6 Joshua

Joshua matches Isaiah 6 wonderfully. The matches focus on the events surrounding the fall of Jericho and the contract at the end of the book.

Angel Visitation

Prior to taking Jericho Joshua had a visitation from a certain angel. The exchange follows the details of the angel encounter Isaiah had at the time of his call. Here are the two passages in question.

13 Isaiah 6:1-3
¹In the year that King Uzziah died I saw master sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled his house.
²And above him stood the seraphim; each one had 6 wings; with 2 he covered his face, with 2 he covered his feet, and with 2 he flew.
³And one called to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Yahvah of hosts; the whole land is full of his glory.

6 Joshua 5:13-6:10
¹³And it came to pass, when Joshua was in the plain of Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw a man who stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand; and Joshua went to him, and said to him, Are you of us or of our enemies?
¹⁴And he said to him, I am the commander of the host of Yahvah, and I have come here now. And Joshua fell on his face to the land, and worshiped, and said, What has my master to say to his servant?
¹⁵And the commander of Yahvah's host said to Joshua, Take your shoes off your feet; for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so.

¹Now Jericho was shut up because of the presence of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in.
²And Yahvah said to Joshua, See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, with its king and all its armed forces.
³And you will encircle the city, all the men of war, and you will go around the city once a day. This you will do for 6 days.
⁴And 7 priests will bear trumpets, and blow before the ark; and on the 7th day you will go around the city 7 times, and the priests will blow with the trumpets.
⁵And it will come to pass that when they blow the trumpets and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people will shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight before him.

⁶And Joshua the son of Nun called the priests, and said to them, Take up the ark of the contract of Yahvah, and let 7 priests bear 7 trumpets and blow them before the ark of Yahvah.
⁷And he said to the people, Pass on and encircle the city, and let those who are armed march on before the ark of Yahvah.
⁸And as Joshua had spoken to the people, the 7 priests bearing the 7 trumpets passed on before the ark of Yahvah, blowing on the trumpets; and the ark of the contract of Yahvah followed them.
⁹And the armed men went before the priests who blew on the trumpets, and the rest of the people who were gathered went after the ark, and they marched on blowing the trumpets.
¹⁰But Joshua had commanded the people saying, You will not shout, nor let your voice be heard, nor will any word come out of your mouth, until the day that I tell you to shout; then you will shout.

There are a number of correlations in this match. Both looked up. Isaiah apparently into the sky or a vision, Joshua some distance across the land. Both saw God, Isaiah saw Yahvah enthroned and Joshua saw his namesake Jesus (comapre with Revelation 22:8-9). Isaiah saw cherubim (angels) around the throne. Joshua saw Jesus as an "angel." Isaiah heard the cherubim crying "holy." Joshua was told to remove his sandals because he was standing on "holy" ground.

Shaking

Isaiah goes on to say that their was a shaking when the cherubim cried "holy." In Joshua the next story is the fall of the wall of Jericho.

13 Isaiah 6:4
⁴And the posts of the door shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

6 Joshua 6:20
²⁰So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets; and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpets, they shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

Of course the way the walls of Jericho came down was by sounding the trumpets and a great shout by all the people. So the shaking in the two stories is caused by sound. Another possible correlation is that after the shaking in Isaiah the house is filled with "smoke." In Joshua, it does not say, but there most certainly would have been a dust cloud after the walls fell down. Perhaps those should be considered the same.

Unclean Lips

Next Isaiah realizes he has "unclean lips." In Joshua the next detail in the story is bringing Rahab the prostitute out of her house. Here are the relevant quotes.

13 Isaiah 6:5
⁵Then I said, Woe is me, I am dismayed; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the king, Yahvah of Hosts.

6 Joshua 6:22-23
²²But Joshua said to the 2 men who had spied out the country, Go into the prostitute's house, and bring out from there the woman and all that she has, as you swore to her.
²³And the spies went in and brought out Rahab and her father and her mother and her brothers and all that she had; and they brought out all her relatives, and placed them outside the camp of Israel.

We don't think of Rahab as having "unclean lips" because it does not say she did. We also think the source of Isaiah's "unclean lips" is foul speech. Given the way these stories line up within a series of matches I submit that Rahab did have "unclean lips." If a prostitute does not have unclean lips who does? I also submit that the source of Isaiah's unclean lips was illicit behaviour, perhaps on the part of his wife. This is why he mentions living among a people of unclean lips. It's his problem by association, like Hosea or Salmon (see Matthew 1).

Live Coal

The story continues. Isaiah is cleansed with a live coal from the altar fire. Jericho is burned to the ground and Rahab is brought into the community of Israel.

13 Isaiah 6:6-7
⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar;
⁷and he touched my mouth and said to me, Look, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sins are forgiven.

6 Joshua 6:24-25
²⁴And they burned the city with fire, and all that was in it; only the silver and the gold and the vessels of brass and of iron, they brought into the treasury of the house of Yahvah.
²⁵But Rahab the prostitute and her father's house and all that she had, Joshua saved alive; and she lived among the sons of Israel, even to this day; because she hid the spies whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.

Fire is used in both stories to cleanse. Rahab is likely cleansed too and forgiven her prostitution. We know from Matthew 1 that Rahab married Salmon of the tribe of Judah. Persumably she's forgiven of the prostitution and given a new lease on life.

Who

Next Master asks who will go. Isaiah steps forward. In Joshua the next story is taking the city of Ai. The question with Ai that's not an issue with Jericho or any of the other cities taken in the book of Joshua is who will go.

13 Isaiah 6:8
⁸And I heard the voice of master saying, Whom will I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.

6 Joshua 7:2-4
²And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth Aven, on the east side of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai.
³And they returned to Joshua, and said to him, Do not let all the people go up; but let about 2,000 or 3,000 men go up, and destroy Ai; and do not send all the people there, for the men of Ai are few.
⁴So there went up about 3,000 men; and they fled before the men of Ai.

The men who spied on Ai told Joshua that only 2,000 or 3,000 soldiers were needed to attack Ai. Since not everyone is needed the question is who will go.

Blind

13 Isaiah 6:9-10
⁹And he said to me, Go, and tell this people, You can hear, but do not understand; and you can see, but do not perceive.
¹⁰For the heart of this people is darkened and their ears are heavy and their eyes closed, so that they may not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted and be forgiven.

6 Joshua 7:6-15
⁶And Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the land on his face before the ark of Yahvah until evening, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust on their heads.
⁷And Joshua said, Alas, Master Yahvah, why have you brought this people over the Jordan, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites? If only we had been content, and lived on the other side of the Jordan.
⁸Master, now what will I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies.
⁹For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and will gather together against us, and cut off our name from the face of the land; and what will you do to your great name?

¹⁰And Yahvah said to Joshua, Get up; why do you lie on your face on the land?
¹¹Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed the commandment which I commanded them; for they have even taken some of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and lied, and they have hidden them among their own stuff.
¹²Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand again before their enemies, but they will turn their backs before their enemies, because they are accursed; I will not be with you any longer, unless you remove the curse from among you.
¹³Up, summon this people, and say, Be ready tomorrow; for Yahvah, god of Israel, says, There is an accursed thing in the middle of you, Israel; you cannot stand before your enemies any longer until you remove the accursed thing from among you.
¹⁴In the morning, therefore, you will be brought near according to your tribes; and it will be that the tribe which Yahvah takes will come by families; and the family which Yahvah will take will come by houses; and the house which Yahvah will take will come man by man.
¹⁵And it will be that he who is taken with the devoted thing will be burned with fire, he and all that he has; because he has transgressed the commandment of Yahvah, and because he has done wickedness in Israel.

Cities Waste

13 Isaiah 6:11-12
¹¹Then I said, How long, master? And he said, Until the cities lie waste without inhabitants and the houses without men and the land be utterly desolate
¹²and Yahvah will have cast off men far away and there will be a great forsaking in the middle of the land.

6 Joshua 11:16-20
¹⁶So Joshua took all that land, the mountain country and all the south country and all the land of the plain and all the mountains and their lowlands;
¹⁷from mount Paleg that goes up to Seir, as far as Gudgodah in the valley of Lebanon below mount Hermon; and all their kings Joshua took and slew.
¹⁸Joshua made war for a long time with all those kings.
¹⁹There was not a city that was not delivered up to the sons of Israel, and they destroyed it, except the Hivites who live in Gibeon, whom Joshua allowed to live, and work for Israel. Now all these kingdoms are 7 in number, and Joshua destroyed them all.
²⁰For it was of Yahvah to encourage their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that they might destroy them utterly, and that they might not have compassion on them, but that they might destroy them, as Yahvah had commanded Moses.

Remainder

13 Isaiah 6:13-7:0
¹³And those who remain in it will be 1/10th, and again they will be burned and will be made like the terebinth or like an oak which is fallen from its stump. The holy seed is its source.

6 Joshua 13:1-6
¹Now Joshua was old and advanced in years; and Yahvah said to him, Look, you are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed.
²This is the land that yet remains in all regions of the Philistines and in all the country of the Geshurites,
³from Shihor, which is before Egypt, as far as the border of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanites; 5 rulers of the Philistines; the Gazathites, the Ashdothites, the Ashkalonites, the Gathites, and the Ekronites; and also the Avvites to the south;
⁴and all the land of the Canaanites, and Arah which belongs to the Sidonians, as far as Aphek, to the border of the Amorites;
⁵and the land of Gebal, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrising, from Lord Gad below mount Hermon to the entrance of Lebo Hamath.
⁶All the inhabitants of the mountains from Lebanon to the place of hot waters, and all the Sidonians, I, Yahvah, will drive out from before the sons of Israel; only divide the land by lot to Israel as I have commanded you.

By Ryan Eaton
Posted Monday, Simeon 7, 13000