Joshua 8:1-29
Big Idea: God is a God of restoration.
We saw last week that sin had entered the camp of Israel. Achan had stolen from the Lord, and he covered his sin by hiding the treasure in his tent. Joshua and his military men made some mistakes as well. They became arrogant, and relied on their own wisdom and power rather than seeking the Lord over what course of action they should take. They suffered an embarrassing loss, this small village of Ai overtaking the mighty army of Israel and killing 36 of their men. Israel had sin in the camp. So, they had to take care of it. The nation had to consecrate themselves before the Lord. They had to go through a process of ceremonial cleansing. As a part of that, the sin literally had to be eradicated from their midst. Achan and everything associated with him were brought up before the nation, stoned and burned with fire.
The process of consecration is complete, and the Lord is ready to continue the conquest.
1. God Restores Order (1-2) Read vs. 1-2
In an intentional moment, God reminds Joshua of his promise. “Be strong and courageous, I will be with you. Be carefully obedient to my words and everywhere the sole of your foot treads is yours. Do not fear. Do not be dismayed. You’ve made things right, now it’s time to move.”
Let’s just pause here for a moment, and recognize that God is a God of restoration. Can we just all be thankful for a moment. God is a God of restoration. We live under a New Covenant ratified by the blood of Jesus, and under that covenant, as followers of Jesus, when we fall, when we mess up, God is a God of restoration.
And so God restores Joshua, and He restores Israel. Remember last week we talked about Joshua moving without first seeking the Lord. Now, the Lord has given them specific instructions on how to take Ai.
2. Battle Strategy (3-13) (Read vs. 3-13)
In verse 2, the Lord tells Joshua to set up an ambush, but we don’t see the specifics laid out. It would appear that Joshua, being the brilliant military strategist that he was, came up with the specifics of the full battle plan. And here’s how it was going to happen:
First, he would send out 30,000 warriors to wait in ambush to the west of Ai. This sounds like a huge number of people, considering the small size of the city they are attacking. According to historical commentary, the rocky terrain around the city would have allowed for a large number of people to hide, especially under the cover of night. The mission of this group of warriors was to take the city, and once they had taken it, they would start a fire to signal to Joshua that their mission was complete.
Secondly, the next morning we see Joshua take a large portion of the nation up to the north of Ai; the elders of Israel, as well as a large military presence. Their goal would be to draw out the people of Ai, running away from them as before. The hope was that this would convince the king of Ai that he had once again defeated Israel. The mission of this group was to create a false retreat.
Thirdly, and finally, we see a smaller group of 5,000 warriors sent out as the rear guard between Bethel and Ai. It would appear that this unit was meant to be a defense against Bethel if they sent support forces during the battle, as well as cutting off anyone that tried to escape to Bethel.
So the stage is set. Battle positions are taken. And it’s time to take Ai. Now, rather than giving commentary like I usually do, I just want to read the rest of this narrative, and let the story tell itself.
3. Victory Over Ai (14-29) (Read vs. 14-29)
Last week we talked a little bit about the difficulty with the story of Achan and what appears to be the death of his children. It seems that they suffered the consequence for their father’s sin. We talked about how no one was innocent, and that if they were killed with him, it’s because they were complicit in the crime.
We come to another challenging story this morning, and I want to spend a little more time on this than we did last week. What we find here is a complete eradication of a group of people. 12,000 dead, and the text is clear when it says “men and women…ALL the people of Ai.” And again, the goal of this is so that we, as followers of Jesus, would know how to address the skeptics’ concern when it comes to the character and nature of God. You may have heard someone say something like, “why would I believe in a God who commanded genocide?” Maybe you’ve even wrestled with questions like this! “How can a God who told us to ‘love our enemies’ command their destruction?”
(Theological Pause)
We have to look at the whole picture to truly understand. If you remember back in Genesis 15, God told Abraham that his descendants would settle in the land once the iniquity of the Amorites was complete. This means that the Amorites, as well as others listed as Canaanites, had over 400 years to turn from their wickedness. Wickedness such as child sacrifice, bestiality and extreme sexual immorality. In Deuteronomy 20:16-18, we see a stark warning from the Lord in regards to the nations:
“But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.”
The essence of this passage is that if wickedness was allowed to continue, it would influence the people of God and cause them to turn away from Him. One commentator said it like this, “ God did not order the extermination of these people to be cruel, but to prevent even greater evil from occurring in the future.” But this is exactly what happened.
Judges 2:1-3 - Now the angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up from Egypt and brought you into the land that I swore to give to your fathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”
In 1 Kings 11, we find a passage addressing King Solomon and his marrying of foreign women, against the command of the Lord. Here’s the result: And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
In 1 Kings 14 we see that “They did according to all the abominations of the nations that the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.” In 2 Kings 16 we find King Ahaz, who burned his son as an offering, “according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.”
All of this happened AFTER the time of Joshua and the conquest. Joshua was unsuccessful at complete conquest. And if we walk it out even further, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was captured by the Assyrians, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah was captured by the Babylonians, and that as a result of Israel’s disobedience and continued turning to the gods of the Canaanites. In other words, because Israel failed to eradicate the wickedness from Canaan, it ultimately led to their captivity as punishment.
This may not make it easier to digest. The reality of the conquest is that the command was to kill everyone. That will never be an easy truth to reconcile. But we need to be really careful. We need to take the term “genocide” out of our minds. It wasn’t the Jewish people versus Canaanites. Remember, it wasn’t Israel’s war. It was the Lord versus Satan. It was righteousness versus wickedness. It was not genocide.
Now, this lengthy explanation is meant to help us as we try to understand the difficult parts of Scripture. It is also meant to give us a bit of context as we might engage the skeptic, the one who views God as evil and commanding genocide. There is no easy answer, but context is key.
Alright, let’s take our minds back to the Big Idea: God is a God of restoration.
Application
Achan sinned. Israel failed to seek the Lord. Before God could use them, they had to take care of their sin. Once they did, the Lord restored His relationship with them, restored His promise, restored the mission. Everything was put back as it should be.
This is the beauty of the gospel for us. Before Christ, we are all sinners, destined for destruction. But, Jesus took our place, took our sin upon Himself, died the death that we were destined for, so that we might live. And when we place our faith in Him, the relationship that we were created for with God is restored. We are brought into His family, now called to live our lives on mission for Him. Acts 3:19 says, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
However, we still fall. We still mess up. We still sin. And we still need restoration. James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed (restored).” 1st John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Psalm 51:9-10, “Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
There is restoration language all throughout the Scriptures for those who believe. We sin. We repent. The Lord restores. Why? Because God is in the business of restoration. We see this in Revelation 21:5, “And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”” This speaks of a future restoration, one that all creation has been groaning for since the curse of sin spread throughout all creation.
And so as we strive to be a church on mission with the gospel, a church that stands firm on truth, a church that is known for our love for one another, we must understand that there will be times when we mess up. But we can’t let our shortcomings become fodder for the enemy. He wants to make us believe that we are not worthy, that we are not good enough, that we are not loved. But we rest in the truth that the Lord is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and so we fight forward, keeping our eyes on Jesus.
