I’m up to Joshua starting today with my readings, and first, I was struck by the leadership that Joshua showed. After 40 years of wandering about, Moses dies, and Joshua immediately takes up swift and decisive leadership with knowledge of where his mission and strength come from (the Lord).
Then follows perhaps the most unencouraging response that the people could have said (now I’m quite certain neither they, nor the interpretation means it this way). They said, okay Joshua, we’ll follow you like we followed Moses! Now, I realize that the generation that is following Joshua is not the generation that had a rather bad track record of disobeying God and Moses. Something about a golden calf, and some serious trepidation about the Promised Land (giants and all), and see the previous post for examples of bellyaching.
So, if I were Joshua, I’m not sure that I would be heartened by that statement. And to be blunt, it doesn’t take terribly long for the Israelites to start following instructions much the same way (kind of like us huh?) that they did in the wilderness. They do a great job with the whole march around Jericho with the ark, and give a great shout, and the walls come tumbling down thing, but they then promptly disobey God and Joshua. Achan and Zabdi take some of the devoted things that they were told not to take, and the Lord’s anger burned against all of Israel. They had just witnessed some really cool miracles, and they were so distracted by greed that they derailed the nations’ following of God.
God quickly tells Joshua why He’s angry at the nation of Israel and they repent… You know, go to Joshua and read the story! My point was made early on. I just saw irony in the following like they followed Moses.
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