CHAPTER 7
Now the Israeli forces suffer a setback and have to recover. They go to attack a place called Ai and even
though it’s small and the Hebrew expect a cakewalk, they get beaten up but
good.
How can that be if God’s on their side? Well, someone violated the Lord’s word. He told them to destroy everything in Jericho;
they weren’t to loot. Well, one guy
looted – and of course God knows about it, being God and all.
First Joshua needs to find all this out, though. When he hears of the lost battle, he freaks
out, imploring to God how could he do something like this. Now our enemies will gather strength and
destroy us! The Lord’s reply is
abruptly funny: “Stand up. Why are you
lying there?” Heh. Man up, nancy prophet. Then God gives Joshua the news and calls for
the investigation.
They find out who broke God’s word and he is killed – stoned
to death by the people. Hey, wait: God
told Joshua the bad guy would be destroyed by fire. But no, just a stoning.
It had to be a stoning, as we’re told, “they piled a great heap of
stones” over him, a heap, “which remains to the present day.” Again, I prefer to think backwards. First you start with the object, and then
oral tradition fills in a story behind it.
Maybe the oral tradition is based on something; maybe there is a stoned
corpse beneath it.
But the story here I find a tad hard to believe. For this army to succeed, even just one
soldier acting out of line will cause it to come crashing down. C’mon!
Has there ever been an army so pure and so holy that not one single
soldier would do this. Yeah, I know
it’s Biblical times and they have Lord’s presence and they’ve seen the Jordan
River stop flowing and the walls of Jericho tumble, but then again the
generation before saw much more impressive stuff and they never stopped
complaining. Leaving an army’s success
to the morality of the least ethical soldier in it sounds like a great way to
lose, not win.
CHAPTER 8
OK, now it’s payback time on Ai. Joshua has solved the problem so its time to get it. They lay a trap. One party led by Joshua goes out before Ai and let’s Ai’s
warriors drive them backwards. One
that’s down, another Hebrew force in the rear of the town falls upon the now
defender-less town of Ai. The warriors of
Ai see their city in flames, and then Joshua’s group wheels around and slaughters
the now crestfallen Ai’rs. It’s a nifty
bit of strategy – and it has the inevitable grizzly conclusion: no survivors.
Operation Genocide is still a-go.
The Bible tries to parallel Joshua with some key figures
earlier, so let me do a little bit of that now on my own. Let’s compare him with Abraham. In Genesis, Abraham debated with God. He questioned and probed God, most notably
about God’s plans for Sodom and Gomorrah.
That made Abraham a more compelling and memorable figure.
There is no sign of that here, and Joshua has maybe better
reasons to question. Abraham questioned
if God was right to slaughter entire cities on his own, while Joshua is
commissioned by God to slaughter entire cities. Shouldn’t that give any more pause? No, guess not. It certainly doesn’t give any pause for
Joshua. There is not much internal
dialogue or sense of a person there. He
is just a thug. He is the Lord’s own
mass murder. Joshua is the Heinrich
Himmler of ancient Canaan. Or perhaps
it’s better to say Joshua is the Adolf Eichmann. After all, it’s a study of Eichmann that gave raise to the phrase
“the banality of evil.” And Joshua
isn’t very memorable as a person to me.
He’s banal. I know it sure
sounds funny to say a guy’s “evil” when he’s doing the Lord’s work in the
Bible, but he’s literally engaging in genocide.
Oh, and Joshua orders the king hung up in a tree until the
next day. That’s a pure display of power.
It reminds me of stories of lynchings.
I’m sure if he had the technology, he’d take photos and maybe even turn
the photos into postcards.
There is a background behind this, though. We’re told the ruins exist to the present
day and that a pile of stones over the king still exists. Again, start with the objects and work
backwards. Any ruins you can find in
Israel that predate memory are ruins you can pin on Joshua.
CHAPTER 9
Now for the highlight of the Book of Joshua so far. This is easily my favorite part. And it’s someone getting the better of
Joshua. No, it’s not by force. That would be just more repetitive
fighting. Someone outwits him.
The people of Gibeon hear what success the Hebrew are
having, how powerful their God is, and what their goals are. Naturally, the Gibeonites are pissing their
pants in fear. But they are smart
ones. They have a plan. They send out emissaries to see Joshua and
the gang. They intentionally give the
emissaries older looking clothes and old sacks to put on their donkeys. They
make them look like they came from far away.
And that’s the story.
The emissaries tell Joshua: Hi!
We’re from far away and we’ve heard how awesome your God is! Good for you guys! We’re from far away! We
want to be friends – even though we’re so incredibly far away! Joshua and friends fall for it hook, line,
and sinker. The Bible says they didn’t
even consult with God about it.
Stupid. But the Gibeonites get
what they wanted – a peace treaty with Joshua and the Israelites. It’s a covenant, so the Israelites can’t
break it. Gotcha!
The Hebrew soon find out, and make the best of the bad hand
they’ve dealt themselves. They make the
Gibeonites their vassals, which they can by terms of the treaty. The Gibeonites become slaves. They are to only be “hewers of wood and
drawers of water for the community and for the altar of the Lord.” They sound like ancient Israeli versions of
Untouchables, like they have in India.
Again, start with the world the author knew and work
backwards. You had this class of people
who weren’t Hebrew but who had their role and accepted place and tasks, and
then the story rises up to explain how this came to be.
One theme in Joshua is the phrase (and variations of it),
“as it remains today.” This constantly
pops up. That’s because we’re now in
the Promised Land. Sure, the patriarchs
lived there long ago, but that really was long ago and everything is so much
shakier back then.
CHAPTER 10
Now for one of the most brutal chapters in a brutal
book. Well, it doesn’t start out like
that, but it will end up like that.
It starts off somewhat nicely. A confederation of kings has decided to attack Gibeon for making
nice with the Israelites, and Gibeon appeals to Israel for help. Joshua does come to help, so good for him
there.
And the battle is another famous moment in Joshua – the sun
stops in the sky. Joshua and company
are pursuing the kings and Joshua declares, “Sun, stand still at Gibeon” and it
does. Even the Bible writer has to
pause for how incredible this is.
Joshua commands the sun to stop – and it does! That means that God is obeying the voice of man. Sure, he’d agree with arguments made by
Moses and Abraham, but this isn’t a debate.
I guess God cut Joshua some slack for being caught up in the heat of
battle.
And that’s only half of the weirdness of the battle. Before the sun stops, God gets personally
involved. He throws stones at the other
side, we’re told. Well, a second later
it’s clarified that it’s hailstones being thrown. (Oooohh. That makes more
sense). But for a few seconds there,
that is one heck of a mental image. God
throwing rocks from the clouds! No wonder the Hebrew won the day.
It’s after the battle that things get really brutal. The Bible writer decided he’s had enough of
detailed accounts, and so spends a half-page discussing a bunch more massacres
in southern Canaan: Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir. They are all fought for, taken, and
massacred. The Bible is very clear that
there are no survivors.
It’s ethnic cleansing.
It’s out-and-out genocide. And
the Bible seems fine with it. Sure, Joshua is.
I don’t like Joshua. I don’t
like Joshua at all. I like the name.
I’ve known quite a few nice Joshuas in my time. But this guy is a horrible human being.
CHAPTER 11
And now, to finish off the genocide. Joshua and pals, fresh off destroying the
southern confederation, take on the northern confederation. Joshua destroys their armies and then wipes
out the peoples, “until they had destroyed the last of them, leaving none
alive.” Then the Bible notes that this
was as the Lord commanded and as Moses had commanded. Oh, then I guess a series of massacres of civilians is A-OK
then.
Added bonus, we’re again told that the Lord made the kings’
hearts obstinate, just as he’d done with the pharaoh years ago. So all the violence and death can be blamed
on God. Thus a deeply unpleasant
section of the Bible just got even more unpleasant.
Verse 21 even uses the word “exterminate.” I’ll say this much for the Bible, as
horrible and nasty as it is at the moment, at least it isn’t trying to
sugarcoat anything. It was mass
extermination all right.
CHAPTER 12
Now, after a series of nasty chapters about slaughter and
genocide, the Bible completely shifts gears with a series of deeply boring
chapters that just count up the spoils.
I always figured the historical section would be interesting, but these
next few chapters are a drag.
You get a list of conquered kings. It spends quite a bit of time on the two kings beaten under Moses
reign: Og and Sihon. Then you get this
lengthy list of kings defeated by Joshua.
I counted 31 in all – and then the chapter ends with the Bible agreeing
with me, 31 in all.
Well, at least it’s a short chapter.
EDITED to add: click here for the next chunk of Joshua, Chapters 13 to 18
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