Joshua 9:1-14. Yesterday we ended with the Israelites getting serious about their relationship with God.\u00a0 They renewed the contract or promise between them and God through a ceremony that Moses had instructed them to do (Deuteronomy 27-28).\u00a0 It included writing the whole Law of Moses on two large stones and then reading it.\u00a0 Joshua 8:35 ends by telling us that \u201cthere was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel.\u00a0 Including the women, children, and strangers who were living with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writing on the stones would have included Deuteronomy 7:1-2 that instructed them to completely destroy the inhabitants of the land they were taking over (See also verses 3-5 of that chapter for part of an explanation).\u00a0 It would have also included Deuteronomy 20.\u00a0 That chapter repeated the instructions to completely destroy the people of the cities in the land but also gave rules for cities outside of the promised land.\u00a0 In those cases peace and forces service were to be offered (Deuteronomy 20:10-11).\u00a0 Another interesting part of Deuteronomy 20 was exemption from war for certain people.\u00a0 The exemptions included, a man who had just finished a house but had not \u201cdedicated\u201d it to God yet (20:5), a man who had planted a vineyard but had not yet eaten any fruit from it (20:6), and a man who was engaged and not yet married (20:7).\u00a0 This last part is particularly interesting because the ceremony they were holding based on Deuteronomy 27-28 included reminding the Israelites of blessings and curses that would happen to them depending on whether or not they obeyed the words on the stones.\u00a0 Three of the consequences or curses for disobedience were another man taking the girl you were engaged to away from you, building a house and another man living in it (we are not talking about rent here), and planting a vineyard and another man eating all your grapes.\u00a0 All of the people would have known all these rules and consequences.<\/p>\n
Today reading sets up the story with the kings of six people groups in the land joining together to fight the Israelites.\u00a0 These six are six of the specific seven named in Deuteronomy 7:1, and the exact six listed in Deuteronomy 20:17, that the Israelites were to completely destroy.\u00a0 In Joshua 9:1 the kings heard about the battle of Ai and they made this alliance.\u00a0 This is the same language used in Joshua 5:1 when the same kings heard about the water of the Jordan being dried up.\u00a0 In that story they were very discouraged.\u00a0 But now, after hearing about how the Israelites had lost the first battle with Ai, they were encouraged to fight.\u00a0 Achan\u2019s disobedience to God had far a bigger impact than he could have imagined.\u00a0 Keep that in mind for the next part of the story.<\/p>\n
In the next part of the story the people of Gibeon trick the Israelites into making a treaty with them.\u00a0 This treaty appears to be based on the rules for offering peace to cities outside of the land in Deuteronomy 20.\u00a0 The problem is that Gibeon was a town about 5 miles north-west of Jerusalem (Which was called Jebus, home of the Jebusites, in those days) smack dab in the middle of the land promised to Israel.\u00a0 The Giboenites were probably Hivites.\u00a0 Gibeon was about 15 miles west of Gilgal where the treaty was made (Some scholars think this is a different Gilgal from the one mentioned in chapters 4 and 5.\u00a0 Deuteronomy 11:29-30 mentions one closer to the two mountains were the dedication ceremony happened. It doesn\u2019t really matter but I think it\u2019s probably the Gilgal by Jericho).<\/p>\n
Although the treaty was made in good faith and according the rules God had given there was a problem.\u00a0 Joshua 9:13 tells us that the treaty was made without talking to God first.\u00a0 It takes more than rules to stay on track in our relationship with God we need to stay I touch with him each day.\u00a0 Ultimately wht God is doing is about a relationship with Him not about a religion.\u00a0 It\u2019s more about heart than hands.\u00a0 Of course what we do matters but we cannot just follow a bunch of rules we need to communicate with God.\u00a0 Lord help me be faithful to our relationship.\u00a0 Help me remember to talk to you often, every day, and especially when I have decisions to make.\u00a0 Guide me so that I do not make harmful promises.\u00a0 And help me remember that the things I do send messages to the world about you.\u00a0 Help me honor you with all that I say and do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joshua 9:1-14. Yesterday we ended with the Israelites getting serious about their relationship with God.\u00a0 They renewed the contract or promise between them and God through a ceremony that Moses had instructed them to do (Deuteronomy 27-28).\u00a0 It included writing the whole Law of Moses on two large stones and then reading it.\u00a0 Joshua 8:35 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":581,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531\/revisions\/581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}