Joshua 6 - The Promise of Foolishness?

We come to chapter 6, and Jericho.  Finally, it’s time for Jericho [see on map].  Time to get busy.  Time to do what we came to do, right?  Conquest.  Dispossessing the Canaanites.  Time to get down to the business of claiming this promise of God to us.  [Jericho] is the first step, and IT is “tightly shut”.  The Hebrew says, shutting and being shut.  It’s doubly shut.  The natives aren’t restless - they’re terrified.  Cuz of the Jewish people and their god.  Scared out of their wits.  

So let’s say you’re Joshua.  You know the mission - we need to take (back) our land - conquer it, AND everyone in it.  For all intents and purposes we’re talking about a military campaign.  And your first objective is this city - it’s not huge, but it IS heavily fortified.  You need weapons - swords and spears, maybe ramps, catapults.  You need resources - food and supplies and all the funding and logistics that go with that.  And you need a strategy.  Usually.  Altho, maybe not if you’re talking about these kinds of numbers: [600k vs 2k?]…?

But God flips the entire venture on its head here.  First He lays out the true nature of the mission for Joshua and the people (and us) - we looked at this last time.  Moving into and living into God’s land of promise is NOT a military maneuver.  It’s not us vs them.  It’s NOT fundamentally about overcoming obstacles of brick and mortar or enemies or resources or rivers.  It’s about the glory of God.  This is a spiritual journey - for Joshua, for Israel, and for each one of us.  Living in God’s land of promise is about overcoming ourselves - and our tendency to shortchange the Lord.  We shortchange Him on what He deserves.  We underestimate His glory.  We unbelieve.

And make no mistake, it ALL belongs to the Lord.  And this battle belongs to the Lord.  He’s got this.  Whatever giants we’re facing, the giant obstacles and challenges and questions and setbacks and enemies - these are always, simply, opportunities to trust the Lord.  Jericho is not just about tearing down giant walls in the lives of unbelievers.  It’s about overcoming our own giant self-reliance.

That is precisely what we see at Jericho.  So the Lord meets with Joshua, and rolls out the battle plan.  What do you think is going thru Joshua’s soldier-mind as the Lord unveils the strategy for the conquest of mighty fortified Jericho?  Joshua is expecting, what?  Some kind of a siege, then storm the walls with your superior numbers?  To his credit, Joshua doesn’t appear to even question what God tells him.  But then how about when Joshua briefs his generals, the leaders of his army?  Those guys - and the rest of the people - they’ve got to wonder if perhaps Joshua has lost his ever-loving mind.  Say what?  We’re going to do what?  Walk around the city?  And do what?  Nothing?  No swords?  No flaming arrows?  Half-a-million soldiers, suited up and ready for battle (it SHOULD be 600k, but remember the Reuben Gad Manites stinged and 100k of their soldiers stayed back in Gilead).  But all you want our massive army to do is take a few quiet laps around the city?  Just trumpets, and priests and the Ark?  OK, the Ark I get - even tho it’s just a piece of wood.  And priests - well, that IS sort of a package deal.  But just one lap a day, for six days, and then 7 laps on the 7th day, and we blast the trumpets, and shout, and that’s all?  That's it?  What kind of a battle plan is that?  This is not the first - nor the last time - that the Lord is showing His people that the battle belongs to Him.  He’s got this - and He is awesome.

But to the untrained eye, to the casual unbeliever, this is foolishness.  This plan, this is utter nonsense.  Walking around?  And trumpets?  This is just a waste of time.  No earthly way this is going to work.  Highly unlikely.  That’s precisely the point.  Remember, God traffics in the unlikely.  1Cor. 2:14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.  1Cor 1.25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  1Cor. 1:18-19   For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, “I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE.”  The promise of foolishness.

One way this plays out for us is in the ministry of prayer.  The soldier in us says we need strategies and resources and we just need to get down to business (busy-ness), when God says, we really/first need to get down on our knees.  We need to look to Him.  Psa. 127:1  Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.  Prayer isn’t preparation for work; it IS work.  God says, hurry up and wait on Me.  Look to Me, turn to Me.  Because this is not about us - it’s about our great God and Savior.  And the church of Jesus Christ advances on its knees.  That’s the promise of foolishness.  God’s ways, God’s plans can look foolish, God’s Word can sound foolish. God’s plan to provide eternal life through death, the death of His Son on the Cross, forgiveness thru trusting in what His Son did and not thru what I do - that sounds crazy.  But that [tomb] is empty, still empty.  Jesus, Yeshua.  God saves.  The promise of God.  The promise of foolishness.

[7-10] And so we have 500,000 soldiers marching around the city.  How long do you think this is going to take?  500 Lobo H.S. seniors getting seated took about 20 minutes.  Again, not a huge city, but this could take an hour or two.  [Line after line] of soldiers, marching around your city, deafening silence [10] (except for those [rams horns blowing]), and right in the middle is that infamous [Ark: TAOTCOTLOATE].  That awe-inspiring mountain-leveling piece of wood, all covered in gold.  And those hearts in Jericho, already doubly melted, no doubt dissolve into total despair.  [I recall an awe-inspiring sight at the castle Edinburgh when the massed pipe&drum corps of those former fearsome Scots warriors rolled out on parade - truly an intimidating force - imagine a half-million encircling your city like a huge human anaconda!].

Did you notice the use of the number [seven] here?  Seven priests.  Seven trumpets.  Seven days.  Seven times on the seventh day.  Lucky 7 isn’t [lucky] - but it is clearly one of God’s [favorite numbers].  Seven appears more times in Scripture than any other number (> 2).  It has special prominence in the life of God’s people - and it has from the very beginning.  Seven represents completeness.  Gen. 2:1-3  Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.  

From the very beginning, God set apart the 7th day as a day to rest and focus on Him.  We NEED this, time to rest and focus on the Lord, because we need HIM.  Rest COMPLETES our lives.  It’s good for our bodies AND our souls.  We are wise-NOT-foolish to take time in the day, every day, to take a lap around Jericho, a [quiet time], to focus on the Lord, to commune with Him, remind ourselves that apart from Him there is nothing we can do.  And one day a week we take seven laps! [and maybe even shout?]  We focus our lives away from that which concerns us to that which concerns Him.  It completes our week.  It completes our life [Phil. 1:6 ...being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.]  

It should come as no surprise that a world desperate to remove God from the equation chafes at the idea of setting any time apart for God, much less an entire day?  A lap around Jericho?  Resting, focusing on God, trusting Him in all our battles?  Unnecessary.  A waste of time.  Foolishness.  1Cor. 1:27 God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.  The promise of foolishness.  Thus our Epilogue [20,25,27].  The lesson of Jericho is that this battle - and all our battles - belong to the Lord.  God’s got this.  The promise of God.

Interesting tidbits on the number 7:

In the "book of symbols", Revelation, we see enumerated seven (e˚pta¿) stars, seven lampstands, seven angels, and seven churches, seven seal judgments, seven trumpet judgments, seven bowls of wrath, seven thunders...

I found one quote which suggests that there exists “…an ancient traditional respect for the number seven, the original basis of which is a matter of conjecture and debate”.  Really?  By skeptics, perhaps?

Week 

A period of seven days, a unit of time artificially devised with no astronomical basis.  The week’s origin is generally associated with the ancient Jews and the biblical account of the Creation, according to which God laboured for six days and rested on the seventh. Evidence indicates, however, that the Jews may have borrowed the idea of the week from Mesopotamia, for the Sumerians and the Babylonians divided the year into weeks of seven days each, one of which they designated a day of recreation. (from brittanica.com)

This author takes issue with these assertions.  There is nothing "artificial" about a number taking its significance from a divine mandate (unless of course one would dispute the origin of said mandate).  And even if there is some evidence to a claim that the number appears to have come into vogue via the Sumerians ("MAY have borrowed), the broader truth would be that both the Jewish and Sumerian/Babylonian peoples descended from Noah, who would have received the original 7-day week/pattern (and mandate to rest) from his dad, Lamech, who very likely knew Adam personally for 56 years.  Simply because there may be older evidence of Sumerians using a 7-day week than there is extra-biblical evidence that the Jews also used a 7-day week, this in no way requires one to conclude that the Jews "borrowed" the idea from the Sumerians.  Again, both peoples probably grew up with the idea coming from their shared ancestor:

Adam

    |

Noah

       /     \

Jews  <— Sumerians, Babylonians

Is there not more credence to the following assertion?

Romans 1:22 Professing to be wise, THEY became fools.

Joshua 5.13-6.1 - "The Promise of Justice"

Israel is entering the Promised Land!  The land God gave to the family of Abraham-Isaac-and-Jacob.  700 yrs later, God is bringing them back to inherit their promise.  A family of >2 million people.  And as He brings them into the promised land, He is going to great lengths to help them live into the great command: Deut. 6:4-5 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” There’s just one tiny problem: “their” land…is occupied.  People are living there - and they have been for centuries.  So now Israel has been tasked not only with possessing the land - i.e. dispossessing those who are living there [Deut 7.17] - they have been instructed - by God - to destroy them [Deut 20.16-18].

God cares about Israel.  But does He care about these Canaanite "squatters"?  Is it fair for God to choose Israel over them?  Does God play favorites?  Why do some people seem to get better outcomes than others?  It’s one of the great questions.  Is [life fair]?  It’s not the right question [but even asking the question - it points to the fingerprint of God/imago dei in our hearts.  We ask questions of fairness and justice, because the God Who made us in His image is preeminently just].

But before Joshua leads the conquest of the Promised Land, God reminds him (and us) of the true nature of the situation.  The Lord shows up on the plains of Jericho, and Joshua asks, whose side are You on?  Our earthly instincts tell us this is Israel vs Canaan.  Mano a mano.  Survival of the fittest, right?  So, stranger, are you for us, or for our adversaries?  Cuz we humans have this warped horizontal view of the situation.  We are entirely biased to think it’s all about us.  About me.  What concerns me.  What benefits me.  And anyone who stands against me is by definition, my enemy.  Us against them.  Whose side are You on, Lord?  And we assume, hey, I’m a decent person, I believe in God, so surely He’s showing up to help me.  But this captain of the Lord’s angel-armies says, nope.  You don’t understand.  I’m not choosing sides here.  This is not ultimately about you.  This is about the God of angel armies, the One Who made heaven and earth and all that is in them, and made each of us to know and love Him, to reflect His glory.  You need to understand the true worth of My glory, the true nature of My holiness.  God is always most concerned about His glory.  His breathtaking goodness.  He designed each of us to enjoy that and show that off, to prioritize Him in our hearts and lives in all we do.  That's the essence of the great command.  THIS - all this - is about Him.  Don’t miss Joshua’s eved [surrendered servant] moment [vv14 AND 15] - and the first time EVER in the land of promise a place is pronounced as holy.  What makes that plain of Jericho holy at this time?  God’s presence.  And to be sure, nothing unclean can enter (or abide in) God’s holy presence.

Sadly, history is a long history of us falling short of glory.  Choosing what we want over what God wants, making it all about me.  And we’re born this way.  Spiritual brokenness and depravity inherited from our first parents.  And ever since, all people everywhere fall short.  It shows up over and over in Scripture.  The generation of Noah [Gen. 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.].  Sodom and Gomorrah [Gen 18.20 And the LORD said, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.][breaking points].  Psa. 14:2-3  The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.  We all fall short.  Even God’s “chosen people".  So the Lord shows up to give Joshua/Israel a reminder of the reality of the situation: Deut. 9:4,6  “Do not say in your heart when the LORD your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you.  Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.”  Canaan was certainly guilty.  But so was Israel.

There is a kind of compassionate love which struggles to impugn guilt in another.  But this mindset is guilty of grossly underestimating 2 things: the white hot blindingly glorious holiness of the Lord, as well as the foul all-pervasive ugliness of our sin.  Some of this IS due to the spiritual nature of conversation.  We DON'T see God’s true holiness.  We read about it, but seeing it face to face is another thing entirely.  Joshua gets a glimpse here, and [what does he do]?  But we DO see people.  And yes, much of the beautiful visage of the Creator still remains on us.  The imago dei.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made.  But our hearts?  Truly fallen [Matt. 15:18-19 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”] Everyone is guilty before the Lord, we all deserve to be punished, separated from Him forever because of our sin. [Is. 64:6  For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.].  Nobody is clean enough to come into God’s presence - apart from trusting in Him to make a way.  That’s what Rahab did.  And that’s what God’s doing here with Joshua/Yeshua. He’s making the way for people to be saved.  Yeshua - God saves.  He is making this nation, these people, and God not only means for them to convey His goodness to all the nations, He’s given them this covenant that will give the world a picture of the way to be saved, forgiven.  And not just a picture - the One Who will actually BE the Way for people to be saved will come from this nation.  He will bear the same Hebrew name: Yeshua.  God saves.

But yes, the same God Who saves is the just holy God Who holds everyone accountable.  The promise of justice.  He announced it to Moses [Num 14.18] - and this God is the same yesterday today and forever.  Both Old and New Testaments show us this thrice-holy God Who loves all people AND hates-hates-hates when they put other things in His place.  And God holds everyone accountable for what they know [Rom 1.19-20].  Every one of these godless Canaanites had heard Israel was coming.  They had all heard about the God of Israel.  They were terrified.  Everyone in Jericho knew.  And only Rahab turned her heart to the Lord in surrender (at least she is the only one we know of).

We minimize God’s holiness/our guilt, AND we grossly exaggerate the here and now.  We miss the true scope of [eternity].  Compared to that infinite line, this life is just a tiny dot.  When viewed from the standpoint of eternity, only one thing matters in this life.  This brief life is everybody’s [one chance] to get ready for eternity [Heb 9.27].  Everyone gets one chance.  The promise of justice.  The life “cut short” in Canaan, or Kiev, or Uvalde, is tragic, to be sure, but the true tragedy of life is if that soul did not decide to surrender their heart to their Creator when they had the opportunity.  That is the ultimate tragedy.  BUT this is also why the imperative of sharing the Good News with all peoples is so imperative [Mk 16.15][2Cor 5.11].

In the end, there are no raw deals.  In fact the promise of justice is ALWAYS paired with the promise of forgiveness [Rom 6.23].  The seeming inequities of this life become inconsequential when seen in light of eternity, and the truth about God, Who we can trust to forever be supremely just [Job 13.15].  This life, more than anything else, is about getting ready for forever.  Seizing the chance to surrender our hearts to our Creator - Who DOES love us with a forever love, and sent His only Son to pay the penalty for all our sin, so that whoever believes could be forgiven and live forever with Him in Paradise.  That place which blows away even the best life money and privilege might buy on this broken planet.  The promise of God.  

Relevant verses:

Deut 32: 3-4, 40-41  “For I proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God!  The Rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.”

‘Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven, and say, as I live forever, “If I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on justice, I will render vengeance on My adversaries, and I will repay those who hate Me.” 

Exodus 34.6-7 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; Who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” 

Heb. 9:27 It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

Mark 16:15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

2Cor. 5:11   Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.

Num. 33:50   Then the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, 51 “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places; 53 and you shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it. 

Deut. 20:16 “Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 “But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you, 18 so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God. 

Rom. 1:19 That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 

Job 13:15  “Though He slay me, I will trust in Him.” 

Num. 14:18 The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations. 

Deut 12.31 “You shall not behave thus toward the LORD your God, for every abominable act which the LORD hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.”