Joshua Bible Study: Week Ten

Prayer Time

Introduction

Last week we talked about the Levites and the Cities of Refuge. We emphasized that now everyone had a home, a new hometown, and that the people were continuing to obey the Lord’s Words from the Book of the Law. We talked about the Levites being spread out (curse made a blessing) and the symbolism of the Cities of refuge pointing to Christ.

When could the manslayer return to his home and land?

When the high preist died. CHRIST!

Joshua 22:1-10

This is the beginning of the end. We are starting to have farewell speeches and people heading home to live their lives in the promise land. The chapter is our final goodbye to the Transjordanian Tribes! They have been with us from chapter 1. Here is the bookend! (Joshua 1:12-18)

Stressed three things:

Past obedience to his commands and the commands of Moses

Faithfulness of God in giving them the land he had promised and bringing them the peace they were currently enjoying

Obligation to continue to keep God’s commands

We may be tempted to think of commands as rigid and unhappy things, but here in verses 5–6 we get a positive, relational picture of obedience. According to these verses, what does God require of his people? We are looking especially for verbs.

Turn, go to your tents, be careful to observe the commandment and the law, love the Lord, walk in all his ways, keep his commandments, cling to Him, serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 6:1–3 ESV

“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

What rewards did Moses promise for this kind of obedience?

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

What else were the Israelites supposed to do with God’s commands?

How do we keep the peace we have gained in this war? How do we enjoy the land and home we have been given by the Lord?

Joshua 22:11-20

Joshua 22:21-34