Joshua the Faithful--by Linden Malki

We first see Joshua as Moses' apprentice--a young man, who was in charge of a militia to fight off the first attacker in the journey, the Amalekites, descended from Esau. Moses, Aaron and Hur were on an overlooking hillside. Moses held his hands up to empower the Israelites; when let his hands down, the Israelites fell back. Aaron and Hur held Moses' hands up until the battle was won.  Joshua was on the mountain with Moses when the Israelites made the golden calf; the next time Moses went back up, Joshua stayed with the people as the guardian of the tabernacle. He was one of the spies sent to check out the land God promised them; he and Caleb were the only ones with the faith that they could do it, and so the only onesto survive until God allowed them to enter the land, after Moses viewed it just before he died. God gave Joshua this command: "Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9).

Joshua led the people across the Jordan river (the river was blocked upstream for them). We know the story of Jericho and its fall.  Joshua and the people were getting too confident at this point: they attacked the neighboring city of Ai without asking God, and didn't know that there had been a case of illicit looting at Jericho.  Then Joshua asked God what happened, and was told to find the person(s) who had the loot.  They investigated, were led to the thief and his family, who were stoned and buried with the loot. Then God gave the instructions for an attack on Ai, which was successful. In fact, it was so successful that the a neighboring city was afraid, so they sent a delegation to negotiate a treaty. The trick was that the delegation was dressed in rags and their provisions were dried and moldy; and they said they had heard about the Israelites from far away. Once again, Joshua didn't ask God, and made the treaty--and then found out they were close neighbors. They did let the treaty stand, with the provision that the Gibeonites would become their servants.  Then the next act in the drama was five more kings who agreed that these upstart invading Israelites needed to be stopped before any of them were attacked, so they attacked Gibeon.  The Gibeonites immediately invoked the treaty with Joshua, who agreed that they should be defended.  Joshua checked with God, sent out an army at night, and surprised the invaders. As they were fleeing, God sent giant hailstones on them. Joshua then went to God, asked for more time to finish them off, and for the sun and moon to stop in their tracks until the battle was won.  We don't know what happened next or how, but it happened and the battle was won, and the fleeing kings hid in a cave, where they eventually were killed.

The story behind the story was that Joshua was one of God's great leaders--when he was in touch with God's will. When he tried to do things on his own, they backfired on him. At the end of his life, he gathered all the tribal elders, judges and headmen, and reminded them of where they had come from, He challenged them:  Joshua said to the people, 'You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord, to serve Him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ... We will serve the Lord our God and we will obey His voice.” So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made for them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. (Joshua 24:22-25)