Joshua: A faith rooted in God’s Word • Joshua 1:1-9, 16-18
By Becky Brown
His name is Joshua. He was born in Egypt when Moses was about forty. When Moses fled Egypt as a murderer, Joshua was learning how to walk. He was born into the Jewish tribe of Ephraim, son of Joseph, son of Jacob. His ancestors from the previous 400 years were slaves to Pharaoh. They were in bondage. Bondage was all they had known. He would hear dinner table conversations about the severe punishment Pharaoh was inflicting on the Jews. Worse treatment was on the horizon.
He would have grown up hearing stories about Moses, the Hebrew baby rescued from the Nile River by the daughter of Pharaoh. He would also have heard stories about Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery into Egypt who, by God’s grace and providence, became the GrainMaster of all of Egypt. He would have been told about Adam and Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the twelve sons of Jacob. He would have learned about the Holy Covenant which God made with these men through the generations. The scrolls were yet to be penned, but, generationally, the people remembered their stories and were faithful to share them with their children. What a great family plan!
He would have heard about the bones of Joseph, how his body had been embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. The original brothers promised Joseph they would take his bones back to their original homeland when they were freed from bondage. Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh would probably have been left in charge of the bones of Joseph. Being a part of the tribe of Ephraim, Joshua would have been willing to keep that deathbed promise to guard and transport those bones out of Egypt all the way to Canaan.
Moses would have been around 80 years old when he left the burning bush at Mt. Sinai and returned to Egypt to confront Pharaoh and end the 400 years of bondage of the Israelites. Joshua would now be in his forties. Joshua didn’t just jump up out of nowhere and become the successor to Moses. His name appears 37 times in the writings of Moses prior to the Book of Joshua. God uniquely prepared Joshua to step into those shoes.
Joshua had seen it all! He lived through the plagues of Egypt. He had lived in a home where blood was placed on the doorpost in salvation protection of the firstborn. He and his family would have been there at the crossing of the Red Sea. Over the next forty years, Joshua personally witnessed the hard-headed Israelites up close and personal, the giving of the ten laws, the building of the tabernacle, the miraculous provision of water, manna and quail, the golden calf, the anger of Moses, the power of God and participated in everyday life as they marched and as they camped. Joshua knew the presence of God in the cloud by day and the fire by night. His faith-walking quotient must have been off the charts. The call of God on his life propelled him every day.
The first chapter of Joshua is a sympathy card written directly from God to Joshua. Moses has died and Joshua has been consecrated as the leader of Israel in the conquest and tribal land distribution of the Promised Land called Canaan. The faith of Joshua was strong. His relationship with God had been nurtured and nourished under the leadership of Moses for those forty years of wilderness wanderings. Moses died at 120. Joshua and Caleb were in their eighties as they divided the conquered lands among the tribes of Israel.
The phrase “be strong and courageous” appears four times in Joshua chapter one. The first three times, God speaks these words to Joshua as a direct command. The people know that Joshua has officially replaced Moses. Using these same four words, they agree with God, declaring their pledge to follow Joshua as Joshua follows God.
Joshua was able to move forward after the grieving period for Moses had ended. He watched Moses follow God. Now it was his turn to lead by following. The people were to receive the Land of Promise as God had spoken to Abraham in Genesis 15:7-21. Joshua buried those old bones of Joseph in Shechem near Dothan (not Alabama) where Joseph lost his beautiful coat four centuries earlier.
Brown leads LittleBrownLight Ministries.
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