Gigi Kammeyer
Dear Friend in Christ,
In our Old Testament reading for today (Joshua 1:1-18) God commissions Joshua to lead the Israelites across the Jordan. Moses has died, and it is Joshua who leads his army into the land of his enemies and triumphs there; Joshua who leads his people to the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to Abraham; Joshua who is the powerful, unyielding, triumphant general.
If the Torah was exclusively a record of God’s promise to Abraham and the fulfillment of that promise, then the book of Joshua would be the triumphant conclusion of the Torah. Instead, Joshua is the first book after the Torah, the beginning of the prophetic books, the book that chronicles the history of the Hebrews after the promise of Abraham has been made real. In Joshua, they begin their struggle as a united nation, a nation in the realm of history rather than mythology.
In the career of Joshua we can almost see myth begin its transition into history. After Joshua’s battles come the division of the land, then the judges and prophets and kings, and the dense, complicated annals of the descendants of those who once walked with God.
Joshua cannot know subsequent history, but he can know the past. He does know what it means to follow Moses. He knows that to succeed Moses is more difficult than to overcome Canaanites. Moses talked to God. Moses ascended Mount Sinai and returned with the Ten Commandments. Moses shaped a nation out of slaves, a moral nation, and then, “although his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated,” Moses died. At that dramatic moment the Torah ends. After Moses, in spite of all his accomplishments, everything is still to be done.
But Moses is dead, dead without the preparations and failures of old age, dead in the midst of his strength. Moses is dead and the people wait, and everyone looks toward Joshua and Joshua looks across the Jordan and waits. The narrative tells us only, “…and Joshua rose up early in the morning and they removed from Shittim and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel; and they lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass after three days that the officers came through the midst of the camp.”
Before Joshua can cross the Jordan he needs the confidence of a Moses. and as he listens to himself, he hears the Lord.
“This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses so I will be with thee.”
Gigi Kammeyer