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Week 9 Joshua

Twelve is a short chapter. And it’s mostly names. Before I start reading I can see – visually and obviously – that the second half of the chapter is a repetitive list of names. Thirty-one lines formatted in a column, all starting with the words the-king-of.
I page forward. Names, names, names. From chapter twelve to chapter twenty-two. Hundreds of them.
After a bit I go back to twelve and start reading. It’s broken in two by geography. The first six verses name the kings east of the Jordan River; the second half is a list of the kings on the west side.
There were only two kings defeated in the Jordan East sector – Sihon and Og. I remember reading about them a couple of weeks ago. I don’t recall most of the place names so I check my bible map, but even though it’s okay it doesn’t locate all of them for me. I see Heshbon the Arnon River Aroer the Jabbok River Pisgah the Salt Sea and the sea of Chinneroth. The names I can find are all east of the Jordan.
The rest of the chapter swings over to the west. I do a quick map scan. The only pattern I detect is that the place-name list seems to start in the south and work north.
Soon land is going to be doled out to landless nomads.
No matter what I think these people were no doubt very interested in what these chapters said.

Week 9 Joshua

The back-to-back stories of the battles for the city of Jericho (chapter six) and the city of Ai (chapter seven) are contrasting stories.
The big and obvious contrast is that Jericho was successfully conquered; Ai was successfully not conquered.
Another pretty striking and unexpected contrast is between the Main Characters. Rahab was a citizen of Jericho. She was a totally non-Israel-ite Jericho-ite who bafflingly decided – against her own home-city and lifelong-culture – to throw in her lot with Israel. There weren’t a million people in Jericho but if there had been Rahab would be the one-in-a-million. She took an independent chancy life-or-death stand. And she was rescued.
In the battle at Ai the Israelite army was defeated. The key player was a man named Achan. Kind of like Rahab he had bafflingly taken a solitary personal decision – but against the Lord – back at Jericho. There weren’t a million soldiers fighting against Ai but if there had been Achan was the one-in-a-million who stole some booty. He took his chance; paid a high price.
In these conquest battles in Joshua it’s easy to get a sense of the Lord operating in the aggregate, taking a kind of broad brush destroy-that-whole-town approach. But with Rahab and Achan you get another sense of the weight attached to each individual taking her-or-his own individual eyes-wide-open decision.

Note: I checked my January-February reading progress. I’ve read 371 out of a total 1730 pages. Means 21.4% read with 16.7% of the year gone. So far, so good.

Week 9 Joshua

There’s an interesting story in chapter five.
Joshua had crossed onto the western side of the Jordan River not far from the city of Jericho. You get the sense he was alone, although the bible doesn’t say that. What it does say is that: he looked up and saw a man facing him.
Nothing spooky about the guy, he wasn’t glowing, Joshua couldn’t see right through him. Since the guy was carrying a sword Joshua asked if he was friend-or-foe and the guy said: I am the commander of the Lord’s army. So then Joshua realized he was talking with someone from another place. An inaccessible-to-Joshua place. And Joshua realized that with this guy – this real non-guy – he would have to move with caution.
Where exactly was the place the guy came from? Hard to say but it was from somewhere where under normal circumstances Joshua couldn’t see him, hear him, or talk to him. I guess the place – in spatial or geographic terms – could have been very close. I guess it could have been a space overlapping Joshua’s space or maybe in a space that extended just beyond Joshua’s sensory-detection range. Wherever it was it wasn’t Joshua’s place.
Where I live I don’t get many reminders about a more-than-just material place. The main focus is just Alberta.
So reading a story like this one helps fill that gap.

Note: quotes from Joshua 5:13, 14 (NLT)

Week 8 Deuteronomy

The day after I finished reading Deuteronomy I read Psalm 48. It begins: great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
I think the reason I paused at great-is-the-Lord is because it’s such a simple and clear comment about the Lord. It’s transparent, it’s undiluted, it’s direct. It’s categorical and unambiguous and precise and explicit. It doesn’t beat around the bush.
I think another reason I paused at great-is-the-Lord is because I’d just finished Deuteronomy. That big middle-section especially – from the end of chapter four through chapter twenty-nine – more than 650-verses – had kind of weighed down on me. What do I make of it all? (There is something to be made of it…the question is what?)
By contrast I don’t have to ask myself what do I make of great-is-the-Lord? An eight year-old boy could read great-is-the-Lord and understand. It’s a completely comprehensible idea told in elementary language.
It reminded me that when I’m reading through some things will make better sense to me than others. I figure that part of a bible-reader’s savvy shows up in recognizing and then negotiating his different reading environments.

Week 8 Deuteronomy

Moses ended Deuteronomy with a blessing on each of the tribes.
The blessings were in this order: Reuben, Judah Levi Benjamin Ephraim Manasseh Zebulun Issachar Gad Dan Naphtali Asher.
I flipped back to Genesis 29-30 and saw that the actual birth-order of the boys was: Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Joseph Benjamin.
I looked at the final blessing Jacob gave to his boys in this order: Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Zebulun Issachar Dan Gad Asher Naphtali Joseph Benjamin.
There’s also the two census lists I noticed a couple of weeks ago. The first one is: Reuben Simeon Gad Judah Issachar Zebulun Ephraim Manasseh Benjamin Dan Asher Naphtali. The second list is the same except it flip-flops Manasseh & Ephraim. I didn’t know what to make of that list until I realized they were grouped in four clusters of three tribes according to their geographic position around the Tabernacle – group one on the south side, two on the east, three west, four north.
Looking at the name order helped focus my mind. I kind of hoped it might also enlighten me about something or other. Which it didn’t. So…I guess that’s too bad for me.

Note: first list: Deuteronomy 33 (Simeon is missing); Jacob’s blessing list: Genesis 49 (I think the logic there is that Leah’s six boys and Rachel’s two are grouped); census lists: Numbers 1:20ff & 26:4ff (the Levites were not part of the military); position of tribes around the Tabernacle: Numbers 2.

Week 8 Deuteronomy

There’s a pretty natural tendency to accelerate to highway speed zipping through the law-heavy middle section of Deuteronomy. So it would be easy to breeze by a rule that took time to explain what-to-do if someone found an unidentified corpse in a field outside of town. The ruling was that the local people had to make an animal sacrifice. You wonder what’s going on because even though the townspeople had absolutely nothing to do with the death of this dead stranger, they would still lose the sacrificed animal. But Moses explained it this way: by following these instructions and doing what is right in the Lord’s sight, you will cleanse the guilt of murder from your community

I think this paragraph registered with me was because last week I was reading about the Cities of Refuge and about how first-degree murder and manslaughter cases had to be treated. Moses explained the reason these murder laws were to be enforced: this will ensure that the land where you live will not be polluted, for murder pollutes the land.

An unsolved violent death isn’t just lost to memory, doesn’t just disappear. It has an adhesive & clingy quality. The guilt hangs around likes a toxic pollutant that dirties up the land and the community.

So a sacrifice has to be made when a murdered stranger is found out on the range because only death adequately hygienizes the land.

Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 21:9 & Numbers 35:33 (NLT)

Week 8 Deuteronomy

While I’m reading through Deuteronomy I don’t have much time to be flipping back-and-forth checking and comparing marginal notes and cross-references to Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers. If I did I know I’d find quite a few things in Deuteronomy I’ve read before.
Anyway one section I did take time to compare was the two versions of the Ten Commandments. I got out a beat-up old paperback bible that’s breaking apart in sections along the spine and set the 134-page section containing Exodus alongside my intact bible and compared the two Ten Commandments. Everything is pretty much word-for-word. Except the Sabbath commandment. It’s a long commandment –  four-verses long – and the first three verses in the Exodus-version and the Deuteronomy-version are very similar. The thing that’s different is the reason Moses gives for keeping the seventh-day special.
Exodus’ reason is: for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the Sabbath.
But Deuteronomy says: you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
The Exodus reason for Sabbath is that it’s a kind of End-of-Creation Memorial Day. Deuteronomy is different – on the Sabbath remember you were once a slave. Now you’re a free man.

Note: quotes from Exodus 20:11 & Deuteronomy 5:15 (NASB)

Week 7 Deuteronomy

About 140 chapters-ago the Lord promised Abraham the Promised Land, and in the last week or so I’ve been thinking some more about Israel moving forward and taking that land from the groups living there. (I thought it’d be worth looking up “land” in a word book but found it’s used at least 1800 times in the bible; about 200 times in Deuteronomy. So much for that.)
In Deuteronomy 2 Moses is talking about Israel finally getting to the Promised Land. I notice that Israel was warned off harassing the Moabites. The Lord said: I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession. Ditto that for Ammonite territory: I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession. The Lord made Moab & Ammon land-trustees. So even though the big land reallocation project is the Promised Land being transferred to Israel it’s not the only one.
The main thing for me to keep in mind is that the Lord is the Landlord of everyone’s territory. He determines land rights and land forfeiture. He holds the land in his own right. The rest of us are more like tenants, territorial agents.

Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 2:9, 19 (NASB)

Week 7 Psalm 43

I read psalm 42 yesterday; 43 today. Both of them use the same line: why am I so discouraged? Why so sad? I will put my hope in God!
The writers spell out why they’re down – they feel sad oppressed betrayed heart-broken discouraged mocked by non-friends and out-of-touch with the Lord. But when push comes to shove each one says: I will put my hope in God!
These seem like unresolved psalms to me. If they came full-circle they’d start with I-was-sad and end up at now-I’m-happy. Instead they start I-was-sad and end at but-I-trust-the-Lord. An unexpected resolution.
A different way to solve the where-is-the-Lord-when-you-need-him question is to just dump the Lord entirely. The logic there is like this…if I’m thinking that I have a powerful caring attentive advocate but he isn’t really helping me or looking out for me then either a) he can’t help or else b) he won’t. So…what good is he? Dump him! That would be one solution. A kind of solution by subtraction. Remove the Lord to solve my problem.
The two psalm-writers don’t take that route. Subtraction isn’t the solution. They’re facing the more perplexing problem of keeping the Lord in the mix.
I don’t get the sense they’ve solved that problem by the end of their psalms. But they’re hanging on to the Lord, not being too quick to pull the trigger.

Note: quotes from Psalm 42:5, 11, 43:5 (NLT)

Week 7 Deuteronomy

I wasn’t halfway through the first chapter of Deuteronomy before I read the line: …then I charged your judges at that time, saying…
It’s Moses speaking, Moses reviewing the last forty years, Moses reminding them that way back when he couldn’t manage the legal case load he had appointed judges. That story was a-hundred-&-fifty pages ago but I remember it, remember the advice Moses got from an in-law: select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain…and let them judge the people.
And so judges were appointed at that time.
Anyway what got my attention today is that at some point in the past I had double-underlined the word judges in my bible. Can’t say for sure why but I think it was because I was mentally jumping ahead to the book of Judges and wondering if the judges appointed by Moses in Exodus were version 1.0 of The Judges that appeared in Judges.
Now I have my doubts about that. Moses appointed many judges for the job of judging legal disputes. But a man or woman who judged in Judges was an individual operator who was a warrior-chieftain. More like a Viking warlord, or maybe a shogun with his samurai.
It’s a tricky thing – same word in the English-bible, but so different in function they’d easily qualify for different names.

Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 1:16 & Exodus 18:21-22 (NASB)