JOSHUA:- Israel’s long-awaited entry into the Promised Land
1) PROLOGUE,
2) CHAPTER HEADINGS,
3) EPILOGUE.
PROLOGUE TO THE BOOK OF JOSHUA.
This is the sixth book of the Holy Bible after the five books of Moses, called the Pentateuch. Those are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua is a record of Israel’s overdue entry into the Promised Land over the flooded Jordan River.
Forty years God had sent them wandering into wilderness terrain until all but two of the army’s six hundred thousand rebel doubters had died within its barren bounds. Joshua and Caleb were the only two adults in the original ‘exodus’ to enter the ‘Land of milk and honey.
Instead of believing the good report of the two faithful spies, the Hebrews chose to believe only the doubts of the remaining ten spies. Thus, they wanted to stone both men of faith and go back to Egypt, the land of their bondage for the food it offered.
Yet, 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 sources of water. Miraculously, their feet had neither swelled nor had their clothes worn in the abrasive desert conditions.
Despite their frequent, but intermittent murmurs of ingratitude that tested Moses to the point of exasperation, God’s mercy and loving-kindness continued because of His covenant with Abraham and the blood of the Passover Lamb. This was notwithstanding Israel’s chastening ordeals driving them to repentance.
For forty days the twelve had espied the Land of ‘milk and honey’ and its hinterland of vast resources ready for the Hebrew people to possess.
But in the grand national mutiny at Kadesh, after receiving the spies’ report, God deemed that forty days would incur a forty-year entry taboo to the Land: a sentence for Israel’s rebellious disbelief.
Even after thirty-eight years in the wilderness the final stage of the second attempt to enter the Land almost failed because of the Moab-Midia nexus of conspiracy. Devilishly, it employed Balaam, the spiritistic false prophet, to stop Joshua’s host and prevent them from crossing River Jordan into Canaan. However, the Lord intervened to stop Balaam in a most remarkable way. Nevertheless, Balaam worked with the conspiratorial nexus to beguile Israel’s camp with the sexual religion of Baal-Peor’s gods of erotic worship.
Joshua’s mighty host had neared its long-awaited destiny predicted by Abraham when Israel’s invisible arch enemy’s final almost succeeded. He had created an irrevocable anticlimax that would have aborted the saga of Israel’s pilgrimage.
SUMMARY INDICATIVE CHAPTER HEADINGS
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 of the Exodus Red Sea crossing.
JOSHUA: 6.
Seven days’ march around Jericho leading to the wall’s collapse.
Rahab’s scarlet thread; Joshua rescues her entire family.
JOSHUA: 7.
The curse of Achan costs 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 Isra