Joshua 5

The reading today covers four main things:

- The enemies of Israel who inhabited the promised land were stricken with fear by the Lord's miracle at the Jordan river

- The new generation of Israelite men were circumcised after crossing into the land, since their parents had not done that to them as children. I was rather surprised at this, as I thought the command given by God was to circumcise sons early in their lives - but perhaps either they had not had the proper tools or facilities to do so in the desert wanderings or they were just disobeying the Lord; or maybe the command just hadn't taken effect yet.

- The Israelites began eating produce from the land again, instead of God's manna; as soon as they did so the manna stopped.

- The "commander of the Lord's army" (verse 14) appeared to Joshua. This must have been an awesome sight, and I suspect that it was Jesus Himself pre-incarnate; why else would the ground Joshua was standing on have been holy (verse 15)? The only other time I recall this happening so far was Moses and the burning bush, which was clearly an instance of God appearing to him. I suppose that is actually another similarity between the early parts of Moses' and Joshua's service.

Exodus 4

Today we see the conclusion of the burning bush story, and God's gift to Moses of three signs by which the Israelites will know that he was indeed sent by the I Am. I've got to admit, those were pretty cool too - especially the snake one. We also are told that Aaron, Moses' brother, would go with him to speak on his behalf. Apparently Moses wasn't confident in his public speaking ability, and there wasn't time to send him to Speech 101 ;) It looks like he may have even had a speech impediment, but I couldn't tell for sure if that was the case.

The later half of the chapter covers a very odd story about something that happened while Moses and company were traveling to Egypt. "Now it came about at the lodging place on the way that the LORD met him [Moses] and sought to put him to death." (Ex 4:24, NASB) How is that for a conundrum - God sent Moses on an important journey, and then on the way nearly kills him. Apparently Moses had not followed the covenant of Abraham by having his son circumcised, which I imagine he knew full well needed to be done. I guess it just seems like odd timing to me: why wait till he was already en route? Why not deal with it before, at the burning bush? Oh well, another one of those questions to ask someday...

Genesis 34

I've always been fascinated by the story in this passage - and somewhat horrified. Those of you who know me well probably know that when it comes to matters of military and war I tend to agree with the use of force in situations I think are right, but there are some instances in the Bible where the reaction of one group or person seems overkill. This is definitely one such place!

We find that a prince among the people who live in the area Jacob and his sons moved to falls in love with, and apparently rapes, one of Jacob's daughters. He then asks for her hand in marriage, which is backwards in terms of proper order but at least seems to indicated that his feelings for her are real. Unfortunately we never find out what Dinah thinks of all this, but her brothers obviously do not approve. Rather than just fighting for her honor then and there, which I could see as a legitimate reaction, then feign agreement with the proposal and ask in exchange that the men of the region be circumcised. That is a lot to ask of a whole culture, but they go through with it - and then while they are in pain and less able to defend themselves the brothers (Simeon and Levi at least, maybe more) come through and slaughter them.

The things that bother me here are the deceit and the level of revenge: we don't know how many people were killed, but it was every male in a whole city - so I have to assume at least a few hundred. Further on in the Bible, when Israel the country is facing various enemies, God instructs them to be very complete in their slaughter... but it is one thing when God tells you to do something in order to avoid being corrupted later on by societies that worship false gods, and another to go on killing sprees because you feel that your family has been dishonored. Jacob's reaction is also rather interesting: he doesn't seem to tell his sons that they were morally wrong to do what they did, but that it would make them look bad to other nearby peoples.

Genesis 17

This chapter is full of the beautiful promises God made to Abram, as part of His covenant, along with the change of name for Abram and his wife Sarai - to Abraham and Sarah respectively. I imagine it must have been hard to get used to a new name, similar though it may be, at age 100 (or 90, for Sarai/h). Of course getting yourself circumcised, along with all of the male members of your household, would be even harder to do! My wife and I are about to have our new son circumcised, probably tomorrow, and while I'm sure it will hurt him a bit at least it will not be a memory when he grows up. Kudos to Abraham for his faith and follow through!

In this passage we also see that Ishmael is not included in the main covenant between God and Abraham. Sorry Arabs, but this means that the Israelites are the ones who have rights to the Promised Land.

This chapter in:
New America Standard, New King James, New International