Reading: Joshua 22-24, Psalm 69
Our last day in Joshua leaves behind the exciting epic of property divisions. Very disappointing, I know, but they’ve all been well defined now, and the story has to move on.
It moves on to a little story about the two and a half tribes of Israel that took up residence in Gilead, on the east side of the Jordan. For modern day reference this means they were living in what is now the nation of Jordan. The communication difficulties this presented were significant. Remember once again the day and time that we are in here. There were no convenient means of communication, pretty much everything had to be done face to face. When the whole nation was traveling or at war together, this wasn’t much of a problem, but now they have started to settle in the new land and there are misunderstandings arising. This story, bad as it almost was, is a foreshadowing of the massive problems that will arise between the tribes in the book of Judges.
In this case, Israel dodges a bullet as far as inter-tribal warfare. The eastern tribes worry that they will be disconnected from the worship of the God of Israel at the tabernacle. They make a monument, a copy of the tabernacle altar. The other tribes assume this means they mean to worship on it, and immediately set out to attack them. This kind of impetuousness also foreshadows the era of the Judges, but in this case they are able to communicate with one another and the conflict is avoided. But it is a near run thing.
After the story of the eastern tribes, we get a last speech from Joshua. This bears many similarities with the final speech of Moses- a recitation of everything God has done for Israel, a charge to obey so blessings will come upon them instead of curses, and an expression of doubt as to Israel’s continued faithfulness after Joshua dies. Joshua also does a kind of shorthand covenant agreement with the people of Israel, charging them to make a choice to participate in the covenant promises of God.
In the midst of this speech, we get one of the more famous lines from Joshua: his challenge to the people to choose this day whom they will serve, and his commitment of his own house to serve the God of Israel. In the immediate context of the book of Joshua, this line is a kind of wrap up of the book’s message. At the first book of the prophets, Joshua is the first character to call the people of Israel back to covenant faithfulness to their God which they committed to in the books of Moses. God has been faithful to his commitments, will Israel be faithful to theirs? The people once again commit to it, calling a witness against themselves it they disobey. But the question is not closed. Once we enter the era of the Judges tomorrow, we will see that the question remains open, and it will remain open throughout the story of the people of Israel. Joshua sets up the rest of the story with this single questions, which has in reality been haunting our story from the very beginning: who will you serve?
The last little act in the book of Joshua is the closing of a story that begin way back in Genesis. Joseph, the son of Jacob, lived his entire adult life in exile. Though he was practically the king of Egypt, he lived his life as an exile from his home. Though God used him to rescue his family in a time of famine, he never returned to the land which he and his family was promised. At the end of his life it becomes apparent that he continued see himself as an exile when he made his family promise to return his remains to the promised land. Here, finally, hundreds of years later, we get the end of the story of Joseph. We learned in Exodus that Israel took his bones with them when they left Egypt. They carried them through the wilderness and into the land during the conquest. Here, at last, Israel has come into the promised land, and they bury Joseph, the great exile, in his home country.
Set in contrast to all the blessings and curses of the covenant with Moses is this fulfillment of the promise to Abraham in the return of Joseph to his promised land. Joseph came before the covenant with Moses, before the blessings and curses for obedience that Joshua has again bound Israel to, with the certainty that they will fail. The burial of Joseph, far from a footnote at the end of the book of Joshua, is a signpost of God’s faithfulness to an older and better promise than the promises that Israel will fail to gain through obedience.