The majority of the book of Joshua is concerned with conquest, war and triumph over the peoples who live in the Promised Land. The Lord specifically ordered the tribes of Israel to devote all the lands and people they encounter to destruction. There was to be no person left alive of the old inhabitants of the land to safeguard the fickle Israel against idolatry and the recurrence of the plague the Midianite woman and her Israelite partner caused in the wilderness of Moab. The Israelites didn’t heed their warnings and left some people alive to do hard labour and the others they “couldn’t” drive out or kill and so lived among the tribes of Israel. There is some ominous foreshadowing here I fear.
In Joshua 22, the tribes of Gad, Reuben and ½ the tribe of Manasseh return to their inherited lands on the eastern side of the Jordan. As they travel in triumphant from battle back to their lands in Moab they decided to build a giant altar to the Lord near where the tribes crossed into Canaan. There is a HUGE hullaballoo that results from this… the Lord was specific in that He does not allow Israel to build altars just any where and in any which way. The western tribes of Israel send Phinehas and 10 elders East of the Jordan to demand that they tear down the altar and to ask why the eastern tribes have sinned and abandoned God so soon after their triumph in Canaan. As it turns out, the eastern tribes were insecure with their standing in their brother’s eyes. The altar was built as a witness to their faithfulness to the Lord as a reminder to their western brothers in generations to come that the Jordan is not a barrier separating “the chosen from the unholy” and “clean from unclean” as God so often distinguishes. Gad, Reuben and the ½ tribe of Manasseh explain this to their brethren, the other 9 ½ tribes accept that the altar should stay and peacefully cross back into Canaan. This story is interesting in view of Israel’s fickle history with following God’s law, resulting plagues and the element of mistrust that has grown because of it. It seems that God is constantly trying to implement preventative measures and incentives against idolatry and the straying of Israel; but it seems that this is the first mistrust that is openly explored between tribes. The story states the events rather matter-of-factly, but I can imagine that receiving Phinehas (the man who ran through the Midianite-Israelite couple in his fury) and the elders of the other tribes would be a very tense situation. The meeting of presidents, emissaries and generals precedes modern-day war; this is what I imagine to be taking place. A minority people (the 2 ½ tribes east of the Jordan) fear that they will be marginalized and cut off from the source of all life through human prejudice, mistrust, misunderstanding and the “otherness” that pervades our nature, and they try to strike out against that with a symbol of unity under God. On one hand, this is a strategic move to prevent the fickle nature of Israel from endangering their future generations. On the other hand, this is an incredible and blatant act of faith. The Israelites put their faith completely in God, constructing a physical representation of their belief in Him and relying on this outward acknowledgement of their faith to save them. The giant altar is a gesture of both a great faith in the Lord and a deep mistrust of human nature. This resonates deeply in my own heart; giving my life and my will over to the care of God each day is a testament to my faith in Him to guide me in my thoughts, words and actions, but it is also an acknowledgement of my own flawed human nature.
And so Joshua dies, Israel loses another leader and is left in the hands of a series of Judges. Israel does not drive out all of the peoples and break their altars in their midst and an angel of the Lord comes to bring them the message that through their disobedience the Angel of the Lord will no longer drive these peoples out before Israel and that the gods of these peoples will become snares to Israel. After a generation dies, Israel falls into idolatry worshipping the gods of Baal. The fickle nation then goes through cycles of oppression and redemption, the Lord faithfully sending a deliverer to respond to their cries of oppression. A tag-team of these deliverers includes Deborah and Jael, both women; further evidence that God is a feminist! Deborah, a prophet, tells Barak that the King Sisera will be delivered into the hands of a woman. After a battle with Barak, Sisera flees into the hill country and Jael offers him shelter, milk and then drives a tent peg into his temple while he is sleeping. God’s prophecy delivered from the mouth of a woman, fulfilled by the hands of a woman. It seems to me that God’s relationship with the women of Israel is changing, that women are playing a larger part in the destiny of the chosen people. I can’t help but wonder though, whether either of them were menstruating at the time….
May we all work to build “altars of witness” of our faithfulness to God in our own communities, may we keep and share the knowledge that although we at times turn away from God He will deliver us and forgive us when we seek Him anew, and may we always understand that God journeys before us in our daily battles. Amen.
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