If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
13 March. Joshua chapters 9-11
These chapters tell in summary form what must have been a long campaign (the commentary I am following suggests seven years) of defeating the indigenous peoples of Canaan. The massive Israelite army swept across the terrified country, capturing one town after another, killing all their inhabitants, with only the ‘kings’ (tribal leaders) singled out as individuals, and either burning or looting the towns.
Such a campaign of terror is not unique in human history – think of the Mongolian hordes that swept across Asia, or the Vandals, Goths and Huns who terrorised Europe at various times and whose names live on with different and diluted meanings. Or of course Daesh/Islamic State who have captured several areas of Syria and Iraq in recent years and are only now being driven back, with heavy loss of civilian lives. What makes Joshua’s reign of terror different is that it was (according to the account we have received) carrying out the will of God. But isn’t that what Daesh say they are doing? Were Joshua and his army any better than them?
In one way, yes. They made a treaty with the Gibeonites or Hivites. That was not part of God’s plan, as the Hivites had been on the divine hit list. But unlike the other tribes whose ‘hearts were hardened’ to resist Joshua’s forces, they acknowledged the power of the God of Israel and responded to the threat by suing for peace. Admittedly it was done by deception, but from their point of view it was successful and they avoided destruction. Instead they were made to undertake forced labour as woodcutters and water carriers. Joshua, to his credit, refused to destroy them when he found out about the deception. A treaty made in God’s name was not to be broken, whatever happened. And so when the Hivites themselves came under threat, Joshua had to come to their aid.
Treaties are in the news at present. Most obviously here in Britain with the country about to unilaterally break the Treaty of Rome by leaving the EU. But also with NATO coming under strain, both internally as Turkey and the Netherlands are in a diplomatic row, and externally as Russia threatens member states in the Baltic region.
We don’t know from the perspective of 2017 how any of these situations will turn out. In 30 years time, say, Islamist terrorism and Russian aggression may be history, or they may have led to an irreversible attack on civilisation as we know it. Britain may have rejoined the EU or at least be in a good trading position with it, or we may be an island nation as insignificant and “out in the cold” (metaphorically if not literally) as Iceland. What we can say though, is that a nation that holds to values of fidelity, openness to strangers and being willing to live at peace with those who do us no harm, is closer to doing God’s will than one that destroys other cultures ‘in the name of God’.