Fully Devoted: Israel, Act 1Sample

Taking the Promised Land

After 400 years in Egypt and 40 years in the wilderness, the time had finally come for God’s people to inherit the land that was promised to them. Except there’s a problem: There are other people living there.

To understand God’s action, we need to address three issues.

Issue 1: Who’s who? 

The two sides are Israel and Canaan. Israel is a group of former slaves who have been wandering the desert for the last 40 years. Canaan is an empire full of walled cities, horse-drawn chariots, trained soldiers, a thriving economy, and established alliances. This is kind of like a kindergartner stepping into the ring to fight Mike Tyson in his prime. Or a 4th grade YMCA basketball team going up against the ‘96 Chicago Bulls. Israel is trying to storm the Pentagon with a water pistol. This isn’t the story of the strong pushing around the weak—it’s a story of God using a band of slaves to bring down an empire. 

Issue 2: What’s really going on? 

It’s really easy to read the accounts of the battles found in the book of Joshua and assume the Israelites are committing genocide against large populations of innocent civillians. For instance, Joshua 11 describes how the Israelites “utterly destroyed” the enemy armies, “showed no mercy,” and “did not spare anyone who breathed.” 

But there’s a problem. If we go just a little bit further in the story we see that those same enemies show up and cause trouble again. So, what’s really going on here? 

The book of Joshua uses the language of ancient warfare, which everyone in Joshua’s day would have understood. This type of communication is exaggerated and full of hyperbole. 

Think about when your favorite team beats their rivals in an intense game. When asked how the game went, you might say, “It was a massacre! The other team didn’t even stand a chance! We wiped the floor with them!” 

This is exactly what many historians and scholars believe is taking place throughout the book of Joshua, and why it is so important for us to remember to read the Bible literately and not just literally. 

Issue 3: Why is this happening?

Hundreds of years before this group of former slaves went to war against Canaan, while Abraham was living in Canaan, God told him why his family was going to spend hundreds of years in Egypt: 

“In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” Genesis 15:16 NIV

God was telling Abraham that his grandkids would be stuck in Egypt because God was being patient with Canaan. The Amorites were the founders of Babylon, infamous for violently conquering their neighbors and stomping all over the poor and marginalized in their communities. Canaan was a land that had given itself over to the corruption of sin. 

The Promised Land had become so defiled by idolatry and infested with injustice that the people living there had made child sacrifices a part of their routine. Archaeologists have uncovered graveyards that contain the remains of thousands of infant corpses that had been offered to their blood-thirsty gods. 

This was the sin of the Amorites. For hundreds of years, God was patient with them. He gave them hundreds of years to stop what they were doing, repent of their sins, and choose a different way. 

Eventually, the time had come for justice. God’s method of justice was to use this wandering band of liberated people to bring down a blood-thirsty empire that had been built on the backs of slaves and child sacrifices. 

Our world has been stained and soaked by the blood of the innocent. Sin has ravaged the shalom of God and violated those made in His image. Taking the Promised Land reminds us that while all of this is going on, God is being patient—but He won’t be patient forever. Someday, He will return to deal with sin and evil once and for all. Someday, justice will reign and shalom will be restored. 

Journaling Questions 

• Write down one of today’s verses in your journal. Why did you choose the verse you did?
• How is God’s perfect and good justice communicated in today’s reading?
• Where is God’s grace in this story?

Memory Verse

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV