*Battlin' Joshua
"Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho.
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho,
And the walls came tumbling down."
Hold on, because the next five chapters in this book make the opening scenes in
"Saving Private Ryan" look like a meet cute in a rom-com. It's battle after
battle, after battle. Actually, more like a bunch of slaughtering interrupted
by an early Bay of Pigs episode.
The big one, the famous one, of course, comes in Chapter Six where Jericho meets its doom. Where Joshua employs a unique choreographed
and musical strategy.
We start out with God telling Joshua not worry, that the city has been
handed to him provided he follows these simple instructions.
3) "You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once.
Thus you shall do for six days, 4) with seven priests bearing seven
trumpets of rams' horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall
march around the the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets
(another word for rams' horns I suppose). 5) When they make a long blast
with the rams' horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then
all the people will shout with a great shout."
You've got to admit, it's a great plan, one that the king of Jericho
couldn't have seen coming. He must have spent those first six days looking over the parapets at the parade going on outside his walls and shaking his head in wonder at the loopiness of it all. Chuckling and rolling his eyes at the silly Israelites tooting their horns and high stepping around the wall. Little did he know what day seven had in store for him and his people. Seven laps around the wall, some heavy tooting on the rams' horns, and a mighty shout and those walls came tumbling down.
And once those walls tumbled down, the Israelites came surging in, and, following God's instructions, they kill everyone, man, woman and child that hadn't already been dispatched by the collapsing structures. They also kill all the livestock, once again, at God's instructions. And then all the brave Israelites gather anything of value they can find and bring it to the priests so God could have the shiny stuff. That was also part of the instructions. All looting was to be for the glory of God, not for personal enrichment.
Oh, I almost forgot, Rahab the prostitute and her loved ones are spared, just like the two spies had promised. I'm not sure how the invading army knew which home was hers since from the earlier spy story we're told her home had an outside facing wall and any crimson rope she would have tied to the window would have been buried in the rubble, along with anyone inside the house, but the Bible says Rahab and her kinfolk were fine, so there you go. Just another detail over which we should not quibble. We will also be glad to know that not only was Rahab spared, but she went on to became a pillar of the community and in fact was voted first chairperson of the Milk and Honey Benevolent Society Auxiliary and Bookclub**.
But the rest of the town was destroyed and everyone was killed, let's not lose sight of the important stuff.
27) So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land.
Joshua is now officially not only good with God, but a also a celebrity. Destroying an entire city will do that.
Remember the bit about bringing all of the good stuff (silver, gold, bronze, iron, Franklin Mint collectibles**) back to the priests? Well, in Chapter Seven we find out that one of the brave soldiers decided to keep a bit of the booty for himself. His name is Achan, and Achan soon finds out that one does not skim off the top when dealing with The Lord.
But first.
After the easy-peasy conquering of Jericho, Joshua sends some soldiers to add the city of Ai to his Win Column, but somehow things don't turn out so well, and not only do they lose thirty-six men, but the inhabitants of Ai chase them out of the town and taunt them whilst doing so. When Joshua asks God why he hadn't been with the Israelites, God tells him that someone had been naughty in regard to the shiny stuff from Jericho. God then tells Joshua to sift through the population until he ID's the culprit. You'll have to read verses 14-20 if you want to know just how he narrows down the field to our friend Achan, because it doesn't make much sense to me. But Achan fesses up, a public stoning and incineration follows, and...
26)...Then the Lord turned from his burning anger.
Which meant God would start helping out with the conquering again.
So it's back to Ai for another try in Chapter Eight. This time with a nifty plan provided by God, who now is back on the side of Joshua and the Israelites. He tells Joshua the best way to handle this one is to sneak a bunch of the army around back of the city, then camp everyone else out in front, where the Ailites (Aians? Aiarians?) can see them. The Ai army, over confident after swatting away the previous attempt to invade their city, will then rush out to chase away the enemy camped conveniently outside their front door. When they do that, the Israelites in front of Ai are to run away, drawing the Aitans away from the gate so the Israelites who have been lurking behind the town can rush around the corner, into the undefended city, set it aflame, then rush back out the gate and trap the Ai soldiers from behind. It's devious and effective and, you guessed it, everyone with an Ai zip code dies. Some special attention is given to the King of Ai that we won't dwell on here. Suffice to say it's a nasty way to go.
We take a little detour in Chapter Nine with a story about how some folks from Gibeon, upon hearing just how ruthless the Israelites have been behaving, decide that while all the other towns in the vicinity are getting ready to defend their territory against the powerful and devious Israelites, the best way to avoid becoming next on the Conquer and Slaughter Tour, is trick Joshua into thinking they have just arrived from a distant country, specifically to devote themselves to the Israelites' cause. Joshua buys this unlikely story and promises they can become a part of the community, albeit as low wage workers. When he finds out they were fibbing he can't do anything about it because he is a Man of Honor who will not go back on a promise. Besides, it will be good to have a readymade lower class of "hewers of wood and drawers of water" when they finish up with their slaughtering and settle down to a peaceful, agrarian existence.
Chapter Ten is titled "The Sun Stands Still", which kinda makes a person want to keep reading, doesn't it? Conjures up the pivotal scene in Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" where the hero Hank Morgan takes advantage of a convenient solar eclipse to make the sun go away at his command and secure his place as a man to be reckoned with.
Back to the book at hand.
The chapter opens up with the King of Jerusalem, a city which at this time has yet to come under new, Israelite management. He's heard about the Gibeon/Joshua contract and it rankles. So he gets a bunch of other area kings together and they go make war on Gibeon, just to show they don't appreciate the fact that their neighbors have thrown in with the invaders. The Gibeonites (this is what they are called in verse 6) send to Joshua for some help so he gathers up a bunch of mighty warriors and heads their way. He is confident things will go well because God has told him in verse 8 "Do not fear them, for I have handed them over to you; not one of them shall stand before you." Which is God's way of saying, "The fix is in. You can make it look like a real battle if you want to, but in any case make sure you kill everyone."
So Joshua and his warriors chase the gathered armies of Jerusalem, Jarmuth, Hebron, Lachish, and Eglon away from the gates of Gibeon, and God helps out by pelting the retreating armies with "huge stones from heaven."
And now for the Sun Standing Still part. Joshua made up a nice poem, calling on the sun to, well, I'll just give you the song itself...
12) On the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the Lord; and he said in the sight of Israel,
"Sun stand still at Gibeon,
and Moon, in the valley of
Aijalon."
13) And the sun stood still, and the
moon stopped,
until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
So, if I'm reading this correctly, Joshua wanted good light to last for a longer seasonally reasonable, so his mighty warriors would have an easier time wiping out the opposing army.
The chapter gets even jollier.
The five kings whose armies had been defeated outside of Gibeon go and hide inside a cave. Joshua has his men roll a big rock in front of the cave to trap the kings, then goes about the territory killing their armies. Then they extract the kings, Joshua "struck them down" and "hung them on five trees" until sunset, at which time down come the royal corpses, to be tossed back in the cave and sealed in with some more big rocks "which remain to this day."
Just in case you think that's quite enough regicide and general slaughter for one chapter, you would be mistaken. Joshua and his Invincible Army proceeds to dispatch...
- Makkedah and its king
- Libnah and its king
- Lachish (king already dispatched)
- Gezer and its king
- Eglon (see note re Lachish)
- Hebron (for some reason that king gets a mention here, so perhaps that municipality had two kings, one that stayed at home while the other went to meet his fate at Gibeon?)
- Debir and its king
40) So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the low-land and the slopes,
and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded. 41) And Joshua defeated them from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, as far as Gibeon. Joshua took all these kings and their land at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel. 43) Then Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to the camp at Gilgal.***
*A Cliff Chipmunk. I thought it might be a nice antidote to the goings on in this installment.
**I shouldn't have to say this, but bits like this should not be taken as anything other than an exercise of Authorial Voice.
***For some well deserved R&R
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