Season 6 - Episode 6

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On Sunday morning we read Joshua’s retelling of Israel’s story. In it, there is a verse that seems somewhat contradictory to how the story is told in the rest of the Bible. God’s word, through Joshua is, “I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’” In the rest of the book of Joshua, however, the story is one of violent conquest. In a short message here, I’m not going to be able to overcome the tension between those stories. I’ll suggest some ways biblical scholars approach it that I hope will be helpful. But overall, I’d like us to consider God’s heart for the people of Israel in this promised land. And in so doing, it may guide us in our own posture as we seek to follow God’s lead. That’s in this Covenant Weekly for October 20, 2026.

Around five decades before Joshua’s words as written in Joshua 24, the people of Israel had come to the edge of the land God had promised to Abraham. There, God spoke to Moses. We read this in Numbers 13, “The Lord said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”

So Moses calls twelve men and commissions them to go scout out the land. He says, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”

Notice that we have moved beyond what God has asked. God’s words were for them to explore the land. Now, Moses is asking about whether or not the people are strong or weak, few or many, and whether the towns are unwalled or fortified. This has moved beyond the land into a scouting mission with an undertone of a military mission. That’s certainly what the scouts understood!

When they came back, ten of the scouts affirmed the wonder of the land, but said, “The people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are. All the people we saw there are of great size. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

They came back from the scouting mission with a verdict, “We can’t conquer the people!”

In contrast, Caleb and Joshua, the other two scouts, came back saying, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

They, too, come back with a verdict. It is that they believed they could conquer the people and that God would help them. In the midst of their military assessment, there is a hint of what God had said. They affirm that God, “will give it to us.” But their recommendation is for the people of Israel to go and take it.

A reasonable explanation of what is happening here is that God has said he will give them the land. Their presumption is that this means God will give them a military victory, even though God has not given them any instructions about violent action. They lived in a world of military violence that was perceived as god vs god conflict. When one army fought another, it was believed that they were working with the support of their god and whoever won the battle did so because their god was more powerful. Within this world, Israel assumed military action. Certainly, that was the route they took. And, a cursory reading of the book of Joshua suggests that God affirmed this perspective…that God is party to the violence and brutality of his people.

Before getting to the big question I want to talk about today, let me suggest some different ways Christian scholars deal with these scriptures.

1. Some Christians believe that God did command the violent action of Israel in this setting as an expression of his heart. Typically those who affirm this say that it was an act of judgement on the people of those cities and nations because of their evil. As such, they see it as a regrettable good - even when entire populations were slaughtered.
2. A second way of approaching it is to say that God did command and support the violent action of Israel, but only after Israel had decided that this was how they were going to proceed. As noted above, God’s initial promise was simply to give the land to them. But once they decided, based on their worldview, that this obviously meant violent conquest, God accommodated himself to them even though it actually went against the divine heart and character that we see in Jesus. God met them there and allowed his character to be seen as violent because it was necessary on the long slow journey of revealing what is most true about the divine reality - Love.
3. A third way of approaching it is to say that God was with them, but didn’t command the level of violence we read in the Bible. The suggestion is that both the violence, and ascribing it to God, was an act of rhetoric to both encourage the people of Israel and make their enemies afraid to fight. In this view, the text is understood as speaking in hyperbole, in the same manner that many other ancient warfare texts were written.
4. A fourth way of approaching it is to say that people wrote down what they understood God to be saying…or at least what they wanted God to be saying. Those who hold this view tend to believe that through it all, God was really grieving at how his chosen people were missing the real divine voice and acting in ways that were actually counter to God’s heart.

Regardless of how we wrestle with these texts, let me first reiterate the words of Hebrews 1:3.

The Son [Jesus] is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. 

There are hard stories in the Bible that we need to wrestle with and allow to wrestle with us. But may they not turn our eyes from the one who is affirmed as the exact representation of God!

That being said, as I consider the challenge of these texts, I’m left to wonder how often I might try to take something I believe God has for me instead of simply receiving it as a gift. Throughout God’s call to Abraham and then again through Moses, God describes the land as something God is going to give them. Joshua’s retelling of the story gives us a glimpse into God’s efforts to do so without their violent action. But rather than receiving the gift, they took it in God’s name.

How often do I, do we, do the same. Are we content to labour faithfully where we are and await God’s timing and direction? Or do we feel the need to force things - to push in a direction we are sure is God’s will? We live in a world that celebrates perceived self-starters and entrepreneurs. And we like to be self-sufficient - to be able to say, “Look what I did!” The idea of waiting, being patient, and relying on God to do something is very countercultural - especially when, with the right planning and effort, we could have gotten ourselves there in a fraction of the time!

Maybe we need to learn from this story to first consider God’s heart and then to consider the violence we enact, to ourselves and others, when we try to take what God has always meant to give us if we will just wait to receive it.