Joshua 7

This is a very sobering chapter: one man steals from the Lord, and in turn gets 32 Israelite soldiers killed and dooms his entire family to death. That is one heck of a punishment, and I am glad today that I am not held responsible for my father's actions in such a way. I suppose, though, that our sins do often affect those close to us; if we lie it can hurt relationships, and when we don't do things we should others may have to take an additional burden on themselves instead.

On the other hand, though, it is somewhat surprising that only one man out of the whole nation of Israel decided to take possessions from the ruins of Jericho. With how many people were there, and the temptation that must have existed with the wealth of a whole city, I would have expected that more than one bad egg would surface.

Joshua 6

The chapter today tells the classic story of God bringing down the walls of Jericho. From the description it is quite clear that God is the one who destroys the city walls, as simply marching around and blowing horns would do no good against such strong defenses. I bet the fact that they marched for a week before the battle put some serious fear into the inhabitants of the region, and for good reason since none of them was left alive. Well, technically Rahab and her family were spared - to honor the protection she gave to the Israelite spies earlier. In that chapter it was said that her house was part of the wall of the city, so it must have been protected from the collapse of the rest of that structure. It is cool how this account says that "she lives in Israel to this very day" (verse 25), showing that it was written not long after these events took place.

Joshua 2

The chapter today covered the classic story of Rahab protecting two Israelites scouts from being caught while spying out Jericho. It is quite interesting, because she apparently recognized that their coming was a harbinger of destruction for her people - and instead of trying to fight against that she accepted it and asked for protection of her family in trade for her assistance. Her help proves trustworthy, and the spies return and this time give a favorable report of the land (as opposed to a similar, larger party sent forty years prior).

One interesting tidbit is that Rahab seems to be a prostitute - yet she of all the people there takes the Israelites in and hides them. I can only assume that she changed professions when Jericho was destroyed, but it shows that God uses all kinds of people to accomplish His will.