Day 11 6cc Jg/Ru (25) 2h29min: Jg 2:8

Then Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah, died at the age of a hundred and ten years.

So they buried him in the territory of his inheritance in Timnath-Heres. And, so the Mosaic leadership ended. Joshua did not hand over to anyone.

And all that generation too were gathered to their fathers, and another generation began to rise after them that did not know Jehovah or the work that He had done for Israel, which begs the question, "did they not know Jehovah because they had been left with no custodian to lead them as Moses had done for them with Joshua?"

I answer, no.

The people of Israel did not know Jehovah because they chose not to. They failed to make Jehovah each one for themselves a personal friend to follow. They instead made an idol of the idea of His essence to which they applied whenever they needed miracles. In peace time God was irrelevant. But, when they needed to win a war, there was need for some magic.

There was no need for Joshua to mentor and raise up another leader. Jehovah remained leader and king in Israel. In fact, Gideon had to remind them that neither he nor a son of his would rule over them; "Jehovah is the one who will rule over you," (Jg 8:23) Really, the need for Joshua to lead the people only arose over Jehovah's disallowance of Moses to lead them into the land of promise.

Consequently, Moses was only chosen for the sole purpose of bringing God's people into the land of promise. So, Joshua only completed what Moses could not, after which the need for that ceased.

God would by some administration or by the hands of warrior-judges use His nation to annihilate His enemies while they were to spread true worship - the right way to live - from surrounding nations to the ends of the earth till God would find a suitable way of bringing His son to earth and redeem him from manhood to rule as...

11/08 Day 07 6cc Nu(18) 1h39min: Nu 32

Do Not Make Us Cross the Jordan

Why would Moses react so bitter? Couldn't he the leader discern our intentions?

We haven't appeared less equipped in battle formation before the sons of Israel, have we?
We haven't given any impression of complacency, having settled into this most suitable region for our numerous livestock, have we?

Look, he labeled us the brood of sinful men risen to dishearten the sons of Israel from crossing into the land that Jehovah will certainly give them!

But, we haven't meant any evil, have we?

We simply, and out of concern for our numerous livestock, little ones and our women, even grateful to our God for providing us a place such as this, and considering the burden we've all been through moving with the hosts, want to build here stone flock pens for our livestock and fortified cities for our little ones, while we ourselves shall go equipped in battle formation and shall not return to our homes until the sons of Israel have gotten the landed property, each with his own inheritance.

For we shall not get an inheritance with them from the side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us from the side of the Jordan toward the sunrising.

And, that is why we have said; "Do not make us cross the Jordan!"

But, Moses acquiesced later when we approached him and explicitly stated our intentions, which is what, O, I see, we hadn't done on our initial approach. We seemed to have just told him; "Do not make us cross the Jordan."

11/03 Day 02 6cc Ge(25) 2h39min

Ge 28:20-22

And Jacob went on to vow a vow, saying: "If God will continue with me and will certainly keep me on this way on which I am going and will certainly give me bread to eat and garments to wear and I shall certainly return in peace to the house of my father, then Jehovah will have proved to be my God. And this stone that I have set up as a pillar will become a house of God, and as for everything that you will give me I shall without fail give the tenth of it to you."

Hmmm, ambitious!

Up until this 6th comprehensive coverage of the Genesis account I could never relate to the Jacob character! I had seen Jacob only as self-invested, covetous, scheming. Calculating. I often wondered why his scheming altogether resulted positive, why God blessed him at all, why he was so favored, why a whole nation resulted from him, why God chose him to be in the line of the ancestry that produced the seed that is God's, if it took some undue bias.

But, I do not know God to be partial! No, not. No, not so.

From these verses I conclude there was something God saw, saw in Jacob. It was what God wanted to see after all. It was the reason God had made one man to make many men a people, people for Him. It was what God wanted after all. To propagate His purpose--to have out of one man a people, people for God's name.

Desire begets ambition.

It starts first with discerning what God may want from man. And ambitioning such achievement. Jacob so did.

Jacob was in touch with his family history and fully aware of God's promises to Abraham and desired to fulfill it. Jacob thought he could and wanted to build a people for God, a house of God.

This was the desire--earnest as was--that led to his ambition that led to his vow. This vow.

Perhaps he went about it the wrong way--coveted his brother's right as firstborn, bought the birthright, and connived with his mother to obtain the blessing that follow it--he, man as he was, understood that he needed the place of firstborn to achieve his ambition. Besides, Esau was not up to it.

I might conclude that whatever Jacob did, he did to achieve his ambitious desire. Right or wrong, he used the means at his disposal. God could only tolerate him, even as He tolerates us today, but so impressed with the desire that matched God's purpose, God blessed Jacob.