Welcome to the One Great Story!. George B. Thompson
ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod 33:1). Through Moses, God gave them the ten words as a covenant, an agreement, a two-way deal. God will bring This People to a land, and they will be a blessing to all nations; This People will live with complete loyalty to God (YHWH, the LORD), expressing that loyalty in the ways that they worship God and treat others. Faith resulting in ethical behavior was intended to create and sustain God’s purposes for the world, through The People called to this task.
God’s purposes were to be sustained by faith and ethical behavior.
At this part of The Story, then, the LORD renewed the covenant. Moses prepared two stone tablets again, and God wrote the ten words on them again (Exod 34). Then The People received directions on constructing and fashioning a number of objects that they would use in their worship—an ark, utensils, lamps, altars, pillars and screens, garments for the priests, and so on (Exod 35–40). Such descriptions and directives are elaborated in more than one place: for instance, the Book of Leviticus contains twenty-seven chapters about sacrifices, offerings, dietary rules, ritual purification, and so on. To many Western readers today, these descriptions are impressive in detail but not necessarily instructive or appealing. The style of worship suggested by the many artifacts mentioned here speaks of a world remote and even vanished. Yet, in the text as we have inherited it, The Story includes these details. They do not advance The Story as such, but they do ground it in a specific time and place. The One Great Story rarely has the flavor of a generic brand: rather, its power draws from its distinctive particularity.
After receiving (again) the covenant with the ten words, Moses and the Israelites continued their journey, for they were still in the wilderness. It turns out that, once again, their Story entailed a transition. In this case, it was something like a changing of the guard. The people who escaped oppression in Egypt traveled—or should we say, “wandered?”—through wilderness lands for a long, long time. Moses remained as the figure selected by God to lead them. In their many preparations for their next phase of travel (and adventure!), the Israelites seemed compliant overall with conditions of their covenant relationship (see Num 1–10). Their attitude suddenly changed, however, once they broke camp and were back on the road. In the first instance, “the rabble among them” (Num 11:4) stirred up discontent about the available diet (this theme sounds familiar). Eventually, so many years went by that everyone who had left Egypt died on the journey (Num 26:64–65).
God’s people still were having a hard time trusting the One who had called them and saved them. They were heading toward Canaan, an area in the region that has figured in their Story from generations past. At the LORD’s instruction, Moses sent out spies to bring back information about the land, the towns, and the people. The spies returned, saying good things about the land and its fruits but holding no hope that its occupants could be conquered (Num 13). The People panicked, wailing and complaining, even talking of a mutiny to return to Egypt! Even Joshua and Caleb, two of Moses’ assistants, could not reassure them: the people (“the whole congregation”) were ready to kill them (Num 14:1–10).
Moses prayed hard to the LORD on their behalf, and the journey continued—however, Moses now knew that it would be the next generation who would get there. All those complainers would not live long enough to enter the land of the Promise, only their children (Num 14:13–25). They did not trust in God to fulfill this promise.
Pause to Reflect What does it take for you to continue working toward a goal once you discover that it is not as quick or easy to achieve as you might have thought?
This journey toward Promise faced many challenges. Sometimes the challenges were political (as with Edom, Num 20:14–21); sometimes they took on military aspects, as with the kings of the Amorites and Bashan (Num 21:21–35) and of Midian (Num 31). Other times, there were religious overtones to circumstances, as with the Moabites, Balak, and Balaam (Num 22–24) and with the gods worshipped by the residents of Shittim (Num 25). According to one summary of the journey, the Israelites pulled up stakes, traveled, and set up camp in thirty different places (Num 33:1–37)! Some of the accounts of battles and spoil strain our twenty-first-century sensitivities—even though many of today’s television programs and movies are at least as violent. However, what remains consistent throughout this early phase of The Story, in our inherited configuration of it, is that the LORD God intended to fulfill a promise and a vision.
This journey toward Promise faced many challenges.
For Moses himself, some of this fulfillment would end up tasting bittersweet. The reluctant “leader” of this stiff-necked band of escaped slaves remains the central figure throughout many episodes of The Story. Death comes to us all, and it finally came also for Moses. There was a wrinkle to his death, though, as the Israelites prepared for what would be their final chapter of post-Egypt wanderings. Moses would not go with them, but another one would lead them. God authorized Joshua to take over from Moses, to head the people’s final push (Deut 31:1–8). The reason? Lack of trust in God, sinful behavior—whether the particular storyteller was blaming Moses (Num 20:12–13), Moses and Aaron (Deut 32:50–51), or the people themselves (Deut 3:26). So God showed Moses all the land waiting for the Israelites, as he stood on Mt. Nebo; then he died in a place called “the plains of Moab” and was buried there. He was still a vigorous guy at his death, and the people mourned for him thirty days (Deut 34:1–8).
Now it was Joshua’s turn. He was chosen by God to succeed Moses, and he also would have his hands full.
“Joshua fit the battle . . . ”
The most detailed versions of what often has been called “the conquest of the land” appear in the Book of Joshua (2–12). It contains dramatic speeches and predicaments, acts of valor, wondrous and unlikely military victories, disobedience, and regular reminders of Who ultimately is leading the Israelites and providing for them. This conquest includes strategic support from none other than a local prostitute, named Rahab (Josh 2)—and this will not be the last time that we hear of her! Perhaps the most well-known place name from this series of episodes is Jericho. Once the Israelites had the town surrounded (they characteristically were protected on all sides by strong, high walls), Joshua received an odd set of divine instructions. They followed those instructions to the letter.
For six days, early in the morning, the Israelite soldiers marched around the city walls, silently and just one time, followed by seven priests who blew trumpets made of rams’ horns. On the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times and, at Joshua’s command, all the Israelites shouted. When they did so, those walls hit the ground, and the city was defeated. The only residents who were spared were Rahab and her family, because she had helped Joshua’s spies (Josh 6). Military success also took place at a city known as Ai (Josh 8) and against a number of “kings” in the region (Josh 10:16—11:21; 12:7–24). The locations of these conquests, and of the peoples who lived there, clearly held a high value within the storytelling traditions. Those places serve to spell out the geographical parameters of what descendants claimed as “the Promised Land” from God.
Once the land was secured, God made it clear that its settlement by the Israelites would be no free-for-all. Clans would receive apportionments as inheritances (Num 33:53–54); the boundaries were delineated (Num 34:1–15; see also Josh 13–19 for more detail); specific persons were selected to oversee the apportionment of the land (Num 34:16–29). The Promise was almost here! The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—all twelve tribes of them—were about to begin the life which the LORD had pledged a long, long time earlier. Their leader, Joshua, had taken over from Moses and led them to this place. For a time, they lived in peace (Josh 23:1).
The Promise was almost here!
Now Joshua himself was nearing the end. Like Moses before him (Deut 32, 33), and the patriarch Jacob before them (Gen 49), Joshua gathered all the people and their officials, to a place called Shechem, and delivered a final speech. It was not as long as the one that Moses is reported to have made, but its brevity perhaps makes it more compelling. Joshua began this address first by summarizing their Story: “Long ago your ancestors . . . lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods” (Josh 24:2). The voice in this part of the speech, however, is not Joshua’s, but God’s—“The