Joshua 6:1-16. So the guys are all healed.  They have received the mark identifying them as part of the group God has chosen to use to show the world what he could do.  Jericho was before them.  They  had spent the last forty years wandering in the wilderness eating manna.  It appears that they were also given quail to eat but the quail may not have been and everyday thing.   In fact they may have been a specific answer to a specific prayer (Exodus 16:3,13.  Psalms 105:40.  Numbers 11:4-6, 18-20,31-33). The people started receiving the manna about a month and a half after leaving Egypt (Exodus 16:1-32). The manna was given because the people had run out of food that they had brought with them and wanted to go back to Egypt (Exodus 16:1-3).  God used the manna as a way to see if the people would be humble and faithful to Him (Deuteronomy 8:16).  Manna is described as bread (Psalms 105:40).  It was flaky and had to be ground up and cooked and tasted like good cake (Exodus 16:14, Numbers 11:8).  It tasted like a cookie with honey inside (Exodus 16:31). After about two years of eating manna they wanted to go back to Egypt again (Numbers 10:11, 11:5-6)  God literally dumped quail in them this time and they ate it until they hated it (Numbers 11:18-20).  Now the people were in the promised land, the manna had stopped, and they had had a taste of the produce of the land. I’m sure they were ready to take over.

But remember the Israelites were supposed to show the world what God could do not what they could do.  God had not forgotten and He was going to use Jericho to show the world and the Israelites what He could do.  So Joshua gave the soldiers and the people their orders.  They were to march around the city with the Ark of promise in the middle of the parade.  The priests were to blow trumpets as they marched.  Once around each day for six days.  On the seventh day they were to march around seven times and then blow a long blast on the trumpet.  At which time the walls would cave in and the Israelites could enter the city from all sides and destroy it.

Not a very manly way to fight a war.  Notice the Israelites had a reputation and Jericho was locked down because of it (Joshua 6:1).  Also notice that there were valiant warriors in it.  The word valiant is an intensified version of a word that means stronger.  It’s like say the warriors inside were the strongest, they were super strong.  Now the Israelites were marching around Jericho in a parade.  And they couldn’t even talk.  I wonder if after a day or two of this the warriors inside were up on the walls trash talking the Israelites (See 2 Kings 18:26).  How hard would that be to hold your tongue?

Finally the seventh day came.  Seven times around the city (The city wall was about ½ mile all the way around but they would have marched around some distance away so a total of about 1½ miles per trip or 10 miles total.).  Then the priests blew the long blast on the trumpets and Joshua had the people shout.  God was giving them the victory.  Break to commercial.  Not really but the action does break.  Tomorrow we will see why and what happens next.

I think it would have been hard, all of the waiting.  They had been in the wilderness so long.  Now they were finally in the promised land.  But they had to wait.  Be circumcised and wait.  March around the city and wait.  March and wait.  March and wait.  March and wait.  March and wait. March and wait. March and march and march and …….. Get the idea?  Get on with it right?  If you think this is bad wait until tomorrow’s part of the story.  We just finished a series on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians :22-23).  One thing the Holy Spirit helps us with is patience.  That word in Galatians is “long to boil”.  I wonder if the Israelite were starting to boil over.  James tells us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger (James 1:19).  The reason is that man’ anger does not produce the kind of life that pleases God (James 1:20).  I’m pretty sure the fierce warriors inside Jericho were shouting out from the wall, Canaanites were not particularly restrained people.  And the Israelites had to just take it and trust God.  Jesus was insulted the night before he was crucified, and beaten.  But he remained silent.  I think that is example enough for me.  God help me be quiet, especially when I am being made fun of.  Let me be faithful to follow the path you have given me.  Let me speak when it is right to do so and give you the honor that is due to you.  Let my word build people up by helping them see what you are doing in our world, in my life, and in theirs (Ephesians 4:29, Colossians 4:6).  Let me be a light.  Let me trust you.

Joshua 5:1-15. Yesterday‘s reading ended with a verse telling us the purpose of the miracle God had just done.  We had seen that it was to show the people that Joshua was taking Moses’ place as leader but Joshua 4:24 gives us the bigger picture.  There were two reasons listed in that verse.  First it was so “all the people of the earth may know the hand of the LORD (Yahweh, god’s personal name) is mighty.  That’s a very fancy way of saying it proves that God is the real God.  The Old Testament tells us in several places that the gods of the nations are powerless fakes (Habakkuk 2:18-19, Isaiah 44:14-19,  Jeremiah 10:3-5).  The second reason was so the Israelites themselves would give proper respect to God forever.  The miracle and the monument were so both groups could remember and know.

In today’s reading we find the Israelites assembled on the west side of the Jordan and few miles from Jericho.  They are in the promised land.  Time to kick some butt right.  Wrong.  In Deuteronomy 9:1-3 we see that it was actually God who was going to drive the inhabitants out of the promised land.  It is clear though that the Israelites would have something to do in the whole process, but the real power behind the conquest was God.

An important side not in all of this is the different way what is going to happen (or was supposed to happen, since a you may remember from Judges, the nations were not completely removed) sometimes we are told they will be driven out, sometimes we are told they will be dispossessed, and other times we are told they will be utterly destroyed, men women, and children.  In Deuteronomy 9:5 we are told the people are driven out because of their wickedness.  In Deuteronomy 20:17 the Israelites were told to kill all the people so that the people would not teach them to sin (disobey God).  It may seem harsh but the consequences of sin are much more harsh.  Not only does disobedience to God have consequences here and now but there are also eternal consequences.  Sin separates us from God forever (See though “The Old Testament Connection” for an explanation of God’s solution).  The people living in the land when the Israelites took over not only sinned but encouraged other to do the same.  In Mark 9:42-43 Jesus warned of how serious it is to lead someone away from God.  These people were headed for Hell and dragging others with them.  On the other hand In Deuteronomy 9:6-8 we see that the Israelites had been bad too, and had suffered for their sins.  But because of His promises to the whole group of Israelites God was working with them giving them ways to temporarily deal with their sins.  All of the offerings and other rituals that they were told to do in Deuteronomy were a way of temporarily “covering” their sins while they waited for God to permanently deal with them.  God is pure and holy but He is also loving and patient.  And remember Rahab.  She will get a pass on the destruction because she was not leading Israelites away from God but she herself had pur her faith in Him too.  In the end the fact that God is providing a way to fix things between us and Him shows us that he is loving and more than fair. We may not like the fact that women and children would be destroyed in this take over but we can trust that God values every human life much more that we ever could (Check out the story in Genesis 16:18-33).

So the Israelites were stopped on the west side of the Jordan waiting to move forward but God had something important for them to do first.  They needed to renew their commitment to God.  In Genesis 17:7-14 God told Abraham that every male in his household, all of his children and all of his servants, had to be circumcised.  Circumcision is a surgical procedure that makes a permanent change to a male’s anatomy.  This change would be an identifying mark for Abraham’s descendants and would showing that they were serious about their commitment to God.  God told Abraham that any male who was not circumcised would not be a part of the promises to him.  We see later in the story that the promises were specifically transferred to the 12 sons of Israel, Abraham’s grandson, and to their descendants the Israelites.  Circumcision was to happen when a baby was 8 days old.  During the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness the Israelites had neglected to keep up with this practice.  Now it was time to renew their commitment to God.  Above all else this whole move was supposed to be an example to the nations and it wouldn’t be much of an example if the people did not have a clear commitment to the one true God.  So all of the men 40 and under (there would have been men in the 40-60 age range but they would have been circumcised while living in Egypt) were circumcised.  The Israelites then celebrated the Passover Memorial feast in memory of their leaving Egypt (See “The Old Testament Connection” for more on this).  The very next day the manna (a miraculous food supply that had been provided by God every day (Saturdays had a special provision on Friday) that the Israelites were in the wilderness) stopped being delivered.  The Israelites were in the promised land, a land “flowing with milk and honey” (a figure of speech for an abundant food supply), and ate some food from the land.

Today’s reading ends with Joshua checking out the city before him, fortified Jericho.  He saw a man with a sword in his hand.  He wanted to know if the man was for or against the Israelites.   The answer, “I’m the captain of God’s army”.  Joshua fell down and worshipped the “man” who accepted the worship.  In the Bible God’s representatives never accept worship, they direct it back to God.  The fact that this person accepted Joshua’s worship indicates that it was God.  This is similar to the appearance to Abraham in Genesis 18.  That may have been what Jesus was talking about in John 8:56-57.  Bodily appearance of God like this in the Old Testament appear to be a sort of temporary appearance of Jesus before he permanently became  “God in a bod”.  When he told Joshua to remove his sandals because he was on “holy grounds” it reminds me of god telling Moses the same thing when he went up the mountain where he eventually got the commandments from God (Exodus 3:3-5).

It is interesting in this part of the story that we are told twice that all the men of war had died.  This is in the middle of verses telling us about circumcising all the people who were uncircumcised.  What does circumcision have to do with “men of war”?  And what about that anyway?  Here you are in enemy territory a few miles from a fortified city and you go and circumcise all the men 40 and under.  Verse 8 says that they remained in camp until they were healed.  No doubt.  Once in Genesis 34 one of Jacob’s daughters was raped by the son of the king of a city.  The girl’s brothers, Simeon and Levi,  were hopping mad about it.  The king of the city wanted to make peace about the situation and asked Jacob’s sons to allow his son to marry their sister.  In fact he wanted his people to intermarry with their people.  The brothers agreed on one condition, all the king’s men be circumcised.  So all of the men of the city were circumcised.  On the third day after the surgery while they were all laying around in pain Simeon and Levi went in and killed all the men of the city and took their sister home.  From a human point of view cirumcision didn’t seem like a very good tactical move.  Maybe that is why Joshua was out watching Jericho.  I can just imagine him praying, “Oh God don’t let them catch us like this.  Oh God don’t let them catch us like this.”

In the Bible it talks about hearts being circumcised and uncircumcised.  It is a metaphor describing seeing or not seeing spiritual realities.  While the men were recovering from their physical circumcision Joshua was having his heart circumcised.  God opened his eyes to the fact that He was guarding Israel.  He was right there outside of Jericho with His sword.  I think that is why the author makes the point about the men of war being dead.  He wanted to make us look at things from a human point of view and compare that with what was really going on.  Last night Cookie and I went to a small group meeting where a “missionary” was talking.  I put quotes around “missionary” because the guy was a Christian medical doctor from Egypt.  But he had been trained by an organization to be a “witness” to those around him.  He was asked about a current situation in Iran where a Christian pastor has been sentenced to death.  His response was “all Christians are called to be martyrs that is what the word witness means”.  Now  I don’t at all think he meant that we are all to go strap bombs to our bodies to intimidate people into becoming Christians.  What he meant is that living for God has consequences.  Jesus told his followers that the fact that he was persecuted meant that they would be too.  But our vies should be that our physical life is small compared to eternity.  In the words of Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who give what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”.  Are we willing to give up ourselves to bring others to Jesus?  Are we willing to be living sacrifices every day (Romans 12:1-2)?  God circumcise my heart.  Give me a vision of what you are doing.  Let me fall down on my face in amazement.   Help me put myself on the laine and trust what you are doing around me and through me.  Thank you for letting me be a part of your amazing forever family.  Let me be a witness everyday.