Month: July 2019

The Twelve Historic Books Series: Part Two: JoshuaiIn chapter headings, addenda background in an epilogue.
see also Part 1 in the series: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/twelve-bible-historical-books/

JOSHUA’S CHAPTER HEADINGS & BACKGROUND ADDENDA:
JOSHUA: 1.
Joshua prepares to enter the Promised Land of Canaan.
JOSHUA: 2.
The spies enter Jericho; Rahab secretly gives them refuge.
JOSHUA: 3.
Jordan River stops flowing; Joshua crosses on dry ground.
JOSHUA: 4.
Jordan’s waters return to their normal course.
JOSHUA: 5.
Joshua circumcises minors from the Exodus Red Sea crossing.
JOSHUA: 6.
Seven days’ march around Jericho leads to walls’ collapse.
Rahab’s scarlet thread; Joshua rescues her entire family.
JOSHUA: 7.
The curse of Achan the thief that cost many lives.
JOSHUA: 8.
Joshua builds an altar in Canaan inscribing the Law upon it.
JOSHUA: 9.
Canaanite kings prepare against Israel; Gibeonite deception.
JOSHUA: 10.
Five kings attack Gibeon for defecting to Israel;
Joshua guarantees the treaty and defends Gibeon
The sun stands still for Joshua routing the enemy host.
JOSHUA: 11.
Surrounding kings ready their onslaught; all are defeated.
JOSHUA: 12.
List of thirty-one kings whom Joshua subdued.
JOSHUA: 13.
Aged Joshua exhorts all tribes to fully possess Canaan.
Tribes failing to expel heathen; all boundaries defined.
The false prophet, Balaam, attempts to curse Israel; but succeeds by Baal-Peor.
JOSHUA: 14.
Joshua’s companion Caleb seeks Hebron for his own.
JOSHUA: 15.
The territory allotted to the tribe of Judah.
JOSHUA: 16.
Territory allotted to children of Ephraim, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 17.
Territory allotted to children of Manasseh, Joseph’s son.
JOSHUA: 18. Shiloh’s tabernacle assembled.
Joshua divides rest of Canaan to the seven tribes.
Joshua allots the first territory to tribe of Benjamin.
JOSHUA: 19.
Joshua allots the second territory to tribe of Simeon.
He allots the third territory to tribe of Zebulun.
Joshua allots the fourth territory to tribe of Issachar.
He allots the fifth territory to tribe of Asher.
Joshua allots the sixth territory to tribe of Naphtali.
He allots the seventh territory to tribe of Dan.
JOSHUA: 20
Joshua appoints the cities of refuge for accidental manslaughter.
JOSHUA: 21.
Joshua allocates forty-eight cities to the Levites in which to dwell.
JOSHUA: 22.
Army releases Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh to return to Gilead.
Joshua tells Gilead’s discharged soldiers to be faithful to God’s Laws.
The misunderstood returned soldiers’ altar sparking a civil war threat.
The three tribes wisely answer the west bank’s ultimatum & avert war.
JOSHUA: 23.
Aged Joshua warns of dangers accompanying peace.
Joshua commands the twelve tribes to fully oust the Canaanites.
JOSHUA: 24.
Joshua’s farewell address revises Hebrew history.
Joshua’s warns of idolatry’s dangers.
The dire consequences when people presume upon God’s mercy.
Israel covenants with God sealing its tryst with Joshua.
Joshua’s final address to the nation from Shiloh.
***
ADDENDA IN EPILOGUE.
This is the sixth book of the Holy Bible after the five books of Moses called the Pentateuch. They are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua is a record of Israel’s final entry into the Promised Land crossing over the River Jordan into the land of the Canaanites.
Forty years God had sent them wandering in the inhospitable wilderness terrain until all 599, 998 army rebel doubters died within its barren bounds. Only two of the original host survived: Caleb and Joshua.
Instead of believing their good report of Canaan they chose only to believe the doubts presented by the other ten spies. Thus they wanted to stone the two men of faith and go back to Egypt for the food offered in the land of their bondage. God had provided immeasurably for them in the desert with daily manna for bread and quail for meat, while at the same time always leading them to hidden source of water. Miraculously their feet never swelled and their clothes failed to wear from the abrasive desert conditions.
Despite their frequent, but intermittent murmurs of ingratitude which sometimes tested Moses to the point of exasperation, God’s mercy and loving-kindness continued when they chose to remember the covenant of blood, notwithstanding the chastising ordeals Israeli ingrates received from the Lord’s hand driving them to repentance but often with vast loss of life.
Forty day the emissaries of Moses espied the features of the Land the Hebrew people were to possess. But when the grand mutiny occurred at Kadesh after receiving the twelve men’s report, God deemed the forty days would incur a forty year sentence upon the Israeli adults for the rebellious disbelief.
Even after thirty eight years the final stage of the second attempt to enter Palestine almost failed because of the Moab-Midia nexus of hostility. Devilishly, when Balaam (the powerful occultist) was divinely prevented from cursing Israel , he then beguiled Israel’s men into succumbing to the adulterous religious practices of Baal-Peor. In the hour penultimate to Israel reaching its long awaited glorious zenith her invisible arch enemy almost succeeded. He had created an irrevocable anticlimax that would have aborted the saga of Israel’s pilgrimage.
Nevertheless, the Book of Joshua, the first of the twelve historic books, is an exciting record Joshua’s life of unmitigated faith and robust exploits for his Lord, whom he had come to know personally. He’d sat so often alone in the Tabernacle with God; he had been Moses’ servant; he had ascended Mount Sinai with his master when the moral Law was written in stone; and he had under Moses been divinely nominated and empowered to lead the nation’s seventy elders in Moses’ stead before his imminent death.
This book reveals the recalcitrant ways of the human heart, which despite having the best possible conditions for faith showed they had none at all in the hour of trial. They refused the grace of God and were only interested in the ulterior motive of sensual self-gain, dietary, physical or material benefits. In other words they were normal human beings with incurable heart disease but wearing the mask of conformity to the prevailing religion of the status quo and its social privileges. They were happy to use and exploit that religion for their own ends until the day of truth arrived then their real selves were unmasked. Does it not remind the reader of today’s Christendom and its myriad mass ‘converts’ ?
In hindsight, Israel rejected the grace of God, the only medium for faith. Of the 600,000 only Joshua and Caleb sought the Lord wholeheartedly, the minimum requirement before the Lord will personally draw near to the individual.
Over a million Hebrews had seen the miracles afforded to them both before and after the Exodus journey, but only Moses and two others possessed a different spirit. What was that spirit? Paul the apostle says that it was the Holy Spirit within them. (1Peter 1:11) How does that scripture apply? Both Moses, Joshua were prophets in their own right. Caleb, a valiant soldier, and emissary was an individual seeker who did so reverently with all his soul, mind and might. One day the Spirit of Christ drew near to dwell within him.
Religion; miracles; following the presence of God in religion; or being a fellow traveler in a Christian Church by using one’s own ‘simple childlike faith’ will not make anyone a wholehearted seeker of Christ, let alone regenerate the person. Following God and His presence will allow the follower an awareness that God is with him, but this falls far short of possessing the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
The Pentateuch catalogued over a million of His chosen people continuously doubting and disobeying. Having seen the clearest injunction of the written Law, heard the best preacher; and observed many mighty miracles, Moses that in dejection sought God for a replacement so he could retire from his role to be with his Maker.

John David 2019
Jonacy Press
POB 366603 Bonita Springs FL 34136
biblesimply@gmail.com

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES. (King James Version: Public domain.)
Numbers 14:24. But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully…
Numbers 27:18. And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit,
1 Peter 1: 10-11. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify…
Luke 24: 44. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. OTHER REFERENCES: 1 Peter 1:11; Romans 5; + 7; Romans 1.

: http://bonitabiblemission.worthyofpraise.org/easy-keys-to-bible-book-joshua/

PREAMBLE TO THE TWELVE HISTORICAL BOOKS.
INTRODUCTION
The following twelve of the thirty-nine Old Testament books of Israel’s history describe the consequences of Adam’s fall when beguiled by a woman to reject the tree of eternal life for the short term benefit of super-spiritual knowledge.

The twelve books from Joshua to Esther highlight the progressive decadence of the human race despite being given a second chance in Noah’s day. Though Cain’s descendants perished in the flood, God gave the race a new start under Noah because of the preserved line of Seth. Yet man’s endemic and incurable, but hidden, heart disease soon surfaced again to rapidly gnaw at the very fabric of mankind’s existence.

But the historical books also reveal how God’s grace can ransom a select handful ‘plucking them as brands from the burning’ fire of iniquity, self-righteousness, and the masquerade of religious profession. Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abram, Moses, Caleb, and Joshua are the early examples of the remnant reached by the pre-incarnate Christ of the triune godhead: together responsible for creating the first man.
(“There are three that bear record in heaven: The Father, the Word, and the Spirit)
[1 John 5.7].

Each of them men had found grace and faith in spite of their incurable heart disease. They were each a rarity in their generation. Each had a different spirit and wholeheartedly sought the Lord God Almighty and discovered the mystery of the atoning blood that covered sin and forgave the inner enmity that had separated them from their Creator.

Abram was visited by God in Ur of the Chaldees and later by Christ (Melchizedek) who blessed Abram returning home to Hebron after his rescue of Lot [Genesis 14]. Melchizedek’s blessing and its grace soon thereafter generated Abram’s faith in God’s promise, and he was justified by faith [Genesis: 15] becoming a child of God who possessed the Holy Spirit within. [Genesis Chapters 11-12; 14-15; & 17]

These twelve books of sacred biblical canon come after the first five books of Moses and extend over the period from Joshua’s entry into the Promised Land to the exile of rebel Israel’s ten tribes of Samaria. Judah also went into captivity one hundred and twenty years afterward. Later we read of their release by Cyrus the Great allowing them to return to Jerusalem after seventy years in Babylon.

The salient memorable events in the time span, from Joshua to Esther, cover the following phases in approximate chronological sequence:-

Covered in the period of the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.
1) Israel ends its 40 years of desert wandering and enters Palestine;
2) Canaan is conquered by Joshua, but not fully possessed by Israel;
3) Israel loses sight of its uniqueness and intermarries with the Canaanites it was meant to expel. It turns to their heathen idols becoming wayward.
4) A repeating cycle of God’s chastisement sets in:
a. Affliction by a foreign country,
b. The nation cries for help and a deliverer,
c. A judge, prophet or king delivers the Jews from tyranny,
d. After respite a rapid return to idolatry
This habitual waywardness becomes a permanent feature of Jewish hypocrisy despite faithful men or women whom God sends to them as messengers.
5)
In spite of God’s miraculous loving-kindness and merciful atoning umbrella, and intermittent times of revival the Jews remain apostate except for the faithful remnant.

Covered in the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.
6)
The life of Prophet Samuel in the reign of Saul & David.
7)
David gives his temple plans to Solomon for its construction.
8)
Solomon builds David’s temple which replaces the tented tabernacle.
9)
Solomon’s early godly reign is later clouded by his idolatrous wives and he falls away from Jehovah his God t their heathenism.
10)
Solomon’s son Rehoboam reigns in Jerusalem but sees the kingdom of Solomon divided and loses ten tribes to rebel state of Israel which boycotted Jerusalem becoming Judah’s enemy in the north in a region known as Samaria. Later the city of Samaria was established and first used by King Ahab.
11)
While Judah worships God in Jerusalem, Israel’s ten tribes worship Jeroboam’s golden calf in Dan to the north and Bethel in the south.
12)
Civil wars between the two kingdoms weaken and progressively destroy many cities of Judah and also suburban Jerusalem. Respite comes only when the Assyrian army besieges Samaria and takes away the bulk of Israel’s populace into captivity to its own cities including Babylon, on the Euphrates, occupied by Nineveh’s garrison.
13)
Israel’s ten rebel tribes were thus deported and replaced by Assyria’s imported, Stalin-styled, forced migration of Assyrians to repopulate rebel Israel’s territory.

14)
Much of this devastating judgment on alien Israel in the north occurred during the reign of Jerusalem’s King ‘Ahaz‘when the prophet Isaiah ministered.
15)
A hundred & twenty years later Judah too was judged for its idolatry, homicide, infanticide, and abhorrent human sacrifices to the gods of the sun, moon, and stars. ‘Nebuchadnezzar‘, the Chaldean king of Babylon (the golden city of the East) was sent by God to destroy Jerusalem and deport its prisoners of war to Babylon leaving behind ‘Jeremiah‘ the prophet in Judah’s gutted and deserted wasteland.

Covered in the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
16)
The Chaldean Empire had superseded the Assyrian Empire for a short period until the Medo-Persians superseded it capturing Babylon and its prisoners of war.
17)
After seven decades Jews were released by King Darius acting for Cyrus the Great, the Persian emperor.
18)
Cyrus allows the first return to Jerusalem’s ruins.
19)
The Persian emperors, of this era, included ‘Cyrus the Great’, ‘Darius the Great‘, and others were often known as only ‘Artaxerxes’ (or ‘Xerxes‘), a common royal title. The Medo-Persian ‘King Darius‘ took Babylon without a fight, for ‘Cyrus‘, though the Prophet ‘Daniel‘ informs us ‘Belshazzar‘ the Chaldean king was slain that night.
As Babylon’s puppet king ‘Darius‘ served ‘Cyrus’ autonomously. This ‘Darius‘was, not the later ‘Darius the Great‘, the emperor who reigned (like some others) from Shushan’s palace nearly 200 miles away east in the hinterland of the Persian Gulf.
20)
This last period of the twelve historical books is covered by books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther in which there are two distinct returns of the Jewish Diaspora destined for Jerusalem and its abandoned Judean cities.
21)
The ancient city Babylon resting on both sides of the Euphrates was finally destroyed by the conquering Greek Empire’s Alexander the Great, also described by the Prophet Daniel in his book.
22)
Though the ensuing five Poetic Books after Esther interrupt the train of Jewish history the sixteen books of the Prophets thereafter continue the historic vein of the Jews from differing perspectives in time. While some reiterate pre-captivity scenarios of Jewish decadence, others write as Babylonian captives to Jews within Babylon and abroad in Jerusalem awaiting the imminent final siege of the Chaldeans.
23)
Only the book of the Prophet Daniel speaks clearly of the Greek empire that succeeded the Persian one. Alexander the Great left Babylon in a heap of rubble, some fifty miles from Baghdad. This fulfilled the prophecies of both Isaiah and Jeremiah, his successor. This empire still had a great influence on Palestine in Christ’s day, having been overtaken by the Roman Empire over two centuries earlier.

PREAMBLE TO THE TWELVE HISTORICAL BOOKS.