Post by alon on Jan 23, 2016 15:26:10 GMT -8
I am embarking on a study of the book of Joshua, and I thought I’d put it up here for comment, correction and further insights as I go. It may take a while, so bear with me. But to start, some general notes about the book itself. This is similar to (and much of it taken from) the forwards to each book found in most contemporary Bibles.
The death of Moses marks a transition in leadership as well as a generational changing of the guard for the nation. All of the generation who refused to go in and take the land are dead except Joshua and Caleb; the two faithful spies.
Numbers 32:11 (ESV) ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me,
The slave mentality has perished, and the charge to take the land is passed to a new generation; one hardened by the wilderness, made independent by semi-isolation and used to living and working as a military unit. They were more willing to trust God having been sustained by Him and having seen His miracles daily. However they were yet to see the true might of God and to themselves be tested.
Joshua is probably one of the greatest studies of leadership of any text anywhere. Politics, technology of warfare and diplomacy may change, but human nature is always the same generation to generation. Therefore the principles of leadership remain the same.
Joshua learned the difference in slavery and willing obedience first hand; first as he himself was a slave, and later as both a warrior and as a leader under Moses. He learned both responsibility to those under his charge and to higher authority as Moses’ chosen lieutenant. He learned leadership in battle through experience:
Exodus 17:8-10, 16 (ESV) Then Amalek came and fought with Israel at Rephidim. So Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out and fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. … And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
In the book of Joshua we see the transference of leadership and duty to Joshua and the next generation through to the conquest of the Promised land, and up to the death of Joshua himself. There are many similarities to 
in this one book. Both are characterized by hortatory *(see notes) speeches of leaders and declamatory speeches by the people. In both God chooses, publically acknowledges and speaks to and through His leaders. Neither leader sought the position, but both answered God’s calling to their posting. Both were uniquely trained for their calling; both in their own way faced the desert. Moses had his brother Aaron to help and give him support. Joshua, who would otherwise have been alone without any peers of his generation was given the faithful Caleb; who by accounts was the one of the two to argue more stringently to go in and posses the land the first time. Yet he humbled himself to the Lord's will and acted as a support to Joshua, the one chosen by God. And in both and Joshua we are told of the serious religious threat the inhabitants pose to the new nation. Both are told to destroy them:
Deuteronomy 20:16-18 (ESV) But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
Indeed, one of Moses' last acts was to chew out the victors in the war against Midian just before entering the land, because they had brought back captives! They were made to kill all males and any female who had relations with a man (which in pagan cultures was typically very young).
Joshua, having been Moses’ lieutenant for almost the last forty years, mirrors his leadership. Further God, apparently wishing to indoctrinate this new generation with the same type of miracles shown their fathers, mirrors the exodus. The last generation were held back by Pharaoh, who was destroyed by God. This generation was held back by the faithlessness of their fathers, who were now gone. The crossing of the sea on dry land has counterpart in crossing Jordan at flood stage on dry land. Both leaders sent spies; and while only two of Moses’ spies were faithful, Joshua only sent two faithful men. And in Joshua as in , the entire nation of Israel is exhorted to act as one in trust and obedience to the God that both this new generation and their fathers make covenant with.
Both Moses and Joshua were types of Yeshua. Joshua’s name was changed to directly reflect this:
Numbers 13:16 (ESV) These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.
The change was from הושֵׁעַ (Hoshea, help or salvation) to יְהושֻׁעַ (Yehoshua, YHVH saves). ישוע Yeshua (salvation) is a shortened form of Yehoshua and an alternative form of Hoshea.
It is thought by scholars that Joshua lived aproximately twenty years in Egypt, forty in the wilderness and fifty in the promised land before his death at 110 years old.
Joshua 24:29 (ESV) After these things Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old.
His life and the book which bears his name show how the faithful are rewarded, the faithless denied, the wicked expelled and that God keeps His promises; specifically here the ones reiterated to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Dan C
Sources: JPS Study TNK, The Essential Bible Commentary, EB Meyer, Bible History (Edersheim), and various forwards to the book in contemporary Bibles. My father, Pastor Bill Best and others.
(*) hortatory- hor·ta·to·ry (hôr′tə-tôr′ē, -tōr′ē) adj. Marked by exhortation or strong urging: a hortatory speech.
I had to look this one up myself when I read it in the notes in my JPS TNK; but I liked the word, so I decided to impose it on you as well!
