Tag Archives: Joshua

Thoughts On Out Of Egypt

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Israel wanting to back to Egypt

Exodus 32: 1 is a progression in the story of the People’s discontent with God and Moses.  They had crumbled and test God ten times in this progression and it will come to a head in Numbers 14.  In this installment of the story Moses is on Mount Sinai getting the tablets of the Law, he was gone a long time and the people want a physical “god” they can follow.  

In Numbers 14 the spies have come back from the Land and Joshua and Caleb are the only ones to have a good report.  The people lose their minds and work themselves up to pick a new leader and go back to Egypt!  Most of the time when I have heard this taught the speaker says something about slavery and all of the bad things that happened.  What if, they were planning to go back and attack Egypt and enslave them!  They had been trained and were ready to go fight for the Land. It is only two years since they left Egypt and they had left Egypt in shambles.  (It is interesting that in Numbers 13: 33 they saw themselves as grasshoppers.  The hordes of grasshoppers that do invade the lands of the Middle East are still today viewed with dread!). It would make sense that they felt they could conquer Egypt or at least a part of it and live there.  How many times are Christians plagued with the thought that at least some portion of the old life could be made acceptable because going forward seems so hard?  

Caleb and Joshua

This thought about Joshua and Caleb has left me hanging!  Did their families (wife and children) go in with them, if they were over nineteen years of age?  Numbers 14:20 starts the consequence part of failing to obey the Lord’s voice.  God drew a boundary of twenty years as the age of who would get in.  We know from Joshua 15:13 and Joshua 24: 15 that both of those men had families in the Promised Land.  Caleb tells his age in Joshua 14: 7 (40 yrs.) when he explored the land. He could have had “family” by then.  I know a lot can happen in thirty-eight years, Caleb had a daughter in Joshua 15: 16.  She was the reward for taking the land that Caleb had received from the Lord. 

Since everyone over nineteen years old did not make it in, I will go that they had their families after the spying incident.  (Remember, girls, married in their teens and sometimes the men were older and established before they took wives.)

Caleb was eighty-five at the time he asked Joshua for the right to “take” his land.  so, 45 – 38 means that at that point the conquest was seven years old. Forty-five is how long he had been kept alive and thirty-eight was the wandering time.  (See thirty-eight) (See Out of Egypt)

It would have been hard for me to watch everyone I know to die!  On a different note -Numbers 14: 20 does say that the people had been forgiven, just that they were not going into the Land.

Miracles are given to confirm the word of the Lord and strengthen our faith – learn from them!

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Passover to Pentecost – Joshua’s Passover and His Fifty Days

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Passover to Pentecost – Joshua’s Passover and His Fifty Days        Week 2 Day 5

The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea. Joshua 4: 23 (NIV)

Joshua is a man of God, one of the faithful spies, the protégé of Moses, and the leader of Israel who would take them into Promised Land.  We will look at the experiences of Joshua and Moses; there are some interesting comparisons and contrast. Refer to Joshua 3 – 8.  Numbers 14 is the reference for the forty years of wandering.

Leaving

Both of these great leaders were leaving a tough circumstance and going into something unknown.

  • Moses was leading a group of slaves who thought they would quickly enter a “Promise Land.” These people thought they would have to fight for their new home; they had two years to prepare.  An enemy was left in the Red Sea never to bother them again; God had fought the battle.  They had tasted the food of Egypt and had memories of it.
  • Joshua was leading a group of shepherds who had enjoyed freedom. This group knew they were going to fight for their new home; they had forty years to prepare. They had inherited a new enemy that would help prepare them for the battles they would fight.  Most had never eaten Egyptian food and had only known manna.

Entering

  • Moses and his people entered their baptism with the Cloud of the Lord blocking the enemy from attacking. All of the men had been circumcised.  They had new clothes and the riches of Egypt in their possession.  The memories of slavery were being left in the Sea.
  • Joshua and his people entered their baptism with the Cloud leading the way, and they were about to attack the enemy. Many of the men had not been circumcised.  Their clothes had not worn out for forty years and the riches of Egypt were now family possessions that had been passed on from their parents.  Stones of memory were picked up from the River for future generations.  Some people were “baptized” twice.

Passover

  • Moses’ first Passover was in the land of slavery and celebrated with food from Egypt. When the “old” food ran out they were given manna.  The yeast of Egypt was removed from them, and blood from the lamb was put on the door.
  • Joshua’s first Passover was in the Promised Land and celebrated with manna. When they got “new food” from the Land the manna stopped.  There was no yeast and many of the males were “bleeding” from circumcision.  The men forty to fifty-nine years old protected them and got the “new food” from the Land.  (The typology of cutting away the old flesh as you enter the Promise will have to do as to why Moses and the community stopped circumcising.  Especially in the light of Exodus 12: 48.)

Riches

  • Moses and the people left rich with gold, silver, clothing, and flocks and herds. They gave offerings to make the Tabernacle.
  • Joshua and the people were to devote the riches of Jericho to God; all of it was God’s. Achan disobeyed and was destroyed (See more on him in What Type of Metal Are You – Part 6).  The plunder of Ai belonged to the people.

Going In Circles

  • Moses and the people wandered in circles and complained for forty years.
  • Joshua and the people went in circles thirteen times around Jericho in silence. (See The Number Thirteen in the Bible.)

Battles

  • Moses and Joshua had to fight the Amalekites. The typology of Moses praising won the victory.
  • Joshua and the people won the victory with a shout of praise.

End of the First Fifty Days

Since I can’t prove either of these I will let the pattern speak for itself.

  • Moses and the People were at Mount Sinai and were given the Law.
  • Joshua and the People were at Mount Ebal and Gerizim reading the blessings and curses from the Law. (See The Tribes of Israel and Shechem.)  It is possible that Joshua 8:30 was on the Day of Pentecost. This reading was ordered by Moses in Deuteronomy 27.  (See Family List.)  Joshua also copied the law of Moses on stone tablets.
  • This mirrors what Moses did after breaking the tablets God had given him.

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Joshua and Caleb – A Thought on Leaders

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Joshua, Moses’ aide, the chosen leader to take Israel into the Promised Land is truly an outstanding person.  He does not have many negative things written about him, and the incident with the Gibeonites is the only major problem he has.  He is only one of the two “fighting men” who left Egypt that crossed the Jordan.

Caleb, the other faithful witness, is the other “fighting man” who made it into the Land.  He was a leader in the Tribe of Judah and probably had a great influence on Othniel, the first judge (Judges 3: 7).

Leaders who are called of God are really hard to find.  Many people do hold offices and fill a need but “Generals” are really rare.  We read about these two men but we don’t think about the numbers and percentages associated with them crossing into the Promised Land.  Exodus 12: 37 says there were 600,000 fighting men who left Egypt; that makes Joshua 0.00016% of that number and Joshua and Caleb 0.0003% of the total number of men who walked through the Red Sea.  Moses had picked other leaders to help him judge the tribes so there were people who helped, but the “Generals” really are hard to find.

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 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.

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