The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 3

wiLh 11ssur11nco of perfect certainty. Moses was dee.cl- just at the very moment, it would seom, when his people and those who he.cl helped him to lee.cl them needed his guidance most. The ascent of Pisg11h was not to be, like the ascent of Mount Sinai, followed by 11 return, after which their leader was even more divinely il!wnin11ted than before, 'fhey were never to see him again, nor even to know where his bones were le.id. Henceforth they must be content with the guidance of "Moses' minister" (Exod. xxiv. 18; Num. xxvii. 18; Deut. i. 38), It would seem 11s if they loyally accepted J oshue.. Certainly he accepted with childlike trust and Bimplicity the high but heavy charge that was thus suddenly laid upon him. Neither elated nor depressed by it, he at once set to work to carry out the Divine command. The remaining thirty years of his life are a calm, unwavering response to the exhortation of Jehovah: '' Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afro.id, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest" (Josh. i. 9), It is easy for those who have laid down for themselves as an axiom, that a miracle is an impossibility, to set aside the Book of Joshua as unhistorical, becau~e of the large amount of miraculous details contained in it. Even if the miracles of the Book of Joshua stood alone, we might fairly protest against so summary a mode of dealing with what bears all the impress of historic reality. But the miracles which attended the conquest or' Canaan stand or fall with all those which have marked God's dealings with His Chosen People, whether under the Law or under Gospel ; and to a fair mind these are simply a question of evidence. The simple truthfulness of the author of the Book of Joshua, and the worthiness of the object for which the miracles which he records are wrought, may rightly be allowed to tell for, rather· than against, the truth of miracles as a whole. It is also possible from another point of view to do but scant justice to the con- tents of the Book of Joshua. What (it might be asked), at this distance of time and space, have we to do with the invasi~n of an insignificant tract of country, less than half as large as Scotland, by one of the endless swarms of nomads that find a. home in Asia? But even from this limited point of view the conquest of Palestine by the Israelites is by no means devoid of interest or significance. It fills an important place in a long series of invasions of the same tract of country, which occupy the pages of history almost from its earliest chapters down to our own day. What conquests m11y have preceded those of the Philistines we hardly know. It is likely enough that those whom they displaced were themselves invaders; but that old race of " giants," who seem to us like the traces of a primmv11l age preservecl in shadowy outline in the rocks, is too little known to us for anything to be asserted positively as to their origin. The Semitic Ammonites, l\foabites, and Edomites cohtributed with the Philistines to the,destruction of these primitive populations. After them come the children of Israel ; to be folio wecl in 11 long train through three thousand years of history by Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Saracens, Crusaders, French, and English. And who will venture to say that the list of invaders is closed? But it is a very narrow view to take of the conquest of Canaan by J oshna to regard it merely as one of a series of more or less similar invasions of the same territory. In its most important aspects the conquest under J oshue. stands quite apart from most of the other conquests of Palestine, and in some aspects stancls alone. Aloug with those of the Assyrio.ns,·B11bylonians, and Romans, it was ihe fulfilment of declarations made by the Almighty beforehancl. ; but whereas they iv INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL BOORS :