C. Promised Land

LESSON 5

The Promised Land. (a) Preparation: Purification of the people in the desert (Book of Numbers). Covenant in Moab and the fidelity of the Lord (Book of Deuteronomy). (b) Establishment: Chronological and geographical context. Crossing of the Jordan and covenant in Sichem: Joshua. Fidelity and sin: the Judges.

1. The Promised Land: Preparation

1.1 Purification of the people in the desert (Book of Numbers)

The name "Numbers" is the English equivalent of the the Greek term aritmoí ("numbers") which was the title used for the Greek translation of this book.

Peter Kreeft, speaking of the Book of Numbers (You Can Understand the Gospel, pp 35-36), says the following:

"In the wilderness" (in Hebrew, Bemidbar), the fifth word of the book in Hebrew, is the usual Hebrew title of this book, because it is the story of Israel's wanderings in the wilderness, the desert of Sinai, between Egypt and the promised land. Moses kept a diary of these wanderings, according to 33:2, which leads many traditional Jews and Christians to believe that he was the author of this book, and of the rest of the Pentateuch, though many Scripture scholars doubt this.

The English title, "Numbers", refers to the two times Moses took a numbering or census of all Israel. In chapter 1 he numbered the old generation that left Egypt, and in chapter 26, he numbered the new generation that was born in the wilderness and would enter the promised land. Only Joshua and Caleb span both generations. They are the only Jews born in Egypt who were allowed to enter the promised land. The rest all refused to trust and obey God in the wilderness and when He commanded them to go ahead and conquer the land (chapter 14).

This is a painful book. In it Israel learns the hard lesson of the unavoidable consequences of unbelief and disobedience. It is a purgatorial education and purification, necessary for a people not yet mature in faith and obedience. It is fools, they say, who learn by experience.

Like Leviticus, Numbers teaches both the justice and the mercy, both the severity and the kindness, of God. Despite its painful lesson, it is an optimistic, upbeat book, for it teaches that God's people (now as well as then) can move forward to inherit God's promises (the promised land, symbol of Heaven) if and only if they learn the exceedingly simple and therefore exceedingly difficult lesson to trust and obey.

Christians find a number of symbols of Christ in Numbers, including the following:

1. the bronze serpent on the stake (21:4-9), which symbolises Christ on the Cross (John 3:14);
2. the rock that quenched the people's thirst, which Saint Paul interprets as Christ (I Cor 10:4), for Christ and Christ alone satisfies all our heart's desires, that are restless till they rest in Him;
3. the manna that came down from Heaven (11:7-9), which symbolises the Eucharist, Christ as the Bread of Life (John 6:31-33); and
4. the cities of refuge (chapter 35), which symbolise the sacrament of reconciliation.

1.2 Structure of the Book of Numbers

1. Part One: The People in the Sinai Desert (Numbers 1:1-10:10)
2. The Community of Israel (Numbers 1-4)
3. Laws about ritual uncleanness (Numbers 5-6)
4. Offerings at the consecration of the sanctuary (Numbers 7-8)
5. Preparation for the departure (Numbers 9-10:10)
   1. Part Two: The People in Kadesh (Numbers 10:11-20:21)
6. The march through the desert (Numbers 10:11-10:36)
7. Rebellions (Numbers 11-14)
8. Laws for Priests and Levites (Numbers 15-19)
9. Various events in Kadesh (Numbers 20:1-20:21)
10. Part Three: From Kadesh to Moab (Numbers 20:22-21:35)
11. Part Four: Israel on the Plains of Moab (Numbers 22:1-36:13)
12. The story of Balaam (Numbers 22-25)
13. Further legislation (Numbers 26-30)
14. Preparations for entering the Promised Land (Numbers 31-36)

1.3 Covenant in Moab and the fidelity of the Lord (Book of Deuteronomy)

Peter Kreeft (You Can Understand the Bible, pp 37-38) tells us about the content of this book.

The Hebrew title, Haddebharim, "the words" (1:1), indicates the central contents of this book: three long speeches by Moses (1:1-4:43; 4:44-26:19; and 27-34) to prepare Israel for the climax of the story of the exodus and their wanderings in the wilderness: the conquest and inhabiting of the promised land.

Moses is 120 years old and about to die. This is his swan song, his farewell to the new generation written down for all generations. These are sermons not only for Israel but for all the "people of God", for the Church. As Leviticus is the lawbook, Deuteronomy is the essential book of sermons. But while the laws were for Israel alone, the sermons are for all times and peoples.

The word Deuteronomy comes from the Greek word meaning "second law" because in this book the Ten Commandments are repeated a second time (chapter 5).

The essential point of all Moses' sermons is simple. It is the message of Psalm 1, the message of the two ways. Two and only two ways are open for us in this life: the way of obedience to God and the way of disobedience. These roads lead to two different destinations just as surely as two different physical roads lead to two different physical destinations. The way of obedience is divinely guaranteed to lead to inheriting God's promises. The way of disobedience is equally guaranteed to result in misery and failure.

The history of Israel as recorded in the next twelve historical books of the Bible repeatedly and consistently illustrates and proves the truth of this central lesson. So does the history of every other nation and of every individual life throughout the history of the world.

The two most memorable and precious verses are the following:

1. The "shema" (6:4-5), the prayer that is to a Jew what the "Our Father" is to a Christian: "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Nothing, in time or eternity, is more important than that.

2. The fundamental challenge and choice that Moses presents to Israel and that life presents to us: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you." (30:19-20)

Because of Moses' disobedience (Numbers 20:7-13), God did not allow him to enter the promised land that he so longed for. Or rather, God postponed it until later, for when Moses appeared with Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3) he was clothed with heavenly glory. The fact that Joshua (whose name is the same as "Jesus") rather than Moses led Israel into the promised land symbolises the fact that Moses is only a preparation for Christ, a kind of John the Baptist. Christ alone fulfills all the Old Testament symbols and types, especially that of Moses.

1.4 Structure of the Book of Deuteronomy

1. Introduction (Deuteronomy 1:1-5)
2. Part One: First Discourse of Moses: Historical Introduction (Deuteronomy 1:6-4:43)
3. Historical summary of the exodus (Deuteronomy 1:6-3:29)
4. Exhortation to keep the Law (Deuteronomy 4:1-4:43)
5. Part Two: Second Discourse of Moses: The Law (Deuteronomy 4:44-28:68)
6. Its time and place (Deuteronomy 4:44-4:49)
7. The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5-6)
8. Israel, a people holy to the Lord (Deuteronomy 7)
9. The gift of the promised land (Deuteronomy 8-11)
10. The Deuteronomic Code
    • Duties towards God (Deuteronomy 12:1-16:17)
    • Institutions of Israel (Deuteronomy 16:18-18:22)
    • Social rights (Deuteronomy 19)
    • Moral and legal rules (Deuteronomy 20-26)
11. Concluding discourses. Israel, the People of God (Deuteronomy 27-28)
12. Part Three: Third Discourse of Moses: the Covenant of Moab (Deuteronomy 29-30)
13. Historical Conclusion (Deuteronomy 31-34)

2. The Promised Land: Establishment

2.1 Chronological and geographical context

Keller (The Bible as History, pp 155ff) gives us the historical background to this era.

What was the state of the world at the time? We are talking about the years around 1200 BC when Israel entered Canaan. The kingdom of Troy was coming to an end; the Homeric heroes of Greece, Achilles, Agamemnon and Odysseus were entering the scene. It was a good time for an invasion. Egypt was weak and had lost its influence there. Canaan was torn by internal feuds between the innumerable petty kingdoms and principalities of its city-states. Native princes could do what they liked, having their own armies. The commissioners of the Pharaohs were corrupt, interested only in squeezing more taxes and using mercenaries to plunder defenceless towns and villages. Canaan was poorer than it had been in an earlier age.

Henri Daniel-Rops (Israel and the Ancient World, pp 98-104) also gives us a description of the area promised to the Israelites.

Canaan is not a very large country. North to south it extends for less than 200 miles. In the north it is bounded by the Anti-Lebanon range, from which extends, like a wedge, the great Hermon "massif", reaching a height of 6,200 feet and snow-covered in winter. Towards the south, the plains of Palestine stretch without a break into the solitude of Tih. Not including Transjordania, Canaan covers some 9,000 square miles. From the sea to the desert is only around 60 miles, even less in the north. It is a part of the slender horn of the fertile crescent. However, in this small space, nature has revealed herself in the most varying aspects. A plain (the Plain of Sharon), high hills that are called mountains (the Mountains of Judah: Ephraim, Garizim, Thabor), a gorge penetrating the bowels of the earth (the level of the Dead Sea is 1300 feet below sea-level, and its depth 2640), a high glacier with an abrupt drop, in four parallel bands running from north to south, with variations in soil and climate creating subtle differences. The land is beautiful, but not necessarily rich. Scripture calls it a land "flowing with milk and honey". However, if it were true then, there has been a retrogression since. Certainly, it was more wooded in the past, which would have helped retain the water that is inevitably a problem. The summer is hot, between 23-45°C; the winter can be cold. Where water suffices, the earth lends itself readily to cultivation, and even today can be fertile, but in many areas water is scarce. Although an agricultural land, in which Israel abandoned tents for houses, Canaan still remained a pastoral country. While cattle were rare, sheep, goats and asses were plentiful.

2.2 Crossing of the Jordan and covenant in Sichem: Joshua

2.2.1 Structure of the Book of Joshua

The structure of the book is simple in comparison to the previous ones. There are two main parts, introduced by a prologue and concluded with an epilogue.

1. Prologue (Joshua 1:1-18)
2. Conquest of Canaan (Joshua 2:1-12:24)
3. Distribution of the Promised Land (Joshua 13:1-21:45)
4. Epilogue (Joshua 22:1-24:33)

2.2.2 Content of the Book of Joshua

Peter Kreeft (You Can Understand the Bible, pp 40-43) explains:

Joshua: A Call to Follow our Commander and Engage in Spiritual Warfare

The Book of Joshua is the end of one story and the beginning of another. It is the happy ending to the long epic of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and slavery and the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham back in Genesis: the "promised land". It is also the beginning of the hard tale of the conquest of that land.

As such, it is a warlike, grisly book, full of blood and violence. We tend to turn away from such a warlike book today, giving the apparently good reason that the Prince of Peace has come, and God no longer commands His people to fight bloody wars as He did then. True, but we are just as much at war now as then. Spiritual warfare will never end until the end; and this warfare is just as real, just as awful and as awe-full, as physical warfare. For who, after all, are more formidable--Canaanites or the demons they worshipped?

Yet this idea of spiritual warfare, so prominent in Scripture and the lives of the saints, is rarely taught today. We forget that "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). The life-or-death battles in the Old Testament, especially in this most warlike book, are apt symbols of the no less life-or-death spiritual warfare of the New.

The simple success strategy of God's people in Joshua is the old lesson of "trust and obey" (Good military wisdom, if your commander is perfect!) Whenever Israel trusts and obeys her Divine Commander, she triumphs, even against apparently unconquerable obstacles, such as the Jordan River, which is miraculously crossed (chapters 3-4), and the walls of Jericho, which "come tumblin' down" (chapter 6).

Like any general, God leads through different paths. Sometimes He leads His people through miracles, sometimes not. Sometimes His orders make human, rational sense, like the military strategy of "divide and conquer"; but sometimes they seem sheer folly to human prudence, like the command to march seven times around Jericho blowing trumpets. Why does God act in such an apparently arbitrary way?

The appearance of arbitrariness and irrationality is an echo, a projection of our own expectations and categories onto God. God acts in humanly irrational ways for a very good reason: to test His people and teach them the crucial lesson that "some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the LORD our God. They will collapse and fall; but we shall rise and stand upright" (Psalm 20:7-8); th lesson that "unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain" (Psalm 127:1). God is never arbitrary; He always has good reasons, but they appear arbitrary to us because they are so much better than ours.

The Book of Joshua centers around the hero of its title. It traces his life from the beginning of his public leadership, which he inherited from Moses, right up to his final farewell, speech and death, which are strikingly similar to Moses' final speech and his death at the end of Deuteronomy. Joshua is the new Moses.

But isn't it Jesus who is the new Moses? Yes. And the Hebrew spelling of Jesus is Yeshua, which is the same as Joshua. Moses gave him this name (Numbers 13:16), changing his original name, Hoshea, which means "salvation", to Yehoshua (Joshua), which means "The Lord is salvation".

The Church has traditionally interpreted Joshua as a type or symbol of Jesus for at least six reasons:

1. The name and its meaning are the same.
2. Jesus, like Joshua, is the new Moses.
3. He is the commander of God's chosen people and the conquerer of God's enemies.
4. He is the one who leads his people even through the waters of death (symbolized by the Jordan River in Joshua and the water of baptism in the new Testament--see Romans 6:4).
5. He does what Moses could not do: he brings his people into the promised land (symbolic of Heaven).
6. Further, the conquest and division of the land into the twelve tribes symbolizes and foreshadows the expansion of Christ's Church into the world by His twelve apostles.

But the thing symbolized is always more than the symbol. Christ, the new Joshua, did what the old Joshua could not do: save His people forever, not just for a time; and from spiritual defeat (sin), not just from military defeat.

There are many memorable events in this book, so vivid that children remember them almost as well as the events in Genesis, once they hear them. But two passages stand out as especially significant. In the first, a heavenly figure appears who is called "the commander of the Lord's army" (5:13-15). Some commentators think this is not just Michael the archangel but Christ Himself in pre-incarnate form.

In the most important passage of all (24:15), Joshua calls upon all Israel to make the great choice, the single greatest choice every individual and society must make in his, her, or their life, because this choice determines the meaning and purpose and point of life itself, and even determines life or death for eternity: "Choose this day whom you will beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

It is a perfect echo of Deuteronomy (30:15-19), where Moses, in his farewell sermons, confirms us with the same choice. All war and militarism of Judah boils down to this Mosaic wisdom: "Choose life".

2.3 Fidelity and sin: the Judges

2.3.1 Structure of the Book of Judges

1. Prologue (Judges 1:1-3:6): arrival and settlement in Canaan; fundamental teaching
2. Othniel (Judges 3:7-3:11)
3. Ehud (Judges 3:12-3:30)
4. Deborah (Judges 4:1-5:32)
5. Gideon, of the tribe of Manasseh (Judges 6:1-10:5)
6. Jephthah the Gileadite (Judges 10:6-12:15)
7. Samson, of the tribe of Dan (Judges 13:1-21:25)

2.3.2 Content of the Book of Judges

Jerome Kodell (The Catholic Bible Study Handbook, pp 84-85) gives us an overview of this book.

The period of the judges in Israel was approximately 1200-1050 BC. The judges were local rulers, primarily charismatic military leaders. The scattered Israelite tribes were vulnerable to attack from all sides: from the Philistines on the southwestern coast, from the Moabites and the Edomites to the east, and elsewhere from Midianites and Amalekites, and the Canaanites themselves. Lack of national unity kept the Hebrews from establishing their security in the land. It was this problem which eventually prompted the call for a king to bring them together. Samuel, the last judge and the first great prophet, served as the bridge to a new age in Israel.

Peter Kreeft (You Can Understand the Bible, pp 43-46) explains the story of the Judges.

During the four centuries between the death of Joshua and the age of the kings (beginning with Saul, David, and Solomon), Israel was ruled by a series of seventeen judges. These were not judges in the modern sense, that is administrators of legal justice, but also political governors and military leaders. Most were warriors (for example, Samson and Gideon), one was a priest (Eli), and one was a prophet (Samuel). Prophets, priests and kings (rulers) were the three most important offices God appointed for His people, and all three point to Christ, who is the ultimate prophet (the very Word of God), priest (mediator and Savior), and king (ruler of the whole cosmos). The Hebrew word for "judge", shophet, also means "savior" or "deliverer", just as "Jesus" does.

If Joshua is the book of repeated successes, Judges is the book of repeated failures. Israel's history during this time is a dark age full of corruption, a large black sky with only a few bright stars. For after Joshua and the generation that had conquered the promised land with him had died out, "There arose another generation after them, who did not know the Lord" (2:10).

Judges contain seven cycles of Israel's disobedience and repentance, infidelity and return to fidelity to God. Again and again, Israel compromises and worships the gods of the native Canaanites--just as we, the New Israel, worship the gods of our society (consumerism, control, comfort, power, prestige, pleasure). Again and again, the loss of Israel's inner, spiritual strength results in a loss of outer, material strength socially, politically, and militarily; and they are defeated and oppressed. Compromise always leads to chaos.

Then they repent, and God raises up a new judge each time to deliver them. (No amount of human folly can exhaust the divine patience.) But each new judge-deliverer is different. The monotony of Israel's (and our) sins contrasts with the creative originality of God's methods of deliverance: Samson, Gideon, Samuel.

Alas, as soon as Israel is delivered, prosperity leads to pride and disobedience once again, and the endless cycle repeats itself:

All human history, individual and social, follows this pattern. The story is utterly up-to-date. The history of nations ever since Israel has continued to teach the sad results of "playing God". The last verse of the book sums it up and reveals the root cause of Israel's ills: "Every man did what was right in his own eyes" (21:25).

How relevant is this old book to us? The degree of its relevance is exactly proportionate to how little we fear "every man doing what is right in his own eyes". Does this sound to us like a recipe for disaster or for mental maturity, health, and wholeness? Is this not the basic advice of nearly all our psychological "sages" today? Are there many leaders in our society who believe, preach, and practice the opposite of "every man doing what is right in his own eyes"?

That unfashionable opposite is summarized simply in Proverbs 3:5-7:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

There's no other way than these two.

Click here for a coloured map of Canaan as it was divided among the twelve tribes of Israel.

The story in this lesson and in the previous one are also narrated in Psalms 105 [104] and 106 [105].

REFERENCES

• 「示」編輯委員會：救恩史--從耶穌到亞巴郎。香港，思高聖經學會，2003年)
• J. M. Casciaro and J.M. Monforte, God, the World and Man in the Message of the Bible. Dublin: Four Courts, 1996.
• Henri Daniel-Rops, Israel and the Ancient World. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1949
• W. Keller, The Bible as History. London 1969.
• Jerome Kodell, The Catholic Bible Study Handbook. Ohio: Servant Books, 2001
• Peter Kreeft, You Can Understand the Bible. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005
• University of Navarre Faculty of Theology, The Navarre Bible. The Pentateuch. Dublin: Four Courts Press; & New Jersey: Scepter Publishers, 1999
• University of Navarre Faculty of Theology, The Navarre Bible. Historical Books. Dublin: Four Courts Press; & New Jersey: Scepter Publishers, 1999

IMPORTANT LINKS ONLINE

• Ancient Maps (http://www.bible-history.com)
• Bible Map (http://www.biblemap.org/)
• Bible Places (http://www.bibleplaces.com/)
• Holy Land Photos (http://www.holylandphotos.org/)
• Dr Shirley's History Pages (http://www.drshirley.org/hist/index.html)
• An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/RTOT.HTM)
• Reading the Old Testament (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/INTRO/INT_TC.HTM)
• The Biblical Story (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/BIBSTORY/BS_TC.HTM)
• Joshua: Conquest of Canaan (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/CH6/CH6_TC.HTM)
• Judges: Securing the Land (http://www.hope.edu/bandstra/RTOT/CH7/CH7_TC.HTM)