Category Archives: Bible – OT – Joshua

Impressions of Joshua

Last month I started, belatedly, to use The Legacy Bible Reading Plan. I’ve been playing catchup, so I’m still with April. I started with Joshua and noticed a few things that may have struck me before, but I can’t remember. I’m sure they’ve been spotted by others, but here they are, in any case.

There are some interesting names and descriptions for God in the opening chapters. Rahab calls him “God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (2:11), which surely shows a mature understanding of who he really is. Just what did she discuss with the two spies?

Joshua calls him “the living God” (3:10) which echoes (post-)Exilic descriptions. He also refers to him as “Lord of all the earth” (3:11, 13) which shows that he believed in more than a tribal deity.

Moses is almost always called “the servant of God”, and occasionally “the man of God”. It reminded me of my late friend, Robert Duff, who had “servant of the Lord Jesus” inscribed on his tombstone. His inspiration was the Apostle Paul, but the concept is the same. I wonder how appropriate it would be to have a similar inscription on my own tombstone.

And finally, the ideas of promise and witness are prominent in the closing chapters.

I think I’ll want to revisit these ideas for further meditation and development. If I do, I’ll post the results. As I progress through the reading plan I’ll post up my simple observations on each book in the hope that they might provoke others to further meditation, too.