This is it! Finally after months of waiting and preparing, the time for conquest of the Promised Land is here. Through the story of Joshua we read of Israel’s gradual domination over the land sworn on oath to their Fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

If reading the book of Joshua isn’t an emotional rollercoaster, you haven’t read it properly. Immersed so deeply as we now are with the story of this wandering people, we cannot help but brim with pride and relief at the capture of the lands they so desperately sought, not to mention the safeguarding of the faith in Yahweh, still new in the ancient world. Yet at the same time, we grieve with the peoples of Ai, Jericho, Hebron, Jarmuth and others. Genocide of this nature reminds us of the shock felt at the Rwandan and Bosnian massacres of the 1990’s. How can God’s people claim this barbaric work was the Lord’s?

Joshua is a book that should offend us to our very core. But we cannot just write it off as nationalistic propaganda, though that is indeed what it is! Our wrestling with the Bible is like Jacob’s wrestling with the Lord at Peniel. We may come away limping, but we will be the better for it.

It is impossible to truly imagine what it was like to live in this area of the world over three thousand years ago. So many cultural assumptions were at play in the Israelite’s faith; they had no concept whatsoever of the globalised peace-seeking world in which we now live. It was assumed as obvious that one should fight to preserve one’s own way of life and the land through which one preserved a livelihood. That Israel’s Law specified generous rules for foreigners was forward-thinking in itself; respect and mercy for neighbouring states was not even considered in the event of military threat. In some ways the insistence of the total slaughter of the surrounding city-states and their kings was a triumph of leadership for Moses and Joshua who, presumably, believed that without this absolute destruction the Covenant code could not be upheld. And much more pragmatically, without workable land Israel could not survive ad infinitum in the desert. Survival required them to do something and there was no United Nations to which they could appeal for international jurisdiction.

Joshua is also an important piece of Covenant narrative for the Israelite community. Just as the narratives of the Pentateuch gave Yahweh the Suzerain credibility in his role, so here in Joshua, his faithfulness to deliver is reiterated with a story of powerful military alliance. In the battle against the armies of Adoni-Zedek, for example, it is the Lord’s intervention with giant hailstones and a halted Sun that assist Joshua’s army in their mighty victory (10:1-14).

But there is a deep problem with Joshua: that Israel’s faith was blinkered to the point of violent oppression. The forced labour of their Egyptian past is turned on its head with the subjection of the Gibeonites (9:27). And they are the lucky ones. Newborn babies, elderly women, strong men and happy children are cut down by the hundreds, if not thousands as the Israelite war-machine tears up the land in its bitter teeth. All of a sudden the full implications of the Covenant promise to Abraham come cascading into view and our sympathetic respect for Israel’s journey is replaced with deep misgivings over the values and methods of their Suzerain protector.

As 21st century Christian readers this is the point in the Old Testament narrative where we should really sit up and realise just how different the Yahweh of the Israelites is from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Jesus’ ‘Father’ was clearly the ‘Yahweh’ of his Jewish heritage we tend to assume their conflation. But the God to whom Jesus testified represented a significant development from the God found in their early scriptures. Apart from anything else, he is not concerned with delivering any land on promise. The surrounding cultures are not dismantled, but respected and, as James so aptly puts it, ‘mercy triumphs over judgement’ (Jas 2:13 contra Josh 11:20).

Finding the God of Jesus in the Yahweh of Joshua is a difficult task; such is the self-justifying rhetoric of its author(s). Yet, hidden there, like a still small voice, shrouded by earthquake, wind and fire is the Suzerain whose path is not domination, but sacrifice. It would take another thousand years or so, but eventually in this holy land another Joshua (the root of the name Jesus) would announce the true meaning of Covenant with Yahweh and seal this New Deal with his own blood.

As a book of emotional and ethical contradictions Joshua lures us into its passionate tensions. How much do we care about our faith in Jesus? Will we fight for it? At what cost? And at what point does fighting for faith undermine it? We feel the jubilant success of a weary people, yet stand removed, appalled at the suffering inflicted by fear of contamination. In this we join the covenant saga, facing up to the question of how we maintain identity in an alien land. The rest of the Old Testament will tell the story of the Israelite’s attempt. The New Testament provides a whole new approach, still being tested by the church.

Questions for reflection:

1. How do you feel about people from different cultures, with different practices and different ideas sharing your space?

2. It can be hard to maintain Christian identity in a highly pluralist culture. The church is in decline and overtly Christian values are sometimes unwelcome.
a) In the face of the fear of being sidelined as a faith, what is your response?
b) In the face of the fear of being adulterated as a faith, what is your response?