Joshua 10-11

God’s message to me: When God is for you, none can stand against you. This synopsis of the initial conquest of Canaan reads like the recent history of Israel. The enemy comes with overwhelming force and God protects His people so that they defeat their enemies quickly and with minimal loss ending with their possession of the enemies territory. The major difference between then and now is that Israel keeps bowing to international pressure to give back the territory which just gets used to attack them again.

Promises: God will never let you fail. So long as you stand with God, His name is with you and He will not allow others to overcome His name. No matter the odds you will win.

Commands: Don’t Back Down! You are a child of the King and He will not let you fail. As long as you are standing on the promises of God you are unable to fail. Claiming, in the name of God, that which is not yours will not work any more than it helped Achan when he took the spoils that were meant for the treasury. Claiming what God has promised, you cannot fail, just as the rest of the Israelites claimed the booty of Ai and so many other cities that were overcome afterward.

Timeless principles: God doesn’t lose face. Despite the efforts of so many to point out disasters and claim God failed, the facts of history do not bear them out. The miraculous victories of modern Israel, the defeat of the Taliban by American forces in months when the Soviets couldn’t even slow them down in 10 years of war. The survival of Christian missionaries in war zones, even after capture by Muslim extremists sworn to kill them. The miraculous survival of various evangelists in assassination attempts. God does not allow defeat for those who represent Him.

How can I apply what I’ve learned: Read and learn the Bible. It is the guidebook to what you can claim. If God has promised it you can claim it and He will grant it that your joy may be full. This is the promise of God, repeated by Christ, and reiterated throughout the bible.

more to learn for in-depth study: The treaty with Gibeon was a mistake caused by not waiting for God’s opinion. As the people of Israel were ordered to offer peace to any city they came against it is likely they would have spared their lives anyway. Their fear of Israel would likely have resulted in immediate surrender without a fight. As it is, they became the bait in God’s trap for the Amorites. While the five kingdoms of the Amorites were intent on eliminating the Gibeon army, which they considered strong and didn’t want allied with Israel, The Israeli army ambushed them by surprise and routed them. God provided the mobile artillery as he pummeled the fleeing army with hailstones as they ran. More Amorites died from hail than were killed in direct battle.

This is one of the more unusual events in the bible. As the battle against the five armies began Joshua commanded the sun and moon to remain in place. God, fighting on the side of Israel, stopped the sun and the moon for about a day. Adding an extra 12-24 hours to the available fighting time.

The book of Jasher is mentioned here. You won’t find this book in the bible even if you use a Catholic bible with apocrypha. Jasher is a book of Hebrew history. It’s not of vital importance to your study but, like the Talmud (and it might be part of the Talmud for all I know) it could provide some historical perspective. For newer Christians, I encourage you to concentrate on scripture. The reason the Talmud and Apocrypha are not included in scripture is because they are books of history, including myth and legend, and not even the rabbi’s who passed them along consider them the inspired word of God.

For those already familiar with the scriptures and interested in learning more, I recommend consulting a Hebrew scholar. Rabbi’s are a good start, I would try and find someone who is a Messianic Jew as this provides you with common ground from which to begin. There are several websites dedicated to education by Messianic Jewish organizations which could prove useful.

After defeating the 5 armies of the Amorites, Joshua led the attack on the other kingdoms of the region. The Israeli army conquered the armies and the cities they came from that had allied against it. Joshua conquered the mountain country and the Negev region, the lowlands and wilderness and all the kings and kingdoms in that region from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and all the country of Goshen as far as Gibeon. All of this territory was conquered in one continous assault because God was with them in battle and they could accomplish it all in a short time with minimal effort.

When the conquest was done the Israelites camped in peace until another coalition force came against them. This coalition of many kingdoms came to their camp seeking to eliminate the threat but, God was with the Israelites and they defeated the attack force the next morning. Moving on they eliminated the rest of those armies, killed their kings and destroyed their capital cities keeping the lesser cities and the soils of war and livestock for themselves. The war was long but fruitful and the Israelites grew rich from the spoils and gained both land and the livestock to raise on it, not to mention the houses they didn’t build and the gardens they didn’t plant, just as God had promised. They even cut off the giants and killed off all of the giants who
remained in their lands.

tomorrow: Joshua 12-15