Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, Thus, in metrical form, had this absorbing question been handed down from the days of Balaam to the days of Micah; and with it came out an answer anticipative of the teaching of Christianity : "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; THE CHAPTER IX. JOSHUA. `HE first appearance of Joshua, the Ephraimite, son of Nun, is at the battle of Rephidim, when Aaron, together with Hur, held up the hands of Moses in prayer, as in Eastern attitude he stretched them out, as if to embrace blessings from above.1 Joshua became the favourite disciple and attendant of the lawgiver; his "bosom friend," according to an ancient tradition recorded by Philo. 2 The friend of Moses was the successor of Moses, but only to a limited extent. He was no law-giver like Moses. What Moses possessed as the Divinely-ordained organ of the theocracy did not, and could not, descend to Joshua, "who had only to execute inherited commands, and represented an already given law." Nor was he a Divine. prophet like Moses. Scarcely any predictive utterances, except in a moral and religious sense, fell from his lips.* Nor was he a Divine poet like Moses, or an historian at all on a level with Moses. Yet was he a Divinely-commissioned servant of God, to carry on the work which Moses had begun, and to forward the moral and religious education of the people, as well as to fix their settlement in the promised land. 1 Ex. xvii. 10—13. 3 Oehler, i. 116. 2 De Caritate, ii. 384. As a Divine captain he is most conspicuous, charged with leading the Israelitish army over Jordan, and with accomplishing the conquest of the Canaanites. Befitting such a service were the words which inaugurated him into office, when the command of Israel devolved on his hands. "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." "Be strong and of a good courage." "Be thou strong and very courageous." "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth." "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage." The triple injunction of courage marks Joshua out as a military captain. In harmony with this was the Divine appearance. Like the revelation at the bush to Moses-and for the purpose of conferring authorityit was unlike it in this respect. Instead of a voice from amidst lambent flame, there stood an armed warrior before Joshua. "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" asked the anxious soldier. "Nay," answered the mysterious One," but as captain (or prince) of the host of the Lord am I now come." Words follow which identify the appearance to Joshua as essentially the same with that to Moses. "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy."2 What such words were intended to indicate, surely Joshua, with the memory of Horeb in his mind, would not fail to find. The miraculous passage of the people over Jordan, and the startling fall of the fortifications of Jericho, at the sound of the rams' horns, were Divine credentials attesting Joshua's leadership, no less than the plagues of 2 v. 13-15. 1 Josh. i. 2—9. Egypt, and what happened at the Red Sea, were credentials of Moses' legation. Another supernatural sign attended the career of the new captain. "And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua to the camp to Gilgal, saying, Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us. So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he, and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee. Joshua therefore came unto them suddenly, and went up from Gilgal all night. And the Lord discomfited them before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goeth up to Beth-horon, and smote them to Azekah, and unto Makkedah. And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Beth-horon, that the Lord cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon! And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man for the Lord fought for Israel."1 Let the whole narrative be taken as it stands. It betokened that God was with His servant throughout, working by natural means in His providence, casting down "great stones"— hailstones-and also working by other extraordinary means, prolonging the day which saw the battle of Gibeon, so that "there was no day like that before it or after it." Any attempted scientific explanation of the phenomenon would be wide of our purpose. We accept the history just as we find it a record of wonderful events just as they appeared to those on whose behalf they were wrought. There was going on an education. of the Israelites through an experience of the ways of a Divine Ruler, who, amidst the events of human life, warlike as well as peaceful, was doing according to His own will. That education had begun long before, and was not yet complete; and to those fighting tribes, the momentous lesson suggested in the wonderful ways just noticed, could not be more efficiently inculcated than through events connected with war. The slaughter of the kings, and the massacre of the Canaanites, are difficulties of another kind, not unlikely to stagger modern readers of the Book of Joshua.2 And here the moral objections are found to be greater than the scientific ones. Both, however, have to be dealt with in the same way. That the earth is the Lord's, that He has given it to the children of men, that all possessions are held on a Divine tenure, that human sins, in relation to God, forfeit human rights, and that destructive calamities come within the sphere of Divine providence, these were convictions needed at the time to be deeply burnt into the 1 Josh. x. 6-14. x. 16--43. 2 |