by Brian Godawa
The Son of Man paused again for a conclusive punch. “So you see, the devotion to destruction of herem is not based on racial prejudice at all. It is based on criminal religious behavior. This is not ethnic cleansing, it is evil cleansing. But even then, Yahweh offers grace. If anyone repents from their idolatry, they will be accepted into the congregation of Israel. Yahweh has even provided laws protecting the alien and the sojourner who live amidst his people.”
“And Yahweh’s holiness is not a double standard. For Israel too will be judged if and when she engages in the abominations of the Canaanites, as we have already seen with the judgment on those seduced by the Moabites and Midianites. God is not partial, he extends his justice to all who commit evil, Canaanite or Israelite, and he extends his loving-kindness to all who repent, Canaanite or Israelite. And one day, he will bring all the earth under the dominion of his kingdom.”
The satan jumped up again, “I object! If the Israelites are no different than Canaanites, if they are no more holy, then why do they get to be the instruments of Yahweh’s wrath? Why would he not choose Egyptians or Hittites or Babylonians? That is not fair! In fact, why does he not choose the Canaanites to dispossess the Israelites?”
Mikael was holding back his righteous indignation. He wanted to smite the snake. The satan was objecting to every petty little detail he could to try to derail the defense line of argument.
But the Son of Man was not fazed. He responded to detailed attacks with detailed counterpoint truth. “Yahweh Elohim has chosen Israel to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, not because of their righteousness or the uprightness of their hearts. They will be given possession of the land because of the wickedness of the nations. That is why Yahweh Elohim is driving them out of Canaan, that he may confirm his promise he swore to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
“That does not answer the question!” snapped the satan.
The Son of Man countered, “Yahweh Elohim chooses his elect, based not upon human will or deeds, but based upon Yahweh who has mercy. He has mercy on whom he has mercy, and he hardens whom he desires.”
The satan was getting desperate. “Then why does he condemn anyone, for who resists his will?”
“On the contrary,” said the Son of Man. “Who are you to answer back to Yahweh? Does the potter not have the right over the clay to fashion what he desires? The potter takes one lump of clay and makes some vessels of mercy prepared beforehand for honor, and glory, and makes other vessels of wrath prepared beforehand for destruction to make known his power. Such is the folly of that which is molded demanding an answer from the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”
“Lastly, the notion that other religions will use the dispossession of the Promised Land as a justification for their own land grabs and ‘holy wars’ is moot. The Yahweh Wars are restricted to establishing his ownership of Canaan alone and cannot be extended to normal warfare. This is a one-time historical event that cannot be repeated. Only Yahweh is the Creator who owns all the cattle on a thousand hills as well as the hills on which those cattle stand. Only Yahweh owns the land to distribute it as he wills. All claims by other gods that mimic the Wars of Yahweh are illegitimate forgeries and therefore null and void. They are mere rationalizations of tyranny. And so I rest my case.”
Yahweh Elohim retreated with his divine council to deliberate the verdict. When he returned, he announced to the lawyers at the bar, “I declare the defense righteous in standing. The accuser has failed to provide proof of his charges against Yahweh’s right to eminent domain, and his use of Israel as his instruments of justice.”
“Your honor,” spouted the satan, “I demand a court order for a stay of execution. This is a capital trial and I think we need to reexamine the evidence in light of the extreme sentence of genocide.”
“Motion denied,” said Yahweh Elohim. “The iniquity of the Amorites is complete. Canaan has filled up the measure of its guilt. Israel shall commence its possession of the land immediately. Court is dismissed.”
Chapter 34
Caleb and Salmon had waited three days in the hills outside of Jericho before returning to the camp of Israel on the east side of the river Jordan. They relayed their intelligence to Joshua, and told him of the harlot Rahab and how she helped them. Joshua accepted the sparing of her life and her family’s lives. He would alert the entire army of this provision.
But today was a holy day that Joshua and Caleb had been anticipating for forty years. They stood side by side with the people of Israel behind them three thousand feet from the river. They were following Yahweh’s very specific directions in how they would cross the river and enter into Canaan.
They watched the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant to the water’s edge and step their feet just into the bank, waiting for a miracle. The miracle would have to deal with the fact that this was the springtime, when the river was flooded with a stronger current. At this location it was about one hundred and fifty feet wide and about twelve feet deep. Crossing thousands of people in riverboats would take many days.
But Yahweh had promised a sign that he would be true to his word that he would not fail to drive out the inhabitants of the land before them.
That sign began seventeen miles north of their location near the city of Adam. An earthquake shook the earth mounds around the river and a large landslide of debris tumbled down causing a temporary damming of the Jordan river.
The water stopped flowing southward and dried up the riverbed where the Israelites were standing with the Ark.
The people buzzed with excitement and were amazed.
Caleb was watching it all with his poetic eye. He had seen how Yahweh was establishing Joshua as a new Moses to lead the people. This water crossing was reminiscent of the crossing of the Red Sea during the exodus under Moses. Joshua’s coronation occurred after coming down from the mountain much like Moses came down Sinai with the tablets of the Law. And now Yahweh talked to Joshua almost as he had talked to Moses.
The priests carrying the Ark now walked out onto the dried up riverbed and stood with it in the middle as the people crossed over in procession.
According to Yahweh’s own commands, twelve chosen men, one from each of the twelve tribes, pulled twelve large stones out of the riverbed from around the priests. They carried them to where they would be camping that night and placed them in a pile as a memorial of this day. At the same time, twelve others gathered a stone each and placed a pile of those stones in the center of the riverbed where the priests were standing.
After the people had hastily crossed over, the priests took up the Ark and left the pile of stones in the riverbed. As soon as they had made their way onto the dry land, the waters of the Jordan began to flow again and the river renewed its course to the Dead Sea.
The people made camp at a location they called Gilgal. They set up metal forges to immediately begin manufacturing more weapons for the Yahweh Wars before them.
Forty troop units came over for battle with the people. But not all of Israel came over with them that day. The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh had begged Moses before he died to give them the land east of the Jordan as their inheritance. It was where they had conquered Sihon and Og and it was a rich fertile area that the tribes desired. He had granted it to them on the condition that they would send their warriors across the Jordan to fight with the rest of the tribes in Canaan. Only after they had secured their victories would they be allowed to go back and build their lives with their tribes in the Transjordan.
But the ceremonial preparations were not yet finished. Ever since the exodus, the Israelites had failed to perform the sign of the Abrahamic covenant on their sons: Circumcision. Circumcision was the act of cutting off the foreskin of the male genital organ of Israelite boys at the eighth day after birth. It was the badge of covenant that marked the Israelite commitment to Yahweh. Some believed it was a physical picture of spiritual cle
ansing from a sheath of corruption. Others believed it was a symbol of Yahweh’s blessing upon Abraham’s fathering of a multitude of nations.
Yahweh never explained.
But explanation was not required for obedience.
And obedience was not a badge of the grumbling and complaining exodus generation. By the time that generation had died out, no one was circumcised in the entire nation of Israel.
Joshua had the priests make flint knives and they circumcised every male in Israel. There was much pain and crying by men throughout the camp, but they had healed within a week and were ready for battle.
One last element remained for the consecration of the Children of Israel. On the fourteenth day of the first month of Nisan the people all kept the Passover meal in their new base of operations at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho.
The Passover was a feast that commemorated God’s tenth and final plague on Egypt, the death of the first-born. Before their exodus from Egyptian slavery the Israelites were commanded by Yahweh to slaughter a lamb and brush its blood over the doorposts of their homes. The Destroyer then came to kill the first-born of every family in Egypt, but passed over those with the blood on their lintels.
It was the last plague that Yahweh sent on Pharaoh to bend his will. When Pharaoh’s own son succumbed to the Angel of Death, it did not merely bend Pharaoh, it broke him, and he let Moses and his people leave the land of the Nile.
How appropriate that their entrance into the Promised Land of Yahweh be accompanied by the first of their Feasts that marked their exodus, an event that would forever be etched into their souls like the permanent markings on the monuments of Egypt.
From Gilgal they would launch their campaign of military conquest of the land. On that day, they ate of the produce of the land of Canaan, their unleavened cakes and their parched grain. And on that very day, the manna ceased from heaven.
They were in the land of milk and honey.
Joshua called the congregation of Israel to gather in the open areas and aisles around the tabernacle. They crunched in to be able to hear him, and he spoke to them as Moses used to. He stood beside the high priest, the three prophets of Israel, and Caleb, who was now his Right Hand, as Joshua had been Moses’ Right Hand.
His voice bellowed with strength and courage, “People of Israel, Yahweh has spoken to me and has told me to be strong and courageous, for we will inherit this land that Yahweh had sworn to our forefathers! But we must be careful to do according to all the law that Moses commanded us! We must not turn from it to the right or to the left, and only then will we have success wherever we go! The book of the Law shall not depart from our mouths, but we shall meditate on it day and night, for Yahweh our Elohim is with us wherever we go!”
The people applauded. Caleb beamed with honor. They had been through so much. They had survived thirst and starvation in a desert land, the death of loved ones, rebellion, plagues, famines, and wars. And now, finally, finally they were about to gain their inheritance.
Their eternal wandering would be over.
It was overwhelming to Caleb. To be a part of history, to be the instrument of Yahweh’s choosing, to see his mighty wonders displayed in the heavens above and the earth below, was more than anyone could ask for.
But the pang that hit him hardest was the fact that he could not share that with his long dead wife, Nathifa. He loved his daughter Achsah with all his heart, but it was not the same as sharing life with a beloved spouse. He remembered that when Nathifa was alive, nothing seemed of much value unless he could share it with her. And now, it was one of the moments he had prayed for all his life, and he had no beloved to share it with, to make it—real. It was a deep and abiding ache in his soul he could not shake.
Joshua finished his charge to the people, “We are about to face a land of people more numerous than us, a land of giants, of cities with walls that reach up to heaven! But again, I say, be strong and courageous and fear not! For we battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in high places! But we are surrounded by an army of Yahweh’s heavenly host, ten thousand times ten thousand strong! We will triumph! Our god will triumph!”
The congregation burst out in applause again. This time, it must have been heard across the plains in the very first city targeted for destruction: Jericho.
Chapter 35
Joshua led his forces to within striking distance of Jericho. The city had known they were coming and had all shut up within their walls, prepared for a siege of great length. The surrounding villages had all fled, leaving a howling wilderness before them.
Joshua stood at a distance with Caleb looking out upon the plains and the city. Even from afar, Jericho’s walls looked menacing.
“I have no idea how we are going to breach those walls. We have no siege experience like the Hittites or Mittani. All those who may have aided us from their knowledge of Egyptian sieges are dead. And the prophets have had nothing to say.”
The three prophets of Israel would often accompany Joshua in his war tent as he considered strategies. They would sometimes have counsel from Yahweh. But sometimes Yahweh made Joshua figure it out on his own. In this case, the prophets had told him the first target but not a strategy. To Joshua, it was like receiving half of a crucial communication.
Caleb stared at the gigantic fortification standing before them in the distance. It was impressive. As a first target, it could well be the hardest. Normal strategy was for the first target to be an easy win. It built courage in the soldiers by setting a victorious momentum.
Caleb said, “If we fail in our very first battle, or take too long with heavy losses, untold damage will be done to the morale of the forces. It could devastate us.”
Joshua said, “Or if our first battle is an impossible victory that can only be attributed to Yahweh, then it is all downhill from there. We will have an army full of faith required to subdue the rest of Canaan.”
Caleb could not deny it. Joshua was crazy. But he was right. And crazy faith is precisely what they would need to face the giants of this land.
He said, “Yahweh gave this target, did he?”
“Through the prophets.”
“I would not want to argue with him.”
Suddenly a single cloaked figure appeared as if out of the waves of heat that distorted their view of the distant landscape.
Their senses piqued. It was a messenger.
He seemed to make vast jumps of space with the distorting effect of the heat waves on their vision.
One moment, he seemed to disappear. Joshua and Caleb squinted to see if it was just a mirage, an apparition of the desert heat.
They saw nothing and turned to mount their horses and return to their men.
But Caleb called out before Joshua could mount his steed.
“Commander.”
Joshua stopped and turned.
The figure was suddenly right upon them as if he jumped time and space.
Joshua grabbed his sword.
The figure already had his drawn sword in his hand. And he was wearing strange-looking armor Joshua had never seen before.
No, wait, he had seen it before.
“Are you for us or for our adversaries?” he asked.
“No,” said the figure.
Caleb said, “No, you are not for us, or no, you are not for our adversaries?”
The figure said, “Neither. I am the commander of the army of Yahweh.”
Joshua whispered under his breath, “The Angel of Yahweh.”
He was the Son of Man in an earthly presence.
Joshua and Caleb dropped to their knees and worshipped the Angel, who said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are is holy.”
Joshua and Caleb obeyed. Caleb knew in his heart this was another connection to Moses who had removed his sandals before the burning bush of Yahweh’s presence.
The Angel spoke with a calm assurance, “I would wager you are wondering how in the world you are going to assault t
he mighty walls of Jericho.”
Joshua said, “The thought had crossed our minds, my Lord. You would not happen to have any secrets about its weaknesses that might help us?”
“No,” said the Angel. “But be strong and courageous this day, for I will tell you how you will conquer the city by the power of Yahweh.”
Joshua and Caleb had returned to their men and were standing before their commanders of thousands and hundreds.
Othniel, Caleb’s younger brother, was one of them and stood dutifully by him.
Salmon, the spy who had traveled with Caleb was one of the commanders. He blurted out what everyone was thinking, but was too afraid to say.
“We what? Walk around the city seven times in seven days and blow our trumpets? Forgive me, my Commander, but what is that going to do, kill them with laughter?”
The other commanders snickered.
Joshua chose not to be angry. He thought it was rather silly himself. “Our god has quite a sense of humor, does he not? But nevertheless, he did tell me that is what we should do. So, unless you have a better idea than Yahweh, Salmon, I suggest we obey him and see his salvation.”
Salmon was duly chastised. “Forgive my impertinence, commander.”
Joshua said with a smile, “You are forgiven, Salmon. You are too good of a spy.”
Caleb was impressed with Joshua’s temperament. His sense of holiness would normally be offended at remarks like that. Perhaps he was beginning to appreciate Yahweh’s sense of humor after all.
Joshua ended his remarks, “And remember, Commanders, avoid the home with the scarlet rope. Caleb and Salmon, you will be responsible for Rahab’s deliverance.”
Chapter 36
Rahab was packing her few most precious items into a small sack when her youngest sister, twenty-three year old Yasha broke into her room. “Rahab! There are soldiers outside! Look!”