Joshua 13-24: Who gets what land, in excriciating detail

OK, I thought the whole promised land was conquered, but I guess that although they've already conquered the entire north and the entire south, there's still more to do. However that works. I think the bible just invoked a 4th spatial dimension.

Actually, they give the specific regions yet to be conquered, but it doesn't mean anything to me, I'm not really up on my ancient middle eastern geography. And actually, I learn later, this "yet to be conquered" part never actually gets conquered. Oh well.

Chapter 13 - 21 is a detailed account of how they split up the land among the tribes. Again, this means very little to me.

And, of course, the Levites don't get any of it, which it said like 10 times just now, not to mention the 1,000 times it was said before. Though they do get a few towns within the other tribes' land.

They also name the cities of refuge

Caleb asks Joshua for some land, and talks at length about how much he deserves it because of that one time when God killed all the scouts for the horrible crime of being realistic about their chances of conquering the promised land, and he and Joshua were the only 2 who remained faithful that they would actually pull it off. Which is a fair point, actually... it is my impression that this one incident is what propelled Joshua to celebrity status, while we haven't heard anything more about Caleb. So Caleb gets some land, though everyone does, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

There's also this one odd story about how Caleb attempts to get more land for himself, some place called "Kiriath Sepher," by offering his daughter in marriage to the first guy who conquers it for him. And who does it but his brother. Seriously, still with the inbreeding, bible?

So, I guess everything is officially conquered now, even though it said it wasn't. Oh well.

There's also this little statement: "Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled." Lol, only, what, 500 years later? Good job.

You know what, I'm so inspired by God's mighty ability to make and keep promises, I'll make a promise too. I hereby promise to love and obey God. But not until 500 years from now! Shh, don't tell him that last bit.

Anyway, the tribes who wanted to live on the other side of the Jordan river (Gilead) finally get to go there. Yay.

OK, seriously. On their way home, those tribes from the other side of the river build an "imposing alter" near the Jordan, before they cross it. When the other tribes hear this, they gather at Shiloh (which I think is the city that will become "God's special place") to go to war against them. What?? It kind of makes it sound like this alter is an affront to God somehow, but I don't get it.

So, they get to Gilead and ask them, "How could you turn away from the LORD and build yourselves an altar in rebellion against him now?" They answer that they were afraid that because of the river, the Isrealites from the Canaan side would be like, "What do you have to do with the LORD, the God of Israel?" So they decided to just go ahead an pre-emptively build their own alter. That way they can prove later that they, in fact, worship God. What the fuck?

Anyway, they hear this and are just like, OK! And they forget all about the fact that they were going to rain doom down upon Gilead, and go home. Aww.

Right. Some time later, Joshua is old. He gathers the other leaders to him and basically says, "don't fuck everything up after I'm dead." Only he goes on about it for a whole chapter.

I do like that Joshua says, "I am about to go the way of all the earth." It's just so poetic.

Hmm. He also says this:

But just as all the good things the LORD your God has promised you have come to you, so he will bring on you all the evil things he has threatened, until the LORD your God has destroyed you from this good land he has given you.

So, God's actions are "evil." Good to know. It also makes it sound like all the "evil" things will definitely happen, regardless of how obedient they are. We already knew that God set them up to fail, but here he states it explicitly. Whoops.

Then Joshua gathers all the Israelites together and gives them a nice short recap of Abraham until now. Then he made them promise to serve God, and when they do, he writes it on a stone and puts it out as a reminder to all. Aww.

Then Joshua dies, and that's the end of the book. Not very exciting...but are they ever, really? What are the 2 things that everyone knows about Joshua? The knocking down of the walls at Jericho, and the making the sun stop thing. Why? Because those are the only things that happened, all the rest of it was a big long list of who got what land. Boring.

Joshua 9-12: Unusual biblical conciseness

Just an aside... I don't know if anyone reads this, but if someone does and has been wondering where I've been, the length between posts here varies depending on how much free time I have, and my interest. Sometimes, I need or want to do other things besides read the bible, shocking I know. Anyway, my point is that even though there's big long gaps with no updates, I will not give up!

Anyway, onwards.

The people of Gibeon decide to trick the Israelites into making a peace treaty with them. They dress up like they've been traveling for a long time, and say, "We're from really far away, and we've heard of how great your god is. We want to join you! Look, our worn out clothes and moldy, stale bread proves our story!" The Israelites buy their lame story for some reason, and make a treaty. 3 days later, they find out the Gibeons were from nearby. They apparently can't kill them now, because they promised not too! They're all sad about it. But they get to turn them into slaves forever.

The king of Jerusalem is freaked out that Gibeon is allied with Israel now, because apparently Gibeon is big and powerful. So he gets a bunch of other cities to team up with him to attack Gibeon. The Israelites come to Gibeon's rescue; they kill a bunch of people, then God kills all the rest with hailstones as they run away. Fantastic.

For some random reason, on this day Joshua asks God to make the sun and the moon stand still for the whole day. There's no context or reason for it, really. It's not supposed to help them with the battle or anything. Apparently it's just to glorify God some more. Is anyone surprised.

Anyway, after the battle, they hang the kings' corpses up on poles for the day, then threw them in a cave.

Next, in a rare bit of biblical relative conciseness, Joshua and the Israelites utterly destroy all the cities in the south in only half a chapter, and all the cities in the north in the next chapter. And there you have it, the promised land totally destroyed in only 1 1/2 chapters.

Concise time is over! Now we get a big chapter long list of all the kings and territories they conquered.

Joshua 7-8: God makes the Israelites lose a battle

So the Israelites have just destroyed Jericho. Before they attacked, Joshua specifically told them to not take anything from inside the city; they were to burn it all and leave it there. But some guy, Achan, didn't listen. He took something (a "devoted thing"... and idol or some holy symbol, maybe?), and now they must all suffer for it. Obviously.

Joshua sends a couple of guys out to spy on the next target, Ai (which is an awesome name for a city). These spies are better than the last; they return with no problems. They report that there aren't many people there, so they don't even have to use their entire army. Just send a few thousand people. So that's what they do...little do they know that God is pissed that Achan took something from Jericho, so he let a bunch of them die in the attack. Not only that, but they fail to conquer the city and are chased off.

Joshua says, "What the hell, God? I thought you were going to be helping us out!" God says, "Nope, I'm pissed because somebody took something from Jericho. I know I could have told you this before all those people died, but what fun would that be? Anyway, if you want my help you'll have to find them and destroy them." God tells Joshua to get the people ready, and tomorrow Joshua should present them family by family before him. If they are found with the stolen items, they will be burned to death. I do find it amusing that all-knowing God has to search people in this limited fashion, one family at a time.

So the next day, Achan's turn comes up, and he stupidly confesses. They take him and all his children to some valley and stone them all to death. Because that's fair; the children were totally to blame. Also, I thought God was going to burn them to death...guess not.

As far as I can see, this is just a story about superstitious people and stupid brutality. Superstitious people loose battle, find scapegoat, murder scapegoat. Fantastic.

Then God says, "Thanks for murdering that guy and his children! Now I'm not mad anymore!" He tells Joshua to send the entire army to Ai and conquer it. He also gives them permission to loot it. Weird.

So, this time 30,000 men go to Ai. 25,000 men led by Joshua run away and get all the men of Ai to chase them. Meanwhile, while everyone from Ai who know how to fight are away, the 5,000 other Israelites run in to Ai and slaughter the women and children. Then Joshua and his men stop running, fight the men from Ai, and kill them all. A successful mission!

It's amazing what 30,000 men and a tricky ambush can do, compared with 3,000 men doing a straightforward attack. Wait, I mean, it's all because God helped them out this time!!!! Yeah.

Anyway, after they kill everyone, they loot the city and burn it to the ground.

Then they go to Mount Ebal, build an alter and bless and curse themselves, just like Moses told them to.

Joshua 1-6: Destruction of Jericho

So Moses is dead, and Joshua is the new leader. The 1st chapter is pretty much a waste of space; God reminds Joshua to obey all the rules, and Joshua reminds the tribes who want to live on this side of the Jordan that they have to come help with the fighting. Yawn.

Joshua tells everyone to prepare to leave in 3 days, and in the meantime he sends 2 spies into Jericho. They stay at a prostitute's house for some reason. Her name is Rahab.

They must be really shitty spies, because they are discovered after only 2 sentences. The king comes to Rahab's house looking for them, but she sends him off looking somewhere else. They were hidden on the roof the whole time! Clever.

She tells them she knows what they are up to, and she asks that they spare her and her family when they take over. They agree, but only if she ties a red cord on her window.

God is going to be pissed when he finds out about this. He has been very clear from the start; fucking kill everybody.

Then they get away and get back to Joshua, who for some reason isn't upset at the idea of sparing some people, in direct violation of God's commands. Hmm.

The next day they set out. Joshua tells everyone to follow the Ark of the Covenant, but not to get too close to it. Why not?

When they get to the Jordan, God decides to do a magic trick to show them, once again, that the "living God is among you." Does God ever tire of glorifying himself? I guess not. Anyway, the trick is that when the Ark of the Covenant gets into the River, it effectively acts as a dam; the river stops flowing. So the guys carrying the Ark stand there while everyone crosses the dry riverbed. Ooo, magic.

God tells them to make a little monument for the occasion... 12 guys, 1 from each tribe, take a stone each from the dry riverbed and put it in their camp that evening. Right then.

So they crossed the river and are camped outside of Jericho.

There are 40,000 Israelites armed for battle. This number seems pretty small to me. There were 601,730 at the last census (numbers 26), and that only counts men older than 20, and doesn't even include Levites, who as priests might not be fighting. Some of those might be too old to fight. But still, 40,000 isn't even 10% of their total fighting force. Why?

Apparently that little trick with the river freaked out the natives... "their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites." So really, if they aren't even going to put up a fight, this isn't even going to be a battle; it will be a massacre. Apparently God is OK with that.

This next bit is just freaking weird. God says, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” AGAIN? What does that even mean? What are they cutting off now??

Oh I see. This whole generation of Israelites have never been circumcised in their 40 years of God making them wander around. Why not? And why are they bothering now, after all this time? And why hasn't God killed them or whatever for this transgression? And why did that previous bit say "circumcise them again," implying that it was already done?

Whatever. They stay there until they are all healed. They could have done this in the safety of their camp across the river, but no, they do it now, right outside of Jericho. That makes no sense.

Also, while camped near Jericho, they celebrate the passover. Again, why are they doing all this stuff here that could have been done in relative safety on the other side of the river?

Weird. Joshua finds some guy with a sword. He asks him who's side he's on. The guy says he is "commander of the army of the LORD." I thought Joshua was leader of the army, but I guess not. Joshua is convinced anyway... he bows before this guy, and asks what message God has for him. Apparently that message is "take off your sandals!" If you'll remember, this is also the first thing the burning bush said to Moses, so God must really advocate going barefoot. Who the fuck is this guy? I guess we'll never know.

Chapter 6 is all about the fall of Jericho, and I think most everyone knows how it goes. In fact I remember singing a song about it in school choir. Anyway, God has them all march around the city once a day, for 6 days, and on the 7th day, they marched around the city 7 times, then when 7 priests blew their 7 trumpets, everyone shouted and the wall of Jericho fell down. 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7!! Holy crap, 7.

Anyway, that's where the song ended, but that's not where the story ends. When the walls fall down, the Israelites run inside and kill everything, except Rahab and her family. They collect them, and apparently they became Israelites forever after. Aww. They also collected all the gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and put it in "treasury of the LORD’s house," whatever that is. What does God need money for anyway?

Then they burned everything else to the ground. Joshua puts a curse on the place, and on anyone who might try to rebuild it.

I really want to know why it's OK that they spared Rahab's family. God has been so clear on this point, that they must kill everything, even the animals. Spare nothing, or God will be fucking pissed; that has been the message. And what's the first thing they do? Spare someone. And God doesn't care. What?