Joshua 9 – Israel and the Gibeonites

Our text centers around two recurring themes.

• (1) God’s work in history on Israel’s behalf
• (2) Covenant

We need to survey our text to see just how prominent each of these is.

• And then figure out what the author of Joshua is trying to tell us.

1) GOD’S WORK

God’s work in history on Israel’s behalf is found in the following:

• The Canaanite kings “heard of this” (vs. 1) – presumably Israel’s victory over Ai.
• The Gibeonites heard “what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai” (vs. 2)
• The Gibeonites pretended to come from a far off country “because of the name of the Lord your God” (vs. 9)
• They “heard…all that he did in Egypt” (vs. 9)
• They heard “all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites” (vs. 10)
• And they even knew the content of Scripture – “Because it was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land” (vs. 24)

Our text tells us that in reaction to God’s actions, two responses are demonstrated.

• Response 1 – Fight – The Canaanite kings “gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel” (vs. 2)
• Joshua 10 and following unpacks this response.
• No doubt it was emboldened by Israel’s defeat at Ai.
• And it was one of the consequences of Achan’s sin – Joshua 7:9.
• Response 2 – Fright – The Gibeonites hatch a deceptive scheme to trick the Israelites into a covenant in order to save themselves from God’s action in history through Israel.
• The subject of our text, Joshua 9.

BTW – It is important to note that these two responses do have something in common in our context.

• Fear of Yahweh (though maybe not the “hearts melted” kind of fear).
• This is in contrast with the Israelites, whose response to God in our text revealed a lack of proper fear and right response to Yahweh.
• More on this later. 

So rebellion or relationship – those are the two responses to God’s work in history.

• Nothing much has changed in 3000 years.
• Except, of course, the current trend in this post-enlightenment age, where materialism dominates, is to deny the historicity of God’s work altogether.

BTW – Are those who rebel against the God of the Bible actually exempting themselves from relationship with Him?

• No…they are under God’s wrath.

Speaking of the work of God in history, the following have been denied on Bible Secrets Revealed and Unbelievable Radio (a podcast) just this week by “enlightened” materialist scholars and lay folk:

• Virgin birth
• Historicity of Abraham and Isaac
• Resurrection
• Destruction of S&G
• Jesus’ claim of divinity

Richard Dawkins on Unbelievable Radio (13 minutes in):

• On the OT, “I’d be surprised if very much of it was factual…the Pentateuch is clearly the Jewish foundational myth…the creation myths and the myths for the origin of the Jewish people…some inherited from earlier peoples like the Sumerians. There is really no reason at all to be talking about the Jewish myths anymore than any of the other myths around the world…”

And then there is the devious form of rebellion clothed in the garments of relationship – the prosperity Gospel.

• This has been exported to Africa and is wreaking spiritual havoc on millions.

2) COVENANT

The centrality of Covenant is found in the following:

• The Gibeonites pretend to be from a far away country and say, “now make a covenant with us” (vs. 6).
• Israel entertains the idea but is cautious – “how can we make a covenant with you” (vs. 7).
• The Gibeonites urge the Israelites on – “We are your servants. Come now, make a covenant with us” (vs. 11).
• “And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them” (vs. 15).
• Then “after they had made a covenant with them” they discovered the truth (vs. 16).
• Then they couldn’t attack them “because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord” (vs. 18).
• Many of the Israelites wanted to exact revenge, but they were not permitted to because the leadership had “sworn to them by the Lord” (vs. 19) and “because of the oath that we swore” (vs. 20).
• So Joshua “delivered them out of the hand of the people of Israel, and they did not kill them” (vs. 26).

There are a couple of things we need to flesh out with this covenant business.

• (a) Use of deception
• (b) Honoring a covenant forged in deception

(a) Covenant by Deception

We just saw that the Gibeonite covenant with Israel was born through deception.

• Specifically the Gibeonites:
• “acted with cunning” – vs. 4
• And “made ready” supplies and provisions that looked “worn-out” – sacks, wineskins, sandals, clothes and “dry and crumbly” food.
• All of this was done to look as if they came “from a distant country” (vs. 6).

Why was it important to look as if they came from far away?

• “Israel was allowed to spare and make treaties with cities that were far from them, but they were explicitly directed not to make peace with the cities of the peoples whom the Israelites were dispossessing” – David Howard.
• Exodus 34:11–12 (ESV) — 11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.
• Deuteronomy 20:10–11 & 16 (ESV) — 10 “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. 16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes,
• Did the Gibeonites know this?
• Most think probably not.

(b) Honoring a Covenant

Why did the Israelites have to abide by this Covenant?

• It is clear that except for the leadership, they didn’t want to.
• “Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders” (vs. 18).

We hope to figure this out by looking at some specifics of this covenant.

• Specifically its ANE context and covenant type.

We need to understand that covenants and pacts between potential enemies was nothing new.

• “Treaties had a significant impact on the political shape of the ANE from the 3d to the 1st millennium B.C.” – AYBD.
• Politics of this era were steeped in covenant/treaties.

There were many kinds of political covenants/treaties in the ANE.

• This one, many argue, is known as a Suzerain-Vassal Treaty.
• The suzerain is the sovereign or state that has political control.
• The vassal is the inferior person or state in the relationship.
• “The relationship of the vassal to his suzerain was not ‘brotherhood’ but ‘servitude’. The vassal was forbidden to seek alliances with other great powers but was to ‘acknowledge’ only the suzerain as his overlord (cf. Hos 13:4), [and] to be at enmity with his enemies” – AYBD.
• On the flipside, the suzerain was to protect the vassal and provide military aid.
• Joshua 10:6-7

Joshua 9 makes clear that the Gibeonites saw themselves as the vassal and Yahweh/Israel as the suzerain.

• And the reason for this was not just Israel’s military victories, but also the work of Yahweh on Israel’s behalf.

There was another element of these covenant treaties that is important to consider.

• Such a treaty, “at its core was an oath [meaning “by the life of the gods”], taken before the state deities of one or both parties. It was at the same time an imprecation [a spoken curse], calling down divine wrath on the oath breaker.” -AYBD

In the case of our text, the oath was sworn to Yahweh.

• Joshua 9:15 (ESV) — 15 And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.
• In ANE language and the context of the Israelites Yahweh worship, it would be to Him that this oath was sworn.
• “The deities before whom the oath was taken were thought to act as guarantors of the treaty, punishing the one who transgressed it” – AYBD.

Swearing an oath to Yahweh had some significant baggage.

• An oath “sworn by the Lord God of Israel…could not be broken” – Woudstra.
• “Oath taking and swearing are solemn affairs in the Old Testament. To take an oath…was to give one’s sacred and unbreakable word that he would follow through on what was promised. Because of the sacred, unbreakable nature of an oath, this treaty that the Israelites made with the Gibeonites, even though it was obtained under false pretenses, could not be revoked” – David Howard.
• Another example of this is the Jacob/Esau story.

One example of a Scriptural foundation for this:

• Zechariah 5:1–4 (ESV) — 1 Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll! 2 And he said to me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a flying scroll. Its length is twenty cubits, and its width ten cubits.” 3 Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side, and everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side. 4 I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts, and it shall enter the house of the thief, and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it, both timber and stones.”
• See also Ezekiel 17:16-21 and Malachi 3:5.

And the best example for our purposes of the sacredness of covenant keeping involves Saul, David and the Gibeonites.

• 2 Samuel 21:1–3 (ESV) — 1 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. 3 And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”

Joshua was all too familiar with God’s concern for honoring a covenant – think Achan.

• This commitment to covenant is something difficult for us to understand.
• One reason is that our individualist culture conflicts with the honor/shame culture of the ANE on this kind of issue.

3) WISDOM AND ISRAEL – THE AUTHOR’S POINT

We said earlier that Joshua 9 shows that the Israelites were deficient in the area of fear of God and wisdom.

• We get this from a key verse of Joshua 9.
• Joshua 9:14 (ESV) — 14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord.
• In fact it seems the Gibeonites acted in wisdom and the Israelites did not.

Scripture is clear about the relationship of fear and wisdom.

• Psalm 111:10 (ESV) — 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!
• Proverbs 1:7 (ESV) — 7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
• Proverbs 9:10 (ESV) — 10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Like they failed to seek God’s will coming off the high of Jericho, they failed to do so coming of the high of the defeat of Bethel and Ai.

• Obviously not a wise thing to do.
• Dale Davis asks “Do we need the guidance of God only when we are in doubt? Do we not need to be careful when we begin to think, ‘There is no need to consult the Lord on this matter—it’s quite clear’?” – Dale Davis.

What is it about peak experiences that lead us to run ahead of God?

• We seem to lose a healthy dose of fear and reverence of God.
• Not a good place to be.
• The Psalmist says “lean not on your own understanding”.
• BTW – “Lean not” NOT “use not”.
• “Joshua 9 warns God’s people against such cocky independence” – Dale Davis.
• They expressed doubt in the Gibeonites story.
• Joshua 9:7 – “perhaps you live among us”.
• But in the end, they relied only on themselves.

4) GOD’S GRACE – THE AUTHOR’S POINT

Rahab deceived the leadership of Jericho to save the Jewish spies, herself and her household.

• The Gibeonites deceived the Israelites to save themselves.
• In each instance, the end result for the deceiver was life and inclusion in the redemptive history of Israel.

David Howard puts it like this:

• “A postscript to the story of the Gibeonites can be seen after the exile, in two lists in the Book of Nehemiah. In both cases, men from Gibeon are listed among the Jews who were repairing the walls or who returned from Babylonian exile (Neh. 3:7; 7:25). They appear to have been fully assimilated among the Jews, as much believers in Israel’s God as was Rahab and other foreign ‘converts’ and as much the recipients of God’s grace.”

What are we to take away from these events of deception?

They appear to say more about God’s grace than about the deceivers.

• Israel was chosen by God, they never earned their place in redemptive history.
• They were special because of God’s good pleasure.
• “For the Christian, the inclusion of the Gibeonites in God’s covenant community (like Rahab) challenges any attitude of self-righteousness” – Richard Hess.
• And as we saw last week, God’s grace is running rampant throughout the O.T.

And consider this –

• Israel was commanded to wipe out the Canaanites.
• And thus far we have seen the following:
• Rahab the Canaanite found inclusion in Israel.
• Rahab’s Canaanite household found inclusion in Israel.
• And the Canaanite tribe, the Gibeonites, found inclusion in Israel.

And at the same time we saw Israel itself come under a “cherem” of God because of Achan’s sin.

• These facts should indeed dispense with “any attitude of self-righteousness”.
• Not to mention they don’t seem to comport with a “myth” made up to give the Jews some street cred.
• In fact, between the Jews actions and God’s grace, they look kind of stupid in many of these so-called “myths”.

Joshua 8:30-35 – Covenant Renewal

1) TIMING AND LOCATION

Timing:

The writer tells us that the events in our text took place “at that time” (vs. 30).

• Scholars are unclear if this happened right after Ai or at some other time.
• The LXX (after 9:2) and a Dead Sea Scroll (between 5:1 and 5:2) have the text in a different part of Joshua.

Most agree it can seem out of place in its current location.

• (1) Military Standpoint
• David Howard suggests that “as a military strategy” this journey “does not make good sense” if it happened right after Ai.
• A twenty-mile journey North through the hill country.
• (2) Literary Standpoint
• Another reason it seems out of place is because of what Dale Davis calls a “literary jolt”.
• He describes it as being “wrenched from conquest to covenant”.

So could there be a good reason for the “jolt” given by its current location?

• If, in fact, the events happened at another time in the Conquest would there be good reason for the editor of Joshua to move it to here?
• “By placing this covenant renewal ceremony here, the writer is saying that Israel’s success does not primarily consist in knocking off Canaanites but in everyone’s total submission to the word of God” – Dale Davis.

BTW – “Such arrangement of historical material would not be out of accord with the principles of biblical historiography…one must recognize that the biblical narrative performs  a function beyond that of the chronological recording of history” – Marten Woudstra.

Covenant is foundational to Conquest!

• Israel had, by the power and presence of Yahweh, crossed the Jordan, destroyed Jericho and defeated Bethel and Ai.
• But, by the covenant breaking of one man, they also lost the first Battle of Ai.
• We cannot run from the fact that Covenant is central to Israel’s success and to the book of Joshua.
• The elect of God – Israel – were to act a certain way.
• So the location of this ceremony in our text is saturated with covenant significance.

Location:

Do Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim have any special significance?

(1) This is the place that Moses told Joshua and the Israelites to have a ceremony.

• Deuteronomy 27:4 (ESV) — 4 And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster.
• Deuteronomy 27:12–13 (ESV) — 12 “When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. 13 And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

(2) This is the location of Shechem.

Shechem is where Abraham first came into the land and received a covenant word from God.

• Genesis 12:6–7 (ESV) — 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
• Jacob also built an altar at Shechem and called it “God – the God of Israel”.

BTW – the location is also evidence of God’s covenant faithfulness.

• How so?

So along with the text’s location, even the geographical place is saturated with Covenantal significance.

• This leads us to the main point of our text – Covenant Renewal.

2) BLESSINGS AND CURSES

The covenant renewal in our text finds its impetus in Deuteronomy 27 and 28.

• Deuteronomy 27:1–3 (ESV) — 1 Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today. 2 And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster. 3 And you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

And the purpose Moses gives for this covenant renewal?

Blessings for Obedience –

• Deuteronomy 28:1–3 (ESV) — 1 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. 3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.

Curses for Disobedience –

• Deuteronomy 28:15 (ESV) — 15 “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

Before we dig deeper into this, we need to take a look at what Joshua did to acknowledge, affirm and commit to the words of God through Moses.

• They erected “an altar of uncut stones” – vs. 31
• Why are the “uncut stones” significant?
• “It is a denial of the thought that human beings can add anything at all to salvation” – James Boice.
• They offered “burnt offerings” and “sacrificed peace offerings” on the altar – vs. 31
• Burnt offerings “entirely consumed the animals”; were an aroma pleasing to God; and it was to atone for sins (Lev 1:4) – David Howard.
• Peace offerings were also know as “fellowship offerings”; some of the animals sacrificed were eaten together in fellowship – David Howard.
• Both were offered at Sinai and so allude to the Mosaic Covenant – Woudstra.
• Joshua “wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses” – vs. 32
• “All Israel” participated – sojourners, native born, women, little ones, elders, officers, judges, priests – vs. 33 & 35
• “sojourners” were foreign converts to Yahweh – like Rahab.
• The “ark of the covenant of the Lord” was present – vs. 33
• Representative of the presence and promises of God
• Joshua “read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse” – vs. 34
• We don’t know if this was the 10 Commandments or the specific B&C from Deut. 28.

So what covenant were the Israelites renewing by their actions at Shechem?

• Marten Woudstra provides great insight into this question.
• All of Israel “is confronted with the demands of the Lord of the covenant as they enter upon a new phase of their existence in the land of promise. If these demands are responded to in covenant obedience, Israel’s future happiness will be secured”.

And the meaning behind the covenantal acts in our text is expressive of two necessities.

• Woudstra says “…the right of possessing the promise land is tied to the proclamation of, and subjection to God’s covenant claims upon his people (and the world)”.
• So the two necessities are:
• (1) Proclamation of God’s Covenant Requirements
• (2) Subjection to God’s Covenant Requirements

So we don’t take the importance of the Covenantal blessing/curse motif in the wrong way, we need to keep something very important in mind.

• Though it is true that “blessing and cursing are the two poles around which the history of the covenant revolves” – Woudstra.
• The B&C of the Sinai Covenant as revealed in Deuteronomy “presupposes the unconditional covenant of God with Abraham by which the Jews were chosen to be God’s people”.
• Remember, along with His commands, God also gave the concept of atonement.
• The “Thou shalt not” but “I know you will” – James Boice.
• As we said in our OT Gospel lesson, we are speaking about the conforming use of the law for the Elect – Israel.

God’s elect are not their own.

• They are to live in obedience to Him and His covenant requirements.
• But not simply for their own sake and the blessings that come from obedience.
• But also because they have been given a greater purpose than just their own history.
• They are the recipients of a global redemptive history.
• (1) Through them the promised seed will come.
• (2) Through them the Davidic king will come.
• (3) Through them the covenant claims of God on His creation are made known – Woustra.

So to proclaim and submit to Covenant is to participate in the greater purposes of God for the world.

• Including, but not limited to, Israel receiving the Promised Land.
• This is definitely something worth proclaiming and subjecting oneself to!

Joshua 8:1-29 - Battle of Ai Apologetic

Joshua 8 provides for us the OT’s most detailed description of an Israelite battle (Monson).

• But is there any evidence that it ever happened?
• “For the past few decades all but the most conservative biblical scholars have considered the Joshua account [of the Conquest] to be historically unreliable” – John Monson.
• Today I want to provide a few reasons why we can consider our text historically reliable.

We will quickly go over some of the highlights of the text.

• Its message is straightforward enough.
• And then we will get to the apologetics angle. 

1) TEXT QUICK TAKE

Joshua 8:1–2 (ESV) — 1 And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you, and arise, go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land. 2 And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city, behind it.”

Two things have happened that would give Joshua pause.

• (1) He lost the first battle of Ai because of Achan’s breaking the “cherem” put on Jericho.
• (2) Israel itself had been brought under a “cherem” because of Achan’s actions.
• However, with Achan’s execution and the destruction of the stolen items, Yahweh’s ban on Israel is lifted.
• Yahweh reassures them – “do not fear and do not be dismayed” (vs. 1).

God makes clear that this time Ai will be defeated.

• And as with Jericho, it is fundamentally because – “I have given into your hand the king of Ai, and his people, his city, and his land” (vs. 1).

Ironically, when God orders His ban (cherem) on Ai, He makes a minor adjustment.

• Unlike Jericho, at Ai the Israelites can “take as plunder” the “spoil and its livestock” (vs. 2).
• Had Achan only contained his covetousness?
• Our sin stands in the way of God’s blessings.

Finally from our introductory verses God lays out the strategy.

• It is to be an ambush – “lay an ambush against the city, behind it”.

Joshua explained God’s strategy to Israel in verses 3-7 as follows:

• A large number of troops will “lie in ambush” behind the city of Ai (vss. 3-4).
• Then Joshua and the men with him will “approach the city” (vs. 5).
• And when the men of Ai “come out against us just as before, we shall flee before them” (vs. 5).
• This move will “draw them away from the city” (vs. 6).
• Then the Israelite soldiers hiding behind the city will “rise up from the ambush and seize the city” (vs. 7).

In verses 9-23, the strategy Joshua described in verses 3-7 is implemented.

• Within these verses the battle is described in great detail.
• And it will be in the details that we find reasons to accept the historicity of Joshua.
• We will come back to them shortly.

Verses 24-29 are brutal.

• “killing all he inhabitants” (vs. 24)
• “fallen by the edge of the sword” (vs. 24)
• “all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai” (vs. 25)
• “devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction” (vs. 26)
• “hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening” (vs. 29)
• “took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate” (vs. 29)

We addressed the issues raised by this violence in our God Sanctioned War lesson.

• Please refer to back that lesson for the relevant info.

2) APOLOGETIC FOR BATTLE OF AI

So back to the question we raised at the beginning.

• Are there reasons to believe this battle is historical?
• For as we have discussed over and over, the Christian faith is not a blind faith.
• God’s work in history to restore and redeem was not done “in a corner” as Paul says.
• “The God of the Bible acts in time and space” – John Monson.

Some Problems:

• (1) Timing – “The destruction and decline of Late Bronze Age cities occurred later than the commonly accepted thirteenth-century-BC date [1200 BC] of Joshua” – Monson.
• Problem – Once this became evident, any evidence formerly associated with supporting the Conquest was in doubt.
• BTW – Many conservative scholars now argue for a 15-century-BC date.
• (2) Archaeology – “Excavations at Jericho and Ai, two cities that Joshua burned with fire, did not yield what was felt to be the necessary evidence of a Late Bronze Age destruction” – John Monson.
• Problem – Archaeological evidence is “held up as the scientific arbiter” – Monson.
• If there is no archaeological evidence then it didn’t happen (or so the saying goes).

The Reactions:

There is little disagreement “that there emerged a new phenomenon in the highlands of Palestine” centered on a god called Yahweh – Monson.

• “A group of people entered Canaan bringing with them the cult of this otherwise unknown deity” – Alan Millard.
• The “transition from thirteenth-century-BC Late Bronze Age urban city-states to twelfth-century-BC villages on the so-called highland frontier seemed to correlate quite well with the local emergence of Israel, however that emergence might be conceived” – Monson.

But the Biblical account of an Israelite Conquest as the reason for it was discarded.

• It came to be seen as a made up story about Israelite origins.
• One written during the Babylonian exile.

Instead, the following theories are now put forward (Monson):

• 1) Peasant-Revolt Hypothesis – The Israelites were “nothing more than Canaanites who rebelled against their overlords” – Monson.
• 2) Ebb & Flow Hypothesis – The Israelites arose as simply a “cultural change” occurring with the “long-term ebb and flow between pastoralists and a sedentary population in Palestine” – Monson.
• 3) Ruralization Theory – Israel emerged as Canaanites left “collapsing city-states” and moved into “compounds and villages in the adjacent highlands” – Monson.

BTW – Alan Millard points out that an exhibit in the British Museum calls Israelites “pastoral Canaanites”.

The bottom line is that, as we said in our introduction –

• “For the past few decades all but the most conservative biblical scholars have considered the Joshua account [of the Conquest] to be historically unreliable” – John Monson.

So where does that leave us?

• If we wanted to do an episode of Bible Secrets Revealed we would be in great shape.
• We could stop here and sow the seeds of doubt about the orthodox view of Israel’s origins.
• But there is more to the story.

“The biblical account of Israel’s entry into Canaan should be accepted as a legitimate historical source” – Monson.

• In fact, there are “compelling reasons why one should engage rather than dismiss these relevant biblical texts” – Monson.

There are a number of reasons for this.

• We will summarize only (3) and dive deeper into the third one.

Literary Genre –

• “We must be willing to acknowledge that the biblical text is a cultural artifact” – John Walton.
• “The form and content of Joshua, as well as the events that it describes (replete with battles, destructions, and geographical descriptions), are reminiscent of the late second millennium BC” – Monson.
• “When Joshua is viewed as a piece of Near Eastern military writing, and its literary character is properly understood, the idea of a group of tribes coming to Canaan, using some military force, partially taking a number of cities and areas over a period of some years, destroying (burning) just three cities, and coexisting alongside the Canaanites and other ethnic groups for a period of time before the beginnings of monarchy, does not require blind faith” – James Hoffmeier.
• We also addressed this issue in our lesson on OT Polemical Theology.

Archaeology –

• Books and books have been written on the archaeological evidence of Israel’s Conquest by both sides.
• Most conservative scholars concede that the archaeological evidence for the Conquest is sparse – especially Jericho and Ai.

The issues are complicated.

• Dating the Exodus and Conquest.
• Dating the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
• Understanding sites with multiple occupations.
• The actual location of villages cited in the Bible.
• The meaning of the Biblical texts themselves in describing the Conquest.

John Monson sums it up as follows:

• “It is true that archaeological evidence is scattered, random, and incomplete, just as the Bible’s record is selective, ancient, and theologically oriented. Any attempt to relate these two sets of information is fraught with challenges—and this is especially so in the case of Israel’s entry into Canaan. There are perceived contradictions between text and archaeology but also reasonable congruencies.”
• “The book of Joshua’s account of the Israelite entry into Canaan does overlap with archaeology, albeit in broad strokes.”
• And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
• King David example

I recommend reading a couple of books to better understand the archaeology and historicity of the Exodus and Conquest.

• Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith
• Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention

Geography –

• “The geographical rootedness of the text points to a real story in a real place” – John Monson.
• Deuteronomy and Joshua in general and our text in particular provide us with “detailed descriptions of regions and terrain that match very precisely the geographical realities of Canaan as a whole and lend credibility to the battle accounts” – Monson.
• Geographical features are “recorded with such frequency and specificity that they give the accounts a strong sense of authenticity. One must ask why such details would be recounted were the story merely etiological [origins] or contrived” – Monson.

And this brings us back to Joshua 8:9-23.

• “The geographical data recorded in the campaigns that follow the fall of…Ai are so specific that they are presented in a case study below” – Monson.
• This geographical data is the “glue” for reconciling the Biblical account and archaeology – Monson.

The Geographical Details – 9-23:

• Some Israelite soldiers laid an ambush “between Bethel and Ai” (vss. 9, 12)
• To the “west of Ai” or “west of the city” (vss. 9, 12, 13)
• Joshua and his decoy troops “encamped on the north side of Ai” (vs. 11).
• This was the “main encampment that was north of the city” (vs. 13)
• And there was a “ravine between them and Ai” (vs. 11)
• That night Joshua left the decoy troops and moved his position to a more strategic location.
• He “spent that night in the valley” (vs. 13)
• Not the ravine between Ai and the decoy troops
• In the morning, the king of Ai saw the decoy troops across the ravine and sought to engage them at “the Arabah” (probably the Rift Valley) (vs. 14)
• They would not have seen the ambush troops (to their South) or Joshua (to their Southeast).
• The decoy troops then retreated to “the wilderness” (vs. 15) – back towards the Jordan.
• The Canaanite soldiers of “Ai and Bethel” chased the Israelites (vs. 17)
• The men hiding in ambush attacked Ai when Joshua “stretched out his hand” (vs. 19)
• They could see Joshua from his position “in the valley”
• The plan worked – Ai and Bethel were defeated.

The details of Joshua’s 2^nd battle with Ai reveal “a sophisticated, well-orchestrated battle…in which Joshua exploited every geographic feature of the region and planned every detail, down to the maneuverability of his forces and the time of day to attack” – John Monson.

• And the exact way Joshua exploited the geography “could only occur in this region’s unique terrain” – Monson.
• The battle fits “precisely the geography of the region of Ai” – Monson.
• In other words, the location of the region of Ai, Bethel, the troop movements and the hill and valleys as described in the Bible fit the reality.

For example –

• Joshua  8 “provides a key detail: ‘That night Joshua positioned himself ‘within the valley’’ (Josh. 8:13). If this expression is understood to be [the ravine from verse 11], then Joshua’s position can be identified clearly as a small hill just south of the modern village of Deir Dibwan, a place from which one has an unhindered view of the entire area. From this hill ‘within the valley’ Joshua could direct the battle, since he had visual contact with both his ambush team and his main force, and he could also see The Ruin, the enemy’s camp, and their movements” – John Monson.

The Finale:

There is disagreement among scholars as to the exact locations of Ai and Bethel.

• David Livingston, e.g., has a different take than John Monson on the locations.
• These disagreements point to the complexities of the issues.

There is also disagreement on the meaning of “Ai”.

• Some, like Monson, are adamant that it means “The Ruins”.
• Others, like Livingston say no it was not a heap of ruins but an occupied village at the time of Joshua.
• One’s take on this question lays down the presuppositions for where Ai could be located.

However, most seem to agree that Ai functioned as a military outpost for Bethel – its sister city.

• This is because Bethel occupied a main crossroads area and was strategically important.
• In Genesis, e.g., we see that even Abraham came through Bethel.
• So the strategy against Ai was as much a strategy to take Bethel.

Finally –

• “The detailed descriptions argue against the idea that the story was manufactured or that its origins can be dated to the first millennium BC. To the contrary, the text of Joshua and its ancient Near Eastern literary setting both showcase the geography and give the sense of a very ancient and authentic battle plan” – John Monson.

Think about this:

• Make up a battle in Suffolk that took place 700 years ago that accounts for the displacement of the Native Americans and the arrival of some new tribe a strange new god.
• You have to get all the details right – geography, place names, etc.
• You have to avoid leaving any anachronistic evidence behind – “Driver” or “Holland”, e.g.
• And you don’t have Google and books to help you.

Cumulative Case:

We will let John Monson have the final word:

The biblical account of Israel’s entry into Canaan, when it is placed within its literary, cultural, and geographical context, is more reasonable as a second-millennium historical event than any of the alternatives proposed to date. The Bible’s account of Joshua’s entry into the land is far more compelling and in line with available evidence than are the stale verdicts of historical criticism. It is not a matter of “proving the Bible” or defending traditional views in knee-jerk fashion. At issue is the degree of openness to reasonable reconstructions even if they challenge the “orthodoxy” of modern criticism that is largely negative toward the historicity of the biblical text. Cumulative evidence that yields strong probabilities in favor of the biblical text is far more convincing than nonevidence.