Scripture Daily

Context No. 1216 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 24:8-13: in context

8“‘I brought you into the land of the Amorites, that lived beyond the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand. You possessed their land, and I destroyed them from before you. 9Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel. He sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you, 10but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you still. So I delivered you out of his hand. 11“‘You went over the Jordan, and came to Jericho. The men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your hand. 12I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; not with your sword, nor with your bow. 13I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you didn’t build, and you live in them. You eat of vineyards and olive groves which you didn’t plant.’

Near the end of his life, Joshua rehearses for Israel everything God has done. In this section, God speaks in the first person: I brought you into the land, I gave your enemies into your hand, I would not listen to Balaam but turned his curse into blessing, I sent the hornet ahead of you to drive out the kings, not by your sword or your bow. And then the summary of grace: I gave you a land you did not labor for, cities you did not build but now live in, vineyards and olive groves you did not plant but now eat from.

The refrain running through Joshua's rehearsal is that it was all God's doing, and much of it was pure gift. Not with your sword or your bow, God says of the conquest; I sent the hornet. And the climax is a catalog of things Israel received without earning: a land they did not clear, cities they did not build, vineyards and olives they did not plant. They walked into houses others had built and ate from trees others had planted. It is one of the clear pictures of grace in the Old Testament, a people enjoying what they did not work for, living off the labor of hands that were not theirs. The whole inheritance was gift, not wage. There is a danger in prosperity of forgetting this, of coming to believe that what we enjoy is the reward of our own effort, that we built the city and planted the vineyard. Joshua makes Israel say out loud that they did not. Almost everything we have, the life we live in, the goods we enjoy, rests on labor and gifts that were not ours, and finally on God who gave it. Remembering that the vineyard was planted by hands other than yours is the cure for the pride that says, my own hand has gotten me this.

Do I remember that the life I live in was largely built and planted by hands other than mine, and finally given by God, or have I come to believe my own effort earned what was actually grace?

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