Joshua 10:28-43. At the end of yesterdays reading the five kings that started the fight with Israel were all dead.  Most of their people were dead with a few hiding in the cities.  It had been a long day (Whether you think the earth stopped rotating and it actually was a longer day or you think it was some sort of poetic statement it was still a long day.).  The Israelites had marched and fought for 50 miles or more.  God had fought for them but their swords were still bloody, they did not just stand by and watch.   You would think the next day would be time to rest, sharpen the swords, bandage the blisters, but in today’s reading they get right back at it.

In this next part of the story they first attack Makkedah and destroy all of the people there.  Remember in Deuteronomy 7 that the Israelites were commanded to destroy all of the people living within the land promised to them, the people in the land were strongly involved in the worship of false gods and if they remained they would eventually tempt the Israelites to compromise in their relationship to God.  From a strategic point of view you also have to see that Makkedah had not come out and destroyed the enemy kings but had given them shelter.  If the Israelites knew where the kings had hidden it is very likely that the people of Makkedah did too.  Unlike Jael who killed the ally of her husband with a tent peg (Judges 4) because he was an enemy of Israel theses people did nothing.  But the bottom like is that they were to be destroyed and that is what Joshua did.  He then destroyed the rest of the Canaanite cities in the southern part of the promised land west of the Dead Sea.  If you read closely you might have noticed that three of the cities that belonged to the five kings were mentioned.   Jerusalem and Jarmuth are not mentioned.  Their kings are dead but the cities are not.  It is likely that the people of Jarmuth were also killed since the oly other mention of the city in the Bible involves the borders of the tribes when the land is divided up between the Israelites.  Maybe all of the people had died in battle.  The description of the land that was conquered (Joshua 10:40-41) basically covers all of the land west of the Dead Sea from it’s northern tip all the way down to the border of Egypt except for most of the caastland which would have been Philistine territory.  And verse 40 he killed everyone who breathed just s God had said (Deuteronomy 7:1-2).  The southern half of the kingdom was basically conquered (except for part of the coastland maybe) so Joshua and the Israelites returned to the camp at Gilgal.

I think it is important to remember that the Tabernacle (the sort of portable church where the Israelites had worshipped God during the wandering in the wilderness.) and the Ark of the Promise (A wooden and gold box that contained the stone tablets that Moses had written the first ten rules of God on and which was a symbol of God’s contract and presence with the Israelites.)  were in Gilgal.  God had given the victory to Joshua and the troops (Joshua 10:42) and they were returning to Him (and their families).  What strikes me about this story is the fact that God fought for them and they also had to fight.  And the fight went on and on, several days of it, perhaps week or months.  We are not told how long the rest of the campaign took.  And there was more to come.  In fact when Joshua died there was still more to come (Joshua 23:2,5). But God was there the whole time.  Later on Joshua will tell the Israelites to keep it up and hold on tight to God.  We need to do that, we need to keep on doing “just as the Lord, …. Commanded” (Joshua 10:40).

We need to trust His commands.  God knows what is going on.  He alone knows the future and the hearts of people (As we will see tomorrow or the next day).  We must remember that God loves people and doesn’t want them to perish (2 Peter 3:9).  Physical death is tragic but in the end physical death is conquered and physical life is restored (1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Revelation 20:4-6).  But only to those who have put their eternity into Jesus hands (Revelation 20:15; John 3:16-18).  God loves people but people will still perish.  Men will go their own way, try to get to God on their own and they will fail (Revelation 20:12-15).  As ugly as physical death is here and now an eternity without God is far more serious.  So we need to trust and fight on.  In 1 Corinthians 15:58, right after the part about God restoring our physical lives we are told to be  steady, like a rock, in living for God.  That is the response, god is loving and giving and faithful and we need to be faithful back.  We need to do just as the Lord commands us.  Lord help me be faithful.  Help me understand clearly what you want be to do, each day, in each battle.  Sometimes there is spoil, reward, sometimes the stuff needs to be left behind.  It’s not one way or the other so I need to keep listening to you.  Help me hear and help me be faithful.  Thank you for fighting for me and thank you for your presence.  Help me return to You often.

Joshua 10:1-27. The part of the story that we finished yesterday started two days ago with a list of six people groups or tribes who were getting together to fight the Israelites.  They had heard about what was going on and wanted to stop Israel.  They were probably encouraged that Ai had had a successful battle against them (Remember the one that Israel lost because Achan had taken stuff from Jericho).  The story then turned to the Gibeonites who had also heard and were afraid.  Although they were a part of those tribes (they were Hivites) they tricked Israel into a treaty.  Now the story turns back to five kings from one of those groups and again they heard, this time what had happened between Israel and Gibeon.  Theses five kings were worried, Gibeon was a large and powerful city full of mighty warriors and it had given up.  I wonder if they were afraid because of losing such a great part of their fighting force or because if those guys gave up how could lesser cities have any hope of beating Israel.

Jerusalem is about 18 miles west of the northern end of the Dead Sea.  Gibeon is about 5 miles north-west of Jerusalem.  The other four towns are all south and west of Jerusalem in the mountains and hills west of the Dead Sea.  The five kings from this area attacked Gibeon.  Maybe they thought it was time for a little payback for deserting the alliance.  Remember in Joshua 9:1 that all the kings had agreed together to fight Joshua.  The Gibeonites were defectors.  If the alliance had any hope they would need all of the members to stick together.  If this fight against Gibeon was successful it would be a reminder to the other kings to stick together.

Evidently part of the treaty involved protection.  The Gibeonites would be servants and the Israelites would protect them.  The Gibeonites sent to Joshua for help and he responded.  The Israelites were in Gilgal about 15 miles to the east (See comment in the 3/5/12 post).  God assured Joshua that He was with them and that they should not fear.  Joshua marched the troops fifteen mile to Gibeon during the night and surprised the Amorite troops who fled as many of them were killed..  Joshua pursued them another 5 miles north-west to Beth-horon.  The Amorites then turned south and east toward their home territory another 30 miles away.  The Israelites killed many during the battle but God also acted supernaturally.  First God caused large stones to fall from the sky that killed many of the Amorite warriors.  Second God caused the earth to stop rotating (or the sun to rotate with it) so the Israelites troops could go on fighting.

Some scholars think that the part of the story about the sun is poetic and not literal, some for literary reasons others because they do not believe in miracles.  Of course if you do not believe in miracles then you still have to account for the hailstones that seem to have only killed Amorites and not Israelites.  The scholars who believe in miracles but do not believe that the earth stopped rotating (or something like that) see the miracle in the fact that God “listened to the voice of a man and fought for Israel.”  The way this sentence is constructed in Hebrew and the words used indicate that God “obeyed” Joshua, it would be extraordinary for God to obey a man, and verses 14 seems to be saying something like that.  But that does not mean that the actual actions were not extraordinary too.  Even if Joshua’s words were some sort of poem honoring God the is also the reference to the “Book of Jashar”. This book is not part of the Bible and we do not have any existing copies of it.  It is also mentioned in 2 Samuel 1:18.  The author of Joshua tells the readers that if they do not believe the story about the sun standing still they can look it up in Jashar’s book.  The quote is not poetic and seems to say the sun stayed up for a whole day.  Just because it is not part of the Bible does not mean that it is not true, just like many books we read today.  I think there is no reason to think that God gave the Israelites extra daylight to fight this battle, as well as helping them with hailstones, not to mentions the fact that they could march and fight for 50 miles at one time.

The story today ends with the Israelites pursuing and killing most of the Amorites.  A few escaped back into their cities but no one “stood” before the Israelites, they either died or hid.  The ones in hiding included the kings of the five cities that started the battle.  They were discovered in a cave near a town called Makkedah.  They were trapped in the cave while the Israelites finished the battle.  At the end of the battle they were brought and executed.  Their bodies were hung up on display until the end of the day.  As the sun finally began to set their bodies were thrown into the cave and it was sealed with a large stone.  It still existed at the time of the writing of Joshua.

I think it is important to realize that theses events are real event about real people.  This stuff really happened.  Although we don’t still have the archaeological evidence for all of it it was there at one time.  The rocks and bones that we had or have should convince us of the truth of these stories.  So when we read a part that seems incredible we should remember the reliability of the author and believe that part too.  Some people say there is proof of the long day but that is probably just a bunch of hype.  If something like the earth stopped spinning for a day there would be no way to trace that 1000’s of years later.  You cannot prove that I listened to my radio yesterday while I was driving around based on science. History is based on the stories of witnesses.  Sometime science can play a part but still it comes down to the stories and the witnesses.

In the end this story isn’t about the long day.  There were probably doubters in the day when this was written so the author put this fact in to explain part of how the Israelites could fight such a long battle without more of the enemy escaping.  The author even seemed to recognize people would not believe the long day story so he gave outside proof.  At the end of the day though this story is about God and Joshua and the Israelites.  If you’ve read “The Old Testament Connection” you know that the Old Testament is about God fixing our relationship with Him.  The Old Testament is “salvation” history.  The Old Testament shows us that we have failed God and need His help (Romans 3:20; 7:7).  In the beginning of Joshua God told Joshua not to tremble or be discouraged because He was with him (Joshua 1:9).  Near the end of this battle Joshua told the Israelites the same thing (Joshua 10:25).  Remember we are 10 chapters into the book but probably only a month or two into the taking over the land.  The LORD listened to Joshua, God fought for them.   Joshua needed to listen to the words of Moses’ Law, to learn about his need for God’s help and to act on those words (Joshua 1:8).  Sometimes he talked to God and succeeded and sometimes he moved forward with out God and failed.  We need to listen to, we need to accept that we need God’s help too, we need to act on those things too.  God will listen to us and will fight for us too.  God sent hail stones to kill Joshua’s enemies and he sent Jesus to put our enemy to death.  Will youhear?  Will you respond? (Romans 10:4, 8-17).  If you don then “do not tremble or be dismayed for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go”.  God thank you for caring.  Thank you for listening.  Thank you for helping.  Thank you for dying.  Thank you for being faithful and loving.  Thank you.