People of the Bible

Joshua

Leaders of Israel · Around 1250 BC (traditional) · Appears in Exodus, Numbers, Joshua

Joshua is the successor of Moses, the leader who brought Israel across the Jordan into the promised land. A faithful spy who believed God when ten others gave in to fear, he led the conquest of Canaan and, at the end of his life, called the nation to choose whom they would serve, declaring that he and his house would serve the LORD.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.Joshua 24:15 (KJV)

The faithful servant and spy

Joshua first appears as the young aide of Moses and as the commander who led Israel in battle against the Amalekites in the wilderness, winning the day while Moses held up his hands on the hill. He was Moses' minister, close enough to accompany him partway up Mount Sinai, and he lingered at the tent of meeting when the cloud of God's presence came down. From his youth he was being trained in the shadow of the greatest prophet in Israel.

The decisive test of his character came when Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan. Ten came back terrified, saying the land devoured its inhabitants and the people there were giants beside whom the Israelites were as grasshoppers. Only Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and pleaded with the people to trust God and go up, for the LORD was with them. The nation listened to the ten instead of the two, and for that unbelief the whole generation was condemned to die in the wilderness. But because Joshua had wholly followed the LORD, he alone with Caleb would live to enter the land.

Be strong and of a good courage

When Moses died, the weight of leading a nation fell on Joshua, with the daunting task of doing what even Moses had not done, bringing the people into Canaan. God met him with a charge repeated like a refrain: Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. The secret of his strength was not military genius but meditation on God's word day and night and courage born of God's presence.

Joshua sent spies into Jericho, where Rahab the harlot hid them and confessed her faith in the God of Israel, and she and her family were spared. Then the whole nation came to the flooded Jordan, and as the priests carrying the ark stepped into the water, the river was cut off and stood in a heap, and Israel passed over on dry ground as their fathers had crossed the Red Sea. On the far bank they set up twelve stones as a memorial, so that generations to come would know what the LORD had done.

The conquest of the land

The first city was Jericho, and God gave it in a way no army could claim as its own doing. For six days Israel marched silently around the walls once a day, and on the seventh day seven times, and at the blast of the trumpets and the shout of the people the walls fell down flat, and the city was taken. A humbling defeat at Ai followed, because of one man's hidden sin, teaching Israel that victory depended on obedience, not numbers. Once the sin was dealt with, the conquest went forward.

Joshua led the tribes through years of campaigns against the kings of Canaan, and Scripture records that in one battle the sun stood still at his word while Israel prevailed. He was not merely a conqueror but a divider, apportioning the land among the twelve tribes by lot as their inheritance, giving each its portion of the promise made to Abraham centuries before. The book that bears his name is the story of promises kept, of a faithful God bringing a people at last into their rest.

Caleb, who wholly followed the LORD

Beside Joshua through all these years stood Caleb, the other faithful spy who had believed God when ten others gave in to fear. When the land was being divided, Caleb, now eighty-five years old, came to Joshua and reminded him of the promise Moses had made him, that the land his feet had walked would be his inheritance because he had wholly followed the LORD his God. He asked not for the easiest portion but for the hill country where the giants and their great walled cities still remained, saying, Give me this mountain.

His faith had not dimmed with age; he was as strong for war, he said, as in the day Moses sent him out, for the LORD was with him. Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron, and Caleb drove out the giants. It is a picture of a whole-hearted life rewarded, of a man who trusted God at forty in the wilderness and still trusted him at eighty-five before the mountain. Together Joshua and Caleb stand as the two of their whole generation who believed, and who therefore lived to see the promise kept.

Choose you this day

At the end of his long life Joshua gathered all the tribes to Shechem and rehearsed for them the whole history of God's grace, from the calling of Abraham to the gift of the land. Then he set before them a clear and searching choice: to serve the LORD, or the gods of their fathers, or the gods of the land they now lived in. He would not let them drift. And he declared for himself and his family, whatever the rest might do: As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

The people vowed to serve the LORD, and Joshua warned them soberly what faithfulness would require, then made a covenant with them and set up a great stone as a witness. Joshua died at a hundred and ten years old, and Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and had seen all the great works God had done. He left behind a nation in the land, a covenant renewed, and an example of wholehearted allegiance to God.

His character and where he points to Christ

Joshua is the Bible's picture of courageous, wholehearted faith. Where others saw giants and walled cities, he saw a God who keeps his promises. He was a soldier and a strategist, but above all a man who followed the LORD fully, obeying strange commands, waiting on God's word, and refusing to the end to let the people compromise their loyalty. His farewell charge still summons every generation to a decision that cannot be postponed.

The name Joshua is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus, and both mean the LORD saves. As Joshua led God's people through the waters of the Jordan into their promised inheritance, so Jesus leads his people through death into the true and lasting rest that the land of Canaan only foreshadowed. The book of Hebrews notes that Joshua did not give the people their final rest, and points beyond him to the rest that remains for the people of God in Christ, who fights our battles, conquers our last enemy, and brings us all the way home to the inheritance that cannot fade.

A note on the sources: everything above is drawn from the biblical text itself. Where a detail comes from later tradition rather than Scripture, it is named as tradition. Dates for the earliest figures are traditional and approximate, and Scripture does not always give them. The aim is to tell each life honestly, and to let it do what the whole Bible does, point to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Related: Moses · Samuel · All the people of the Bible