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Context No. 3355 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 10:7-11: in context

7So Joshua went up from Gilgal, he and the whole army with him, including all the mighty men of valor. 8The LORD said to Joshua, “Don’t fear them, for I have delivered them into your hands. Not a man of them will stand before you.” 9Joshua therefore came to them suddenly. He marched from Gilgal all night. 10The LORD confused them before Israel. He killed them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Horon, and struck them to Azekah and to Makkedah. 11As they fled from before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth Horon, the LORD hurled down great stones from the sky on them to Azekah, and they died. There were more who died from the hailstones than those whom the children of Israel killed with the sword.

Joshua marches his army all night from Gilgal to relieve the besieged town of Gibeon, and the LORD says to him, do not fear them, for I have given them into your hand. And the victory, when it comes, is plainly God's: he throws the enemy into confusion, and as they flee, he hurls great hailstones from heaven, so that more died from the hailstones than from Israel's swords.

Two things go together here. There is Joshua's own exertion, the grueling all-night march, the willingness to fight for allies he had sworn to protect. And there is God's decisive action, which no army could have manufactured, the confusion and the stones from the sky. Joshua did his part with everything he had, marching through the darkness, and God did what only God could do. The victory was not Joshua's strength alone, nor God's action without Joshua's obedience, but both together, human effort and divine action joined, with the outcome unmistakably from the hand of God.

Do I bring my full effort and obedience to what God calls me to, while recognizing that the decisive victory is always his and not my own?

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