Reading: Joshua 1-4, Psalm 65
Welcome to the Prophets! What’s that? This doesn’t meet your expectations of prophecy? Well, no it doesn’t. But maybe that has more to do with our understanding of what a prophet is than the story we are reading. Later in the story, we will hear references to “the Law” and “the Prophets.” As I said yesterday, the Law is now complete- the books of Moses. “The Prophets” start with Joshua, so it is important to stop for a minute and think about what a prophet is in the Hebrew Bible. What is it that we are reading?
First of all, it is not “history” in the way we think about it. Note that I am not saying it did not happen. I believe it did. But history aims to just recount events, and that is not the primary point of our story, any more than it was the point of the books of Moses. The story of creation and fall in Genesis 1-11 wasn’t being told just to convey information about events, but to set the stage for the great deliverance that God begins working out starting in Genesis 12. In a similar way, the story being told in Joshua is not just being told to convey information, but to make a point about God and his plan to rescue humans from our own problem.
Okay, so that’s been true the whole time. What makes Joshua different from, say, the first half of Exodus? They are both stories. Both fairly well known, though Joshua did not get epic films. Bummer for him. On the surface, nothing is different. But the conditions have change. Exodus occurred before the covenant. Before Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Before the people of Israel stood and pronounced blessings and curses upon themselves dependent on their obedience. Joshua begins in a new era, a time of covenant faithfulness from God and unfaithfulness to God. In this new era, the story is all about the application of the covenants. A prophet in the Biblical story is a covenant enforcer. One who speaks and carries out God’s will, but always within the bounds of the covenant. Joshua is one of these. In obedience to God he carries out the covenant promises of God in the conquest of Canaan. Later prophets will shift to a prosecutorial role, accusing Israel and proclaiming the covenant curses. Not so much fun, but that’s a ways off yet, so we’ll leave that alone.
The beginning of a new era is demonstrated in today’s readings, which play out in a kind of reverse story of the books of Moses. God gives Joshua the charge to obey the covenant commandments. Joshua sends spies into the land, and they find it open to conquest. No bad reporters here. (Don’t worry, we’ll deal with Rahab in a minute). Joshua and the people assemble themselves to cross the Jordan, and God once again splits the waters in front of them, just like at the Red Sea. But something is different here. At the Red Sea, Moses held up his staff and divided the waters. But here, what divides the waters? The ark of the covenant, carried by the Levitical priests. The locus of power for deliverance has moved from the leader, Moses, to the covenant that God has made with Israel. Though Joshua speaks from God and is correctly elevated to leadership, this new journey into the promised land will not be led by him, but by the promises of the covenant. Joshua’s role as leader is not in question, and this is not a story about God flattening society so everyone hears from God in the same way. It is a promise that the God of Israel will be faithful to his word and work in Israel on the basis of that word.
Once they cross the river, God has Joshua direct the people to set up a stone monument memorializing the event. Remember, the people of Israel are embarking on a campaign of conquest. There is no temple yet, and the tabernacle will be spending a great deal of time on the move. The monument will serve as a reminder of the acts of God for Israel in the interim.
Okay, Rahab. This is a story that often causes consternation among those trying to develop a consistent moral ethic from the Bible. Rahab lies, which is contrary to the nature of God as a truth teller. But her lie is to protect the lives of the spies, who were God’s people on God’s business. Was her lie “right?” There have been voluminous writings on this, but the fact is we get a definitive declaration that Rahab was considered righteous in two different places in the New Testament (Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 if you’re curious). So the lie thing really appears to be fine, and anyway I frankly think we have a bigger problem than that with Rahab.
God has already given a command back in Deuteronomy 20 to utterly destroy the people of the land of Canaan. To wipe them out to the last man, to destroy their cities, to eradicate their cultures. God will reinforce this command in reference to Jericho specifically very shortly. But here we have a woman asking for Israel to spare not only her, but all her father’s household. And they do so. Then there is a second issue. Aside from wiping these people out, Israel was expressly forbidden to intermarry with them. As we will learn down the line, Rahab did in fact marry into the tribe of Judah, and has some rather important descendants.
So what is the deal? The covenant puts the highest value on obedience. Tomorrow we are going to read a story that confirms there are terrible consequences for disobedience to God’s direction. By the logic of obedience to the law, Rahab and her family should be destroyed, and if perchance they survive, they certainly should not be married into the people of Israel. But they are. What is different about Rahab?
I’m going to go back to a story in Exodus 33 to find my answer. The people of Israel have violated the covenant they just made with God. God has said he will leave them to their journey, and Moses steps in with a radical statement of dependence. He says the people of Israel are defined by the presence of God. They are nothing without him. This stands in contrast to the declaration of independence, first by Adam and Eve, and then by the humans at Babel. And by wholly submitting his identity to God, Moses turns God’s wrath away from Israel.
Look again at the words of Rahab. She in effect says I know nothing can survive apart from your God. Rahab surrenders her identity to the God of Israel, without any of the knowledge in the books of Moses, and it is enough to turn the wrath of God away from her and her family. She is a member of a condemned people. She is a harlot. She is a liar. But she is saved by her confession that she is nothing without God. This confession is another theme that will wind it’s way through the story of Scripture until it too lands on the shoulders of a carpenter from Nazareth, who just happens to be a descendant of the Canaanite prostitute Rahab.