Joshua 6

Here are my notes (intermingled with material from the class handout) from this morning's lesson on Joshua 6. Also, scroll down for a video of John Piper answering a question we spent most of our time on this morning.

Joshua 6: The Fall of Jericho

BIG IDEA: God gives the victory as his people walk by faith.

SETTING: After five chapters of spiritual preparations, Israel is now ready to begin taking the land. Moving from their temporary base of operations at Gilgal, Joshua leads the people to Jericho. The fall of Jericho is a one sided affair in which God gave the city to Israel.

Verses 1 – 7: INSTRUCTIONS FOR TAKING JERICHO

Note the absence of any military instruction. Instead the instructions given point to more of a spiritual exercise.

One strong motif in this story is that even though God is giving the city, the people must take it by faith.

This was the failure that caused the 40 years of wandering the desert – at that time the Israelites did not exercise faith in God's promise of giving them the land.

Hebrews 11:30 – By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.

[Q] What strongholds might God want to give you victory over as you walk by faith? Are there any areas of your life you should ‘Advance’ in?

Verses 8 – 21: THE BATTLE OF JERICHO

The LORD goes before the people into battle. After following God’s instructions to a tee, the people take the city.

The people are careful to destroy everything except that which is sacred to the LORD. (Except for a man named Achan, whom we will get to in chapter 7.)

[Q] What makes it okay for God to kill everyone here? Is this ethnic cleansing?

Then the LORD said to Abram, "Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." (Genesis 15:13-16, ESV)

The Amorites were one of the main population groups in the land of Canaan, often listed alongside the other tribes of the land (such as in Joshua 3 - the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites). God effectively says that He will judge the Amorites for their accumulated sin & wickedness by driving them out of the Promised Land.

"Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, 'It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,' whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." (Deuteronomy 9:4-5, ESV)

Again, this points to the wickedness of the nations in the Promised Land being the reason for God using the Israelites to drive them out, as He makes good on His promise of giving them the land.

This kind of destruction of all life was commanded for the Promised Land only. Consider Deuteronomy 20:10-18:

"When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the LORD your God."

God was concerned to protect the purity of His people by trying to keep them from the other nations' wickedness & idolatry.

All people sit under God's rightful judgment, as all are sinners. God uses means to execute justice. Just as God uses His chosen to people to execute justice while fulfilling His covenant promise to them, later He will use other nations to execute judgment on the nation of Israel for its sin & idolatry.



Verses 22 – 27: AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE

Rahab and her entire family are saved just as promised in chapter two. There the spies promised to spare Rahab because of her demonstration of faith.

Why is Rahab named? Why isn't she just called "a prostitute of Jericho"? The next time she's mentioned in Scripture is about 1400 years after the events at Jericho:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.
(Matthew 1:1-16, ESV)

Rahab is the mother of Boaz, the great-great-grandmother of David, and an ancestor of Jesus Christ. She's an early example of God blessing "all nations" through His people, of how even in the Old Testament God showed His grace to Gentiles.

Joshua's oath of curse in verse 26 is fulfilled in 1 Kings 16:34:

In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho. He laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.

The last verse of the chapter, verse 27, is a further fulfillment of Joshua 3:7:

The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you."

[Q] Central to this chapter is the theme that Yahweh is a promise-keeping God. What are some specific promises you have seen God fulfill in your life?

Circumcision

Is there a better topic to start off a new blog than circumcision? I think not. The leaders & teachers of Journey Life Group have been kicking around the idea of a blog for some time now. We hope that it will be a place for ongoing discussion outside of class, where we may post notes, outlines, handouts, devotionals, email newsletters, questions we didn't get to or answer during class, etc. Who knows? It's new, and rather formless, so we're open to suggestions as well. Particularly if you have a question or topic that you would be interested in getting the teachers' perspectives - just email the class email or one of the teachers, and we'll try to address your questions here. Without further ado, on to the point of this first post: circumcision.

In class on Sunday, we went over Joshua 5. The people of Israel have just crossed the parted Jordan River on dry ground, and set up memorial stones upon their entrance into the Promised Land. They are about to embark on Jericho, but first, there's some business that needs attended to. For whatever reason, the boys who had been born during the Israelites' time in the desert had not been circumcised according to the Law. So Joshua told the people to make flint knives and circumcise the men & boys of Israel. During class, the following question was posed:

"Why circumcision?"

If circumcision is "the outward sign of entrance into the covenant community or the community of God’s people" (according to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology, p. 975), then why not something more visible to everybody - like a tattoo or a brand or a piercing or hairstyle? Why circumcision?

We threw around some ideas as a class, but nothing really seemed to hit the spot, other than, "well, we're really not sure." So Sunday afternoon & evening found me looking into this. I knew I had actually heard an explanation for this before, but couldn't remember exactly where. So off I went to various resources (including Grudem's Systematic Theology referenced above).

One of the things that I came across was the fairly basic idea of covenants in the Bible, and covenant signs in particular. Throughout the Bible, God makes covenants with His people, and often attaches a sign to help them remember the covenant. In general, the sign held some significance to the promise God made as part of the covenant. An easy example is God's covenant with Noah after the flood. God promised to never again destroy the earth with a flood. And what was the sign of the covenant? A rainbow. Despite the floods that ravage parts of the earth from time to time, the rainbow still serves to remind us that God will never again destroy all life with a flood.

Likewise, circumcision was intimately connected to one of God's covenants, with Abraham. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave his country, telling him that He will make him into a great nation, and that "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (12:3) In Genesis 15, God enters into covenant with Abram, telling him that "a son coming from your own body will be your heir" (15:4), that his offspring would be as uncountable as the stars in the sky. In Genesis 16, Abram & Sarai were getting impatient with God and tried to fulfill His promise on their own. Abram sleeps with Sarai's maidservant, Hagar, and Ishmael is born. God has already been making promises to Abram, but so far there has been no mention of circumcision. Which brings us to Genesis 17.

In Genesis 17, God tells Abram that He will confirm His covenant with him. He changes Abram's name to Abraham (from "exalted father" to "father of a multitude"). He tells Abraham that He will make him fruitful, and that "kings will come from you." (17:6) and that this covenant will be an "everlasting covenant." (17:7) And then God gives Abraham the sign of the covenant - circumcision.

I think God may be telling Abraham (and his descendants to come) something to the effect of, "Hey, I promised you offspring, but you & Sarah didn't trust me and tried to do it in the flesh. Now I'm going to wait until you're really old, cut off your flesh, and not just any flesh, but flesh of the organ that is pretty important when it comes to having kids. And hopefully this will be a reminder to you and your descendants that my promise is not just for Isaac, but for One who will one day bless the whole earth."

Consider Galatians 4:22-23 (the following is the ESV text, with parentheses added by me):

"For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one (Ishmael) by a slave woman (Hagar) and one (Isaac) by a free woman (Sarah). But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise (after the cutting off of Abraham's flesh)."

So circumcision seems to have started as a symbol to remind Abraham that God fulfills His promises. He doesn't need our creativity to help Him fulfill His promises. But circumcision & God's covenant with Abraham doesn't stop with Isaac. Remember what Genesis 17:6 said - that kings will come from Abraham. There were no kings in Israel for nearly 1000 years. And God told Abraham that "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you," but, in general, Israel was not a source of blessing to the nations, but an instrument of God's judgment, in particular as they settled the Promised Land. So the everlasting covenant was just that - looking far beyond Abraham and Isaac, to One who would be a King who would bring God's blessing to all nations. That's why each generation of God's people were called to carry on the sign of circumcision until that One came. That's why the New Testament says that circumcision is no longer of any value, because the One to whom it points, the One who fulfills God's covenant with Abraham, has come. Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the son of Abraham, has fulfilled all of God's promises (see 2 Corinthians 1:20), we no longer observe circumcision as God's people. Instead, we celebrate baptism, where we identify with Christ's death & resurrection, and we celebrate communion, where we remember His body, broken & given for us, and the cup as the new covenant in His blood, shed for us on the cross.



Appendix, of sorts

For those of you who can't get enough of circumcision, or would rather read some more informed & educated words, here are some notes I found as I was looking into this.

From Zondervan's NIV Study Bible (1985 Copyright) notes on Genesis 17:

• Circumcision was God's appointed "sign of the covenant", which signified Abraham's covenant commitment to the Lord--that the Lord alone would be his God, whom he would trust and serve. It symbolized a self-maledictory oath: "If I am not loyal in faith and obedience to the Lord, may the sword of the Lord cut off me and my offspring as I have cut off my foreskin." Thus Abraham was to place himself under the rule of the Lord as his King, consecrating himself, his offspring and all he possessed to the service of the Lord.

From the Reformation Study Bible notes on Genesis 17:

• By this ritual the organ of procreation was consecrated to God.

From the MacArthur Study Bible notes on Genesis 17:

• Circumcision was not entirely new in this period of history, but the special religious and theocratic significance then applied to it was entirely new, thus identifying the circumcised as belonging to the physical and ethnical lineage of Abraham. Without divine revelation, the rite would not have had this distinctive significance, thus it remained a theocratic distinctive of Israel. There was a health benefit, since disease could be kept in the folds of the foreskin, so that removing it prevented that. Historically, Jewish women have had the lowest rate of cervical cancer. But the symbolism had to do with the need to cut away sin and be cleansed. It was the male organ that most clearly demonstrated the depth of depravity because it carried the seed that produced depraved sinners. Thus, circumcision symbolized the need for a profoundly deep cleansing to reverse the effects of depravity.

From D.A. Carson's For the Love of God, Volume 1:

• God introduces circumcision as the initiatory sign of the covenant. Circumcision was practiced by several ancient Near Eastern peoples. Here, however, it has a distinctive role: a rite that is not unknown in Abraham’s world is picked up by God and assigned distinctive significance in the history of the covenant God enters into with his people. Abraham loses no time in complying (17:23-27). This is a social “boundary marker” which across the course of history increasingly marks the Hebrews out as different; but it is more than that. It is so definitively established as the unique sign of the everlasting covenant that failure to comply means one is cut off from the people of God (17:13-14). Even before there is a great quantity of stipulation in the covenant, its framework, its boundary, and its symbolism are being established.
• Abraham’s understandable but unhappy skepticism that he will bring forth a son of Sarah at this late stage in their marriage leads him to propose Ishmael as the one through whom God will fulfill his promises (17:17-18). But God will have none of it. Ishmael will sire great numbers, but the covenant line goes through Isaac (17:19-21). The history of the covenant people is thus decisively shaped by God’s sovereign choice.
• ... physical circumcision could never be seen as an end in itself, not even in the Old Testament. It symbolized something deeper: circumcision of the heart. What God wants is not merely an outward sign that certain people belong to him, but an inward disposition of heart and mind that orient us to God continually.
• On Joshua 5: Circumcision is now carried out on all the males that were born during the years of wilderness wandering. At one level, this is rather surprising: How come they weren’t done as the boys were born? In many instances the multitude stayed in one place for long periods of time, doubtless developing community life. What prevented them from obeying this unambiguous covenantal stipulation? There have been many guesses, but the short answer is that we do not know. More important, in this context, is the fact that the rite is carried out now universally. It thereby stands as a decisive turning point, a symbol-laden communitywide affirmation of the covenant as the people stand on the verge of entering the Promised Land. Egypt is now behind; the promised rest awaits. “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you” (5:9).

From Michael Horton's The Christian Faith:

• Circumcision was instituted directly by God as a sign and seal of the covenant of grace (Ge 15; 17). The gracious character of this covenant is evident in the form and content in which he passes alone through the severed animal pieces.
• Although indeed a blood-shedding rite, circumcision was only a partial "cutting off" that spared the recipient of being cut off entirely from life. Like the Passover blood on the doorposts, circumcision identified the recipient with the Mediator of the covenant of grace.