TEXT [Commentary]
3. Joshua’s charge to Israel; Israel’s charge to Joshua (1:10-18)
10 Joshua then commanded the officers of Israel, 11 “Go through the camp and tell the people to get their provisions ready. In three days you will cross the Jordan River and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
12 Then Joshua called together the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. He told them, 13 “Remember what Moses, the servant of the LORD, commanded you: ‘The LORD your God is giving you a place of rest. He has given you this land.’ 14 Your wives, children, and livestock may remain here in the land Moses assigned to you on the east side of the Jordan River. But your strong warriors, fully armed, must lead the other tribes across the Jordan to help them conquer their territory. Stay with them 15 until the LORD gives them rest, as he has given you rest, and until they, too, possess the land the LORD your God is giving them. Only then may you return and settle here on the east side of the Jordan River in the land that Moses, the servant of the LORD, assigned to you.”
16 They answered Joshua, “We will do whatever you command us, and we will go wherever you send us. 17 We will obey you just as we obeyed Moses. And may the LORD your God be with you as he was with Moses. 18 Anyone who rebels against your orders and does not obey your words and everything you command will be put to death. So be strong and courageous!”
NOTES
1:11 In three days. God had been ready to bring the parents of these Israelites into the Promised Land from the south about 38 years earlier, but they had refused because of fear and unbelief (Num 13–14). Now, at last, their children would enter from the east, across the Jordan River.
1:12 Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. These tribes had asked and received from Moses the land on the east side of the Jordan, which Israel had taken from the two defeated Amorite kings, Sihon and Og (Num 32:33).
1:13 rest. This is not only the physical, material rest of a secure, abundant land in which to live, as important as that is; God’s intended rest for the people of Israel included the spiritual, cultural, psychological, and emotional rest of a right relationship with God and with God’s people. This is a significant theme in Joshua (e.g., 1:15; 21:44; 22:4; 23:1), and indeed throughout the Bible.
this land. Since Israel still was on the east side of the Jordan, all the tribes were at that time within the territory of the two and a half tribes to whom Moses had given it.
1:15 rest. See note on 1:13.
COMMENTARY [Text]
God had appointed Joshua as Moses’s successor and had given him encouragement and instruction. Now Joshua began the task of leading God’s people (1:10). The officers were to pass along Joshua’s orders to the people (1:11). The first order was to prepare rations and other items for travel, something the people were surely experts at doing by this time!
This was the culmination of all the Israelites had hoped for, traveled toward, and even feared for four decades. Now in three days, they would cross the last barrier and enter at last the Land of Promise. To anchor the forward and encourage the backward, Joshua reminded them once again whose enterprise this was: “the LORD [Yahweh] your God” (1:11). Each Israelite individually and all the people collectively were reminded once again that God is a personal God, caring for his people, identifying with them.
Joshua told them to “take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you” (1:11). The land was the gift of God; God would see that their entering in and taking possession were successful. There would be room neither for human pride of accomplishment nor for human doubt that it could and would be done. This was God’s enterprise; this was God’s time; Joshua was God’s appointed leader. God would accomplish it through Joshua.
The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (1:12) already had received their land in Transjordan from Moses (Num 32:16-19). Now Joshua reminded them of their promise to help their brothers (1:14) gain their inheritance. This is a consistent theme throughout the Bible; we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. No one is an island; when the bell tolls, it tolls for all of us (to paraphrase John Donne). All Israel together had conquered the territory the Transjordan tribes requested and received from Moses; now they in turn would help their fellow Israelites gain possession of the territory west of the Jordan River.
The Transjordan tribes answered Joshua as they had answered Moses when he gave them the responsibility; they would cross the Jordan and help the rest of Israel gain their inheritance. Their way of putting it may have given Joshua pause. Just as they fully obeyed Moses, so they would obey Joshua (1:17)—a superficial reading of Exodus and Numbers is enough to see that Israel often did not obey Moses very well. But the Transjordanian tribes did cross the Jordan with the rest of Israel, and did not return to their own land and homes until Joshua dismissed them at the end of his campaigns (22:6).
The last words of response to Joshua represent the attitude not only of the eastern tribes, but of all Israel. Just as God had told Joshua at the beginning of this chapter to be strong and very courageous, so now the people said the same thing. Also, they wanted assurance that God would be with Joshua just as he had been with Moses. The crossing of the flooded Jordan a few days later convinced the people that God was with Joshua.
The stipulation that any who disobeyed Joshua would be put to death (1:18) strikes most modern Western readers as harsh and extreme. But we must remember that Israel was entering a time of warfare. Disobedience in wartime can have serious consequences—the deaths of other people, or even, potentially, the defeat and destruction of entire nations. Furthermore, disobedience here would have been not only against Joshua, but against God, Israel’s King. Finally, Joshua did not impose this upon Israel’s warriors. They imposed it upon themselves, as a measure of how completely they were committing themselves to Joshua’s leadership in the upcoming campaign.