent research.
To encourage and animate Joshua to undertake the work and position of Moses it is very graciously promised - ''There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." The invariable success promised was a greater boon than the greatest conquerors had been able to secure. Uniform success is a thing hardly known to captains of great expeditions, even though in the end they may prevail. But the promise to Joshua is, that all his enemies shall flee before him. None of his battles shall be even neutral, his opponents must always give way. No son of Anak shall be able to oppose his onward march; no giant, like Og King of Bashan, shall terrify either him or his troops. He will "onward still to victory go," - the Lord of hosts ever with him, the God of Jacob ever his defence.
The promise is not inconsistent with the fact that Joshua's troops were defeated by the men of Ai. In such promises there is an implied condition of steadfast regard to God's will on the part of those who receive them, and this condition was violated at Ai, not by Joshua, indeed, but by one of his people.
And this was no vague, indefinite assurance. It was sharply defined by a well-known example in the immediate past - ''As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee." In what a remarkable variety of dangers and trials God was with Moses! Now he had to confront the grandest monarch on earth, supported by the strongest armies, and upheld by what claimed to be the mightest gods. Again he had to deal with an apostate people, mad upon idols, and afterwards with an excited mob, ready to stone him. Anon he had to overcome the forces of nature and bend them to his purposes; to call water from the rock, to sweeten the bitter fountain, to heal the fiery bite, to cure his sister's leprous body, to bring down bread from heaven, and people the air with flocks of birds. Moreover, he had to be the messenger of the covenant between God and Israel, to unfold God's law in its length and breadth and in all its variety of application, and to obtain from the people a hearty compliance - '' All that the Lord hath said unto us, that will we do." What a marvellous work Moses did! What a testimony his life presented to the reality of the Divine presence and guidance, and what a solid and indefeasible ground of trust God gave to Joshua when He said, ''As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee."
And this is crowned with the further assurance, "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee," - an assurance which is extended in the Epistle to the Hebrews to all who believe. We are so apt to view these promises as just beautiful expressions that we need to pause and think what they really mean. A promise of Divine presence, Divine protection and guidance and blessing all the days of our life, is surely a treasure of inexpressible value. It is no slight matter to realize that this is in God's heart - that He has a constant, unvarying feehng of love toward us, and readiness to help; but we must believe this in order to get the benefit of it; and, moreover. He must be left to determine the time, the manner, and the form in which His help is to come. Alas for the unbelief, the suspicion, the fear that is so prone to eat out the spirit of trust, and in our trials and difficulties make us tremble as if we were alone! What a profound peace, what calm enjoyment and blessed hope fall to the lot of those who can believe in a God ever near, and in His unfailing faithfulness and love! Was it not the secret alike of David's calmness, of our Lord's serenity, and of the cheerful composure of many a martyr and many a common man and woman who have gone through life undisturbed and happy, that they could say - ''I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved"? God grant us all that, like Abraham, we may "stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief, but that being strong in faith we may give glory to God, and believe that what He hath promised He is able also to perform."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6 Jos_1:1. And it came to pass after—Vayehi achrea.] The…
THE CALL TO WAR, AND THE RESPONSE
CRITICAL NOTES.—
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Jos_1:1. And it came to pass after—Vayehi achrea.] The conjunction indicates that the history is a continuation of Deuteronomy. This suggests that Joshua was probably the writer of the last chap. of Deut. He takes up and carries on his own record from the point where he left off recounting the death, burial, and character of Moses. After the death] Including the thirty days’ mourning,—Deu_34:8. Moses’ minister] Not the servant, but “the adjutant,” chief helper. The Seventy translate τῷ ὑπουργῷ. The formal appointment is reported, Num_27:15-23.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jos_1:1-2
THE WAY OF GOD IN HIS PURPOSES
The Divine purpose was to bring the children of Israel onward into Canaan. Moses was just dead; Joshua is here called to succeed him. This juncture gives us interesting light on the plans of God, and man’s relation to their fulfilment.
I. God’s plans are not dependent on men. When Moses dies, He has Joshua ready. The halt in the plains of Moab has in it nothing of hesitancy, but merely sufficient of decency. There is no halting in God’s purpose till another leader can be found. Joshua was prepared in his own mind and consciousness. Past counsel with Moses had made him familiar with God’s way and will. Past victories had given him confidence in God. Past communications from God had pointed to his leadership. Thus, forty years before, “Rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.” (Exo_17:14.) Joshua was equally prepared in the minds of the people. They had seen God giving him victory over Amalek at Rephidim. They had seen him honouring God when the multitude were disobedient. He had no part in the folly of Aaron and the people at Sinai. (Cf. Exo_32:17.) Caleb and he had stilled the murmurs which followed the report of the spies. They had seen him openly honoured by Moses. (Deu_31:7-8.) They had seen him thus honoured by God. (Num_27:18-23; Deu_31:14-15.) Thus there could be no question, with either Joshua or the people, who was to succeed Moses. The work never halted. From this promptitude of Providence learn—
1. That no man is necessary to God.
2. That the work of the godly man is not suffered to collapse. Such workers are not like children in the winter, engaged in making mere snow men, which the first sun shall melt away for ever. He who labours within the scheme of God’s purpose, necessarily works for immortality.
3. A succession of able men, in Divine works, is a token of God’s continued interest in and presence with a people.
II. God’s plans are, sometimes, BEST ADVANCED by the removal of men who have been eminently useful. Moses was not to enter the promised land, and no advance could be made while he lived as leader. He thus barred the way. In addition to this, Moses was not the man for the future. He had been the best of men for the past. Moses was best to stand before Pharaoh; Joshua before the Canaanites. Moses was fittest for the sea and the wilderness; Joshua for the fortified cities. Moses was the right man to lead the people out from slavery in Egypt; Joshua was the best to organise them into civilised life. Moses had, indeed, shewn neglect as to organisation when in the wilderness; Jethro had supplied a deficiency in his management.
1. To die in the midst of work is not to have lived in vain. You make way for others.
2. The mistakes of our lives are not less harmful because God uses our work generally. Meribah was still a blunder and a sin.
III. God’s plan sometimes shews the inferior man succeeding where the more eminent man has failed. “The Lord spake to Moses’ minister, Moses is dead, now therefore arise, go over,” etc. We do not know what or who is most helpful to success. We often fail to discern success when it does come. Winter is as much a success as spring. The frost and the sun are alike God’s prophets to the vegetable world. The night is as much inspired to preach as the day, and it too has blessing. In a world of sin, it may be that disease is more successful than health.
1. Work on, whoever you are. You may not be as Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and trained for forty years at the back of the desert. You may be only as Joshua, who was simply a liberated slave, with “good parts” about him. Work on, for you may succeed where better men fail.
2. But let not him who happens to be working in the hour of success forget the labour of his predecessors. Joshua’s work was simply the harvesting; the tilling and sowing and weeding had been arduously completed by Moses.
IV. The fruit of God’s plans, though developed very humanly and naturally, IS STILL A GIFT. “The land which I do give.” The corn may be the natural result of cultivation, yet it is the gift of “the Lord of the harvest.”
V. God’s plan and its issues have their HIGHEST RELATION not to one man, or two, but to men at large. “Which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.” This is no mere question of Moses versus Joshua. The land is for Israel; God’s gift to the nation. The honour of Moses, and the prestige of Joshua, are, comparatively, small things. God’s great idea is gifts and blessings for the people. Nor should we read this even as a question of Israel versus Canaan. It was for the good of men generally that Israel should enter in. It was for the welfare of the generations to come that these idolatrous Canaanites should be rooted out. This nucleus of idolatry must be broken up and scattered, for the sake of the future world. A nation worshipping God, and making way for the Saviour, must be planted here instead. Such is the plan of the Gospel. It is for no caste of bishops or priests. Individuals and classes are mere items in the great account of humanity. It is for no denominations, as such. The Gospel is “Peace on earth, and good will towards men.” Oh for the day when men will take larger views of the love of God! Amid the profound mysteries of one elect nation we have revealed in exceeding clearness the Gospel-spirit of God’s love to the whole human race.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Jos_1:1-2. Instead of looking at the passage in its connection with both Moses and Joshua, it may be taken in relation to the call of the latter only, shewing thus Jehovah’s selection of human instruments.
I. God’s choice of men for His service has regard to temperament and disposition. Joshua’s military instincts (Exo_32:17); his boldness and firmness; his unselfishness (chap. Jos_19:49-50); his power of personal influence (chap. Jos_24:31).
II. God’s choice has regard to previous training. Joshua had been for forty years a responsible leader and ruler (Exo_17:9-10; Num_13:2-3; Num_13:8).
III. God’s choice has regard to past character. Joshua had been zealous for God’s honour. He had shewn holy faith. He and Caleb had stood alone confronting the people. Milton’s Abdiel—“Among the faithless.” Bk. V.
IV. God’s choice has regard to the work to be accomplished. To eject the Canaanites, a soldier was needed. For the Pentecostal sermon, impetuous Peter is chosen; for the great mission in Asia Minor and Southern Europe, ardent Paul; for the testimony on the plain of Dura, the three inflexible Hebrews; for winning the favour of Artaxerxes, the devout, yet courtly Nehemiah. The man and the emergency must correspond. Omnipotence never chooses to waste itself on human awkwardness. God cements things that fit. The man who is inapt has need to pray for the Divine training of himself ere he can expect the Divine blessing on his work.
1. Whom the Lord calls He also qualifies.
2. Where He entrusts men with authority, He procures them respect.
3. Where He sends them into conflict, He secures them victory.
4. Where he gives them victory, He intends them to take possession.
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1. He that was here called to honour had been long bred to business. Our Lord Jesus Himself took upon Him the form of a servant, and then God highly exalted Him.
2. Those are fittest to rule that have learnt to obey.
3. He that was to succeed Moses was intimately acquainted with him.”
“Well doth Joshua succeed Moses. The very acts of God of old were allegories. Where the law ends, there the Saviour begins. We may see the land of promise in the law: only Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament, can bring us into it.” [Bp. Hall.]
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 There are two kinds of strength and courage. There…
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."
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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.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Division 1. (Jos 1:1-18; Jos 2:1-24; Jos 3:1-17; Jos…
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.
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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.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 9 Jos 1:1 - Jos 1:11.
Joshua
THE NEW LEADER’S COMMISSION
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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.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Joshua by Divine Commission Succeeds Moses
Joshua by Divine Commission Succeeds Moses
Jos_1:1 to Jos_5:12 record the preparations for the Holy War.
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1. Now (better, 'and') after the death of Moses.. it came to pass] These words clearly mark the book which follows as a sequel to Deuteronomy. The book of Judges begins with a precisely similar phrase.
The Lord spake unto Joshua] This formula 'the Lord spake,' which so constantly recurs in the first books of the Bible, corresponds to the more direct formula of the prophets, 'Thus saith the Lord.' It is a characteristic feature of the OT., distinguishing the literature of the Hebrews from that of other nations of antiquity, and marking their claim to express in a very special way the will of Almighty God. It is, in fact, one of the most obvious indications of that which we call 'inspiration.' We may not of course be able, in a given instance, to define the exact mode in which the divine will was communicated. Was it by the Urim and Thummim, or in a dream? Or was it rather an inner conviction borne in upon the soul, voiceless but clear and definite, such as is no uncommon experience with those who are in the habit of communing with God? But the importance of the phrase lies less in any hint of the manner of the revelation than in its testimony to the fact of it. However it came, the thought was recognised as an utterance of God. Minister] Joshua had been Moses' attendant and right-hand man—his 'chief of staff.'
4. Boundaries S. and SE., 'the wilderness'; N., Lebanon; NE., the Euphrates; W., the Mediterranean or 'Great Sea.' These, the providential (Gen_15:18; Exo_23:31), and in some sense natural, boundaries of the territory of Israel, were only attained for a brief period during the reigns of David and Solomon. All the land of the Hittites] see on Gen_10:15.
8. This book of the law] This obviously refers to the 'law' described in Deu_31:9 as written by Moses and delivered to the Levites and elders. That it embraces a considerable nucleus of the Pentateuchal legislation (ineluding, of course, the bulk of Exodus 20-23) few critics would deny.
11. Prepare you victuals] Joshua has the general's eye for the commissariat.
12f. See Num_32:20-32 for Moses' injunction to the two and a half tribes, and their promise to obey.
14, 15. On this side Jordan] In both places RV rightly translates 'beyond Jordan,' i.e. on the E. side of Jordan. A little point, but important as showing that the writer (or editor) of this passage was one who resided W. of Jordan.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v3 Every place
Every place
The law of appropriation. God gives, but we must take.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. THE ENTRANCE OF THE PEOPLE INTO CANAAN AND THE CONFLICTS
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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 Joshua’s death. The book which follows, the book of judges, begins with the statement of Joshua’s 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 God’s 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. “God’s strength is employed in helping us in the paths of God’s 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.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Joshua Formally Commissioned
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,
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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, be 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.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8 This is the name of God that he revealed…
Yahweh
This is the name of God that he revealed to his people in the Old Testament. See the translationWord page about Yahweh concerning how to translate this.
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Nun
Joshua's father (See: How to Translate Names)
cross over this Jordan
To "cross over" means "go to the opposite bank of the river." AT: "travel from this side to the opposite side of the Jordan" (See: Idiom)
you and all this people
The word "you" here refers to Joshua. (See: Forms of You)
I have given you every place
God giving the land to the Israelites in the future is spoken of as if he gave it to them in the past. This emphasizes that he will certainly give it to them. AT: "I will give to you every place" (See: Predictive Past)
I have given you
The word "you" refers to both Joshua and the nation of Israel. (See: Forms of You)
every place where the sole of your foot will walk
This refers to all the places Joshua and the Israelites will travel when they cross the Jordan River. AT: "everywhere you go in this land" (See: Idiom)
translationWords
die
Moses
servant
Yahweh
Joshua
Jordan River
Israel
promise
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 1:1-9 God confirmed Joshua as Israel’s leader and Moses’…
1:1-9 God confirmed Joshua as Israel’s leader and Moses’ successor. God made Abraham a specific promise to bring his descendants into possession of the land of Canaan (Gen 12:7; 15:7; 17:8). This promise was repeated to Moses (Exod 3:6-8; 13:3-5; Deut 1:6-8; 6:10-19). Now God was ready to fulfill his promise using Joshua. Joshua led Israel’s first generation of settlers into the Promised Land, and his victories against two Canaanite coalitions—first in the south and then in the north—opened the hill country for settlement by the Israelites.
1:1-2 Moses had died on Mount Nebo east of the Jordan (Deut 34:1-5).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.