troops. The Israelites gained or were granted victories and having secured their flanks and rear against counter attacks and improved their confidence, their military strategy next led them towards Canaan.
Standing now at the edge of the Promised Land, Moses again spoke to his nation as he was about to die. It had been a long and tiring journey for Moses. He was eighty years old when he first told the pharaoh of Egypt to let God’s people go and now he had reached his one hundred twentieth year. Even though he was the leader of his nation, because of his own flaws he would not be allowed by God to enter Canaan. He was destined to perish with is own disobedient generation. As great a man as he was, he was still not above God’s will or laws. God did allow him, however, to view the Promised Land and from high above a mountaintop he spoke to the rising generation.
With an eloquence befitting his senior statesman position, he first reviewed the bitter years of slavery and discontentment that brought this younger generation to the threshold of victory. He restates the Ten Commandments and repeats many of the laws of the new land. He reminds his followers that their victory and longevity of remaining on the Promised Land does now and forever more depend upon their faithfulness to God’s law. Moses confirms that the Canaanites were losing their land because of their disbelief of the Almighty and their wicked ways of worshipping false gods. But he tells the faithful tribe that they were not being given the land due to their goodness, but rather because of God’s graciousness. Their God was a patient God, but if they ever forgot God’s law or misinterpreted God’s long willed patience as indifference, then as surely as the Canaanites would lose their land, so would the followers of Moses also lose their land. Be faithful and you will be rewarded. Become false and you will forfeit all you have fought to claim. This sense of conviction would continue to guide the Jews throughout all of their days.
After Moses died Joshua next succeeded him as the tribe’s leader. He led his army across the Jordan River into Canaan to face his first city-state foe known as Jericho. This walled city appeared to be impregnable, but this didn’t seem to faze the invading Israelites since they had spent the previous forty years in reflection for their previous doubts and now just crossed the Jordan River without getting their feet wet. For in the same manner as Moses led the tribe across the Red Sea, God had again parted the waters for them.
Leading the way was the Ark of the Covenant carried by the Levite priests and symbolized God’s presence and protection of his chosen people. Instead of directly attacking the high walls of the city, the battle plan of Joshua was to slowly walk around the walls of the city for six straight days. The citizens and king of this city-state must have thought that these invaders had become ill in their heads, but on the dawn of the seventh day the Israelites let loose a harmonized battle cry and cracked open the holy ark which first shook and then in a thundering roar tumbled down the city’s walls. The city’s citizens and troops were in a state of confusion and awe and the Israelites easily won this battle.
The next city-state Joshua attacked was Ai, but it proved more difficult to defeat. Although Ai was no better defended than Jericho, the troops of Joshua had committed some crimes which angered God, and this bad behavior was punished as a clear warning to what Moses had preached to his people while on his deathbed. Only the faithful will be rewarded and the false at heart will be hurt.
After Joshua resolved the religious problems, the troops appeared to be unbeatable. Thirty-one city-state kings were defeated and Israel’s advance could not be stopped, even when military alliances were formed by former foes. City after city either fell or sought treaties with the invading troops.
After Israel had taken possession of the Promised Land, Joshua then portioned it out to his followers. Having fulfilled his fate and while upon his deathbed, Joshua’s closing words were the same message as Moses … “Live well with the words of our Lord or lose the land you fought to gain”.
A series of judges became the succession of leaders for the next hundreds of years. These deliverers did not function as kings, but were more like crisis management leaders such as Moses and Joshua were. Some are well known and many are not.
God, however, continued to reward those people of pure purpose and even of those who were only halfhearted in their endeavors He would depart his blessings. The well-being of Israel depended upon God’s deliverance from the remaining Canaanites in the country who were reminders to wayward worshipers. Also the enemy nations who still survived and surrounded Israel could engulf the Promised Land if the followers brought misery upon themselves by forsaking the words of God that He gave to them to live by.
It still seems the followers of Moses had a short memories, because during the next several generations God’s words were again forgotten and every man just practiced what was right in his own eyes. Famine next ravaged the Promised Land and instead of flowing with milk and honey, fear and failure now took over the nation.
Eli was the judge during this time, but he had grown old and his sons had corrupted the tending of the tabernacle. One day in the City of Shiloh, Eli heard a barren woman named Hannah praying to God and promised if He would allow her a son that she and her husband, Elkanah, would devote their offspring to the service of the Lord to tend the tabernacle. Her prayers were soon answered and her son, Samuel, served the tabernacle as a child and as time passed Eli took him under his guidance and he eventually became the leading judge of all of Israel.
Later on during a disastrous battle with their neighboring Philistines the Israelites lost and then thought they regained the Ark of the Covenant, which again proved to them that even leading the battle front with the ark would not assure their victory. Only their behavior and beliefs could do so.
After being humbled again the Israelites then asked Samuel to appoint them a king like all of the other nations had, instead of their system of crisis management by raising up a judge to rule the missions. God took their request for a king as a rejection of His leadership, but nevertheless He told Samuel to select Saul. Although kingship was a foreign institution for Israel, the monarchy was regarded as a servant of Yahweh.
Saul was a courageous king, but he only halfheartedly obeyed the commandments of God. Samuel was forced to look for a replacement king because Saul was jeopardizing Israel’s future fate. The judge next told David, who was still but a boy, that he would become the next king. David had doubts about his leadership, but after he downed the giant Goliath with his slingshot, he became a hero to all of Israel except to Saul.
Saul could not rejoice in David’s one-handed victory because he now felt his rule threatened by the teenager. Saul wanted his son Jonathon to succeed him as king, but Jonathon had no qualms about yielding his claim to David. So Saul’s insecurities continued to fuel his foolishness until he was killed in battle by the Philistines.
During the dynasty of David he first called on the twelve tribes of Israel to grieve for Saul’s death. The tribes now knew they had to unite around David to protect their lands. Although God was the ruler of the land, truly no centralized government existed because the twelve tribes operated independently and only used the previous king as a judge for raising missions or resolving conflicts.
After David captured the city-state of Jerusalem he decided to unite the political and religious fractions by moving the Ark of the Covenant and the government to this new capital city. After solidifying his citizenry David continued to defeat or ally with all nations surrounding the Israelites and fulfilled all of the promises of Moses and Abraham and brought the glory of God to all of Israel.
But David was not without his own personal problems. After assuming the throne the king committed adultery and then orchestrated a murder to cover it up. None of the citizenry of Israel challenged him and so God sent the prophet Nathan to David to seek his sentence. Although the king did show remorse in the forthcoming years, the adulterous child died, David’s daughter was raped by one of his sons named Amnon, another son named Absalom had Amnon killed, and then during a long family feud tried
