FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Genesis 12 - Deuteronomy 24:16 - Deuteronomy 11:29 - Help Page - The Chosen: Season 5 Sneak Peek Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Israelites entering the Promised Land?
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. The Israelites have just set foot in the Promised Land as a nation for the first time. This is the partial fulfillment of something God promised them approximately 750 years earlier when He first called Abraham in Genesis 12.
Chapter 2: How does God prepare the Israelites for battle?
More fulfillment will come when they take the land, but at this point, their enemies, the Canaanites, still live there. The first city they plan to take is Jericho, a town near the eastern border of the Promised Land. But before they do that, God wants them to be fully prepared. In God's economy, preparing for battle has very little to do with sharpening your weapons.
It has everything to do with preparing your heart. He wants to make sure their hearts are surrendered to Him and aligned with His own heart before they go face the enemy. The first thing they have to do is circumcise all the Israelite males, then allow them time to recover. After every male is circumcised, they celebrate Passover. The timing of this is beautiful.
It's kind of a second Exodus, exactly 40 years after the first one. Their hearts need to celebrate Passover because it will reinforce their faith. It serves as a reminder to them that God has protected and provided for them through the years. Then in 5.12, we get a little sentence that speaks volumes. It says, What? This is incredible. This is God's precise provision on display.
He gave them miracle food six days a week for 40 years, and the manna even follows them into the promised land, but then it stops on the day after they have access to the local food. There are no gaps in God's provision. Next, Joshua has a strange encounter with a man holding a sword. Obviously, this could be super scary given the fact that they're in enemy territory.
Chapter 3: Why is the encounter between Joshua and the angel significant?
So Joshua wants to know if this man is an Israelite that he just doesn't happen to recognize, or if he's a Canaanite. And the man basically says, guess again, I'm God. How do we know he's God? First of all, he receives Joshua's worship. God's elect angels don't allow people to worship them. They reject it because they know they don't deserve it.
Second, the angel of Yahweh also tells Joshua to take off his shoes, just like God had told Moses to do when he appeared in the burning bush, because he was standing on holy ground. The presence of angels doesn't make things holy. Only God can do that. In this conversation, many people suggest that God is refusing to take sides in the battle since God doesn't give Joshua a straight answer.
But we know from the surrounding text that God has aligned himself with the Israelites. So what's going on here? God's reply to Joshua suggests more that Israel is on his side than that he is on Israel's side. Meanwhile, Jericho is shook. They probably know what's coming. This terrifying army is camped outside their city, so they hole up in their houses.
Chapter 4: What strategy did God give Joshua for conquering Jericho?
God tells Joshua that Jericho is theirs for the taking because he's giving it to them. But he has some super weird instructions on how to accomplish this. They'll march around it, carrying the Ark once a day for six days, while seven priests blow trumpets. Then on the seventh day, they'll march around seven times, and on that seventh trip, all the people will shout.
And then the walls will fall, and they'll have an opening to go inside and devote everything to destruction, everything except for Rahab and her family. Joshua tells the two spies who met her that they're in charge of saving her. And it all happens just like God commanded. They defeated Jericho with exactly zero military strategy, just by trusting and obeying God's weird commands.
Joshua pronounced a curse on anyone who rebuilds Jericho, so heads up, it's been rebuilt. We'll get to that later, but just remember this curse. Another thing Joshua emphasized before they took the land was that the Israelite soldiers aren't allowed to take any plunder for themselves.
Any plunder they take was supposed to be set apart and devoted to God, kind of like a firstfruits offering from their first conquest in the Promised Land. So, bad news, a guy named Achan secretly took some stuff for himself. Some commentators estimate the value of this stuff to be approximately the amount a worker would earn in his entire life. Meanwhile, Joshua makes a classic leadership mistake.
Chapter 5: What lessons are learned from the defeat at Ai?
He's probably overconfident from their defeat of Jericho, forgetting that they won because they walked in obedience to God's commands. So he sends his people to go take over another city, but without consulting God first. So the Israelites go to take over the city of Ai, and not only did the Israelites lose, but about 36 men died in the process.
Joshua is overcome with grief and he begins to doubt God, thinking God had betrayed them. He appeals to God in much the same way Moses used to when they were in trouble. But God points the finger back at the Israelites, all of them. Since God views the Israelites as a unit, one man's sin has impacted the whole.
Achan is personally responsible for his spiritual adultery, but the whole community is affected. God is angry at them all, and he tells Joshua how to deal with the guilty party. And since Achan's sin represents spiritual adultery against God, not just theft, it requires the death penalty.
The next morning, God supernaturally identifies Achan from the tribe of Judah as the man who has committed the sin. Even though Achan is from the most esteemed tribe, he's rejected from the people of Israel because his heart isn't devoted to God. This is important.
We're already seeing, through the rescue of Rahab the Canaanite and the rejection of Achan the Israelite, that being a part of God's people, the Israelites, has nothing to do with race or genes and everything to do with your heart. Those whose hearts are devoted to Yahweh are welcomed into His family, even if they're strangers and foreigners.
And those whose hearts reject Yahweh, even if they're Israelites by birth, are not counted among his people. God's family is made up of people with new hearts, not similar DNA. Achan and his family are stoned for his adultery.
And because Deuteronomy 24, 16 tells us that children aren't to be put to death for their father's sins, it seems to indicate that his family may have played a role in his sin or in concealing it. God takes this stuff seriously. After all this happens, God commands them to try again at defeating Ai, because this time they'll win. And this time, he says they can take the plunder.
How ironic is that for Achan? If only he had waited. Using a clever military strategy, they defeat the city, keep its livestock and plunder for themselves, then set it on fire.
And again, it's important for us to remember that when they destroy these cities, it's serving the purpose of God's judgment on its inhabitants for their wickedness, as well as providing the promised land for the Israelites.
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