Joshua is the story of the fulfillment of the promises made to give the Israelites a land flowing with milk and honey and to give them rest in that land. Joshua is the new leader, and their trip begins much like their fathers with a miracle allowing them to walk across a body of water. Near the end of the book we read of the fulfillment of the promises in Jos. 21:43-45, “43So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44The Lord gave them rest on every side according to all he had sworn to their ancestors. None of their enemies were able to stand against them, for the Lord handed over all their enemies to them. 45None of the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. Everything was fulfilled.[1]” It was ‘the Lord that handed over their enemies.’ The sovereignty of God is seen throughout the book, Israel can’t do it on their own. The link to the Bible Project Summary can be found by clicking here.
The most difficult problem we face when reading this book is how to understand the death and destruction of some of the cities. In some locations, men, women, children, and their animals were all killed. Several approaches have been taken in attempting to understand this holy war. One early attempt to understand these actions was promoted by a heretic named Marcion. He lived in the middle of the second century and started his own religious sect known as the Marcionites. His solution to the problem was a belief that the god of the Old Testament was a different god than the god of the New Testament. The god of the Old Testament was mean and warlike while the god of the New Testament was loving even to his enemies. To make this work he had to have a different canon of Scripture. He only accepted an edited version of the gospel of Luke and ten of Paul’s letters which were also edited. He accepted none of the Old Testament as Scripture. This resulted in what became known as the Marcion canon. Another approach taken by some liberal Bible scholars is that it represents a primitive stage of religion. The ‘holy war’ was misunderstood and didn’t come from a revelation from God. This won’t do either. Bible believing evangelicals have also taken several approaches to understanding these actions. Some have referred to a concept called ‘corporate personality.’ This concept states that an individual is seen as a representative of a whole group. For example, Adam sinned and all of his offspring are guilty even though they did not sin like Adam, Rom. 5:12-14. Or an individual priest offers a sacrifice on the Day of Atonement as a representative of all the people or the punishment for Achan’s sin in Josh 7. Others have argued that not all the people were killed and see some statements as hyperbole.
If we limit ourselves to what the Scripture actually says we find in Gen 15:13-16 that God informed Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in another country, but he would bring them out of captivity and give them the land when the iniquity of the people in the land had reached its full measure, requiring judgment. This level of sin was similar to that requiring judgment in Noah’s day. Leviticus 18 gives a list of the sins that were occurring among the Canaanites. Dt. 9:4-5 states, “4When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ Instead, the Lord will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness. 5You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to fulfill the promise he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” See also Dt. 20:16-18. Where the flood was the method used by God to bring judgment in Noah’s day, Israel was the instrument to bring judgment to the Canaanites.
Paul in Rom. 15:4 writes, “4For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures.” How is our culture similar to that of the Canaanites?
[1] All Scripture is from Christian Standard Bible. 2020. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
