tine, for inst,mce, and Theodoret, who holds recorded in Scripture (as, foi· instance, that th•t il ...-Rs Mich1tel the Archangel who ap- in Gen. xxii. 1) took place through the inner peared to ,Joshua) rejected this interpret11.- workings of the mind as the medium of tinn would not be sufficient to outweigh their action, yet here, as in Gen. xxxii., and primit.iw testimony at once so explicit and most probably in Exod. iii., we have visible ;,o general, unless it were support<"d by the appearances of God to men in deep anxiety strongest arguments. The fact that it was of heart, pondering "gre11.t matters" which reject<"d r&ther from prudential motives, and were "too high for them." Whether we that such prudence was, in point of fact, en- choose to accept or reject the historical nar- tire]~- un,iecessar:s·, robs the later interpre- rative as a whole, there can be no rationo.l tation of much of its weight. Thus much ground for doubting that the Hebrew his- e.t least is certain, that we may adopt the torians wrote under the full persuasion that earlier one without fear of prejudicing there- they and their forefathers lived under a by the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. dispensation of continual Divine interpo- Further information on this point will be sitions, sometimes taking place by secret found in Hengstenberg's ' Christology,' in inward intimations, sometimes through the Liddon's 'Bampton Lectures' (Leet. ii.), in Urim and Thummim ; sometimes, at a Bull (' Defens. Fid. Nicen.,' i. 1), and in cii sis in the history of the nation or of an Keil's Commentaries upon the '\'e.rious pas- individual, by actual external appearances sages of the Old Testament, cited above. of God in a visible form, and that we have "He here appeared as a soldier, with His here an account of one of these. The pur- sword dra= in His hand. To Abraham in port of the appearance is, however, obscured his tent He appeared as a traveller ; to by our present division of chapters. The Joshua in the field, as a man of war. Christ narrative proceeds without o. break as far as will be to His people what their faith ex- eh. vi. 5. Ch. vi. 1 is simply parenthetical pects and desires " (Matthew Henry). And and explanatory. Thus we gather that Joshua. fell on bis fa.ce. The apparition had J osbua was meditating the plan of his fu- no doubt taken Joshua by surprise. He ture campaign, and deliberating on the best belie,ed himself to be alone, when suddenly mode of capturing the strong walled city be found himself confronted by a warrior, close by which (ver. 13) he stood, when God with his sword drawn. Uncertain, in those appeared to him in the form of a warrior, days when Dinne interposition was more and solved all bis doubts by commanding co=on than it is now, whether what he him to prepare for a miraculous intervention saw was a proof that he was watched by of His Providence, and in the place of war- enemies, who had resolved to cut him off like expedients to resort to a religious cere- by surprise, or whether God had vouchsafed mony, which should be the external token to appear to him, but endently quite pre- to all the surrounding nations that the in- pared to expect the !Jtter, he addres!;es a vading host was m:ider the protection of the question to the apparition, which of itself Lord of heaven and earth; a fact of which implies at least a half-belief that what he they were more than half convinced by the saw was something above nature. He needs supernatural passage of the Red Sea and but the simple reply just recorded to lead the Jordan (see eh. ii. 10; vi. 1). him to prostrate himself in simple faith be- Ver. 15.-Loose thy shoe from olf thy fore the Mighty One who now stood before feet. Cf. Exod. iii. 6. We have here a him, to be the defence e.nd shield of His clear proof (see also eh. vi. 2) that He who people from all their adversaries. Maimo- now spoke to Joshua was a Divine Person. nides, in his' Moreb Nevochim,' and others The loosing the shoe from the feet is re- (e.s, for instance, Hengstenberg, 'Geschichte garded by Origen and other patristic com- des Reiches Gottes,' p. 209) have regarded mentators as emblematic of the removal of this as a rision seen by Joshua when be was worldly engagements and pollutions from alone, plunged in deep meditation on the the soul. Now Jericho was straitly shul difficult task before him. But without deny- up. ing that many of the- Divine interpositions
HOMILETICS. Vers. 13-vi. 21.-The vision and the commanid. Three points demand our special attention in this passage. First, the apparition to Joshua ; next, the command that was given him; and, lastly, the results o_f that command, the fal_l of the walls of Jericho, and the subsequent sack of the city. Each of these points yields important lesl!OW!, CB, V, 18-16,] THE BOOK OF JOSHUA. 93