And it came to pass after the death of Moses the servant of Jehovah, that Jehovah spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' attendant, saying,
The book of Joshua opens on a grave. The man who led Israel out of Egypt is gone, and God's first act is to speak to the man who served at his side. That opening line raises two questions. Why could the leader of the exodus not finish the journey? And why does God name his successor by his service rather than his rank?
Moses died before the crossing. One writer traces this to more than Moses' own failure. The role he carried made the crossing impossible for him.
Their inheritance could not come by the law in any way. So Moses, the mediator of the legal system, could not lead the people over the Jordan — and that was true quite apart from his own personal failure. The picture would not allow it. So when Moses asked to cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that fine mountain and Lebanon, the Lord answered, "Enough from you; do not speak to Me of this matter again."
That is why the story of the land begins where it does. God chose that starting point. It teaches something about how anyone comes into blessing.
Our study of the book of Joshua must begin where God begins His teaching — "after the death of Moses." God's way is not for the law given through Moses to bring a single soul into spiritual blessings. Those blessings belong to Christ where He now is, in heaven.
Joshua is not a replacement for Moses so much as the next stage of one story. Each man pictures a different side of the same Saviour.
Moses brought Israel out of the land of Egypt. In that he pictures the Lord Jesus bringing His people out of this world, which lies under judgment. Moses the mediator and Aaron the high priest also picture Him leading His people through this wilderness world. Joshua brought Israel into Canaan. He pictures Christ risen from the dead, leading His people in spirit into the land of glory and into conflict with the enemy in the heavenly places.
The commission given to Joshua reaches further than victory. He was to settle the people in what they won.
Joshua continues what Moses began. Both picture the Lord Jesus, each from a different side. Moses leads me up to the death of Christ. Joshua leads me out of it in victory, carrying his spoils with him… Under the terms of this commission, Joshua was not only to lead them into possession. By dividing the inheritance, he was to give them a settled home. This pictured the last act of our Lord, which He spoke of on earth when He said, "I go to prepare a place for you."
The verse names Joshua by his father and by his position under Moses. Older translations read "Moses' minister," which simply means a servant. The title matters, because the verse sets it against the title God gives Moses.
Moses and Joshua both speak of Christ. Moses speaks of Christ down here in the world, living among people. Joshua speaks of Christ acting by the Holy Spirit in His people — in spirit, not in person. So it is Joshua who leads into the land. Moses is the "servant of the Lord," a picture of God's perfect Servant in Isaiah 52:13. Joshua is "Moses' minister," serving and representing this personal Christ.
Joshua's earlier work at Moses' side already showed the shape of what was coming.
These early tasks are samples of the ministry of the man who was soon to subdue the nations of Canaan and divide their land as an inheritance among the people of the Lord… Peter was marked out beforehand to feed the sheep and the lambs of God's flock. Joshua was marked out to lead Israel. Both were put through their training first — and that is good for all of us.
The call that follows sends Joshua across the Jordan. That river carries its own meaning.
When Moses died, God called Joshua to "Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them." For the people redeemed from Egypt, the wilderness was never the Lord's goal. It was only His road… The Jordan pictures our death and resurrection with Christ. The Red Sea pictures Christ's death and resurrection for us. Energy and courage were essential, and so was holding firmly to God's word. It is the same for the Christian: he is set free, and yet he is bound to obey God.
The people themselves were about to change character. What had been a journey was becoming a campaign.
They had been like a flock led through the wilderness (Ps. 77:20); they were about to be the Lord's soldiers led to fight His battles. God now looked for a soldier's character in Israel: obedience, energy, endurance.
- Death first. The book begins after a burial. The lawgiver could not bring the people into the promised land — not just because he failed, but because of what he stood for.
- Then grace. What law could not give, God gives. God calls the land what He is giving them, not what they earn.
- A trained servant. The verse names Joshua as Moses' assistant. His years serving at Moses' side had already trained him for the work God now gives him.
- A risen Leader. Moses pictures Christ bringing His people out. Joshua pictures Christ risen, leading them in — and then dividing the inheritance so they can settle in it.
- A soldier's road. Crossing the Jordan turns a led flock into an army. The same call that promises the land also demands courage and obedience to God's word.
Moses my servant is dead; and now, rise up, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, into the land which I give unto them, to the children of Israel.
Israel stands at the edge of the promised land with a fresh grave behind them and a river in front. God's first recorded word to the new leader does not begin with comfort about the loss, but with a command to move.
The book opens where a reader might expect an ending. One writer reads this death notice through the difference between law and grace.
The law commands man to do what, in his helpless state, he never can do. The grace of God gives man, when helpless, a new life in Christ Jesus. The law commands man to reach up to blessing; grace brings blessing to man where he is. These words, "Moses My servant is dead," show that spiritual blessings are all of grace. We must keep their force before our hearts. Without it we will not arise and follow our Leader, Jesus, the Lord risen from the dead, and so lay hold of Canaan blessings.
Moses himself never crossed the river. Commentators differ on how much weight to put on his role as lawgiver. Several read the refusal as more than personal discipline:
Their inheritance could not be of the law in any way. So Moses, the mediator of the legal system, could not lead the people over Jordan. That was true quite apart from his own personal failure. In the picture, it was impossible. … Joshua pictured Christ, and just because of that he also shows that God's battles cannot be fought, and the inheritance cannot be possessed, except in the power of resurrection. All the blessings of God's people are on the other side of death.
Others read it differently. For one writer the handover pictures "Christ personally with us" giving place to "Christ in Spirit," and he adds, "nor does Moses represent the law here" (F. W. Grant).
The name of the man now addressed carries the message. His first name, Oshea, meant salvation. His new name was "Jehoshua or Joshua (the Lord is salvation)" (H Forbes Witherby). One writer marks out what he pictures — and what he does not:
Here we do not have the death of the body and the spirit leaving it. Still less is it the resurrection state. That is not the point at all in the Book of Joshua. It is Christ now in Spirit leading the people into the land. That is, the power of the Spirit of God, answering to Christ's glory, enables Christians now to take hold of their place in heaven where He is, and to know it. In short, Joshua represents Christ not as coming in person later on, but as acting in spirit now, and so giving us to receive and to realize our heavenly blessedness.
The river is often read as death and Canaan as heaven after we die. One writer answers that by setting the Jordan beside the earlier crossing of the Red Sea:
On the one hand, the crossing of the Red Sea is our being dead with Christ and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is a question of righteousness. In this way we are justified from sin, and truly set free from Satan's power. We no longer dread the judgment of God. On the other hand, the crossing of the Jordan brings us into heavenly places even now, according to the full measure of Christ's title.
God calls the land His gift. Yet Israel still had to walk every field and conquer it:
The land promised to the descendants of Abraham is God's gift: "the land that I am giving to them." … They had to take hold of what God had given. As they took hold of it, they would own and enjoy the land. If they made it their own by putting their feet on the land, whether mountain or valley, it became theirs in reality. This required energy. … We must take possession in the energy of faith, as Israel had to plant their feet on the territory and conquer it.
The command names more than Joshua. It reaches every one of the people with him:
Some believers do stop short of their proper blessing. But God's mind is that all His people should enter in.
Everything hangs on one verb. The land was already theirs by promise; only one thing was missing.
One thing only was needed for them to enjoy their portion — they must "Arise" and possess. Arise, believer, and enter into the blessings God has blessed us with in Christ. All things are yours; arise, enter in.
- Dead — the book starts with a death notice. Blessing beyond the Jordan never comes by law. It comes by grace.
- Risen — Joshua's name means "the Lord is salvation." He pictures Christ acting now by the Spirit, not Christ returning later.
- Given — God calls the land His gift before Israel fights one battle. The right to it rests on His promise.
- Taken — they still had to walk the ground. What their feet trod became theirs in reality, and that took energy of faith.
- Together — the call names Joshua "and all this people." Some believers stop short of their portion. God's mind is that every one enters in.
Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread have I given to you, as I said unto Moses.
Moses has died, and a whole nation waits at the Jordan to enter land God had already promised to Moses. The verse holds together two things that sound opposite: the land is a finished gift, yet Israel keeps only the ground its feet touch.
The land was theirs by gift before they took a step. But a gift and the enjoyment of a gift are not the same thing.
All our blessings rest purely and simply on the ground of grace, and so they are unconditional. Yet if we are to enjoy these blessings, our souls must be in a fit condition. So we need to keep our hearts exercised before God, or we will be robbed of what is rightly ours... God had promised the land to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their descendants after them. It was not because of what they were that the LORD gave them the land, for had He not said, "You are a stiff-necked people"? It was for His own Name's sake.
Owning a country and living in it are two different things. The tread of a foot turns one into the other.
Their inheritance was a pure gift of the grace of God... God gave them the right to it. But for the people it was a question not only of ownership, but of entering into possession... So it is with us spiritually. We have all these things, but we cannot enter into them except by passing through death with Christ, and entering by the power of His Spirit where He is... In one word, the Christian must take hold of them himself by faith to enjoy them. Otherwise he is like a poor king, sick and living abroad, who has never travelled in his own kingdom.
What does the land stand for now? One writer answers by setting Joshua beside the New Testament letter to the Ephesians.
Joshua is the Old Testament equivalent of Ephesians, just as Ephesians is the New Testament Joshua... So it is no good for me to say such and such things are mine. It is quite true they are mine in Christ, but they are not mine in experience unless I put my foot on them.
The promise sounds easy — until you see who is already standing on that ground.
God had given them all the land as far as the Euphrates, but wherever they tried to put down the sole of their foot, there was a Canaanite. That is Satan hindering us, and that is where the true Joshua work comes in. I am going to make the spiritual power of Christ real now, so as to take possession of the things God has given me in His testimony. Go and put your foot on any one of them, and there stands Satan to hinder you!
The measure in the verse cuts both ways. It promises the ground you take, and it marks the ground you never take.
Everything was theirs according to promise; actual possession was "every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon" (Joshua 1:3). Unfaithfulness prevented full possession, and God would not throw down walls for those who failed in faith.
Another writer names the terms Israel held the land on:
They stand on the ground of law, and must make good their title to the land by real victory over the people living in it... So they never actually gain the full extent of the land that the Lord describes to them.
Many Christians know a great deal and enjoy very little of it. This verse explains why.
Knowing the boundary is not the same as holding the territory in practice. We have it all in Christ; but it must be made good to us... There must be energy, dependence, obedience, purpose of heart; not laziness, indifference, self-seeking... We never enter into or enjoy these things until we begin to put them into practice... The reason we do not experience it is that the sole of our foot has not trodden it.
- The deed — God gave the land before a single battle. He gave it because of His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and for His own Name's sake — not for anything Israel was.
- The step — the foot turns title into possession. A believer who never walks his inheritance is a king who never travelled his own kingdom.
- The map — the land stands for what is already ours in Christ. It is mine in Christ, but not mine in experience until I put my foot on it.
- The resistance — a Canaanite stands on every spot where the foot goes down. Each step forward is a fight, and Christ gives the power for it.
- The measure — Israel never held all the land God described, because unfaithfulness stopped their feet. We too enjoy only the ground we have walked on.
From the wilderness and this Lebanon to the great river, the river Euphrates, the whole land of the Hittites, to the great sea, toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border.
God promised this land to Abraham long before Moses died, and now He marks out its four borders for Joshua before Israel takes a single step. Those borders run far wider than anything Israel would ever hold, so what happens to a gift God gives but His people never collect?
One writer maps the four sides and ties them back to God's promise to Abraham.
The borders in verse 4 reach further than Israel has ever held. They take in the wilderness in the south, Lebanon in the north, and the land eastward as far as the Euphrates River. Looking west, they also take in all the land of the Hittites (toward the east) and run to the Great Sea, the Mediterranean. In Genesis 15:18-21 God's promise to Abram gave the borders from a point further south: "from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the great river, the river Euphrates." Israel will own all this land in the millennium, but only after they have received their Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Then He will clear the way for them to claim their full inheritance.
The phrase "toward the going down of the sun" fixes a viewpoint. One writer stands us in the camp where Israel first heard these words.
In this part of Israel's history, told in the Book of Joshua, we find ourselves in the camp of Israel, at the crossing of the Jordan. Our backs are to the wilderness and the south. Our faces are towards Lebanon and the north. On the left, the country stretches across the Jordan as far as the Mediterranean. On the right, the river Euphrates forms the eastern boundary. The whole stretch is Israel's by promise. But the land given to them in particular, the land they had left Egypt to inherit, lay "over this Jordan."
History came close to these lines exactly once, and only briefly.
David won victory after victory over the Syrians. Through them, the territory the tribes of Israel had taken when they first divided the land grew far larger toward the north. So Solomon reigned over all the kings and kingdoms from "the river" (that is, the Euphrates) as far as the border of Egypt (1 Kings 4:21; 2 Chron. 9:26). This agrees with God's first promise to Joshua after Moses' death (Joshua 1:4).
The verse also hands Israel "all the land of the Hittites." One writer traces how far that stretch ran, and warns against treating any of it as fine speech.
We are only beginning to realize how far the "land of the Hittites" reached. It was smaller, not larger, than the land of Canaan, yet it went up far beyond Lebanon to the Euphrates itself. "All" of it, out to the Mediterranean coast, belongs to Israel by promise. It waits only for faith on their part, and then God will make it good to them. Keil, an orthodox commentator writing one of the best critical commentaries, even calls the promise here "oratorical"! May we, then, without sin, ascribe exaggeration to God? What if the promise of a heavenly inheritance for us be equally "oratorical"?
One writer reads the four landmarks as pictures of the world around the inheritance.
As a picture, the mountain stands for the world in its power, the great river for the world in its wealth, the wilderness for the world in its barrenness, and the great sea for the world in its lawlessness. This good land flowing with milk and honey is a picture of the place God has brought us into, as the letter to the Ephesians describes it. But there are always contrasts between a picture and the thing it pictures.
The territory named here runs well past Canaan itself, and that extra ground is the point.
The very same chapter shows us not our Canaan only, but "from the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates." So God gives us a measure of blessing that reaches far beyond what is properly ours... Does it not bring before us that God, if He gives at all, must give as God? He will make good His promises, but He cannot act below Himself.
A gift secured by God's own name still asks something of the one receiving it.
All our blessings rest on the ground of grace alone, and so they are unconditional. Yet if we are to enjoy these blessings, there must be a suitable condition of soul. So we need to keep exercising our hearts before God, so that we are not robbed of what is properly ours... The land had been promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed after them. It was not because of what they were that Jehovah gave them the land, for had He not said, "You are a stiff-necked people"? It was for His own Name's sake.
- Given — God names four borders before Israel takes one step: wilderness, Lebanon, Euphrates, Great Sea. The title deed comes first.
- Large — the grant runs past Canaan on purpose, because God cannot act below Himself when He gives.
- Unclaimed — Israel's reach touched the Euphrates only under David and Solomon.
- Not rhetoric — call this promise exaggeration, and the promise of a heavenly inheritance falls under the same doubt.
- Enjoyed — the gift rests on grace and God's own name. Enjoying it asks for a suitable condition of soul, and, for Israel, for receiving their Messiah.
None shall be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee; I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Be strong and courageous, for thou shalt cause this people to inherit the land which I have sworn unto their fathers to give them.
Israel is camped on the far side of the Jordan. Their leader is dead and the promised land lies ahead. God's first words to Joshua are not battle plans but a call to courage. That courage rests on something already settled: an oath sworn to the fathers. And Joshua's task is not only to conquer. He must hand the land out to the people.
The word "for" gives the reason: God has already sworn to give the land. His purpose is settled, yet the call to courage still comes.
But then we have another thing: "Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them." This is God's purpose, and He is going to carry out His purpose, but He tells us to be strong and courageous. Divine power is ours, but faith must lay hold of it.
God does not give this call once only. It runs through the opening chapter, and each time it rests on a different reason.
In this exhortation there are three calls to strength and courage. The first is because the possessions belong to God's people. The second is because obedience to the word makes success certain. The third is because the Lord Himself is with His people.
God speaks this word to Joshua, not to the crowd. That detail shows where the nation's strength lay — and where ours lies.
In verse 6 we find spiritual energy... it is worth noting that this energy is not to be found in us; for the people it is found in Joshua; it is in Christ for us... How many Christians there are who seek to discover strength in themselves, to feel themselves strong for the fight! Their search either ends in discouragement, or in something worth no more — self-satisfaction. Power is not there; it is in Christ, but in Christ for us.
Some believers hold back from this command. Bold confidence can look like arrogance. But the two differ at the root.
What is presumption, then, as distinguished from the courage of faith, and how are we to tell the difference?... Presumption is man's courage founded on self — on the first man. The strength and good courage of the Christian is founded only on Christ. The difference therefore is complete. We cannot be too great-hearted if Christ is the one source of our courage: we owe it to Him.
This courage rests on a promise, and it was not for Joshua's own sake.
Such a promise is a wonderful basis for faith to "be strong and courageous" (v. 6). Yet it is not a selfish courage, for Joshua was to divide the land as an inheritance for all the children of Israel. He was to be a leader whose concern was first for the glory of God, and that concern took in the children of Israel too.
Joshua's commission had two halves. The second half pictures the closing work of Christ. (Older translations read the phrase as "divide for an inheritance.")
Under this commission, he was not only to lead them into possession. By dividing the inheritance, he was also to give them secure possession of it. This pictured the closing act of our Lord, which He indicated on earth when He said, "I go to prepare a place for you." Joshua's service is not finished until this is done. So we should expect to find, in the second part of his history, the trials and difficulties that arise to hinder this settlement.
The inheritance is promised, but the foot still has to cover it. Knowing what is yours is not the same as holding it.
All is ours in Christ. But only the blessings we have gained by the Spirit's teaching are ours in our spiritual grasp. Real possession belongs to those who have won ground step by step, by personal struggle... Win in the strength God gives. Get it direct from Him. Avoid the second-hand knowledge that never helps in the day of difficulty or gives strength in the hour of conflict. "Foot"-possessors in the church of God are few in comparison. Many are geographers, who can map out the varied doctrines of the Bible. Few are travellers, who can describe what this or that blessing is, because they have found its preciousness themselves.
- Sworn first. God swore the land to the fathers before a single battle. Courage rests on what He has already settled, not on the odds ahead.
- Supplied, not summoned. Strength for the fight is not found in ourselves; it was in Joshua for the people, and it is in Christ for us.
- Tested by its root. Courage founded on self is presumption. Courage founded on Christ cannot be too great-hearted.
- Spent on others. Joshua's courage was for handing the inheritance to the tribes. His concern was God's glory first, and then the people.
- Taken by treading. Mapping the blessings is not owning them. Only the ground your foot has covered is really yours.