Salvation History

What are “the Histories”?

• books that rooted in actual history

• The Histories (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles) are about the historical events leading up to the Exile

• though grounded in history -- are more concerned with Theology than History

What’s it about?

• Joshua is essentially about the Israelites entering the Promised Land, called Canaan, following their exodus from Egypt

• Moses has died, Joshua is their leader, and God instructs Joshua to enter the land and conquer the peoples who occupy this territory

• Basically, God asks the Israelites to commit mass genocide, attacking the cities of Jericho and Ai, slaughtering any other people who stands in their way, leaving “no living thing with breath”

Why is The Book of Joshua Is Not Historically Accurate?

• According to archaeologists, the cities of Jericho and Ai (“Ai” in Hebrew literally means “heap of ruins”) had fallen several centuries before the Israelites showed up on the scene

• The Book of Joshua was written much later (after the Babylonian Exile), and creates these stories in order to establish a CULTURAL IDENTITY for the former slaves returning home from the Exile

what’s the point of even reading it?

• It’s an interesting story that connects the Exodus to the establishment of the people of Israel -- as a nation -- in a specific location

What did the Deuteronomists believe?

They were convinced that God rewarded the good and punished the wicked in the world

What is the pattern found in the Deuteronomist’s history?

1. God’s offer of love

2. The people’s faithlessness and sin

3. God’s just punishment

4. The people’s repentance and cry for help

5. God’s forgiveness and mercy

6. The people’s repeated sin

Who is Rahab and what does she do?

Rahab is a Canaanite prostitute who lived in Jericho

• Lets the two spies sent by Joshua stay at her house

• Also lies when people come looking for them

How do the Israelites bring down the walls of Jericho?

• All the soldiers were to circle the city for 6 days with 7 priests carrying ram’s horns

• On the 7th day, the priests were to blow the horns with the people shouting along, and the walls of the city would collapse

What are the Israelites not allowed to do following the destruction of Jericho?

They were not allowed to take the goods collected for God

Why does Ai initially defeat the Israelites?

Joshua an his men misjudged their defenses and the enemy

What offense did Achan commit and what was his punishment?

He took the goods that were under the ban for himself

He was punished by being stoned to death

Interpretations of the Ten Commandments

1. Reflection: “This is the commandment that decides the orientation of our whole lives.  This one asks us who or what we are making God now.” (20)

2. Respect: “...it also tells us not to play God with God’s name, with God’s being, with God’s power.  It tells us not to use God’s name to prove the untrue.  It is useless, as well, to use God’s name to do what God would never do.” (29)

3. Remembrance: “Sabbath says that we are made for reflection and that unless we do it, unless we begin to reflect on what we are doing as humans to other humans, to the earth, to the cosmos, we become nothing but cogs in an enslaving system.” (41-42)

4. Caring: “Honor all of those parental figures who brought you beyond self-centeredness to the decent human self you are today.” (58)

5. Life: “Maybe it’s time to realize that when we are not actively working to sustain life, all life anywhere, we are actually undermining life everywhere.” (71)

6. Commitment: “This is the commandment that says: When you love, love rightly.  Love truly.  Love without feigning it.  Love when it hurts.  Love with both body and soul.  Love so it lasts.” (83)

7. Sharing: “‘You shall keep your integrity.’  When we cheat and steal we lose a great deal more of ourselves than we can possibly gain.  We say poverty leads to stealing; the Iraqis say stealing leads to poverty.” (96)

8. Speech: “The person telling the truth has the best memory.  Lies have multiple variations; truth but one.” “If I myself am not honest, who can I possibly believe?”(108)

9. Self-control: “Then covetousness -- that raw, ruthless need to have what I want, get everything I can, outdo everyone I meet -- consumes me and leaves me raging and restive once more.” (133) “When men are really men, women don’t need to be protected.” (118)

10. Assurance: “Greed can lead to jealousy, which means that I not only never get enough of the things I want but the more things I see, the more friends I lose.  ‘Whenever a friend succeeds,’ Gore Vidal wrote, ‘a little something in me dies.’  Pitiable.  Truly Pitiable.” (130)

Who were the judges?

• he judges were a collection of individuals who filled a couple different roles in the tribal structure of ancient Israel:

  • They were warrior-leaders

  • They were adjudicators (figured out civil/legal disputes)

How many major and minor judges were there?

• There were 7 “major” judges (warriors) and 6 “minor” judges (adjudicators)

Things to remember

• The judges were military and legal leaders in Israel, before the kings were a thing

• The stories of the judges are a miniature version of the story of Covenant: breaking the Covenant, struggling to maintain it, re-entering the Covenant

• We saw this structure play out in the story of Deborah, a biblical heroine and samson

How does the book of Joshua and Judges differ in their description of the promised land?

Joshua: Eliminated all enemies at once

Judges: Showed the process of eliminating al the enemies (gradual occupation)

Ehud

• Ehud, son of Gera, a Benjaminite who was left-handed

• The Israelites would send their tribute to Eglon, king of Moab, by him.

•  Ehud made himself a two-edged dagger a foot long, and strapped it under his clothes on his right thigh.

• Then Ehud with his left hand drew the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly.

Why is Ehud being “left handed” important?

Left-handed: this detail is important because it shows why Ehud is able to conceal a weapon on his right thigh (3:16). There is also a wordplay involved, since “Benjaminite” in Hebrew could also mean “right-handed man.”

Deborah

A prophet who judged Israel

• the Israelites came up to her for judgment

• “If you come with me, I will go; if you do not come with me, I will not go.” ⁹ “I will certainly go with you,” she replied, “but you will not gain glory for the expedition on which you are setting out, for it is into a woman’s power that the Lord is going to sell Sisera.” So Deborah arose and went with Barak and journeyed with him to Kedesh.

• Jael, wife of Heber, got a tent peg and took a mallet in her hand. When Sisera was in a deep sleep from exhaustion, she approached him stealthily and drove the peg through his temple and down into the ground, and he died. ²² Then when Barak came in pursuit of Sisera, Jael went out to meet him and said to him, “Come, I will show you the man you are looking for.” So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera dead, with the tent peg through his temple.

Jephthah

a warrior who was the son of a prostitute, fathered by Gilead.

• When they grew up the sons of the wife had driven Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall inherit nothing in our father’s house, for you are the son of another woman.” ³ So Jephthah had fled from his brothers and taken up residence in the land of Tob.

• the Ammonites went to war with Israel. ⁵ As soon as the Ammonites were at war with Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob

• Why do you come to me now, when you are in distress?” ⁸ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “This is the reason we have come back to you now: if you go with us to fight against the Ammonites, you shall be the leader of all of the inhabitants of Gilead.” ⁹ Jephthah answered the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me back to fight against the Ammonites and the Lord delivers them up to me, I will be your leader.” ¹⁰ The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The Lord is witness between us that we will do as you say.” ¹¹ So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the army made him their leader and commander.

His vow:Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. “If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, ³¹ “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the Ammonites in peace shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”

“If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,” he said, ³¹ “whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return from the Ammonites in peace shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a burnt offering.”

• Jephthah then crossed over against the Ammonites to fight against them, and the Lord delivered them into his power.

• it was his daughter who came out to meet him, with tambourine-playing and dancing.

• “Let me have this favor. Do nothing for two months, that I and my companions may go wander in the mountains to weep for my virginity.” ³⁸ “Go,” he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with her companions and wept for her virginity in the mountains. ³⁹ At the end of the two months she returned to her father, and he did to her as he had vowed. She had not had relations with any man.

  It became a custom in Israel ⁴⁰ for Israelite women to go yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days of the year

The Levite from Ephraim

when there was no king in Israel,^[a] there was a Levite residing in remote parts of the mountain region of Ephraim who had taken for himself a concubine from Bethlehem of Judah.

•  The man made a move to go, but when his father-in-law pressed him he went back and spent the night there.

• “Bring out the man who has come into your house, so that we may get intimate with him.” ²³ The man who was the owner of the house went out to them and said, “No, my brothers; do not be so wicked. This man has come into my house; do not commit this terrible crime. ²⁴ Instead, let me bring out my virgin daughter and this man’s concubine. Humiliate them, or do whatever you want; but against him do not commit such a terrible crime.”

• On reaching home, he got a knife and took hold of the body of his concubine. He cut her up limb by limb into twelve pieces and sent them throughout the territory of Israel.

What does the failure of the judges lead people to want? 

everyone did what they thought was right in their own mind. They had abandoned God's Word as their standard for right and wrong. As a result, everyone lived by their own rules.