Bible in A Year: Episode 9

Welcome to Read the Bible in a Year with Matt and Hannah, a weekly podcast from Fairfax Bible Church where we explore scripture together, uncovering his themes and design patterns. We’re glad you’re here. Now, here are your hosts, Matt and Hannah. All right, we’re here. Hannah, I really want to sing. Should I sing? What do you think I’m going to say? I think maybe you like to hear me sing. Last time, it just took me by surprise. No, I want to sing Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, because we’re going to talk about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. That’s a good one. Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. I mean, come on, high school chorus? Who’s not into this? All right. Hi, everybody. It is episode nine, Read the Bible in a Year with Matt and Hannah. I’m Matt. She is Hannah. And brought to you by the good people of Fairfax Bible Church. I feel like we don’t mention that enough. Yes, we go to Fairfax Bible Church, and this is mostly for the people of Fairfax Bible Church. If you’re not part of Fairfax Bible Church, we love you, and we’re glad that you’re here. But this is mostly for the people of Fairfax Bible Church. So, Hannah, episode nine. Yep. Wow. And we finished the Torah. Yeah, we did last week. Yep. I always get a little sad. Or I guess this week. We finished the last couple chapters. This week, next week. Yeah. It’s all blurring together. Time has a way. But yeah, I always get a little sad when we leave the tour because it’s just so monumental. But the story keeps going. And so we must go too. So this week we’re in Joshua, which I think is a pretty popular book. I think people like it. It’s got some military action. It’s got some famous stories. You know, the aforementioned Battle of Jericho, which is kind of cool. And the Angel of the Lord and some of those things. There’s a lot of action in it. It’s got some pretty, it’s got some like Gold Star memory verses. Yeah, there’s a classic home decor verse. Yes. Do you know what I’m talking about? I grew up in Southern Virginia in the 1980s. And so, yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about. As for me and my house. we will serve the lord yep i have seen many many cross-stitched pillows and uh and wall framed framed things on the wall that say that so yes yeah i think uh there was a song too oh okay i want to say and i want to say it was by sandy patty who was like like the it girl of like uh christian music in like the 80s so yeah look her up people sandy patty i could be wrong It could be somebody else. But yeah, there’s a very big ballady kind of song. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I haven’t heard it. You don’t say it. I’ll have to check it out. All right. We’ll have Kyle put it in the show notes. All right. So yeah, a lot to talk about. And different than other episodes, we’re going to do a whole book in one episode because over the past week, we’ve read the whole book. So Hannah, catch us up. What’s the story so far? Where are we? Where do we find ourselves? And what’s going on? Yeah, so we will mostly just be talking about Joshua this episode, but we did wrap up Deuteronomy this week as well. So we are covering Deuteronomy 32 through Judges 3 this past week. But again, most of our time we’ll be talking about Joshua. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about Judges next week. But just as a reminder, we closed Deuteronomy with Moses’s song and blessing, and his final words are urging Israel to stay faithful to the Lord. And then he hikes up to the top of a mountain and he dies. And at the end of Deuteronomy, Joshua is commissioned as the new Moses. And so just before they enter the promised land, Joshua sends spies out, which sounds familiar. This has happened before. And they scout out the land of Jericho. And so this is where we meet Rahab, who is a Canaanite woman and a prostitute who somehow fears the God of Israel. And so based on her confidence in the Lord and her help for the spies, Israel starts their journey into the promised land. So God parts the Jordan River, which follows a pattern we’ve seen before of deliverance through the chaotic waters. And then they emerge into this new life in the promised land. So as they continue their journey further into the promised land, they encounter the angel of the Lord who is blocking their path. And from there, Israel has their first battle at Jericho, which God gives them some pretty weird instructions for battle. But their obedience leads to success. And that success is contrasted with the next story, which is their failure at Ai. And so Israel discovers that their failure at Ai was because of a consequence of Achan’s disobedience. And so then we also get into some long lists of boundary lines, which are detailing the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that his offspring would inherit this land. And then the book closes by recounting all that the Lord has done for the family of Abraham all the way up through this current generation of Israel. And Joshua sets up this choice for the next generation, just like Moses did, a choice between life or death, obedience or disobedience. And at the very end, we see that Israel did serve the Lord all the days of Joshua’s life and of the lives of the elders who outlived Joshua. But as we turn the page to Judges, the story is about to change. And we’ll save that for next week. Oh, I get sad just thinking about it. Yeah. All right. I’ll save that for next week, though. Joshua, though, pretty fun in some ways. Parts of it are maybe not confusing isn’t quite the word, but like dense, like you’re reading list of like town names and boundary lines uh shout out casey maddox in fact gold star casey maddox who said i need a map in the chat this week i did appreciate that by the way you could google that there are maps available so highly recommend doing that it’s actually pretty interesting um but let’s scope out the beginning you alluded to this uh in scoping out but a lot of repetition from what we saw especially in exodus and numbers some of the same patterns the first thing is we’re we’re going to send out some spies to scope out the land. Didn’t go well when we came to this in numbers. Goes better this time. Tell us more. Yeah. So these spies, I guess, trust the Lord. So they go to spy out the land, specifically Jericho. And then we meet Rahab. And she somehow knows about the God of Israel. It seems like she’s heard about the fact that he parted the Red Sea and he defeated the kings of the Amorites. And she says that, I know that Yahweh has given you the land like before he’s actually done it. So she hides the spies when they’re being chased down. And then she asks for protection for her family in return for helping them. And she lets them down out the window, down the city walls or outside of the walls. And so because of that, the spies have confidence that the Lord will hand the land over to them. And that’s a very different response than the spies that Moses sent into the promised land. Yeah. And, you know, we don’t, in the numbers account, we don’t know specifically what their path was or if they went to different cities. We really only know what their response was. But they come back with like agricultural products, you know, big grapes and things like this. But this time specifically, they’re told to scout out this city, this border city. And yeah, it is interesting when they get there, God’s reputation has proceeded. So, you know, I don’t think they had CNN or, you know, Twitter or whatever. I don’t know what news source they were all putting their trust in. Which tells you, without mass media that we’re accustomed to, the fame of God’s deliverance of them has reached all the way up into this area of what we would come to call the land of Israel. So, yeah, that’s really interesting that they, even so far away from Egypt and where these things happen, they’ve heard about what the Lord had done for his people. And they’ve heard about battles that he has fought for them and won for them. And yeah, as you alluded to, this Canaanite woman and a prostitute is the first person that we know, the first person we experience in the promised man who’s willing to leave her ancestral culture and become part of the family of God and put her trust in that God. It’s really interesting. It’s very moving, actually, even. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And very unlikely, because not just a Canaanite, who we already know is kind of God’s on the else with anyway, but a prostitute. So yeah, it’s probably not the person we would pick. Not the obvious person to respond here. Yeah. And then, you know, we could circle around to this a little bit, but there’s an interesting thing that sort of the battle or the offer that the Israelites make to her when she says, hey, when you take over the city, will you spare me and my family, my household and they say uh hey if you put this red thread in your window we’ll we’ll know to spare you uh and so you won’t be part of this discretion so do that that feels like something we’ve heard before yeah maybe this seems like a little bit of a flashback hyperlink callback something yeah yeah who uh ian called that out right yeah ian cox gold star ian cox yes yeah i i don’t know I’ve wondered about that as well. But yeah, the red thread on the door, just like the red blood on the door of the Passover lamb for protection, seems like a connection for sure. Seems like it to me. Some theologian out there can tell me I’m wrong, but it makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So yeah, I mean, same kind of thing. The symbol of trust, it’s red representing blood and life. In Rahab’s case, it’s a thread or a string of some sort, whereas it was the Passover lamb for the things. But apparently that’s good enough for God’s purposes. Yes, he receives that as a symbol of faith. And so, yeah, when they do, spoiler, when they do invade, she and her family are spared. And then, this is amazing to me, not only are she and her family spared, but we find out later she becomes part of the lineage of the Messiah, of Christ. Yeah, right. Yeah, which is crazy that they would use, like God would use a Canaanite woman to bring about that line. A Canaanite prostitute. Yeah, so we’re told in Matthew chapter 1 verse 4 that she marries, it reads like salmon, so Salmon. That can’t be the way it’s pronounced, right? Salmon. Salmon, yes. So she marries a prince or leading figure in the tribe of Judah, and she becomes part of the lineage that leads to the birth of Jesus Christ. So, I mean, there it is. It’s amazing. Yet another unlikely character. Right. So they scope out the land. They come back to Joshua and they say, we’re good. Let’s go. Let’s do this. and they cross over the Jordan, which I know you alluded to this in our catch-up, echoes of crossing the Red Sea, parting the chaotic waters, all that. And then there’s this cool little moment where they sort of build a little monument. Yeah. Yeah, I think two monuments, like if you try to sort them out, one is like in the middle of the river and another is on the outside. So they set up these two monuments with 12 stones, one for each tribe, as a memorial that reminds Israel that they crossed the Jordan on dry ground. And it says, just like God dried up the Red Sea. So it explicitly makes that connection. Yeah, I think that I like monuments and memorials. I am the guy who will stop on the side of the road if there’s like a monument to like Zachary Taylor or something like that. I have done those. So I like the idea that there’s like a monument. Hey, something happened here, something that we need to remember. and pay attention to and tell our people, tell future generations about. Yeah. Yeah. So I love that. Yeah. And then this is verse 24 in chapter three. It says the reason that God has done this, delivered them through the waters, is so that all the earth would recognize the Lord’s power and so that you will fear or revere the Lord your God forever. So it’s about Israel for sure, but it’s also about that all the earth would recognize the Lord’s power. And so that’s also tying in the idea of, you know, the Canaanite prostitute is welcomed into this family. And she recognized the Lord’s power from when he did it at the Red Sea. So yeah, God is spreading his name and his power, his reputation by doing these great acts. Yeah, it’s really cool. So I feel like we’ve lost some of that in our culture. I mean, we live outside Washington, D.C., which of course has big monuments and lots of little things. And even here in the Commonwealth in Virginia, there’s lots of monuments for things that happened like around the Civil War or things like that. So maybe it’s, but I feel like those things are sort of getting lost a little bit. And there’s just stuff we don’t know. Well, I’ll just share an example. This is actually a little sad of example. But a couple of years ago, I was in Chattanooga, Tennessee with my family. And there’s a famous bridge called the Walnut Street Bridge there in Chattanooga. And it’s somewhat noteworthy. It used to be a place in Chattanooga where sadly they would do public lynchings. In fact, there was a lynching there in 1920-something that was actually so severe, the injustice was so obvious, that it actually went to the Supreme Court. It’s the only lynching case. It’s one of the very few criminal cases the Supreme Court has ever received, and they favored for the defendant in that. So he was told that he had to get a new trial, which sadly he didn’t get. So when I went there a couple years ago, I thought there might be a monument or a marker because it’s a very significant moment in American history, especially history of civil rights, and there’s nothing there. Wow. If you were a casual observer, if you were there walking, you wouldn’t know. And it just made me sad. And I was like, I understand why it’s not a thing to be celebrated. Yeah. But it is a thing that people should know. Yeah. And I feel like we’re kind of moving away from that. And that makes me sad because I think people should know. And it also concerns me because if we don’t know, and we see this a little bit when we get to judges, not too much of a spoiler, but like if we don’t make a point to remember, then we forget and then bad things happen. So even in this case, when we don’t remember that God did a thing, God advocated for us, he rescued for us, he delivered us, he fought for us. If we don’t remember, we forget and that’s bad. Yeah. Yeah, and that’s really similar to Israel’s ritual calendar, too. The whole purpose of all of those holidays, those feasts and festivals are to remember. So we have like, you know, these are physical memorials that they set up when they cross the Jordan, but they’re also these gatherings that they have seven times a year or more than that because the Sabbath is weekly. Yeah. But to look back and remember what God has done to make sure we don’t forget that he’s going to continue to do it. Yeah, I loved what you said when we were talking about that a couple episodes ago, that just like the tabernacle makes physical space to experience the presence of God, the rituals make space in time for us to remember God and celebrate God. I love that. So I’ve been very mindful of that in terms of my Sabbath practice. And we don’t celebrate the same feasts or holidays that they did in those days, but trying to be more mindful. I suppose we could, yeah. No one’s stopping you. What was it? Sukkoth? Was that? Well, you really liked Shavuot. Shavuot. Yeah, but there is Sukkot. That’s another one. Sukkot, okay. You think you mix the two together. I do. I’m always confused. I need to spend more time with Chris Murphy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay, so we’re over the Jordan. Aspias has said, we’re good to go. let’s trust Yahweh. Yahweh’s going to do this for us. And then, okay, I’m not going to sing again, but I could because we have Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. You alluded to this very weird battle plan. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No maps, no satellite imagery. Well, also no violence. Like normally if you’re defeating, if you’re going to war with someone, with a nation, you’re not just to like walk around and play some music you know that’d be awesome i think it’s better than better than the alternative no i agree yeah yeah yeah and it also doesn’t happen in one day they do this that’s actually yeah it’s kind of bananas yeah they here’s here’s how we’re going to win this battle uh we’re going to go walk around the city yep just once on the first day we’re just cruising again the first six days just walk around it once we’re just strolling just yeah you know explore the space see what’s happening don’t say anything no no don’t say anything and then these poor or i don’t know about poor israelites but like day seven they’re like are we just doing the same thing again what’s happening and then josh was like okay now we’re gonna blow a horn yeah right well first of all we have to walk around it seven times this day not just once and then we’ll blow horns and then the city walls collapse it’s just crazy if only things are always that easy yeah uh the seven’s got to mean something right well you know that seven means something yeah i mean seven is the number for completeness yeah wholeness so yeah so i don’t know what’s what’s the moment here why is what is the sever the idea of complete or whole i mean it was very intentional what God tells them to do and it’s recorded there for us. So there’s got to be something for us to receive there. Yeah. Well, this whole story is very closely related to the idea of obedience. Okay. So my mind first goes to the idea that, you know, if they do this, they trust him for all seven days. And on the seventh day, they walk around seven times. They’re reaching their like full wholeness of obedience. Like you might do it one day because you’re like, okay, we’ll see what happens, but nothing happens. And then you’re like, should we do it again? And then you get to the seventh day. So I don’t know. I think it’s a wholeness, a completion of obedience. Um, and then it’s also maybe just like a whole event. Like it’s complete after seven days, seven times. All right. I like this. Now, I think in most readings of this story, certainly maybe in most, if you see this in movies or film versions, the story tends to stop here. Yay! Battle of Jericho. Walls came falling down. We’re going to live happily ever after. We do not live happily ever after. There’s a story right after it, and we neglect that story sometimes, but it’s actually very important to read these together. It’s like the anti-Jericho. So this is the battle of, is it I? Yeah. Okay, my Hebrew’s a little rusty. Yeah, some people pronounce it AI. Like if I listen to my audio Bible, even the narrator will say AI. Oh, is he confusing it with like AI, like the buzzy term for artificial intelligence? Oh, baby. Is he confused? It’s possible. Is the AI getting all self-referential here? Yeah. At least in Hebrew, it’s I. Okay. Well, we’ll say I. Yeah. But yeah, so you read these together. And so this story is different. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they are very quickly defeated when they try to, you know, go to battle with I. And then we find out, well, there’s a little bit of a hint at the beginning before they go to battle with Ai that this character Achan is causing some trouble. Achan. Come on, man. But then we get more details later. I think this, yeah, this is chapter seven. So we get more details about what Achan did and why that caused Israel to be defeated at Ai. So let’s see. One interesting note is that Achan is from the tribe of Judah. Oh. It’s kind of disappointing. We were doing so well, Judah. Yeah. You’re supposed to be the chosen line. Yeah. So we see his failure here. I get so mad at Achan every time I read this. Yeah. I’m so mad at him. Yeah. Well, even this chosen, you know, blessed line of Judah is not immune to failure. Yeah. So what exactly does he do and why is it a problem? So we get some details later in chapter 7. This is verse 21. We see that Achan saw that there was a cloak that was good. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And he desired it and he took it. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. All right. Yeah. Yep. We know that language. Those are exact words from Genesis 3. So you might see instead of good, your translation might say beautiful, but it’s the word tov, so that’s the word for good. Yeah. So clearly they were told not to take, at the end of chapter 6, not to take from the gold or the silver or the bronze or the iron, but to dedicate it to the Lord. But Achan is like, well, what if I take some of it? no one will know the difference they don’t seem like casual things to take either i don’t see him just slipping these into his pocket no because it’s like hundreds uh where is it let me i want to make sure i get it right here because he’s like taking hundreds of pieces of silver and like yeah let’s see he took the silver and he took a cloak and he took bars of gold and uh yeah i mean so a uh not casual things so i’m not sure how he slipped these things out and then b i think he he must have had accomplices maybe yeah maybe his household people because i don’t see you casually like getting all of these things into a tent and nobody else finding out yeah yeah i just get so mad at i’ll tell you another reason why i get so mad at him So it’s in chapter, yeah, the sort of second part of chapter seven, where they’re basically doing a lottery to narrow it down that who is guilty of the sin, who’s held Israel back from success here. And it kind of reminded me, did you read, probably high school and middle school, did you read a story called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson? Yeah, I did. It’s creepy. Yeah. Yeah. So for those of you who don’t know, there’s a famous short story. It’s one of the more famous short stories of all time. It was published in some magazine out of New York in the, I think, the 50s, like 57, 58, somewhere in there. And essentially, you come into this town. It’s a generic Midwestern type town. It’s a farming community. And there are notes like, oh, it’s lottery day. And so the whole town is going to the middle of it. They’re going to have a lottery. You don’t know what the lottery is for, what the point is. But they’re distributing the lottery, and then it sort of narrows down this one family. It’s going to be the winner, quote unquote. And so you know that you’re the winner of a lottery if you have a big red or penciled circle under a piece of paper. And so they eliminate everybody else, and so finally it’s down to the last family and whoever it is, the husband or somebody. Oh, it’s the wife. It’s the wife. Opens it, and she’s the one. She has the big pencil mark. And then the town stones her to death, which you did not see coming. And so it’s presented as sort of like an ancient ritual sacrifice of things that would not be unusual if we read it in, say, Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy or some ancient text. But in modern America, it’s a bit striking. And I think about that when I read through this one, because we’re going through all the tribes and then we narrow it down. Then we’re going through all the families and we’re going through all the households. So this guy Achan would have been watching this the whole time, right? He’s seeing it go tribe by tribe, family by family. He could have said something at any moment. And it’s not until there’s nothing for it or there’s no other option where he’s been called out. And only then does he confess. And only then does his household confess. And I’m like, Aiken, Aiken, what are you doing? You could have, I mean, you did bad, but you could have confessed. You could have said something way earlier. You don’t do a thing until you’re dead to rights. And it just aggravates me so much. Yeah. Yeah. He had a lot of opportunity to repent. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we talk about this in the chat. We talk about this at church a lot. God’s kindness for us to repent. He gives us so many chances in the language and scripture. And never mind the New Testament or passages that we haven’t gotten to in our reading plan, even in the Torah, where the invitation to repent and even the thing like, hey, you’re going to mess up. You’re going to get these laws right. But when you do that, I want you to confess. Here’s how we get you back in. Like the invitation is open. He wants you to come. He wants you to repent. He wants you to leave those things behind. And Achan would know all that. And he still does what he does. And it just, yeah, it frustrates me. It makes me angry. Yeah. You know, another thing that the Bible Project pointed out is not only are these battles of Jericho and I being contrasted, but actually the characters of Rahab and Achan are being contrasted. Yes. Yeah. So I think that’s interesting. You know, Achan takes what he sees as good in his own eyes, but Rahab fears the Lord and risks her life to save the Israelite spies. And so she and her family are delivered to safety. But Achan’s actions bring about curse on his whole family and defeat for all of Israel at the Battle of Ai. Yeah, even thinking about that, I mean, Rahab would have had very little knowledge of the God of Israel. I don’t expect that she would know much about Torah or instruction or the Ten Commandments. She wouldn’t know any of these things. And I think it’s fair to estimate that Achan would. Achan would have heard Moses’ speech. He would know the Ten Commandments. He would know the instruction. Yeah, he would know that God’s presence dwells in this massive tent that’s in the middle of your camp. So, yeah. Yeah, so it’s not just knowledge. It’s not just knowing or hearing things. If it doesn’t produce obedience, then yeah, that’s not it. God loves obedience. A simple faith, even with relatively very little knowledge, can produce obedience that is very moving to God, as opposed to lots of knowledge that gets to self-righteousness or me defining good and evil for myself. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a bummer. Hey, can you bum me out? All right, so we get through. So they do recover. They actually do take over Ai. So they recover from that. And then they actually go on to have lots of battles. They’re long chapters. There’s one day that I think is eight chapters of reading. Yeah. So God bless you if you’re doing the audio book or the audio version of that because you were in that for a long time. Yeah. So if you’re reading text, you can skim a little bit. I suppose you can make the audio book or the audio version. You can amp the speed up a little bit. Yeah, you can. Okay. But yeah, that would be a challenge. And this is where Casey’s idea that it needs a map, that made me laugh. So yeah, you need a map and yeah, you’re cruising through something. We won this battle and then we won this battle. Now we have this territory and that territory. So I think I don’t know if there’s much to say about this. I think one thing that’s probably worth pointing out is I think some of the language about the violence or the language about the battles, I think to 21st century years would hit a bit odd. We think of the God of the Bible as very peaceful, and he is. One of the names of Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and yet there’s no getting around it. These are very violent stories, very violent accounts. Yeah. I think we might have mentioned this a little bit in the last podcast or something too, but a lot of this language is pretty hyperbolic. So the Bible Project details this pretty well. This is a common ancient Near Eastern rhetorical practice to use hyperbolic language when describing your military success. And because we also see that like, even though they already defeated quote unquote, some of these cities already previously, they come back again and you’re like, well, those people are still there. They must not have wiped them out completely. So you can see the hyperbolic language a little bit there. And the emphasis is not on the Canaanites as an ethnic group. It’s about their corrupt culture of, you know, they were well known for child sacrifice. or other moral corruption. And God didn’t want the Canaanites to influence Israel into idolatry or moral corruption in the promised land. Yeah. And, you know, it’s interesting because we don’t get a lot of explicit description in the biblical text on this, but the Canaanites are hardly innocent victims here. And much like some of the other people groups that we’ve seen actually stood against the interest of Israel. And going back to the Abraham blessing, we know that God’s not going to tolerate that. He’s going to bless the people who bless Abraham. He’s going to curse the people that curse Abraham. And so these are people that are ready to curse the people of Abraham. And as you alluded to, their corrupt practices, and especially child sacrifice. These are things that were, it’s small language, it’s hint style language, but God makes it clear that these are not innocent victims. This is not just disagreements about land, that this is him getting justice for his promised land and protection for his people. Yeah. Yeah. It’s still unusual and a bit striking, I think, for those of us who live in the 21st century and have just different sensibilities about these things. But with context, I think we see, we can at least get a sense of this is a just move by a righteous God and he’s doing the right thing for his people. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, if you’re reading this and you’re like, this is just weird or it’s just a little bit disturbing, it’s okay. It’s okay. You don’t have to think this is awesome or we don’t have to be nationalistic about this or something like this. We don’t have to form parades about all this. But it’s there in the text. And just know that the God that you worship, the God that you give your allegiance to, always does the right thing. And it’s true in this situation as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we get a lot of chapters sort of describing Israel as they spread out around the land. And there’s even some chapters about how they allocate which tribe is going to which part. So, you know, Asher is going over here and Reuben is going over here. And even the cities of refuge and the cities for the Levites to go in because they don’t get an allotment in the land in the way that the other tribes do because their allotment is to serve the Lord. But they get the cities or refuge, they get places to keep their pasture. So yeah, we get a description of them spreading out. And I think you even alluded to this. This is God fulfilling his promise. And it’s not scintillating reading necessarily, but it’s really important. It’s really important. This is God doing what he said he would do. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a record for Israel as a concrete reminder of what the Lord did for them and how he fulfilled his promise to them. Yeah. And I do, I love the imagery of, say, you’re a, you know, you’re a family in the tribe of, you know, Asher or I’m trying to give some of the minor tribes some love here, Dan. And like you walk over a hill into a valley and like this is going to be your new home. This is where you’re going to build your ancestral land. Your generations are going to live here and you see it for the first time. And you’re like, wow, we wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Our grandparents were slaves in Egypt and now here I am. And this is the land that’s going to be home for me. I just wonder what that moment would have been like for them. Yeah. Yeah, it’s really interesting. So the stories that you hear about the land rush in Oklahoma in the 1840s and things like that. words. Do you read about this? Did you learn about this in history? Yeah, I don’t know enough about it. But I don’t know. I’m not a huge fan of I don’t pay attention. So whatever year was like, I guess that the Sooners, the Oklahoma Sooners, that’s the name of the university’s football team. So I guess the idea was whatever year was 1847 or whatever it was. So Oklahoma opened as a territory. And so the deal was if you could get there and put a claim down, you got like 10 acres or 40 acres. So it was literally a land rush. And so people just like hopped in and they just got out there and you just wanted to be the first person that land. And I think there are some accounts where you don’t even know what it is. You’re just trying to get there first. You put your stake down. And like it’s yours. Like the government gives you the land grant and you can farm it or you could sell it to somebody else. And so there’s just stories about people just rushing to get out there and make a, you’re just cresting over this hill and you see it. It’s like, there it is. Yeah. So I just love the imagery of just people like they’ve never been here before, but now it’s going to be their home. Yeah. This is a little bit different because it’s not like these tribes are just claiming land for themselves. These are specifically allotted boundaries that the Lord has determined. And then like when we talked about the Sabbath year and the year of Jubilee, these are the same boundary lines that are being referred to when all of Israel, all the tribes are supposed to go back to their originally allotted lands that the Lord designated for them. Even if they had to sell their land because they went into poverty, they could go back to that land. It’s a reminder that the Lord owns all of this land. Like you don’t really own it. So you don’t get to pick your boundary lines. Like these are set in stone. This is what you get. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It’s beautiful to think about. So we get through that section and then, and you started to talk about this. So the book starts to conclude with Joshua, much like Moses had done in Deuteronomy, sort of giving his final parting words and presenting a choice. So tell us about that. Yeah. So starting, well, mostly chapters 22 through 24 set up this choice again, just like Moses gave to the previous generation. So in Joshua 22, verse 5, Joshua is speaking to the next generation. He says, Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments to cling to him and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So like a lot of those, that language is really similar, like with all your heart, with all your soul. That sounds like the Shema in Deuteronomy 6. And yeah, be very careful to observe the Lord and to listen to him and obey. That word listen, Shema is repeated a lot again in these chapters. So this is just like Joshua repeating as the new Moses to this next generation, there’s this choice set before you where you can obey and have life or you can disobey and have death. And so like next couple chapters, so chapter 24, the Lord is reminding Israel of all that he’s done for them, starting all the way back with Abraham and trickling down through all the generations. He highlights his abundance and his grace and his generosity. He says in verse 13 of chapter 24, I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities which you have not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant. So it kind of sounds a little Eden, like the vineyards, the olive orchards, but you didn’t even have to do the work for it. You didn’t plant it. You didn’t build any of this stuff. You didn’t labor for this land. So God’s highlighting his abundance and his grace and generosity to create this new Eden-like land, the promised land for them. Have you seen an olive orchard? I don’t think so. Okay. We were in Croatia last September, and so we happened to drive through one. They’re really interesting looking. Yeah, they’re really beautiful. Christy stole some olives. I probably shouldn’t, in case the Croatian police are listening. You didn’t hear me say this, but Christy stole some olives. So, yeah. Nice. But yeah, they’re cool. Olive trees are really cool. Yeah. And then verse 14 goes on to explicitly say, choose this day who you will serve. You know, if you’re going to serve these false gods, make that decision. But fear, I, you know, I’m asking you, fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. And thus a million knitting projects were born. That’s right. Or stitching products. That’s right. Yeah, because Joshua was like, for me, I’m going to serve the Lord. Yeah. I hope that you do too. I’m mocking a little bit, but it is actually very profound. And a little bit the tree back in the garden. Hey, you’re in front of the tree. You can make an option. Do you want to choose to define good and evil for yourself? That’s the road. Or do you want to choose to follow Yahweh? This is the road. So, yes, I make fun of things that get tilt into overly sentimental. Yeah, me too. But this is a genuine moment. Yes, this is one reason why you and I are friends. But it is a genuine moment. And it’s a classic design pattern. Classic theme in scripture is, hey, you’re being tested. Choose the Lord. Choose the Lord and pass the test. Yeah, and the book kind of closes with a positive. note that this is Joshua 24 31 says, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel. So you’re like, oh, that’s great. Yeah. They made the right choice. Yeah. Well, at least until we turn the page. Right. Wow. Yeah. So that’s Joshua. Again, some classic stories, ones that you’ve heard, You learned some of these in Sunday school, some memory verses that were in your Awana program or something like this, something that you did. And yeah, I mean, sort of a variation on a theme that we’ve seen in Scripture. Are we going to be obedient and follow Yahweh in the way that he asks us to? There’s benefit and abundance in that. If we choose not to do that, there’s destruction, not just for ourselves, but the people around us, as we see in the story of Akin. Obedience can come from very unique places or unexpected places like in Rahab. So it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge or expertise to be obedient. Simple faith is the thing that God is keen on, as we see. We make it complicated in some ways, but it’s not really that complicated. But alas, we’re not going to stay there. As we turn the page, we’re going to go into judges. So looking ahead, our next episode, we’ll spend a lot of time in Judges. And spoiler, and Hannah, you might be with me on this one. Judges is maybe my least favorite book in the Bible. I got super nerdy about Leviticus, but man, I do not get nerdy about Judges. It’s a sad book to me. Yeah. Yeah, there’s some hard stories in there for sure. Hard stories, hard themes, rough language. And not just that we see Israel start to spiral a little bit, but like in some very, very disturbing ways. So, yeah, gird up. Next week’s going to be a doozy of an episode. It’s going to be awkward. And hey, this reading, I mean, we start Judges tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow. Like you people don’t even know what we’re talking about here. But we’re starting Judges here any day now. And yeah, it’s going to get messy like really fast. And so here we go. But that’s the story of the Bible. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let’s go ahead and wrap it up here. Hannah, can you pray as help? Yeah. Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to read your word and community and to lean on one another for insights and observations just encourage one another in the ways that we see the beauty of your word and how we are learning to delight in your word more and more together by the things that we notice and the ways that we are being reshaped and transformed by the power of your word. And so we pray that you would teach us what to do with all of this. Teach us what it looks like to make the choice to pursue life, to pursue obedience, to trust you, trust your wisdom instead of doing what we see as good in our own eyes. Show us that in the big and the small ways in every decision of life, the small things we can choose to trust you over doing what is good in our own eyes. So I pray that you would continue to be with us as we read this next week, that your spirit would illuminate your truth and your wisdom to us, and that you would give us endurance as we continue through this journey of reading your word together. We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Hannah. Yeah, thank you. All right. Thanks, everyone, and we will see you next time.