Joshua to Jesus - Day 1

Hello, welcome back. I hope those of you who went to your breakout rooms had some fruitful and useful discussions. So, we're going to pick it up right off where we left. The relationship between God and the people of Israel is very much about love. As we know from the Divine Principle, jealousy is a byproduct of love and is part of that passionate relationship. It's not merely about obedience to God; it's about loving God with all your heart, soul, and strength.

The people of Israel then invaded the land of Canaan, and sometimes people question what right they had to invade that land. Even though this took place three and a half thousand years ago, people still bring this up today. It's important to remember that nobody living in a country today is a descendant of the inhabitants from three and a half thousand years ago. Everyone has invaded and settled in various places over the last thousand years or so. For instance, I'm from England, where the English have only been here for about one and a half thousand years.

So, what's the justification for this? The biblical understanding is that God is the creator of the universe and the owner of this world. Therefore, God has the authority to allocate a piece of land to whomever He chooses. This means that nobody can truly own the land. God made a covenant with Abraham four thousand years ago, stating that Abraham's descendants would live in the land of Canaan forever. This is an eternal covenant, written down at least three thousand years ago. Surprisingly, when we look at the land of Israel today, we find that all the people living there are, without exception, descendants of Abraham—either Jews, Christians, or Muslims.

The Jewish understanding is that the land of Israel is God's property; they could never own it. They were always living in the land, but they didn't actually own it. Living in the land of Israel was conditional upon its inhabitants observing God's law. This is really important. It was God's land, and whether they could live there depended on their observance of God's law. You might wonder which laws we're talking about. God explains to the people of Israel that they must not do as they did in Egypt or as they do in the land of Canaan. They must not follow those practices.

God provides a whole list of practices that the people must avoid, all connected with sexual morality and sexual purity. For instance, no one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. God is a holy God, and sexual love is holy, which is why such relationships are forbidden. The list continues with various prohibitions against sexual relations with close relatives, including mothers, sisters, and daughters. These laws were meant to prevent the immoral practices that were common in Egypt and Canaan, as well as in the ancient world, including Greece.

The Bible makes many laws about moral purity and sexual purity, going back to Adam and Eve. The understanding of sexuality and whom we can have relations with comes from this tradition, passed on through custom and collective memory. There is also a concept of ritual purity, which includes laws about menstruation and sexual relations during that time. The idea is that God is life, and life is holy. Therefore, anything associated with death is considered impure or unclean. This is why, in the Bible, touching a dead body renders someone unclean, requiring a period of purification.

Blood is regarded as life, which is why the Bible states not to eat an animal's blood. The loss of blood through bleeding is associated with death, which is why a woman is considered ritually unclean during menstruation. This has nothing to do with sin or morality; it's about purity. There is a specific period, around 12 days, during which a woman should not have sexual relations after her period. These laws are all about holiness and inviting God to be present in the relationship between a husband and wife.

Continuing with the laws, one must not have sexual relations with a neighbor's wife or engage in child sacrifice. The Bible clearly states that these practices are detestable. It also prohibits homosexuality and sexual relations with animals, which are considered perversions. The Bible is explicit about what sexual purity entails. When the Israelites enter the land of Israel, they must not defile themselves in any of these ways, as the land itself can become defiled by such actions. God punished the land for its sins, which is why it vomited out its inhabitants.

God allows the Israelites to live in the land of Canaan on the condition that they observe a certain way of life. This is a shocking understanding, as it implies that the land is not owned by them but rather entrusted to them by God. On this basis, God instructs them to invade the land of Canaan, promising it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When approaching a town to attack it, they must offer terms of peace, which include observing the Noahide laws. These laws are universal and given to all humanity after the flood, including prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, and forbidden sexual relations.

The Israelites were not required to convert everyone to Judaism but only to ensure that the people abide by these seven laws of Noah. Joshua sent proclamations to the Canaanites, offering them peace and the option to leave. Some groups, like the Gergashites, chose to emigrate, believing that the land rightly belonged to the Israelites. Others, like the people of Gibeon, sought peace with Israel and were granted safety. However, there were 31 kings who refused these terms and chose to wage war, ultimately falling in battle. Before entering Canaan, God instructed Moses to go to war against the Amorites, but Moses disobeyed and instead sent emissaries to offer peace.

Peace. They said, "Let us pass through your country. We'll stay on the main road; we won't turn off to one side or the other. In other words, just let us pass through your country on the main road. We won't steal anything, we won't invade anything, we won't attack anybody. We'll pay you the right amount of silver for food to eat and water to drink." Now, those who buy things from you, the people of Esau, allowed us to do that. The people of Moab also allowed us to do it. So that's what Moses said, but Sihon, the king of Heshbon, refused to let us walk through. Instead, they went to war, and they fought against the king of Heshbon, who was killed, and his army was defeated. This was basically the way they went about it. It's like this sort of just war principle: first, you offer terms of peace, explaining clearly what the terms of peace are, setting up a basic minimum following the seven laws given to Moses. If they want to make peace, that's fine, but if they don't, then there'll be war.

Again, we looked at the defeat of Ai. Last week, we looked at when they crossed the Jordan and defeated Jericho, who didn't want to have peace. Joshua, afterwards, went to war against the next city, Ai. They offered them peace, but they didn't want it, and they were defeated when they went to attack the citizens of Ai. Joshua was really disturbed about this and couldn't understand why they lost if God was on their side. Joshua said, "Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!" So, Joshua was really wanting to give up here. We can see this sort of thing happened in the past with Moses, who almost felt like giving up and packing it in and going home. But Joshua carries on, saying, "Pardon your servant, Lord, what can I say now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this, and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. What then will you do for your own great name?"

It's a bit like Moses reminding God, you know, don't forget if you destroy all the people of Israel, the Egyptians will hear about it, and it won't be very good for your reputation. Joshua was basically doing the same thing here, reminding God about that. So, he's struggling with God, and God speaks to Joshua. God is a bit upset and angry, saying, "Israel has sinned; they've broken the covenant I commanded them. They have taken forbidden plunder, stolen, and then covered up the theft, squirreling away their own stuff. I can't continue with you if you don't rid yourselves of the cursed things." In other words, God didn't want people going around looting everything and stealing. Somebody had done that, and so God couldn't bless them if they were going to behave in that way.

God says, "First thing in the morning, you'll be called up by tribes. The tribe God names will come up by clan, the clan God names will come up by family, and the family God names will come up man by man. The person found with the cursed things will be burned, he and everything he has, because he broke God's covenant; he did this despicable thing in Israel." This idea here is that people are only responsible for the things that they did themselves, and they are organised in this way. They found out that somebody called Achan took gold, silver, and cloth; he had stolen these things and hidden them away. The basic principle of this is that even though he was the only one who did this, actually, because of that, God wasn't able to bless their army. From this, they get the idea that all people, all the Jews, are co-responsible for each other. Everyone is responsible for everybody else. In other words, if you see somebody else doing something which you know is wrong, you should say something.

We looked at this before when we looked at Moses and the idea of critical followership. If you see somebody doing something which is wrong, don't hate your brother in your heart, but speak to him. Tell him, "Actually, I think what you're doing is wrong." So, this is the idea here. Somebody else must have known that this person had gone and looted things, but nobody said anything. The idea is that everyone has to look out for each other. Whoever can forbid his household to commit a sin but does not is seized for the sins of his household. If he can forbid it for his fellow citizens but does not, he is seized for the sins of his fellow citizens. If he can forbid the whole world but does not, he is seized for the sins of the whole world. This is the idea here of the sin of omission. If you have the opportunity to intervene and say something and you don't do it, then you're also held responsible for the sin that that person is committing. That's the principle derived from here.

After that, they went to Ai, and Joshua, being a brilliant general, worked out a strategy and plan, and they defeated Ai. This time, God said, "Okay, Israel is going to fight, and because Israel is going to fight, then Israel can keep the spoils." This means if you defeat the citizens of Ai and you do the fighting instead of me, then you can keep the spoils. God gives a sign to Joshua about when they should attack at a particular time with the tactics he's using. Gradually, you see that God is becoming less and less involved. Jericho was all God doing it, but gradually God becomes less and less involved, allowing people to take more initiative and more responsibility. Joshua then comes up with a plan for how to take the city of Ai and not be defeated, but God just gives him the signal of when he should implement the plan. Joshua needs to be very sensitive, and more and more, God is letting people take the initiative and take more responsibility.

Eventually, it says that Joshua captured the whole land. In reality, when you look at the history books, they didn't conquer all that much; a lot of Canaanites were left there, and a lot of Canaanite cities were left there. In the Bible, it says they conquered and captured the whole land, but the historical reality is that they didn't. Anyway, it says in the Bible that he took over the central hill country and the whole of the Negev desert. He took over the mountains of Israel and the hills around them. Joshua captured the kings who ruled over that whole land and put them to death. The idea of these 31 kings is that he fought battles against all those kings for a long time. Only the Hivites who lived in Gibeon made a peace treaty with the Israelites; no other city made a treaty with them. So, Israel captured all those cities in battle. The clear implication is that Joshua offered a peace treaty to all the people of Canaan and all the different cities. It wasn't the intention to go and defeat everybody; it wasn't the intention to go and kill everybody. It was just the intention to bring everybody into submission, you might say, to abandon idol worship and to observe the moral law, which is the laws given to Noah.

After that, they settled in Israel, or Canaan. These are the ten tribes that settled on the west side of the river Jordan. We looked at how two tribes decided they wanted to settle on the east bank of the river Jordan. They were a confederation of 12 tribes, and they were ruled by God in the law. This was their self-understanding: they were the people of God, and God was their king. Father talked about this. We talk about Chung Il Guk, the timely pledge, the owner of Chung Guk. What does that mean? Father said, for the formation of a nation, there must be sovereignty. Somebody has to rule; somebody has to be in charge. The people have to have sovereignty over the land. When building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, from this perspective, who would be its lord? Who would be its sovereign? Without a doubt, God would be its sovereign. Who would be its people? All humankind. Then what would be its land? It would be the entire planet earth. So that's working on the worldwide level. Now, we're just working on the national level to create the Kingdom of Heaven in the land of Canaan.

The Jewish self-understanding is that God is their king. God gave the law; they were the people, and this is the land that God gave to them. When we read commentaries upon the government of the people of Israel, the government of the Israelites was a federation held together by no political authority but by the unity of race and faith, founded not on physical force but on a voluntary covenant. God first made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then God made a covenant with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. They wandered around for 40 years, and before they went into Israel, in the land of Canaan, before Moses died, he made another covenant with them. That's the book of Deuteronomy, and they reaffirmed the covenant when they invaded the land of Canaan. After they defeated all the kings, Joshua reaffirmed the covenant a final time. It's a voluntary covenant, and we looked at that. We saw Joshua said to the people of Israel, "You have a choice. Put away the gods, put away your idols, and worship the God of Israel. You have a choice: either you can worship the God of Israel or you can carry on worshipping your own gods. For me and my family, we're going to worship the God of Israel." But he gave them that choice; it was a voluntary covenant. It wasn't by force; it was a voluntary covenant that they were entering into.

If you look at the founding of any other nation, it is always founded by some great warrior who becomes the king through force and tyranny, using physical force to establish a country or nation. The principle of self-government was carried out not only in each tribe, but in every group of at least 120 families. There was neither privilege of rank nor inequality before the law. There was a group of 120 families, and amongst those families, they would choose somebody or a group of people who would be like the elders, the most respected people among this group of 120 families. When there was a meeting at a tribal level, each group of 120 families would send its representatives to have a meeting at the tribal level with the representatives of other groups of 120 families. When they would have a national level meeting, each tribe would send its representatives to meet together at a national level. There was neither privilege nor rank; there were no dukes, no earls, no lords. Everyone was equal; everyone was a son or daughter of God, and the law applied in the same way to everybody. Nobody was above the law. Again, we looked at this when we looked at Moses. This was completely different from the ancient world, where the king, the emperor, and the pharaoh were above the law because the pharaoh made the law, and there were different laws depending on where you were in the social hierarchy. If you were right at the top, you had a very easy time, and you could ignore the laws that applied to lower down people. But the Mosaic vision was very egalitarian; there was one law which applied the same way to everybody. Justice was so alien to the primitive spirit of the community that it was resisted by Samuel. When they entered into the land of Canaan, they were fed up with dictatorship; they were fed up with pharaohs, kings, and slave drivers. They were fed up with people telling them what to do. They didn't want that anymore; they wanted to take personal responsibility for their lives. They wanted to live their lives according to their conscience and just observe God's law. God's law is a moral law; it's a framework of moral laws: don't murder, don't steal, don't commit adultery, and all these other things. Within those laws, they had the freedom to pursue beauty, truth, and goodness. It created a framework without the freedom to realise the three great blessings, the freedom to establish that kind of peaceful community in which there was justice and the law applied the same way to everybody, and to cooperate with each other to work together.

Businesses operated together without anyone dictating what they could or couldn't do. They simply had to exist within the framework of the law, which is essentially what freedom entails: being free within the law. This vision, which they derived from Mount Sinai and was reaffirmed by Joshua, contributed to the kind of society they established in the land of Canaan. It was fundamentally a democratic society, characterised by a bottom-up approach.

They managed to maintain this system for about 400 years. We will explore how this development unfolded, but I will not delve into it now. Instead, we will examine the period of the judges in our next discussion.