Joshua and Encouragement

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The education, the training, and a mentor who walked with him for 40 years; Joshua had the whole package on his resume.  God had His eye and hand on Joshua for a long time.  God knew that Joshua could do the job He had called him for, but He also knew Joshua needed encouragement.  In Deuteronomy 1:38 and 3: 28 God tells Moses to encourage him.  Moses in 3:21 does encourage Joshua and it continues in 31: 6, 7, and 23 by telling him to be strong and courageous.  This encouraging continues in the Book of Joshua chapter 1; God encourages Joshua and so do the leaders of the tribes of Ruben, Gad, and Manasseh.

Joshua gave what he got in Joshua 10: 25 when he encourages the leaders of the people to be strong and do what God called them to do.

I guess the life lesson here is your leaders need to be encouraged.  They give a lot when they are doing their job so speak into their life and encourage them.

Joshua By the Books

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One study technique that I use is to list references from my concordance to get a good look at what I am studying.  Doing this for Joshua gave an interesting twist to this study.  So the first post in this series will be Joshua by the Books of the Bible.

Exodus Chapters 17, 24, 32, and 33  This is where we first meet Joshua and God puts him in the history books:

  • He leads the army against the Amalekites
  • Goes with Moses up the mountain and utters the phrase, “Sounds like war in the camp” when they come back down.
  • He is identified as Moses’ “young aid” that does not leave the first “tent of meeting.” 006-moses-joshua“Young” here may refer to the fact that he is in his twenties and not married.

Numbers Chapter 11, 13, 14, 26, 27, 32, and 34

  • He wants people to be stopped because they are prophesying, his “youth” is recognized again as Moses corrects his attitude.
  • Moses does a name change; it goes from Hoshea (deliverer) to Joshua (Yahweh saves).
  • He is associated with Caleb and exploration of the Land and recognized for their positive attitude and faith.
  • He is credited with having the Spirit and is to be commissioned to lead when Moses dies.
  • Gets orders from Moses, sited as having wholeheartedly followed God
  • He gets the important job of assigning the land once the conquest is over.

Deuteronomy 1, 3, 31, 32, and 34

  • The first three mentions of Joshua are to encourage and commission Joshua as the new leader.
  • Joshua is with Moses while he sings his final song.
  • Chapter 34 is the commissioning with laying on of hands and the imparting of the 005-moses-joshuaSpirit to Joshua.

Joshua  Some of the notable things about Joshua that is in his book is where he was encouraged, Chapter 1, and he then prays for the sun to stand still and encourages his commanders, Chapter 10.  In his farewell speech Joshua (24:15) delivers the great quote, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”  I find that an interesting verse because he has no children listed in the genealogies.  He also left no successor to lead Israel as recorded in Judges.

Judges Chapter 1 and 2

  • Israel is asking God who will lead them since Joshua is dead.
  • Joshua’s age at death is 110, which means he lead them approximately 50 years after the initial conquest.

1 Kings 16:34 tells of the curse that Joshua put on the rebuilding of Jericho.

1 Chronicles 7:27 list his family line in the tribe of Ephraim.

Nehemiah 8:17 refers to the celebration of Booths and compares it to Joshua’s time.

Acts 7:45 Stephen is telling of Moses, Joshua, and the Tabernacle.

Hebrews 4:8 states that Joshua did not give the people rest and that a new Sabbath is yet to come.

In looking at the verses it seems that in the narrative Exodus Joshua was trained, in Numbers he is established in the community, Deuteronomy he is launched as the leader, and in Joshua he does the job that was assigned to him.

Pics belong to Sweet Publishing/FreeBibleimages.org and were found in http://www.freebibleimages.org/illustrations/joshua-challenge/

It Went South – Thank God!

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Deuteronomy 33: 2 He came with myriads of holy ones from the south¸ from his mountain slopes. (NIV)

As Christians we get to look at things differently: we give and get more back, when hit in the face we are asked to turn the other cheek, when we are wronged we can forgive.  May I offer another thing we can look at differently; having things go south is not a bad direction.

I think that saying came about because of maps, north is up and south is down. In the Hands_of_God_and_AdamBible, especially the Old Testament, south is associated with the right hand.  God’s power hand is His right hand. (In the King James and other translations south is written as the “right hand.”) I personally think His throne faces east.  So when He is on His throne that would put His right hand to the south.  Being on the “right side” of God is not a bad place to be.

∞ Thank you Father that we can go to Your South side.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel_ceiling

A Look at Holy Week

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The ancient Hebrews used a lunar calendar, this means that the 1st of the month was during the New Moon phase and that would make the 15th of the month the Full Moon phase.  It was fun to connect the days of Holy Week with the lunar calendar; it just shows the orderliness of our God.

Day of our week Day of the  lunar calendar Passover Holy Week events
Sunday 10th Choosing and prepping the lamb The ride into Jerusalem, people prepared the way
Monday 11th Jesus cursed the fig tree and cleared the Temple courts,
Tuesday 12th Explained the dead tree and taught the people
Wednesday 13th He was prepared for his burial at the dinner
Thursday 14th Lamb is slaughtered and prepared at twilight Room prepared, Passover observed, prayed in the Garden
Friday 15th Burned any leftover lamb Trials and crucifixion
Saturday 16th Jesus preaching to the spirits in Hell
Sunday 17th He rose and showed himself to select people

The first Passover, when the Lord kept watch to bring the People out, they started for Succoth.  The starting point was Rameses; the distance is about 30 miles so that was a long walk on very short notice.  Pharaoh actually ordered them to leave.  The celebration observes seven days of bread with no yeast because that is what happened on the first Passover.

I have been writing for several years on numbers in the Bible.

  • Thirteen was about how new things started in association with that number.
  • Fourteen actually started events.
  • Fifteen is linked with cleaning things up to celebrate.
  • Sixteen was that God kept His eye on things

I found the connections between those studies and the days of the month for Holy Week interesting.

I have other studies on the days of the Holy Week – Thursday, and post labeled Easter 2015,

Moses’ Rod/Snake

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A simple piece of wood, a tool of Moses’ occupation, but it would become part of miracles¸ signs, and wonders.  It became the symbol of spiritual authority for the Israelites and a bane to the gods of Egypt.

This piece of wood is introduced in Exodus 4 where God tells Moses to throw it on the ground and it becomes a nachash (from hiss) or snake.  Moses ran from it.  Since this was not in Egypt but in Midian, I am choosing the Black Desert Snake or Desert Cobra asSinai-Desert-Cobra the snake.  Since Moses was to go to Egypt with this “sign”, I don’t think it would have been an Egyptian Cobra.  No, I cannot prove that.  Either snake is poisonous, the Black Desert Snake has an LD50 or lethal dose that kills 50% of people bit with a 0.4 mg/kg; an Egyptian Cobra’s LD50 is 1.15 mg/kg but probably delivers more venom per bite. That would make the Black Desert Snake more poisonous.  I don’t really hold it against Moses for running, if it was a Black Desert Snake, he knew that they were deadly.  He did brave it up and grabbed the tail which is something that not many people would do.  Can you imagine carrying that rod around for the next several years?  I personally would have been very careful not to drop it on the ground, just in case.

In Exodus 4:3 and 7:15 it is just a snake, but in 7: 9, 10, 12 Moses does not use the word nachash but instead calls his rod and the magicians’ rods tanniym or monster.  (I would think the magicians’ rods were paralyzed Egyptian Cobras and Egyptian cobrathe throw brought them out of their trance.)   This word tanniym is translated in other passages as whale, dragon, and jackal.

Another thing I found was instead of saying that Aaron’s snake swallowed the other snakes; Scripture says his ROD swallowed the other rods.  The importance in that change of words says that Aaron’s spiritual authority, as the servant of God, defeated the authority of the magicians.

Pics from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walterinnesia_aegyptia and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_cobra