Ruth

            Given its location in the Scriptures, the book of Ruth shines like gem.  After all, after the horrors of Judges, this wholesome little story is like sunshine after a week of storms.  (Not incidentally, it has been raining here all week, and the sun is supposed to shine this afternoon and all day tomorrow!)

            Judges ends on the lowest of all notes:  there has been inter-tribal warfare, sexual sins in Gibeah that echo (loudly) the depravity of Sodom, idolatry, duplicity, and violence.  And that doesn’t account for the fact that a lot of the judges were a little . . . shady.  Ehud began in deceit, concealing his sword and striking the king of Moab in secret.  Barak hid behind Deborah’s skirt.  Samson—well, what are you going to say about a man dedicated to the Lord from before birth who loves all manner of pretty Philistine girls and has a temper to rival Al Capone?

            Now frankly, Ruth doesn’t start off so well, either.  The prime Israelite in the story is Naomi, but her faith has been so frayed and tried that she changes her name to “Bitterness,”  “Mara.”  It’s the foreign girl, who faithfully casts her lot with her former mother-in-law, who demonstrates the best things that God’s people are supposed to be.  “Where you go, I will go; your people will be my people; your God will be my God.”  If only the Lord’s own chosen people had had that same sense of dedication to Him and to one another!

            There is a faithful Israelite here, too.  That is Boaz, who shoulders the responsibility of his kinsman’s family.  (Ruth is less a love story than it is a story about accepting family responsibility.)  The point, I suppose, is that while the majority of the people are doing what is right in their eyes, the humble few—Boaz, Ruth, Naomi (when she comes to her senses)—are remaining faithful.

            Finally, there is the closing announcement that Ruth and Boaz are the ancestors of David.  David is not explained in Ruth, but the alert reader is supposed to know where the story is going, that David is the great king of Israel, the high point of their history.  While there is no king in the land, the Lord is working to rectify that condition by preparing the way for the one who has His own heart (1 Sam. 13:14).

            Light in the darkness, a faithful remnant in the land—that’s the way the Lord works.  He works that way a thousand years before Jesus, in the life and ministry of Jesus, and two thousand years after Jesus.

"Israel had no king."

            Judges 17-21 is bracketed by this sentence:  “In those days, Israel had no king and everyone did as he saw fit.”  The notice that there was no king is repeated in 18:1 and 19:1.  This is important for two reasons:  one historical, the other theological.

            Historically, throughout the period of the judges, Israel didn’t really exist as a cohesive nation.  There were no central governing institutions.  Instead they seemed to have existed as a loose confederation of semi-integrated—and often antagonistic—tribes.  Let’s stipulate at the outset that this picture seems at odds with the idea of a unified people coming out of Egypt.  Some scholars will use that as a way to drive a wedge into the historicity of the story.  They’ll argue, “Look, the Exodus thing is clearly a propaganda piece, because the historical reality is different.”  We could counter two ways.  First, we can stipulate that Moses has a different story to tell than the writer of Judges.  The former wants to emphasize the Lord’s gracious call to Israel; the latter wants to emphasize how bad things were.  Second, it is possible that the settlement of the land undermined whatever sense of unity had been there following the Exodus.

            Theologically, Israel did have king.  They just forgot to worship Him and treat Him as a king.  (You will have picked up, I’m sure, that the king in question is Yahweh, the God of Israel.)  That Israel doesn’t own Yahweh as king is a major theme through her history.  In a week or so, we’ll read 1 Samuel, and there the people will ask for a king—“like the other nations.”  In Judges this contradiction is demonstrated in the way that Micah builds an image and an idol just before the lack of a king is mentioned (17:5-6).

            The disorder and irreligiosity of Israel is further highlighted by the violence that Dan does to an unsuspecting people and by the brutality of a Levite and of the other tribes against Benjamin.

Belated Thoughts on Samson

            Samson is one of the least likeable judges—to me, at least.  He is headstrong, lustful,  and angry.  He insists on the woman from Timnah, regardless of his parents’ or his countrymen’s concerns.  He justifies his violent actions under the cloak of having been wronged himself.  He even demands that the Lord give him water.  He is the most un-Christ-like figure you can imagine.

            Yet, in one of those only-God moments, Samson becomes a type of Christ.  One hymn writer likened Samson tearing the gates off of Gaza to Jesus ripping off the gates death and hell.  The line goes, “Our Samson storms death’s citadel and carries off the gates of hell.”  And, a little more obviously, Samson dies, and in dying, destroys his enemies.  That event foreshadows the death of Jesus, which destroys sin and death itself.  I cited these lines from Samson Agonistes, by John Milton, on Good Friday:

                                                            all this
With God not parted from him, as was fear'd,
But favouring and assisting to the end. [ 1720 ]Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame, nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.

With Samson, the Lord was with him at the end and enabled him to perform a feat of strength one more time.  With Jesus, although He cried out in abandonment on the cross, in the end He committed His spirit to the Father.  So God was not parted from Him, either.

            I find myself strangely comforted by men like Samson.  I confess, I feel a little superior to Samson.  I generally have my temper under control, and I married a good Lutheran girl.  So, I haven’t got the obvious character flaws that Samson exhibits.  Then, I figure, if the Lord can accomplish his purposes through Samson, He can surely work with me.  Samson slaying 1000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey reminds us that it’s not the tool that matters—it’s the One who wields it.

Easter Break

I know it's been a few days since I posted.  I've been swamped with Holy Week services and sermons, and I'll be taking Easter Monday.  Tuesday, I'll be back with comments on Samson and the end of Judges.  Christ is risen!

Hardly a Pure Example

            We’re often looking for pure examples.  Aside from Jesus, we won’t find one—especially in Judges.  There are aspects of Jephthah’s story that inspire.  Here is an outcast, a man of shameful birth, surrounded by “worthless fellows” (11:3), and he is called to a high and noble task.  That’s inspiring.  It’s is comforting to think that the Lord can redeem us of the ash heap.  “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (NIV; Psalm 113:7).  We gain hope for our own lives in the way that God uses the most ignoble tools for His purposes.

            Jephthah makes a principled and faithful appeal to the king of Ammon:  “The Lord gave us the land of Gilead 300 years ago.  If your god (Chemosh) was going to give it to you, he would have done it.”  That’s inspiring.  I think we’d all like to have the clarity to see God’s hand in our lives and the courage to say so out loud.

            But Jephthah makes a ridiculous vow to the Lord.  I mean, it’s not as if God needed Jephthah’s bargain to do what he had intended to do anyway.  Before he makes the vow, Judges has already told us that the Spirit of the Lord was on him.  There’s a tragic lack of necessity here.  Unfortunately, it’s a tragedy that we too often participate in.  It might not be quite so blunt as Jephthah, but most of us have said to the Lord, “If you . . ., then I . . .”  Somehow we miss that the logic of our dealings with the Lord is just opposite of that.  (Check out Ps. 50, about the fact that the Lord doesn’t need our sacrifices.)  The Lord says to us, “I have . . ., therefore, you will . . .”  The initiative is always His.

            There’s more to see here:  the tragedy is compounded by the fact that Jephthah has only the one child.  (Note how many of the judges have truckloads of children.)  She laments her virginity, that is, that she has borne no heirs to carry on the family name.  There’s the tragedy that Jephthah followed through on his ill-considered vow and killed his daughter—an affront to the Lord (Lev. 18:21).  There’s the battle with Ephraim, who tries to horn in on the credit for beating Ammon.  There’s the original “litmus test,” that is, the Shibboleth.

            There’s more to see, but let’s focus on Jephthah’s redemption and his faithful claim that the Lord had given Gilead to Israel, and let’s avoid his rash vows.  That will be task enough.

Contrasting Approaches

            What a contrast in stories in Judges 9-10.  In the first story, the sordid tale of Abimelech and Shechem, we have the Lord who allows a curse to be fulfilled.  Interestingly, aside from the note that the Lord sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the Shechemites, the Lord is pretty isolated from the story.  It is portrayed largely from a ‘down-below’ perspective:  oppression and robbery and revolt and violence.  So, we see that the Lord often uses circumstances that are ‘natural’ to call His people to account.  (The whole question, “Why did God do this?” is a bit of a dodge in that it seems to want to absolve us—and humanity—of any responsibility.  Our race seems to do just fine in messing things up all by ourselves.)

            Contrast that with the beginning of the story of Jephthah.  There, humanity responsibility abounds.  Israel is not just worshipping Baal; it’s a veritable smorgasbord of idols!  And the Lord wants them to take responsibility.  He refuses to help and tells them to ask their other gods.  But, when they repent, we read, “He could bear Israel’s misery no more.”  Here the Lord is at center stage, and He is there to show mercy.  Humans, it turns out, are quite capable of disciplining themselves simply by suffering the consequences of their misdeeds.  But, only the Lord God of Israel is capable of saving.

Questionable Instruments

            One of the things that we notice about the judges is that the Lord chose men of questionable character.  Ehud is a sneak.  He hides his sword on the opposite that most men wear it and meets and kills the king of Moab in private.  (The king’s men are so duped that they think he’s taking a long time on the toilet.)  Barak hides behind a woman’s skirt, refusing to go to war unless Deborah comes with him.  And Gideon, well, he’s alternately a coward and a bully.  When we first meet him, he’s threshing in a pit to avoid detection; he accomplishes his first mission—destroying the Baal altar—at night because he’s afraid; and he asks for several signs—just to make sure.  On the other hand, he threatens the Israelites in Succoth and Penuel, and he retaliates against them before he’s even finished his business with Zebah and Zalmunna of Midian!

            What shall we make of these flawed heroes?  To start with, we can stop calling them heroes.  I know what we mean when we say ‘heroes of the faith,’ but I’m pretty sure the biblical writers don’t want us thinking these men are all noble and good, like Supermen of yore, fighting for truth, justice, and the Israelite way.  These are flawed, sinful men, whom God uses for His purposes.

            That’s the greater lesson, don’t you think?  On Saturday we’ll read about Samson, who slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey.  The lesson?  God can use whatever He wants for His purposes.  So, Paul famously talks about having the treasure of the Gospel in clay jars.  We Christians ought to take some comfort in that.  He can use the ordinary for His purposes.  So, dads and moms who faithfully train their children in the faith through devotions, modeling, Sunday school attendance, and regular worship attendance are doing really ordinary things through which the Lord works.  Ordinary congregations, too, are the instruments through which the Lord accomplishes His saving work.  (You don’t need to be a 10,000 member mega-church for the Lord to accomplish what He wants.)

            The Lord’s use of the ordinary is at the heart of the Gospel.  It is difficult in these latter days to remember who ordinary crucifixion was—and how ignoble!  Lamentations 1:12, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?”  Yep, on Good Friday, the suffering for a lot of the casual witnesses was nothing.  It was just, “Well, there go the Romans again.”  Tomorrow, our congregation will gather for the Lord’s Supper, another of those places where the very ordinary (bread and wine) contains the very extraordinary (the Lord’s body and blood).

            What we witness in Judges is the Lord’s typical M.O.:  “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (NIV 1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

Setting the Table for Judges

            As we begin to consider the careers of the judges, we should probably start with a pretty basic question:  “What the heck’s a judge?”  The judges are apparently local, charismatic military leaders who lead portions of the Israelites in times of crisis.  Although the judges are described as leading Israel, the historical realities are more likely that they led particular tribes or coalitions of tribes.  (The relative autonomy of the tribes, the lack of unified action among them, and their resulting vulnerability to attack seems to be some of the factors that led them to desire a king in 1 Samuel.)  In addition, the judges are not dynastic, although Gideon’s family has pretensions.  Instead they are raised up for a certain time and place.  Finally, they are not national leaders, nor do they necessarily have ongoing administrative functions.

            The Lord raises these men (and one woman) up in response to Israel’s repentant cries.  They are repentant for their idolatry and their repentance is sparked by the Lord’s sending powers to oppress them.  So, throughout the book, we see the Lord acting both in Law (sending punishment on His idolatrous people) and in Gospel (sending redeemers to deliver them).  One of the ways that we can appropriately apply the book is to see how these local events draw us into the cosmic events, in which all humanity stands under the oppression of death because of our rebellion and in which the Lord sends Jesus as the One who will redeem us from the oppressor.

            There are twelve judges altogether—6 minor judges, who only get a few verses notice, and 6 major judges, who have more extended stories.  (Scholars count Othniel as a major judge, even though his story is only 5 verses long, presumably because he establishes the pattern for the remaining ones.)  Of the 5 major judges after Othniel—Ehud, Deborah, Gideon (and his son by a concubine, Abimelech), Jephthah, and Samson, we observe a ‘nesting’ pattern.  Ehud and Samson, the bookends, are lone warriors; their exploits are largely accomplished alone.  Deborah is a woman and Jephthah is the outcast son of a prostitute, so they are unlikely leaders.  At the center is Gideon, who, despite some ambiguity in his character, refuses to become king (8:22-23), and Abimelech, who tries to establish himself as king.

Raising the Children of Israel

            Let me comment on three things here in Judges 2:  first, the Lord’s threat in verse 3; second, the problem of the second generation; finally, the pattern of Israel’s national life throughout Judges.

            The first thing that struck me in this chapter was the Lord’s threat that He would no longer drive out the nations before Israel.  For a God who had been so terribly concerned to drive those nations out for the sake of safeguarding His promise, it seems odd that He would wash His hands of the whole business.  On the other hand, it’s not like the Lord is abandoning His promise or His people.  He is forcing them to grow up.  They have the safety and the beginning that they need to survive.  Now they have to experience for themselves the results of their bad behavior.

            I’ve often thought that parenthood is one of the best experiences for understanding the heart of the Lord, and here again I think that’s the case.  I find a parent of teens and pre-teens that we have crossed a line somewhere and that it is no longer responsible for me to cater to my children’s every whim and to save them from every mistake.  If I were to do those things, I’d simply be enabling them in an irresponsible lifestyle in which they expect that life has no real consequences.  So, I’m slowly learning to let them suffer the discomfort of cleaning up their own mistakes.  I think that’s what the Lord is doing in Judges 2 to Israel:  I think that’s what the Lord is sometimes up to in our lives.

            That brings us to the second thing I noted in today’s reading:  the problem of the second generation.  Joshua and all his generation died, and the next generation did not remember the Lord’s mighty deeds.  It’s interesting.  The church has always been multi-generational, and one of the deep Biblical concerns of the church is passing on the faith to the next generation.  On the other hand, there is a reality—in the Scriptures and in church history—that each generation must, in some ways, learn to trust the Lord for themselves. 

            I think a classic case of this was in early American history with the Puritans.  The Puritans, you’ll recall, were true believers.  They came to New England, and they were going to establish a “city on a hill,” “the kingdom of God here on earth.”  (Maybe I’ll write some other time about how misguided that venture was.  For the record, Lutherans would have some rather sharp things to say about the Puritan understanding of the kingdom and of the Gospel.)  Anyhow, the Puritans were true believers; they were here because they had consciously chosen to leave home and hearth.  Their children had not.  When you have based your whole life—church and society—on everyone being equally committed to your take on the faith, and you discover that your children aren’t, well, it leads to heartburn.  (The historical phenomenon is called the “Half-Way Covenant;” you can investigate it a little at this link:  http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1166.html.)

            Considering how much most of us want our children to embrace our values and our faith, and considering how much heartburn many of us experience when our children don’t embrace those things, I’d say this is an aspect of Christian experience that calls for prayer and creativity.

            Let me comment on my third thing briefly.  At the end of Judges 2, there’s a pattern that we’ll see repeated throughout the main part of Judges.  It’s introduced here in a fuller form, but it forms a sort of refrain through chapters 3-16.  1) Israel whores after idols.  2) The Lord sends foreign invaders to oppress them.  3) Israel cries to the Lord for relief.  4) The Lord raises up a judge to dispel the threat.  The Lord may be forcing them to grow up, but He never abandons them!

A Tale of Failure

            Judges is a different sort of book than Joshua.  In Joshua, we have indications that the Conquest is not complete, but the thrust of the book is that the Lord keeps His promises and gives Israel the land.  In Judges, the focus is on human failure—and will we witness human failure in this book!  So, Judah is successful in establishing its territory; they even go so far as to burn Jerusalem, which is not even part of their patrimony.  But nobody else finishes the job.  Benjamin won’t even expel the Jerusalemites, although we’ve just read that Judah did the hard work of conquering the city!  The low point seems to be Dan, who don’t just fail to take their land; they actually get repulsed back into the hills.  (The success of Judah might explain their later history:  they resist the temptations to idolatry longer and more successfully than the northern tribes, perhaps because at the beginning they drove out the Canaanites.)

            There are some hints in Judges 1 about why the job isn’t finished.  First, there is the passing comment about Judah maiming Adoni-bezek.  They cut off his thumbs and big toes, rendering him humiliated and unfit for military service.  The thing to notice, though, is that he says he did the same thing to 70 of his enemies.  Israel is starting to behave like the very people she is conquering.  Second, there is the statement in verse 28 that Israel enslaved the Canaanites.  Two problems with that.  1) The Israelites were supposed to destroy them or drive them out, so they’re compromising on God’s command.  2) They were supposed to remember that they had been slaves.  How ironic is it that they began to act like the oppressor?

As for Me and My House

            Many families have Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord,” hanging in their homes.  It’s a nice sentiment and a great goal.  Joshua is a little skeptical about Israel’s chances for pulling it off, though.  So, verse 19, “Oh, you say you’ll serve the Lord, but you won’t.  You’ll get pulled into idolatry, and He’ll have to punish you.”  And Israel’s response, “No, really, we will!”

            Why is Joshua so skeptical about Israel’s chances of remaining faithful?  He has lived among them for a long, long time.  He’s seen how well they hold up under pressure, and he sees how they currently live.  Notice how consistent Joshua warns about  foreign gods?  In verse 23, he makes it explicit, “If you’re going to serve the Lord, you have to get rid of the idols currently in your homes.”

            So, if our families are going to serve the Lord, these many years later, we may need more than plaques on the wall.  We’ll have to create atmospheres that are dedicated to the Lord.  This is a little harder than in Joshua’s day.  In Joshua’s day, an idol was a literal statue.  Our idols are more subtle, but they are no less insidious in their effect on our relationship with the Lord.  Someone once observed, “Show me your calendar and your checkbook, and I’ll show you what you worship.”  Ask yourself what dominates your schedule and I’ll bet the top answers are work and recreation.  (In 2009 the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average American worked 7 ½ to 8 hours a day, spent 2 to 2 ½ hours on household chores, and spent 5-6 hours on leisure activities—about 3 hours on average watching television.)  Now I doubt the BLS broke out spiritual activities, so they’re probably merged in with the leisure activities.  Still, there are an awful lot of other things vying for our attention.  (Consider how hard it is to find time to do these daily readings!)

            A really good question we may ask ourselves is, “If we are serious, that our households will serve the Lord, what ‘foreign gods’ will we need to put away to make that happen?”

An Ambiguous Witness?

The Transjordan tribes--Reuben, Gad, half of Manasseh--return home with Joshua's commendation still ringing in their ears.  They have done what they promised in helping the other 9 1/2 tribes conquer the land west of the Jordan.  How strange, then, that the people of Israel would immediately suspect the worst of them when they built an altar on the banks of the Jordan.

It seems to me that there are two cautionary tales here.  First, the people of Israel should not have assumed the worst possible thing about their brothers.  When Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh explain, "We were afraid you'd forget that we were Israelites, too," everything is cleared up.  I wonder how often we would be better off if we didn't leap to conclusions about people and their motivations?  At least the people of Israel had the good sense to ask what the 2 1/2 tribes were thinking before they made war on them.  It seems to me that we moderns too often make war with our words and in our hearts before we fully understand other people's motivations and points of view.

The second caution here is in the behavior of the 2 1/2 tribes, who were certainly not sensitive to the way that their actions might be perceived--either by the remaining tribes or by future generations.  Paul is clear, especially in 1 Corinthians and in Romans 14, how others perceive our actions needs to shape and control our actions.  While we don't want to find ourselves held captive by the misunderstanding or the refusal to understand of other people, we also don't want to barge ahead as if their impressions were unimportant.  Christian love compels us to explain why we do what we do and to hold back when we risk creating a rift.  Additionally, although the generation that built the "witness" altar didn't intend it as a counterpart to the Tabernacle, as I read, I wondered how their children would take that.  Given Israel's historic struggles with idolatry, I'm not sure an altar that's not supposed to be used as an altar will really stand the test of time.

Avenger of Blood

            The notion of the avenger of blood is apparently ancient.  The difficulty is that the term is literally, go’el, which seems to mean at its root “next of kin.”  Apparently, the next of kin had various responsibilities, one of which included avenging the unjust death of a family member.  Admittedly, I didn’t look high and low, but I couldn’t find a place where the Lord commanded that the go’el be an avenger of blood.  It seems to me, then, that the notion of the avenger of blood is one of those things that was in the culture around Israel (like polygamy) and that the Lord was taking steps to limit the effects of the practice by establishing a means by which an unintentional killer could escape the cycle of vendetta that plagued the ancient world.

            Aside:  one of my favorite Doonesbury cartoons is from the time of the Iraq war.  It goes something like this.  An American officer is scouting an insurgent location with an Iraqi chieftain.  The Iraqi says to the American, “I can’t promise to bring him in alive.  He murdered a member of my family, and I am duty-bound to avenge him.”  The American asks, “When did this happen?”  The Iraqi says, “1387.”  Clearly vendetta needs to have some limits placed on it!  (Wait a sec; here’s a link:  http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2008/01/13/).

            Anyhow, what we have in the assignment of cities of refuge is one more attempt to make Israel less like the nations around her and more like the Lord who has chosen her.  Notice, too, that 5 of the 6 cities of refuge are also Levitical cities.  It’s just possible that the Levites, as the caretakers of the tabernacle and the teachers of Israel, were also supposed to more fully reflect the mercy of the Lord in their civic arrangements.

Alloting the Land

            Again, here are a couple of links to maps that illustrate today’s reading.  These two illustrate the allotments given to the various tribes.

http://mappery.com/map-of/Promised-Land-Hebrew-Settlement-Map

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/maps/map_canaan_tribal_portions.html

            While much of today’s reading is pretty dry—most of us have enough trouble with modern geography, much less ancient, local Israelite geography!—a few things do stand out.  First, notice the repeated emphasis that Levi did not receive an allotment (13:14, 33; 14:4).  I’m not sure what to make of that:  we knew it already.  On the other hand, it’s clearly pretty important to the Lord that Levi is dedicated to His service.  (Here’s a random thought:  I wonder if the old practice of parsonages is related?  I wonder if the idea is that those dedicated to the Lord’s service ought not be pre-occupied with homesteads and land?  I have heard from several sources that when the housing market crashed the number of pastors taking Calls declined significantly . . .  Like I said—random.)

            Another thing to notice is Caleb’s statement in 14:10, that the Lord had kept him alive ‘these 45 years.’  45?  The story would suggest that it’s only been 40:  spies reject God’s plan, 40 years in the wilderness, and the rapid conquest of the land.  However The Lutheran Study Bible has this footnote:  “It had been 38 years since the spying episode and 7 years since entering the land” (363).  Seven years!  You wouldn’t get that from a casual reading of Joshua!  Just goes to show that the biblical writers want to emphasis certain things.  In Joshua’s case, the book wants to emphasize how the Lord gave the land to the people in fulfillment of His promises.  Yet, there are these subtle comments that remind us it wasn’t all at once and it wasn’t all complete.  (That latter part will set the stage for the book of Judges next week.

Another Link

A reader submitted this link.  It also provides some visual sense of the how the Conquest progressed.
http://www.canecreek.org/Missions/ThroughTheBible/Session08/Joshua%20Maps.PDF

Eschewing Inappropriate "Technologies"

Decent maps are hard to find online.  These two links may give you some sense of how the Conquest of Canaan proceeded.

http://www.bible-history.com/geography/maps/map_canaan_tribal_portions.html

http://www.bible-history.com/map-israel-joshua/index.html

            The northern campaign centered on a battle with the allied kings of Canaan, after which Joshua was to destroy the chariots and hamstring the horses.  Now, that seems wasteful in the first case and downright cruel in the second.  We should understand a couple of things.  First, horses, in Bronze Age, were not particularly regarded as work animals.  They were primarily military animals, used in the pulling of chariots.  To hamstring them meant rendering them unfit for military service.  But why destroy the more advanced military technology that had fallen into their hands?  Simply because the Lord was to be their champion.  The important thing for Israel’s military fortunes was not the power of her armies, the wisdom of her commanders, or the technology she could deploy.  She was to rely on the Lord for deliverance, as she had at Jericho.

            I promised myself recently that when I’m done with doctoral work (by 2013, God-willing), I’m going to re-immerse myself in the work of Eugene Peterson.  Peterson is a Presbyterian pastor, and he has written extensively in critique of the ways that the church has substituted the world’s technologies for the Gospel, oftentimes without even knowing it.  So, pastors embrace marketing and business techniques, counseling and therapy strategies, and other ‘technologies.’  In the trade-off they lose the works of prayer, community-building, and proclamation.  I’m not saying that the strategies that pastors often use are necessarily bad; I am saying that the church should be careful they’re not adopting the ways of Canaan instead of relying on the Lord.

By Whose Agency?

            There are any number of questions one would like to ask the biblical authors.  For example, if the Lord delivered Jericho into the hands of Israel in such an unusual way (marching round and the walls fall down), why resort to such stratagems for Ai.  Why the subterfuge of a feint and an ambush?  Perhaps it’s as simple as this:  Jericho was a major military victory, and it was important that Israel not grow overconfident in her military abilities.  Ai was a minor town, and two chapters later it was important that Israel have some confidence in her military abilities.  It’s a fine line between appropriate confidence and prideful over-confidence!

            It’s a fine line that we have a hard time distinguishing.  Most have heard the old adage, “Pray as if all depended on God; work as if all depended on you.”  (It’s variously attributed Ignatius Loyola and to St. Augustine.)  Where does human agency end and divine agency begin?  Or turned around, “To what extent is God responsible for our success, and to what extent are humans responsible for their success?”  Good question, those!  I’d suggest the answer is, “Yes.”  All things depend on the Lord, yet all things are entrusted to us.  So, it would be hubris to declare, “Look what I’ve achieved” (James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above)!  On the other hand, sitting on our hands and waiting for God to swoop in from heaven on the wings of an angel is too fatalistic to be sustained as a good choice.  So, the Christian prays fervently and works diligently for God-pleasing ends.  Sometimes the Lord delivers in ways that we never expected (Jericho); sometimes it looks more like He has blessed the work of our hands (Ai, Ps. 90:17).

Stern Discipline, Perhaps Not Eternal Discipline

            Total destruction of Jericho . . . OK, we’ve been down this road before.  For the sake of the promise that they carried, God’s people need to purge the land of the people who would tempt them to idolatry.  It might seem harsh, but we’ve been here before.  (See my posting from March 8.)

            But, really, what about poor Achan.  Isn’t the Lord a God of mercy?  How come this fellow, who sinned, who got caught, and who owned up to it, gets stoned?  Shouldn’t there be forgiveness for that?

            Two things stand out for me.  First, we have to take into account where we are:  in the story of Israel, the carrier of God’s promise.  Just as they were to purge the Canaanite influence from their midst for the sake of the promise, so they had to purge the temptations from within them, too.  The sternness is in service of the Lord’s greater project of mercy and restoration.

            A second thing that stands out for me is that we contemporary Christians too often jump a bunch of lines and end up at places that the Scriptures don’t necessarily end up.  So, for instance, the story says that Achan was stoned.  He died.  News flash:  everyone in the Bible (except for possibly Enoch and Elijah) dies.  The fact that Achan is stoned to death does not mean that he is unforgiven and damned for what strikes us as a relatively minor crime.  It means that he bore a stern, maybe even severe, punishment for endangering God’s project.

Wrapping Up, Moving Forward

            As if to underscore that the Conquest is the completion of what the Lord had started 40 years earlier with the Exodus, the men of Israel are circumcised.  I’ll admit that doesn’t make much sense to me.  First—and this is a quibble—why not do the circumcising on the other side of Jordan, before you cross and leave yourself all exposed to the Canaanites?  I don’t know the answer to that one either.  Second, why weren’t they circumcised in the wilderness?  One commentator suggests that circumcision had been suspended because throughout the wilderness wandering their status as God’s covenant people was, in a way, suspended.  I don’t find that convincing.  On the other hand, given how much of our reading has been dominated by God’s laws, I don’t find it terribly convincing that they forgot.  I don’t know why they hadn’t been circumcised, but the bigger point is that they are now:  things are moving forward.

            That things are moving forward is also indicated by the celebration of Passover, which forms a sort of bookend between leaving Egypt and receiving the land.  So, in Egypt there was Passover then Exodus, in Canaan there’s exodus then Passover.  That chapter of their national story is complete, and it’s time to move forward.  The manna ends, the commander of the army of the Lord (presumably an angel, perhaps Michael the archangel, perhaps the angel of the Lord) appears to Joshua, and it is time to start conquering this land.  (This commander has a message that bears some thought, too, but I’m out of time:  Joshua asks, “Are you for us or against us,” and the commander basically asks, “The better question is: are you for the Lord or against Him?”)