After reading chapter 11:
*The fighting is not done. Other Kings and armies came to fight the Israelites and joined forces. They had a massive number of troops, plus chariots and horses. Yahweh told Joshua not to worry. The Israelites would slay the armies, hamstring the horses, and burn the chariots. (Aside: what purpose is served by torturing horses? Why don't they just kill them outright?) So, the Israelites went to battle and supposedly did what Yahweh said they would do.
*Joshua turned back and also decimated the city of Hazor and its King, which had been the head of the coalition of armies. In fact he totally destroyed the inhabitants of all the royal cities, but the only one burnt was Hazor. They also carried off plunder, because now it seems to be okay to do that, in spite of the previous command to never plunder, which is why Achan was killed in chapter 7.
*Joshua took the entire land and did battle for a long time. Everyone in "Israelite territory" was destroyed except for the people of Gibeon. According to verse 20, Yahweh was responsible for hardening the hearts of the various tribes so they would go to war and the Israelites could "exterminate them without mercy." It had nothing to do with them protecting or defending their personal property from a hostile takeover. And all this happened because Yahweh had promised the land would be an inheritance to Israel. After these things were accomplished, the land had rest from war.
After reading chapter 12:
*This chapter is a list of the Kings that were conquered by Moses, Joshua, and the Israelites. There were 31 in all.
Showing posts with label battles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label battles. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2016
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Joshua chapter 10, part 2
*The five kings from the beginning of the chapter ran away and hid in a cave at Mekkedah. Joshua ordered the mouth of the cave to be blocked and guarded while the kings' armies were being chased down. The Israelites destroyed almost every member of the Kings' armies, except for a few. Seemingly, no Israelites were harmed, and the whole army returned to the camp by the cave where the Kings were being held. Joshua ordered the Kings to be brought out of the cave. The army commanders were told to put their feet on the Kings' necks, presumably to hold them down while Joshua personally killed them. Then the bodies were hung on trees till evening, when they were taken down and thrown back into the cave. The cave was then blocked up with rocks. As a bonus, they also conquered the nearby city of Mekkedah, totally destroyed its inhabitants, and did the same thing to its King that they did to the previously mentioned Kings.
*Next, they conquered Libnah and left no survivors. Then came the cities of Lachish and Eglon, plus the King and the army of Gezer, no survivors. Then they utterly destroyed Hebron and its King, which is odd because its King was one of the five Kings that had been held in the cave, unless it had a new King in the meantime. The same was done to Debir. So, according to this account, Joshua and the Israelite army decimated the whole region from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from Goshen to Gibeon, in one campaign, with no Israelite losses. All because Yahweh fought on their side. If Yahweh was so powerful, why couldn't he have done the dirty work himself? Funny how murdering is forbidden in the Ten Commandments, but when God authorizes it, it becomes okay.
* The Israelites returned to the camp at Gilgal.
*Next, they conquered Libnah and left no survivors. Then came the cities of Lachish and Eglon, plus the King and the army of Gezer, no survivors. Then they utterly destroyed Hebron and its King, which is odd because its King was one of the five Kings that had been held in the cave, unless it had a new King in the meantime. The same was done to Debir. So, according to this account, Joshua and the Israelite army decimated the whole region from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from Goshen to Gibeon, in one campaign, with no Israelite losses. All because Yahweh fought on their side. If Yahweh was so powerful, why couldn't he have done the dirty work himself? Funny how murdering is forbidden in the Ten Commandments, but when God authorizes it, it becomes okay.
* The Israelites returned to the camp at Gilgal.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Joshua chapter 10, part 1
After reading chapter 10:
*Now that Ai has been destroyed and Gibeon has a peace treaty with the Israelites, other kings in the area were worried. Gibeon was an important acquisition. Five Kings joined forces and decided to attack the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites sent word to Joshua and begged for help. Joshua marched his whole army to the area, with the blessing of Yahweh. He took the armies of the five kings by surprise and they were defeated. As they were running away from the pursuing Israelites, Yahweh threw hailstones at them, so that more were killed by hail than by the sword. The five kingdoms were Jerusalem, Hebron, Lachish, Jarmuth, and Eglon.
*Next is a very interesting passage. On the day of this battle Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to stand still and they did! The sun supposedly stopped in the middle of the sky, which would make it about noon, and delayed going down a full day, presumably 24 hours. This had never happened before and hasn't since. That must mean Yahweh was fighting for Israel, unless it's a fairy tale. Verse 13 says this passage is written in the "Book of Jashar," an apparently lost work of the ancient Israelites.
*We all know that the sun doesn't travel around the earth in the sky. The earth rotates on its axis while it travels around the sun, only giving an appearance of the sun moving. If the earth stopped spinning, to make the sun appear to stand still, we would be in big trouble. Nothing would survive the cataclysmic results. The authors of my study bible seem to realize this story of the sun standing still is impossible, so they have proposed several possible natural explanations for the wording, except the posibility that it never happened.
*After this Joshua and his army returned to camp.
Edited
*Now that Ai has been destroyed and Gibeon has a peace treaty with the Israelites, other kings in the area were worried. Gibeon was an important acquisition. Five Kings joined forces and decided to attack the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites sent word to Joshua and begged for help. Joshua marched his whole army to the area, with the blessing of Yahweh. He took the armies of the five kings by surprise and they were defeated. As they were running away from the pursuing Israelites, Yahweh threw hailstones at them, so that more were killed by hail than by the sword. The five kingdoms were Jerusalem, Hebron, Lachish, Jarmuth, and Eglon.
*Next is a very interesting passage. On the day of this battle Joshua commanded the sun and the moon to stand still and they did! The sun supposedly stopped in the middle of the sky, which would make it about noon, and delayed going down a full day, presumably 24 hours. This had never happened before and hasn't since. That must mean Yahweh was fighting for Israel, unless it's a fairy tale. Verse 13 says this passage is written in the "Book of Jashar," an apparently lost work of the ancient Israelites.
*We all know that the sun doesn't travel around the earth in the sky. The earth rotates on its axis while it travels around the sun, only giving an appearance of the sun moving. If the earth stopped spinning, to make the sun appear to stand still, we would be in big trouble. Nothing would survive the cataclysmic results. The authors of my study bible seem to realize this story of the sun standing still is impossible, so they have proposed several possible natural explanations for the wording, except the posibility that it never happened.
*After this Joshua and his army returned to camp.
Edited
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Joshua chapter 8
After reading chapter 8:
*Now that the disobedient Achan is dead, Yahweh tells Joshua to take the whole army, approx. 600,000 men, (they only took 3,000 the last time) and destroy Ai. However, this time, Yahweh will generously let them take the plunder and livestock for themselves. What was different about this city that God let them break his prerranged rule of total destruction of life forms and saving the gold for the God?
*30,000 men were sent to hide behind the city to ambush it. Joshua and his men would attack from the front, then appear turn to tail and run, luring the fighting men away from the city in a chase. When that happens, the men in hiding are to rise up, take over the city, and then set it on fire. Things happened pretty much according to plan. The men of Ai were lured away from the city in pursuit of the Israelite army, supposedly leaving no fighting men left inside. At a signal from Joshua, the ambush began. The men of Ai saw they were trapped and the Israelite army turned back on them. There were no survivors of the Ai army except the king, who was brought to Joshua. Twelve thousand men and women of Ai were slaughtered that day. The plunder was taken, the city burned, and the king was hung on a tree then buried under a pile of rocks at the city gate.
*So, Ai was made a permanent heap of ruins, not because of anything they had done, but because they happened to be in the way of the Israelite's path to exclusive ownership of the land of Canaan.
*After that, Joshua built an altar to Yahweh on Mount Ebal as prescribed in the law of Moses. Then he carved the law of Moses on stones. The people stood half on Mount Ebal, half on Moubnt Gerizim and recited the blessings and curses as Moses had told them to do back in Deuteronomy 11. After that, Joshua read the entire book of the law of Moses to the assembled people.
*My study bible says there is a worrisome problem with this sequence of events. The Israelites would have had to conquer more people groups to be able to assemble peacefully between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim. The excuse made for this problem is that the narrator of the story wasn't being particularly chronological.
*Now that the disobedient Achan is dead, Yahweh tells Joshua to take the whole army, approx. 600,000 men, (they only took 3,000 the last time) and destroy Ai. However, this time, Yahweh will generously let them take the plunder and livestock for themselves. What was different about this city that God let them break his prerranged rule of total destruction of life forms and saving the gold for the God?
*30,000 men were sent to hide behind the city to ambush it. Joshua and his men would attack from the front, then appear turn to tail and run, luring the fighting men away from the city in a chase. When that happens, the men in hiding are to rise up, take over the city, and then set it on fire. Things happened pretty much according to plan. The men of Ai were lured away from the city in pursuit of the Israelite army, supposedly leaving no fighting men left inside. At a signal from Joshua, the ambush began. The men of Ai saw they were trapped and the Israelite army turned back on them. There were no survivors of the Ai army except the king, who was brought to Joshua. Twelve thousand men and women of Ai were slaughtered that day. The plunder was taken, the city burned, and the king was hung on a tree then buried under a pile of rocks at the city gate.
*So, Ai was made a permanent heap of ruins, not because of anything they had done, but because they happened to be in the way of the Israelite's path to exclusive ownership of the land of Canaan.
*After that, Joshua built an altar to Yahweh on Mount Ebal as prescribed in the law of Moses. Then he carved the law of Moses on stones. The people stood half on Mount Ebal, half on Moubnt Gerizim and recited the blessings and curses as Moses had told them to do back in Deuteronomy 11. After that, Joshua read the entire book of the law of Moses to the assembled people.
*My study bible says there is a worrisome problem with this sequence of events. The Israelites would have had to conquer more people groups to be able to assemble peacefully between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim. The excuse made for this problem is that the narrator of the story wasn't being particularly chronological.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Joshua chapter 7
After reading chapter 7:
*Here we have an interesting and instructive side story, meant to show that when Yahweh says he wants all the valuable objects for himself, he means it. They are called "devoted things" because they were to be devoted to Yahweh's treasury, of which the priests were in charge. After the storming of Jericho, there was a pile of plunder, which contained gold, silver, and a beautiful Babylonian robe. One wonders what a robe was doing in the plunder, it wasn't made of valuable metals and Yahweh couldn't wear it. One also wonders how a travelling nomadic herdsman is up on Babylonian fashion. Apparently, Achan, from the tribe of Judah, coveted that robe, along with some gold and silver. So, he took them and hid them under the ground in his tent. This was a big no-no. In the last chapter the people had been told trouble and destruction would come to them if they took any of the devoted things for themselves.
*Meanwhile, another battle was at hand. Joshua sent some men to spy out the lay of the land at a place called Ai, which according to archaeological evidence, may not have even been occupied at the time. When the spies came back, they were supremely confident and said there was no need to send everyone, the place had very few men. So, only 3,000 men went to take Ai. Wonder of wonders, Ai fought back and thirty six Israelites were killed. The Israelites hearts "melted like water" after this event. Awww. Joshua and the elders of Israel were devastated. They tore their clothes, fell on the ground, and sprinkled dust on their heads. That was to prove how upset they were. Then Joshua complained to Yahweh and told him Yahweh's reputation among the Canaanites would suffer because of this and the Israelites would be wiped out.
*Yahweh told Joshua to stand up then informed him that there was a thief and a liar among the Israelites. That was why they lost the battle with Ai. Joshua was to tell the people that they would not be able to stand against their enemies unless they removed the devoted objects from the camp. The perpetrator and all his possessions were to be burned. The next morning each tribe was called forth and examined. Joshua managed to separate out Achan. Joshua called Achan "my son" and told him not to hide what he had done. Joshua knew what the punishment was going to be, Achan didn't. Achan confessed; the objects were found and spread out before the lord. Achan, his children, his livestock, and the loot, were taken to the valley of Achor. There, all the living beings that belonged to Achan were stoned and then burned. Afterward, a bunch of rocks was piled on the site, which "remains to this day." In reality no one is certain where the site would have been.
*Why did Yahweh require the children and livestock to be stoned and burned (tortured) for what one man had done? What happened to the valuable objects?
*Here we have an interesting and instructive side story, meant to show that when Yahweh says he wants all the valuable objects for himself, he means it. They are called "devoted things" because they were to be devoted to Yahweh's treasury, of which the priests were in charge. After the storming of Jericho, there was a pile of plunder, which contained gold, silver, and a beautiful Babylonian robe. One wonders what a robe was doing in the plunder, it wasn't made of valuable metals and Yahweh couldn't wear it. One also wonders how a travelling nomadic herdsman is up on Babylonian fashion. Apparently, Achan, from the tribe of Judah, coveted that robe, along with some gold and silver. So, he took them and hid them under the ground in his tent. This was a big no-no. In the last chapter the people had been told trouble and destruction would come to them if they took any of the devoted things for themselves.
*Meanwhile, another battle was at hand. Joshua sent some men to spy out the lay of the land at a place called Ai, which according to archaeological evidence, may not have even been occupied at the time. When the spies came back, they were supremely confident and said there was no need to send everyone, the place had very few men. So, only 3,000 men went to take Ai. Wonder of wonders, Ai fought back and thirty six Israelites were killed. The Israelites hearts "melted like water" after this event. Awww. Joshua and the elders of Israel were devastated. They tore their clothes, fell on the ground, and sprinkled dust on their heads. That was to prove how upset they were. Then Joshua complained to Yahweh and told him Yahweh's reputation among the Canaanites would suffer because of this and the Israelites would be wiped out.
*Yahweh told Joshua to stand up then informed him that there was a thief and a liar among the Israelites. That was why they lost the battle with Ai. Joshua was to tell the people that they would not be able to stand against their enemies unless they removed the devoted objects from the camp. The perpetrator and all his possessions were to be burned. The next morning each tribe was called forth and examined. Joshua managed to separate out Achan. Joshua called Achan "my son" and told him not to hide what he had done. Joshua knew what the punishment was going to be, Achan didn't. Achan confessed; the objects were found and spread out before the lord. Achan, his children, his livestock, and the loot, were taken to the valley of Achor. There, all the living beings that belonged to Achan were stoned and then burned. Afterward, a bunch of rocks was piled on the site, which "remains to this day." In reality no one is certain where the site would have been.
*Why did Yahweh require the children and livestock to be stoned and burned (tortured) for what one man had done? What happened to the valuable objects?
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