Joshua Valiant

by Brian Godawa

  Ammiel replied, “They are spread throughout the countryside in various territories.”

  “And what of the fertility of the land?”

  “It is true, as you told us, the land is rich and abundant, and flows with milk and honey.”

  “So where is the sample of produce you were to bring back? The fruit of the land.”

  Ammiel and the others looked at one another with trepidation.

  Moses snapped, “Speak up.”

  Ammiel took a deep breath before confessing. “My lord, Moses, we were unable to procure any sample produce.” He paused again and swallowed. “Because we feared for our lives and could not afford the encumbrance.”

  Now, the seventy elders looked at one another and whispered amongst themselves at the scandal.

  Ammiel continued, “The people we saw who dwell in the land are stronger than we are. They live in fortified cities with walls that reach up to heaven.”

  “Yahweh did not say it was going to be easy, Ammiel,” said Moses. “Our years of being Egypt’s sentry forces in Goshen has prepared us for just such a war.”

  “Not for this kind of war, my lord,” Ammiel interjected.

  “We saw the Nephilim.”

  A hush of silence swept over the entire congregation.

  Moses gulped.

  The Israelites were familiar with the gossip and legends about the Nephilim. But now they were hearing trustworthy eyewitnesses confirm their greatest fears.

  The Nephilim were the legendary giant offspring of the fallen Watcher gods, also called Sons of God, who mated with the daughters of men before the great Flood. In the days of Jared, two hundred of these rebels from Yahweh’s heavenly host came to earth on Mount Hermon in Canaan. Two bitter commanders, Semjaza and Azazel, led them. They revealed to mankind all kinds of sorceries and evil secrets. They sought to draw worship away from the Creator by posing as gods over the people.

  And they engaged in a nefarious plot to corrupt creation through miscegenation, the unholy elimination of the distinctions of the created order. They violated the separation of kinds, by creating hybrids of male and female, man and animal, and the most vile of all: human and divine. These were the Nephilim, the unholy hybrid offspring of human and divine seed, the giant gibborim warriors of old. The rebel Sons of God had hoped to corrupt the seedline of Eve that Yahweh had prophesied would be at war with the seedline of the Serpent. The spies had seen the giant clans that were the descendants of those original Nephilim.

  This violence of humanity and divinity brought down the waters of the Deluge in judgment. The leaders Semjaza and Azazel, along with some of the other Watchers, had been bound into the earth to await their judgment.

  But not all of them.

  Seventy remained. And their corruption was passed through some of the sons of Noah down through history until this very day.

  Moses had heard that King Chedorlaomer and a coalition of Mesopotamian kings had wiped out most of the Nephilim descendants in the time of their father Abraham. But during his forty years in the Arabian desert with the Midianites, he learned that there was a surviving remnant of these giants thriving in Canaan, but he did not know just how many.

  Ammiel’s throaty voice shattered Moses’ thoughtful optimism.

  “Canaan is crawling with giants. They are of great height, and we were like grasshoppers before them. The land devours its inhabitants.”

  Hushed whispering broke out again through the assembly.

  Moses’ thoughtful pause made them uncomfortable.

  And then he said, “What is their organization?”

  Ammiel nodded to Shammua from the tribe of Reuben. He stepped forward with Geuel from the tribe of Gad, and Gaddi from the half-tribe of Manasseh.

  “My lord, we scouted the northernmost regions,” said Shammua. “We found the Transjordan ruled by King Og of Bashan. Og is the mightiest and last of the Rephaim, the most ancient of giant rulers.”

  “Describe these Rephaim,” said Moses.

  “They reach heights of ten and twelve feet, and they are heinous looking. Their bodies are without hair, their skin is pale grey, and they have large elongated skulls. They have two rows of teeth in their jaws, six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. It is said King Og sleeps on a bed of iron fourteen feet long and six feet wide.”

  That would make Og ten to eleven feet tall.

  A shiver went down Moses’ spine. A shiver went down everyone’s spine who was listening.

  “Human sacrifice is ubiquitous,” he continued. “It is unconscionable that many parents make their children to pass through the fires of Molech, god of the underworld.”

  Moses’ stomach turned. He felt nauseous. Groans of horror swept through the crowd.

  “But that is not all,” added Gaddi. “Serpent worship is widespread. There is talk of snake clans that engage in unspeakable abominations between human and reptile. And I personally witnessed a tribe led by satyrs at Banias in the foothills of Mount Hermon. These goat demons lead the hairy descendants of Esau into depraved sexual atrocities. Their tribe is called the Seirim.”

  Satyrs were chimeric creatures said to have the upper torso of a human and the lower legs of a hoary goat.

  Just when Moses thought it could not get worse, three other spies, Palti, Gaddiel, and Igal, stepped forward. Palti spoke for them.

  “We surveyed the hill country and there we found the Anakim, who come from the Nephilim. The sons of Anak.”

  Moses had heard of the Anakim. He knew they had ties that went back to the Israelites’ forefather Abraham.

  “What are they like?”

  “They are the fiercest among the giants in the land. They reside mostly in the southern region. They have extra-long muscular necks with pale skin and blond or reddish hair. They also have the extra digits on their hands and feet. They worship Ba’al the storm god and they are cannibals. No one can stand before them. Three brothers called the Sons of Arba are famous in the region for their ferocity. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai. Ahiman is legendary. No one is larger or mightier than he. It is said he is twenty feet tall and two thousand pounds.” The exaggeration that gossip brought often added many feet to height and many pounds to weight. But how much, who could know?

  Moses noticed that word must have spread through the camp because common Israelites were assembling around the meeting place to listen in on the report. By the end of this exchange, their numbers were large—and they were becoming restless.

  Ammiel stood forward again and announced, “It does not seem right to me that Yahweh would claim to lead us into such a lion’s den of fierce savagery.”

  Just before the tension was about to break, everyone’s attention turned to the sound of Joshua’s voice.

  “Sons of Israel, be strong and courageous!”

  Joshua and Caleb materialized out of the darkness carrying a large pole between them. On the pole was a bunch of grapes so large it dwarfed the two of them. It looked like it was the fruit of the gods.

  “I beg your indulgence to forgive our tardiness, lord Moses. But Caleb and I were a bit delayed.”

  Moses nodded with stern curiosity.

  Joshua added, “This bunch of grapes we were able to bring from the valley of Eshcol. As you can see, the fruit of the land is magnificent.”

  Ammiel interrupted, “Yes, it is food of the Anakim, before whom no man can stand!”

  And now the crowd was becoming unruly. A heckler yelled out, “Why has Yahweh brought us into this land only to fall by the sword?”

  Another added, “Our wives and children will become food for giants!”

  The crowd murmured in agreement.

  Caleb’s soul was broken for his people. He yelled in reply, “Trust in Yahweh! We are able to overcome these idolaters and occupy our inheritance!”

  But a louder heckler yelled back, “We are able to find a leader to lead us back to Egypt!”

  And the crowd went wild.

  Moses and Aaron fell on their fac
es and prayed to Yahweh. Joshua and Caleb began to tear their clothes in symbolic expression of their mourning for the people’s disloyalty to their god.

  The decibel level was rising to a pitch of fevered excitement.

  But then suddenly, the sound of a shofar horn penetrated the cacophony. Everyone quieted down.

  Caleb lowered the horn he had grabbed from a priest. His voice cut through the din with resounding clarity.

  “PEOPLE OF ISRAEL!”

  It was like Yahweh had amplified his voice.

  The assembly got even quieter.

  He continued, “The land which we spied out is an exceedingly good land! Yahweh will bring us into the land and give it to us just as he promised! Do not fear these Canaanite abominations! Yahweh is with us!”

  Joshua was beaming with inspiration listening to his fellow warrior. It impressed him that this Kenizzite, this outsider who was not even an Israelite of blood, had more faith than those who were.

  Joshua joined in on Caleb’s exhortation, “Do not rebel against Yahweh! We are a chosen people! We will break down their altars and dash into pieces their idols and burn their graven images! But if we rebel and do not obey his commandments, we will surely be destroyed!”

  In response, those without faith began to pick up stones.

  Someone shouted, “We are not rebels!”

  Another shouted, “Stone them!”

  Moses was weeping on the ground.

  And before anyone could make a move, the Shekinah glory, a pillar of fire embodying Yahweh’s presence, appeared before the Tent of Meeting.

  The masses went silent.

  Moses quickly got up and followed the glory into the holy place before the stunned crowd. Joshua followed him.

  Caleb watched Joshua disappear into the tent with longing in his heart. Moses chose Joshua when he was very young to be his assistant. This meant he was privileged to see the inner beauty of the tabernacle in all its detail, and at times even find himself close to Moses’ and Yahweh’s presence.

  Caleb longed for this kind of experience with all his being. The tabernacle was the garden of Yahweh’s presence among his people. The spirit-filled artist Bezalel and his craftsmen had built it according to Yahweh’s own pattern revealed from heaven. Caleb was fascinated by its symbolic beauty on every level, from the brazen altar and bronze laver outside to the Tent of Meeting inside, with its table of showbread and golden lampstand, to the unseen holy of holies, with statues of cherubim guarding the sacred Ark of the Covenant. It filled Caleb with sacred wonder and awe.

  Of course only the Levite priests were allowed in the cordoned off area. But the tabernacle was a portable temple that they brought with them on their long desert journey and set up at every encampment. So Caleb would take pains to be there when the priests were setting up, just so he could get glimpses of the beautiful tools and implements and adornments before they were all curtained off to the public.

  The tabernacle was the focal point of the Israelite community and life. As such, it was placed in the center of their camp, with all the twelve tribes arranged around it like a protective shield. There they engaged in the multitude of sacrifices required by Yahweh to atone for the sins of the people as they found their way to the Promised Land.

  It was a painful irony that now Caleb stood before that tabernacle with the people of Israel congregated like a mob in the aisles and among the tents on the eastern side. They were animated by resentful and ungrateful disbelief of their own god.

  But it was not the first time he had seen this kind of rebellion. And he suspected it would not be the last.

  Inside the Tent of Meeting, Joshua laid prostrate near the entrance. He listened to the unveiled Moses arguing with Yahweh who spoke from the midst of the Shekinah cloud. He had envied Moses’ station and direct communication with Yahweh for so long. He even fantasized about what it would be like to engage in such face-to-face interaction with the Creator.

  Even from his distance, Joshua could see enough of the Shekinah to tremble with awe. It was a cloud, but it was more than a cloud. It was like a curtain hiding a glory so pure and bright that should it be seen in its fullness, no man could stand before it. One’s eyes would burn out of their sockets. When he saw the cloud, his knees would buckle, and he could not defeat the urge to fall on his face to the ground.

  It was the very presence of the holy.

  And that holiness was now amplified with anger.

  “How long will this people despise me?” said Yahweh. “In spite of all the signs and wonders, they still refuse to believe me. I will smite them with pestilence. I will disinherit them, and make you into an even greater nation.”

  “I pray you reconsider your wrath,” said Moses. “Would that not give you a poor reputation among the nations and their allotted gods? After all, Egypt will hear about it and that might lessen the impact of all you did to them.”

  Joshua could not believe the boldness and audacity of Moses. Talk about iron loins.

  “Moreover, if you destroy this people, then the tribes of Canaan whom you seek to dispossess will tell themselves that all your glory is mere pompous bragging because you could not bring this nation into the land which you allotted to them as their inheritance.”

  Joshua was waiting for the strike of lightning, for Moses to be burnt to a cinder crisp.

  “Adonai my lord, you are longsuffering and merciful and just. I beg you do not treat this people as they deserve, but forgive their sin and find another way to maintain the glory of your name among the peoples.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Joshua looked up, thinking Moses may have been stone-deaf or even stone dead. But he was not.

  Yahweh finally spoke, “I have pardoned them according to your word.”

  It was amazing to Joshua. The almighty God, El Shaddai, Most High possessor of the heavens and the earth, Yahweh Elohim, the great I Am, just listened to the words of a mere mortal and changed his mind. Was that even possible? Could the living God be so intimate with someone that he would change his course of action on their behalf?

  And then he heard Yahweh’s decision and could not believe his ears.

  When Moses and Joshua came out of the Tent of Meeting, Caleb was waiting for them at the tabernacle entrance like a loyal dog at the threshold of his master. But he squinted in the brightness of his master’s shining who remained unveiled.

  The rest of the seventy elders perked up. Many of the congregation had already given up and gone to bed for the evening. The other ten spies awaited the decision as leaders of their tribes.

  Moses looked sober as he stood before the congregation. Caleb watched Joshua and he knew this was not good.

  “Sons of Israel!” Moses spoke with a strong voice. “Hear now the word of Yahweh! Tomorrow we will set out for the wilderness by way of the Red Sea.”

  The elders looked askance at one another. That did not make any sense. Did Yahweh now agree with the spies? Were the giants of Canaan too mighty of warriors to try to take the land after all?

  Moses continued, “‘As I live,’ declares Yahweh, ‘I have heard the grumblings of my people, Israel, who have put me to the test ten times and have not obeyed my voice.’”

  Caleb trembled. He did not know what was coming, but he could tell it was not going to be good. Moses was particularly bright as a star now.

  “‘I have determined, that of all of you listed in the census of Israel, not one of you older than the age of twenty shall come into the land that I swore to your fathers. Except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.’”

  Everyone in the congregation began to stir and whisper among themselves in shock.

  Caleb glanced at Joshua, who returned his look with a knowing humility, as if to say, “Yes, my friend, you and I alone.”

  Caleb was grateful that his younger brother Othniel was only fifteen years old, and would escape the judgment.

  Moses concluded, “They alone shall live to see the fulfillment of my promise, along
with your young ones. But as for you, your corpses shall fall in the wilderness. This nation will wander in the desert for forty years, and your children will suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your rotting carcasses shall fall in the dust of death.”

  Funny, how at this moment, the thing that entered into Caleb’s mind was the beautiful symmetry of the punishment fitting the crime. One year for every day. Forty years of wilderness misery for the forty days they spied out the land in unbelief.

  Even in judgment, Yahweh maintained a symbolic beauty.

  The congregation and elders however did not consider it so beautiful a symbol. Some of them called out to Moses to reconsider as he turned and left them, veiling himself as if to close off the glory of God from them.

  But Yahweh’s full conclusion was not yet realized until the next morning when it was discovered that, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, all of the spies who had given a bad report of the land to Moses had been stricken with a plague. They suffered excruciating pain, began to bleed from every orifice of their bodies until they vomited up blood, and died in piles of their own excrement and urine.

  Within a week, they would all be dead.

  But the evening of jarring events was not yet over for Moses. Joshua had requested a private meeting with Moses and Caleb to share one piece of intelligence they had told no one else.

  Joshua and Caleb arrived at Moses’ tent late in the evening when everyone was asleep. Moses’ shining had died down and he was now unveiled. They gathered around a small fire outside the tent and spoke in hushed whispers.

  As usual, Joshua led the discussion. “We did not tell you that when we visited the burial cave of Abraham and Isaac, we were captured by a pack of ten Anakim from the hill country.”

  Moses’ eyebrows arched with curiosity. “How did you escape?”

  “I will explain that in a moment. But while we were in their grasp, we heard them recounting a narrative of their ancient descendants around the campfire. We could tell it was their sacred story that motivated them and gave meaning and purpose to their clan.”