CHAPTER XXV.

INVASION OF CANAAN.-DEATH OF JOSHUA.

(Joshua.)

JOSHUA had already (p. 157) been appointed to succeed Moses as the leader of the Israelites, and in the administration of the theocratical government. He was now (B.c. 1451) confirmed in this office, and was commanded to lead the people into the promised land, with the assurance of Divine support to give success to faithful and courageous conduct; herein becoming a type of Christ, the true 'salvation of the Lord' (p. 70, note), whose office it is to conduct His faithful people to the possession of their heavenly inheritance, the land of everlasting

rest.

As a preliminary step, Joshua sent two spies secretly from Shittim* to Jericho, a fortified city on the other side of the Jordan,† which formed the key to the whole country. By some means, the presence of these men had become known to the inhabitants of that place, and search was made for them, from which they escaped only by the address of a woman named Rahab, at whose house they lodged; who first concealed them under some stalks of flax, which had been spread out to dry on the flat roof of her house, and afterwards

*Shittim (the Acacias), or Abel-shittim (the Acacia Meadow, Num. xxxiii. 49), the last place at which the Israelites emcamped before they removed to the Jordan, was in the plains of Moab, at the foot of the mountainous range Abarim, and immediately under Nebo, opposite to Jericho. Hence it is to be looked for near the point at which the Wady Hesban enters the plains of Moab; probably to the south of this wady. See Keil on Joshua, ii. 1.

so

This river was so called, according to Gesenius, from jarad, to descend, and the descender, the river that flows down. Its fall is considerable. The word, in Scripture, has the article always (except twice)—the Jordan.

We find mention of Jericho and its neighbouring palm-grove, in Strabo, xvi. 2; Diodor. Sic. ii. 48. Tacitus, in his description of Judea, makes special mention of Lebanon and the Jordan, Hist. v. 6; and Justin. xxxvi. 3, speaks of the valley of the Jordan, and its trees of opobalsamum. For a description of Jericho see Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, ch. vii.

§ Though Rahab's subsequent conversation with the spies (v. 9) proves that she was both convinced of the omnipotence of Jehovah, and of the reality of the miracles He had performed for His people, and also that she firmly believed that this God was about to give them the land of Canaan, and that therefore all opposition to Israel would be futile, being in fact resistance to the Almighty God Himself; yet this is no justification of her falsehood, which still remains nothing but a sinful expedient, by which she thought it necessary to contribute her part toward the accomplishment of the decrees of God, and the safety of herself and family. The lie which Rahab told is a sin, notwithstanding that the feelings which dictated it had their root in faith in the true God (Heb. xi. 31); and the help she rendered from these motives to the spies, and therefore to the cause of the Lord, was accounted to her for righteousness (James ii. 25), and her sin was forgiven her as a sin of weakness.'-KEIL on Joshua, ii. 5.

let them down through a window, so that they were immediately outside the town-wall against which her house was built. From her they learnt that, on the approach of the Israelites, the people of Canaan had been smitten with a panic, arising from the intelligence which they had received of the manifestation of Divine power in their favour. On receipt of this report, Joshua immediately led the people to the brink of the Jordan, and halted there previous to the passage of the river. But it was now about the period of the vernal equinox, the time of barley-harvest; and the river was swollen with its annual flood, arising from the melting of the snow, which carried it periodically over its banks of the lower or innermost channel, so as to fill up a higher or wider channel, enclosed with steep banks on either side. The passage was therefore impracticable by any means at the command of the Israelites themselves; but Joshua prepared them to expect that it should be effected by the power of the Almighty. He commanded the priests to take up the ark, and carry it in front of the host; and no sooner had the soles of their feet touched the edge of the river, than the waters which came down from above were stayed in their course and made to stand in a heap, while those from below flowed away in their usual course to the Dead Sea, and left a large space of dry ground for the passage of the Israelites. The ark was set down in the dry channel, and remained there until all the people had passed over; and on this spot twelve stones were set up as a monument of the event, while twelve other large stones, taken from the same place, were set up by Divine command in Gilgal, on the east of Jericho, where the Israelites made their first encampment in Canaan. The administration of Joshua was thus inaugurated by a heaven-wrought miracle, similar to that which had introduced the leadership of Moses at the Red Sea. And it has been observed that 'that which Moses accomplished with his staff, through the word of the Lord, was here performed by the ark of the covenant, which had been appointed at the establishment of the theocracy as the regular symbol of the gracious presence of the Lord. Where the ordinary means of grace exist, the goodness and power of God operate through them, and not directly. Israel was to learn this now, and at the same time to receive a striking fulfilment of the assurance which God had given them, that He would manifest His glory to them out of the ark of the covenant.' *

The terror of the Canaanites was augmented by the miraculous passage of the Jordan; but it was not necessary to take

* Keil on Joshua, iii. 8,

M

immediate advantage of this state of things in order to ensure the success of the divinely conducted enterprise. Gilgal * was fixed upon as the place of head-quarters; and here, by the express command of Jehovah, the Israelites took time for the discharge of some ceremonial duties, as the matter which claimed their first attention. The rite of circumcision, which had been neglected † during the wanderings in the wilderness, was now solemnly renewed; and the Passover, which had not been kept since the Israelites quitted Sinai, was celebrated on the fourteenth day of the month, at even. On the following day the people ate unleavened cakes made of the produce of the land upon which they had now set foot; and then the supply of manna, being no longer needed, ceased.‡

The time for the commencement of active operations against the Canaanites was now drawing near. "And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho '-probably on some day when he was taking a survey of the place that he lifted up his eyes, and looked; and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand; § and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? and he said, Nay, but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so.' (Josh. v. 13-15.) There can be no doubt that the glorious Being who thus appeared to Joshua, and received his worship, was the same who had appeared to Abraham as a traveller (pp. 27, 28) and to Jacob at Peniel (p. 39); even the eternal Son of God in a human form temporarily assumed. And the design of this appearance was to encourage Joshua and the people to advance

I. e. a rolling away; because the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you,' i. e. the reproach cast upon the Israelites by the Egyptians, who said that God had brought them out into the wilderness in order to destroy them.

† Or, rather, discontinued, suspended, in token of the Divine displeasure, and the temporary rejection of the people. The Israelites now entered once more into covenant with the Lord, by the renewal of circumcision, and the celebration of the Passover. See Keil on Joshua, v. 7.

This discontinuance of the supply by which the people had been so long sustained, no less marks the signal providence of God, than the original grant of it, and its long continuance. It came not one day before it was needed; and it was continued not one day longer than was really required by the wants of the people. This strikingly showed the Lord's care, and evinced the miraculous nature of the supply. Such indications as this of the Lord's presence and power were little less than visible manifestations of Deity.'-KITTO, Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 261.

§ As he had before appeared to Balaam, Num. xxii. 23, 31.

against the Canaanites, with a firm reliance on the promised and ever-present aid of the Almighty.

The people of Jericho, afraid to encounter the Israelites in the open field, shut themselves up within their walls, which they hoped would serve as an impregnable defence. But no walls can hold out when the captain of the Lord's host is the besieger.* In the present case, His wonderful power was remarkably apparent. According to Divine instructions to Joshua, the army marched round the place in silent procession, once on each of six successive days, attended by seven priests blowing trumpets (rams' horns†), and the ark; one portion of the army being in front and the other in the rear. seventh day, this procession marched round the city seven times; when, at the end of the seventh circuit, the priests having blown a long blast with the trumpets and the people having raised a loud shout, the walls of the city fell down flat to the ground, and the place was left utterly defenceless, and

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The possession of Canaan by the Israelites is constantly set forth as a free gift of the Divine favour, by which all ideas of human right are completely excluded. . . . But while, on the one hand, the donation of this land to the Israelites was an act of the Lord's free favour, the denial of it to the Canaanites was no less an act of His retributive justice, of such justice as it behoved the moral Governor of the world to administer against a people laden with iniquity. When the time was fully come, the Canaanites became a doomed peopledoomed to expulsion or extermination by the Israelites, to whom was committed the sword of judgment, and who were the destined inheritors of the land of which the Canaanites had, by that time, proved themselves unworthy. This solemn doom is expressed in the Hebrew by a peculiar word (cherem), which is always applied to such devotement to destruction in vindication of the Divine justice; and this is the term constantly applied to the Canaanites, as to a people who, by their enormities, had dishonoured the moral government of God, and were therefore to be constrained, by the judgment inflicted on them, to glorify that government, and thereby to set forth the great truth, that there is a pure and holy Ruler of the nations. Then, again, the Israelites, favoured as they were for their fathers' sake, were apprised that even they held the land by no other tenure than that which the Canaanites were to be destroyed for infringing. Over and over again were they warned, that if they fell into the same dreadful transgressions for which the Canaanites had been cast out, they would subject themselves to the same doom-be like them destroyed-like them cast out of the good land which they had defiled.'-KITTO, Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. ii. pp.

255-258.

Heb., trumpets of jubilee, i. e. curved trumpets, made of horn, or in the shape of a horn, capable of producing a loud sound. Compare Exod. xix. 13; Lev. xxv. 9. The number seven amongst the Israelites was sacred; and by this march of seven days, and the repetition of it seven times on the seventh day, together with the seven priests walking before the ark of the covenant and blowing seven trumpets, the host of Israel were to show that they were the people of the covenant, and that, as the gracious presence of God was bound up with the ark of the covenant, they had in the midst of them their God and Lord, and were fighting in His name.' KEIL on Joshua, vi. 4. At the same time, the continuation of the march during several days, might have served to exercise the Israelites in unqualified faith and patient confidence in the power and promise of their God, and to impress deeply upon their minds the fact, that it was only the omnipotence and faithfulness of Jehovah which had given into their hands this fortified city, the key to the entire land.'-1b.

exposed to an assault. The Israelites rushed from all points upon the devoted city, which, according to the Divine command, they utterly destroyed; sparing only the family of Rabab, who had given protection to the spies, and whose house had been distinguished, according to previous arrangement, by a red cord displayed at the window. 'And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho; he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.' ( (Josh. v. 26.) This curse has been usually understood as meaning that whoever should attempt to rebuild * the place, should lose his first-born by death at the commencement of the work, and his youngest son at the completion of it, or, that he should lose all his children, from the first-born to the youngest, during the progress of the work; but it has also been thought to signify that the builder should be delayed in his undertaking, from the birth of his first-born to the birth of his youngest son. It was fulfilled in the experience of Hiel, who rebuilt Jericho during the reign of Ahab. (1 Kings xvi. 34.) The prohibition and imprecation of Joshua have been compared to that of Agamemnon, concerning the rebuilding of Troy, and of the Romans with respect to Carthage; and, more especially, to that of Croesus pronounced over Sidene.† Joshua now directed his arms against Ai, a town in the hill ‡

* I. e. to restore it as a fortress, to rebuild its walls and gates. Jericho was inhabited again before the time of Hiel (Judges iii. 13; 2 Sam. x. 5); but it was not fortified.

† Quoted by Grotius from Strabo, xiii. 1, 42.

The earliest and most fundamental distributions of territory are according to the simple division of the country into its highlands and lowlands. "The Amalekites," that is, the Bedouin tribes, " dwell in the land of the south," that is, on the desert frontier-" and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains," that is, the central mass of hills-" and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the side' of Jordan" (Num. xiii. 29; comp. Josh. xi. 8), that is, on the western plain and in the valley of the Ghor. And of the early inhabitants thus enumerated, those who at least by their names are brought into the sharpest geographical contrast, are the Amorites or " dwellers on the summits," and the Canaanites or "lowlanders."'-STANLEY, Sinai and Palestine, ch. ii. In the book of Joshua,' says Ritter (quoted in Hackett's Illustrations of Scripture, ch. v.), which relates the conquest and distribution of the land of Canaan, the geographical character is predominant. Its contents, therefore, in this respect, admit of being brought to the test of comparison with the ascertained condition of the country; and the result is that its accuracy has been fully established in the minutest details, even when the examination has been pursued into the mo-t unimportant and trivial local relations. The notices. not only of distinct regions, but of valleys, fountains, mountains, villages, have been confirmed, often with surprising certainty and particularity. The entire political and religious life of the Hebrews was interwoven in the closest manner, like a piece of net-work, with the geography of the land, far more so than is true of the modern European nations; and hence the opportunity to verify the alleged or implied connection between places and events is the more perfect, and affords results the more satisfactory. Most decisive is the rebuke which infidelity has received from this new species of testimony; it has been compelled to confess with shame that it has imposed on itself and others by the unfounded doubts which