Slices
Prepare
Today’s passage is a difficult one. Pray that God will give you his perspective and a humility to trust him for what you may not understand.
Bible passage
21 They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
22 Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, ‘Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.’ 23 So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel.
24 Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. 25 But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho – and she lives among the Israelites to this day.
26 At that time Joshua pronounced this solemn oath: ‘Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city, Jericho:
‘At the cost of his firstborn son
he will lay its foundations;
at the cost of his youngest
he will set up its gates.’
27 So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.
Explore
The wholesale destruction of Jericho is hard to accept. Old Testament scholar Chris Wright says, ‘There is something about this part of the Bible that I have to include in my basket of things I don’t understand about God and his ways.’* Can we make any sense of such violence?
The Canaanite tribes were guilty, like Sodom and Gomorrah, of extreme human wickedness (Leviticus 18:24,25). For this reason, God drove them out of the land to cleanse and purge it. Like a surgeon removing cancer, radical surgery was required to prevent further spread of the disease. It was an act of justice which their wickedness deserved. The destruction of Jericho would act as a deterrent to other cities, minimising resistance and reducing further casualties. Justice always carries an element of deterrent.
At the same time the mercy of God is seen in that Rahab (a future ancestor of Jesus) and her circle are spared the destruction (vs 17,25). The implication is that others who turned to the God of Israel would also be spared. There is no clear-cut solution to the problem, however. We must trust that God’s ways are right, even when they are beyond our understanding.
*Chris Wright, The God I Don’t Understand, Zondervan, 2008, p86
Respond
If you struggle with passages like this, why not talk to someone well-versed in the Old Testament? Or search the internet for books and articles?
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Exodus 29,30; Psalm 17
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for churches and other groups running the Deep Sea Divers holiday club during February half-term. Pray that as the children explore the stories from Matthew’s Gospel they will meet Jesus, perhaps for the first time.
