Joshua sends some men to go spy on Jericho before they begin the invasion there. He mentions their land stretching from the great rive to the Mediteranian. I feel like there’s some confusion between whether Israel is supposed to go from the Euphratese to the sea or just from the Jordan to the sea. These guys kind of alternate between which area God promised them. Streathcing from the Jordan to the Mediteranian makes a lot more sense because they run sort of parallel, and it makes a piece of land that seems about the right size for a nation of only 600,000 people. The Euphratese is all the way up in Persia, and hits the Arabian Sea farther north than what is supposed to be the northern border of Israel. Also, it runs at a 45 degree angle to the bank of the Mediteranian.
Whatever the eventual borders may be, the spies don’t do a very good job and the king of Jericho finds out about them and sets out to kill them. Fortunately, the men have started their reconessance of Jericho at the house of a prostitue named Rahab and she fears the Lord and wants to ally herself with the men. I’ll say that again, the men decide to start their reconessance of the defenses of Jericho at the house of the prostitute Rahab.
The text doesn’t rally explore that so I guess we’re just pretending that that’s perfectly reasonable.
Rahab says she will help them and sends the king on a wild goose chase into the wilderness looking for them, but, in exchange, she wants protection for her and her family. The spies tell her to tie a scarlet rope to her window and they will make sure she and her family are kept safe.
A piece of scarlet yarn is also a key ingredient of the purification potions brewed in Exodus to cure skin diseases and kill mold.
Meanwhile, Joshua is working on getting an entire nation across a big river in flood stage. The Jordan is the major river in the area and a large part of Jericho’s defenses, especially at this time of year when it is just about impossible to get a large group of people across it in any orderly or safe fashion. Fortunately, this sort of thing is God’s specialty. Some Levites with the ark go and stand in the middle of the Jordan and as soon as their sandals touch the water, the flow of the river stops. The Israelites walk across on dry land.
Once everybody’s across, Joshua tells some men to go grab twelve stones out of the river and set them up on shore. They will be a monument to what the Lord has done so when their sons come by here years down the road they’ll see them and ask why those river stones are stood up on the bank and their fathers can say “Well, let me tell you about how awesome God is and what He did for us here.”
I heard a great talk once about how this passage should be our model for evangelism, that our lives are standing stones. Evangelism and missions are a huge part of the church I go to, as well they should be. This is the most important thing in the world after all. But I think as American Christian we can easily lose sight of the content of our message. When we just scream holy holy holy and throw a bible tract at someone, we’re not really showing them what we’re talking about. I mean we’re just talking. Npw that kind of ministry has a place I’m sure, but, especially in America, most people’s problem with the church isn’t that the haven’t heard of Jesus. Now if we simply follow Jesus to the best of our ability and help the poor, treat each other fairly and glorify God with our actions and words, then people will seek us out and ask “wow, why are you so great?” and then you say “Well, let me tell you about how awesome God is and what He did for us.”
