The Mission of God (9)

The Mission of God

Judgment and Grace

Joshua 8:24–35 (ESV)

24 When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of Ai in the open wilderness where they pursued them, and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword, all Israel returned to Ai and struck it down with the edge of the sword. 25 And all who fell that day, both men and women, were 12,000, all the people of Ai. 26 But Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of Ai to destruction. 27 Only the livestock and the spoil of that city Israel took as their plunder, according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua. 28 So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins, as it is to this day.

29 And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded, and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones, which stands there to this day.

30 At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, 31 just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. 33 And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel. 34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

Review

They had crossed the Jordan river which was at flood stage on dry ground. They approached the first city they were to conquer and way they did it was to simply march around the city and blew trumpets and the walls came tumbling down. Straight down- and they killed all the people and destroyed everything else, except that which was kept for the tabernacle.

How do the people of God recover from a loss? How do the people of God regain lost ground? Undoubtedly this is the question Joshua, the leaders, and the congregation of Israel ponder as they lick their wounds from their recent defeat at the hands of Ai.

They are still mourning the death of thirty-six soldiers. They had trusted that the Israelite army outsized the army of Ai, and their whole congregation of over a million outnumbered Ai with its population of only twelve thousand.

Yet Israel sits defeated by the underdog, Ai.

The sin of presumption and Achan’s hidden sin had been the cause of their defeat.

When God was on Israel’s side, Jericho with its thick walls and secure fortress fell at a commanded shout, but when God was not with Israel, neither a shout nor a sword could help her win. This portion of chapter 8 Israel comes a second time to battle with Ai this time totally destroying the city and all its inhabitants.

Introduction

Verses 24 through 29. summarize the results of the conquest of Ai.

In verse 24, all the soldiers of Ai who came out of the city in pursuit of the Israelite decoy force, all are killed.

There were no survivors.

Then the city itself is destroyed.

Twelve thousand people die that day.

The king was captured, executed, and brought to Joshua.

Joshua hangs his body on a tree until the evening, at which time his corpse was taken down, placed at the entrance of the city gate, and covered with a pile of stones (v. 29).

Insight

According to Deuteronomy 21:23, to prevent the profaning and polluting of the land, a dead body hanging from a tree must not remain after the sun has gone down.

Deuteronomy 21:22–23 (ESV)

22 “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

This injunction finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ hanging and dying on a tree (a wooden cross) and being taken down from the cross and put into a grave of stone before the sun went down.

The people of Ai and their king would die because of their sin, while Jesus the King of kings would die and rise from the dead by the power of the Spirit for sinners like you and me.

What is this meant to tell a spectator looking on?

A hanged man, Moses says, is cursed by God. Or as the apostle Paul translates it, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged upon a tree.”

To contemporary sensibilities, much of this narrative is uncomfortable and disturbing. Isn’t it?

But while we wrestle appropriately with the ethics of it all, let’s make sure we do not miss what Joshua 8:29 is intending to teach us.

What is really happening here?

Why this gruesome spectacle?

The destruction of Ai is not an act of ethnic cleansing by a hateful invader driven by jealousy or geographical greed.

It’s not a land grab.

The death and the display of the body of the King of Ai is meant to remind us, and to signal to us and to all who saw it that what has happened here is an expression of the wrath and curse of God.

This is divine judgment being executed.

The cross, we are to understand, is a kind of cursed tree on which Jesus was hanged for our sake.

Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”

Now if we are honest with ourselves, we really have no problem with the cursed tree of Calvary. Do we? There, Jesus is hanging in our place.

That’s what we deserve, and He bears the penalty for us.

If we are to be thoroughly Biblical Christians, we must come to terms with the fact that our God is the God of absolute judgment.

He doesn’t wink at sin.

He doesn’t excuse it

or turn a blind eye to it or pretend it didn’t happen.

Not for the Canaanites, not for the King of Ai, not for you, not for me.

The curse of God’s judgment must fall, will fall, either on us as it fell on Ai’s king or it must fall on Jesus, the King of kings, hanged on a cursed tree.

The judgment of God.

John Piper, What Made it Ok for God to Kill Women and Children in the OT?

The closing, climactic Scene

The final section of Joshua 8 captures the erecting of a stone memorial compiled to renew the covenant between God and Israel. The ceremony is held in Shechem, a place of significant history in the lives of Abraham and his posterity.

After their victories at Jericho and Ai, you might have expected the Jewish troops to proceed immediately with the conquest of the country by moving south along the mountain road to attack the most heavily fortified cities of that region.

This is what the people did do eventually, though not at once.

Instead they take a detour of about twenty-five miles north and a few miles west, to a valley situated between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.

there is a natural amphitheater.

F. B. Meyer describes it as a place where the mountains are hollowed out “and the limestone stratum is broken into a succession of ledges ‘so as to present the appearance of a series of regular benches.’ ” It is “a natural amphitheater … capable of containing a vast audience of people.”1

This amphitheater was the people’s destination, and it was here that they camped out for the ceremony.

One feature of the place between the mountains is its fine acoustical properties. A person on one mountain can easily hear a person on the other, and both can clearly hear what goes on below.

This is what the Jewish people did at Ebal and Gerizim after defeating Ai and assuming control of the country’s high road.

They did it in precise obedience to the earlier commands of Moses.

Moses had said, “When you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin. And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce curses: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali” (Deut. 27:12–13).

1 Meyer, Joshua and the Land of Promise, 106.

Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol—a thing detestable to the LORD, the work of the craftsman’s hands—and sets it up in secret.…

Cursed is the man who dishonors his father or his mother.…

Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.…

Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the road.…

Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow.…

Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he dishonors his father’s bed.…

Cursed is the man who has sexual relations with any animal.…

Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother.…

Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law.…

Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly.…

Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person.…

Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.…

Deuteronomy 27:15–26

After each of these twelve curses, which the Levites were to read, the people were to say, “Amen.”

Then the blessings were to be read:

If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:

You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.

The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.

The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. Deuteronomy 28:1–7

This is what Joshua enacted on the slopes of these mountains.

Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—just as it is written in the Book of the Law

There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the aliens who lived among them. Joshua 8:33–35

It must have been an impressive and moving experience.

Curses upon curses if you do not obey the law! Blessings upon blessings if you do!

Boice, J. M. (2005). Joshua (pp. 66–67). Baker Books.

The Altar on Ebal

The ceremony that was enacted on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim teaches more than the principle that obedience leads to blessing and disobedience to a lack of blessing in life.

It also teaches God’s solution to the problem of sin in any life.

If you have read Joshua 8:30–35

These verses that tell of the reading of the Law on the slopes of the mountains (vv. 33–35) is preceded by a section that tells of the construction of an altar on which the Law was written (vv. 30–32).

This too was in exact fulfillment of the commands of God given to the people through Moses. In Deuteronomy, Moses is recorded as having said:

The Altar was constructed on Mount Ebal.

Why was it constructed on Mount Ebal? The answer, which we find in Deuteronomy 27:12–13, is that Ebal was the mountain from which the curses were to be read, while Gerizim was the mountain from which the blessings on the upright were declared.

The altar was for sinners. It was for those who acknowledged their sin and who came, not as the righteous, but as sinners to the place of sacrifice.

Boice, J. M. (2005). Joshua (p. 69). Baker Books.

Joshua: An Expositional Commentary (The Altar on Ebal)

The altar constructed on Mount Ebal was to be of natural stones with no human workmanship added to them. Francis Schaeffer, who is excellent on this point, rightly calls this principle “a complete negation of all humanism.”3

That is, it is a denial of the thought that human beings can add anything at all to salvation. They cannot.

When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. Build there an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool upon them.

Build the altar of the LORD your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God. Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God. And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up. Deuteronomy 27:2–8

Do you grasp the symbolism?

Do you get the message? What is this? It’s the Gospel, bright and clear and beautiful.

God curses the disobedient, but a sacrifice has been provided that satisfies the judgment of the Lord.

On the mountain of cursing, a sacrifice has been made, a peace offering.

The curses fall on the substitute that all who repent of their sin and seek the mercy of God might not perish but find life. It’s a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ,. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

What this all Means

The altar was also constructed as the solution to the problem of those who should hear the law but who had not kept it.

God’s solution to the sin problem. This is what God had been teaching all along. When God first gave the Law on Sinai, he gave at the same time the regulations regarding sacrifices.

When he gave Moses as lawgiver, at the same time he gave Aaron to be the high priest.

It was as if God were thundering from Sinai, “Thou shalt not …” but then immediately added, “But I know you will, and so here is the way to escape condemnation.”

Sin brings judgment. The judgment of sin is death. But the sacrifices show that it is possible for an innocent victim to die in place of the sinner.

In those ancient days, the victim was an animal. But the animal pointed forward to the only truly sufficient sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It is by faith in his death for us that we escape sin’s punishment.

Second, when the altar was constructed by Joshua in obedience to the commands of Moses, it was not constructed in the valley between the two mountains, or on Mount Gerizim,

Salvation is by grace through the work of God alone.

It is not just a matter of coming to God as a sinner.

thereby taking your place, as it were, on Mount Ebal. That is absolutely essential—there is no place for the self-righteous in God’s presence—but it is not enough.

Nor is it enough even to come to the place of sacrifice, thereby acknowledging your need of another to die for you.

In addition to these absolutely essential things,

We come acknowledging that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you can contribute to the effort.

Sin brings judgment. The judgment of sin is death.

But the sacrifices show that it is possible for an innocent victim to die in place of the sinner.

In those ancient days, the victim was an animal. But the animal pointed forward to the only truly sufficient sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It is by faith in his death for us that we escape sin’s punishment. [5]

[1]Smith, R., Jr. (2023). Exalting Jesus in Joshua (D. Platt, D. L. Akin, & T. Merida, Eds.; pp. 124–126). Holman Reference. [2]Firth, D. G. (2015). The Message of Joshua (A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.; p. 101). Inter-Varsity Press. 10 Or peace offerings. [3]Firth, D. G. (2015). The Message of Joshua (A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.; pp. 101–102). Inter-Varsity Press. 12 It is notable that there is evidence of the use of plaster on the site of Mount Ebal. [4]Firth, D. G. (2015). The Message of Joshua (A. Motyer & D. Tidball, Eds.; p. 102). Inter-Varsity Press. [5]Boice, J. M. (2005). Joshua (p. 69). Baker Books.