HarperCollins Study Bible
Page 95
Canonical Context, Sources, and Redaction
JOSHUA INCORPORATES THREE TYPES of material. Conquest narratives describing the victories of the Lord, who fights for Israel as the Divine Warrior, make up much of chs. 2–11. Geographical lists and descriptions are found in chs. 12–21. Theological discourses introduce the book in ch. 1 and conclude it in chs. 23–24. All three types of material work together to claim the land of promise for Israel. The individual narratives in Joshua began as folktales about merely local victories, but were eventually gathered into a connected narrative as the triumphs of a unified Israel (chs. 2–11). Later this collection was reedited, growing to chs. 1–12, 23, as part of a historical work that also included the books of Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Because the book of Deuteronomy served as its preface and theological foundation, scholars refer to this larger work as the Deuteronomistic History. The main edition of this history probably originated in the reign of the reforming king Josiah, triggered by the discovery of an early form of Deuteronomy during repairs at the Jerusalem temple (ca. 622 BCE; see 2 Kings 22–23). After the defeat of Judah, the geographical material of chs. 13–21 and the story of ch. 22 were added, and ch. 24 was appended to form a second conclusion.
The stories and other materials taken up in Joshua cannot be used directly as historical evidence for a violent conquest. The stories were told and the lists preserved to serve theological and nationalistic interests, not historical purposes. Archaeological data frequently provide illustrative light, but rarely decisive corroboration. However, when studied with the aid of social-science perspectives, the texts and excavation data combine to yield a clearer picture of the emergence of Israel in the premonarchical period. [ROBERT G. BOLING, revised by RICHARD D. NELSON]
JOSHUA 1
God’s Commission to Joshua
1After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, 2“My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. 3Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. 4From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. 5No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. 7Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. 8This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. 9I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
Preparations for the Invasion
10Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people, 11“Pass through the camp, and command the people: ‘Prepare your provisions; for in three days you are to cross over the Jordan, to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess.’”
12To the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said, 13“Remember the word that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.’ 14Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the warriors among you shall cross over armed before your kindred and shall help them, 15until the LORD gives rest to your kindred as well as to you, and they too take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land and take possession of it, the land that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan to the east.”
16They answered Joshua: “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. 17Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses! 18Whoever rebels against your orders and disobeys your words, whatever you command, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”
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1.1–11 God commissions Joshua. Vv. 1–9 emphasize qualities required of Joshua and the leadership he must provide in taking over the land.
1.1 Action begins after the death of Moses, who had been denied entrance into the land (Num 20.12; Deut 34.4).
1.3 Walking over land was a way of legally claiming it.
1.4 Canaan lay west of the Jordan, stretching from the Negeb wilderness in the south through the mountains of Lebanon. The description of the land of promise extending as far north as the Euphrates reflects the promise of Gen 15.18; Deut 11.24 as well as royal ideology (Ps 72.8). These expansive, ideal borders were never actually achieved.
1.5 The Lord, speaking as the Divine Warrior who leads heavenly armies into battle and fights for Israel, promises Joshua military success (see v. 3) and effective presence (see v. 9).
1.6 Strong and courageous (repeated in vv. 7, 9, 18). Cf. Deut 31.7, 23. The rhetoric of speeches in Joshua frequently echoes Deuteronomy.
1.7–8 This is the theology of Deuteronomy. Obedience to the law…Moses commanded leads to prosperity and success. Joshua is to resemble the ideal king described in Deut 17.18–20. In the context of the Deuteronomistic History (see Introduction), this book of the law (cf. 2 Kings 22.8) refers to some form of Deuteronomy.
1.11 These three days are concluded by 3.2.
1.12–18 Involvement of tribes in Transjordan. In territory east of the Jordan, settled by Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh, the followers of Moses achieved their first successes. These tribes had already occupied their land, but were now commanded to take part in the seizure of Canaan, where the other half of Manasseh will settle. Deut 3.18–20 reports their agreement with Moses.
1.13 Rest (also v. 15) is security in the land established by the Lord’s defeat of the enemy (21.44; 23.1).
1.16–18 The eastern tribes here respond eagerly and echo Joshua’s own words from vv. 7, 9. A double use of only (vv. 17–18) introduces some tension into the plot, however. Readers may wonder whether the Lord will be with Joshua, and whether Joshua will prove to be strong and courageous. Cooperative eagerness will turn to suspicion in ch. 22 in a dispute over an altar near the Jordan.
JOSHUA 2
Spies Sent to Jericho
2Then Joshua son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, “Go, view the land, especially Jericho.” So they went, and entered the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab, and spent the night there. 2The king of Jericho was told, “Some Israelites have come here tonight to search out the land.” 3Then the king of Jericho sent orders to Rahab, “Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come only to search out the whole land.” 4But the woman took the two men and hid them. Then she said, “True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they came from. 5And when it was time to close the gate at dark, the men went out. Where the men went I do not know. Pursue them quickly, for you can overtake them.” 6She had, however, brought them up to the roof and hidden them with the stalks of flax that she had laid out on the roof. 7So the men pursued them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords. As soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.
8Before they went to sleep, she came up to them on the roof 9and said to the men: “I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. 10For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Seaa before you when you came out of Egy
pt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. 11As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The LORD your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below. 12Now then, since I have dealt kindly with you, swear to me by the LORD that you in turn will deal kindly with my family. Give me a sign of good faith 13that you will spare my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death.” 14The men said to her, “Our life for yours! If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the LORD gives us the land.”
15Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the outer side of the city wall and she resided within the wall itself. 16She said to them, “Go toward the hill country, so that the pursuers may not come upon you. Hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers have returned; then afterward you may go your way.” 17The men said to her, “We will be released from this oath that you have made us swear to you 18if we invade the land and you do not tie this crimson cord in the window through which you let us down, and you do not gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your family. 19If any of you go out of the doors of your house into the street, they shall be responsible for their own death, and we shall be innocent; but if a hand is laid upon any who are with you in the house, we shall bear the responsibility for their death. 20But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be released from this oath that you made us swear to you.” 21She said, “According to your words, so be it.” She sent them away and they departed. Then she tied the crimson cord in the window.
22They departed and went into the hill country and stayed there three days, until the pursuers returned. The pursuers had searched all along the way and found nothing. 23Then the two men came down again from the hill country. They crossed over, came to Joshua son of Nun, and told him all that had happened to them. 24They said to Joshua, “Truly the LORD has given all the land into our hands; moreover all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before us.”
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a Or Sea of Reeds
2.1–24 Rahab outsmarts the spies. Jericho controlled several fords and routes of access into the hill country. Archaeology has shown that by the late thirteenth and early twelfth centuries BCE Jericho had been reduced to at most a small, unfortified village sitting atop the ruins of the previously walled city.
2.1 Shittim, the final desert encampment (Num 25.1), lay in the eastern Jordan Valley. Similar stories about spies are found in Num 13; Josh 7.2–5; Judg 18.2–10. Rahab is a legally independent woman with her own house. The nature of her business means that the presence of strangers would not be questioned. Rahab would later be reckoned among the ancestors of Jesus (Mt 1.5), lauded as an example of living faith (Heb 11.31), and justified by her works (Jas 2.25)
2.3–4 Come to you and came to me have a double meaning. Understood as “come into you/me,” the phrase can imply sexual intercourse as well as arrival at Rahab’s house.
2.6–7 Rahab is not just a harlot. She is processing flax by spreading it out on her flat roof to dry. Although Rahab has saved them from the king, the spies find themselves trapped in a rather public location on her roof (cf. 2 Sam 16.22) and the city gate was shut. Pursuers block their route back, further deepening their predicament. This puts Rahab in a position to negotiate a favorable agreement.
2.9–11 Rahab provides the content of the spies’ eventual report (v. 24). She confesses the Lord as universal God using language that echoes Deut 4.37–38. The kingdoms of Sihon and Og (v. 10), east of the Jordan, had been conquered under Moses’ leadership (Num 21; Deut 1–2). They had been utterly destroyed, i.e., devoted to destruction in a sacral war in which the Lord fought for Israel in the role of Divine Warrior (cf. 6.17, 21). Rahab seeks to avoid this fate for her family.
2.12–14 Rahab proposes a covenant of reciprocal protection to protect her extended family. She has dealt kindly (using covenant language, “shown chesed”) with the spies by showing faithfulness to the relationship between host and guest. They are to deal kindly in return by honoring a covenant to protect her family. Our life for yours indicates that the spies assent to this arrangement. Their agreement violates the prohibition of Deut 20.10–20.
2.15 The location of Rahab’s house described here does not fit well with the collapse of Jericho’s wall in ch. 6, given that she gathers her family into her house to save them (2.18; 6.22–23). That she resided within the wall suggests defensive fortifications of the casemate type, i.e., parallel walls divided by cross walls creating chambers that might be used for storage or residence.
2.16 Toward the hill country. Rahab remains in charge of the situation. Having sent the searchers eastward toward the Jordan (v. 7), she directs the spies westward into the hills to hide for a few days. These three days (cf. v. 22) represent a timetable different from the three days of 1.11; 3.2.
2.17–20 Once they are safely out of Rahab’s control, the spies seek to clarify their covenant obligations. They insist that she display a conspicuous identification sign, assemble her family at a single location, and keep their secret.
2.24 The spies’ report does not go beyond what Rahab has told them (vv. 9, 11). Rahab’s story abruptly resumes after the capture of Jericho (6.22–25).
JOSHUA 3
Israel Crosses the Jordan
1Early in the morning Joshua rose and setout from Shittim with all the Israelites, and they came to the Jordan. They camped there before crossing over. 2At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God being carried by the levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place. Follow it, 4so that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, a distance of about two thousand cubits; do not come any nearer to it.” 5Then Joshua said to the people, “Sanctify yourselves; for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.” 6To the priests Joshua said, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and pass on in front of the people.” So they took up the ark of the covenant and went in front of the people.
7The LORD said to Joshua, “This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. 8You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, ‘When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.’” 9Joshua then said to the Israelites, “Draw near and hear the words of the LORD your God.” 10Joshua said, “By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites: 11the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan. 12So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap.”
14When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people. 15Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, 16the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea,a were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.
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a Heb Salt Sea
b Or treaty, or testimony; Heb eduth
3.1–17 Crossing the Jordan. Israelites in a later time would be exhorted to “remember…what happened from Shittim to Gilgal” (Mic 6.5).
3.1 Early in the morning signals eager readiness in beginning a commanded task (cf. 6.12; 7.16; 8.10).
3.2 These are the three days referred to in 1.11.
3.3 The levitical priests are responsible for the transport of the ark of the covenant, which embodies the Lord’s presence in sacral warfare. The crossing is described in terms suggestive of a religious procession.
3.4 Two thousand cubits, roughly 3, 000 feet (1, 000 meters). The people must stay at a distance because the ark is dangerously holy (cf. 2 Sam 6.6–7).
3.5 Sanctify yourselves. To prepare for a miraculous event, the people are to make themselves holy by means of a ritual.
3.7 Any concern raised in 1.17 is resolved, for the Lord is undeniably with Joshua (cf. 6.27).
3.10 Formulaic lists of Canaan’s inhabitants also occur in 9.1; 11.3; 12.8; 24.11 and are characteristic of Deuteronomy.
3.15 The detail that the Jordan overflows all its banks makes it possible for the priests’ feet to touch the edge of the water. It also makes the miracle more impressive.