Sermon Tone Analysis

How it started

allowed Canaanites to live among them

over power them into force labor.

Accordingly, while the preface to the book is crafted in the form of a summary inscription, the genre of this chapter is transformed ironically into an anticonquest account.

Unlike most ancient military reports, the aim of this document is not to celebrate the achievements of the generation of Israelites that survived Joshua but to lament their sorry response to the divine mandate to occupy the land and to eliminate the Canaanites.

Although the author delays sermonizing on the subject (cf.

2:1–5; 2:6–3:6), the structure of the chapter declares that this military failure accounts for the disastrous history of the nation in the next two or three centuries, as it is reported in the remainder of the book.

Eighth, the author is careful to give credit for successes where credit is due.

This otherwise secular text is punctuated with two theological notes: “the LORD gave X into Y’s hands” (v.

4); “the LORD was with TN” (= tribal name; vv.

19, 22).

In fact, both Judah and Joseph achieve victory in spite of minor lapses in carrying out the divine mandate to destroy the Canaanites.30

This observation forces a modification of a common mechanistic view of the Deuteronomistic formula: obedience results in blessing; disobedience brings the curse.

On the contrary, as the author will demonstrate throughout the book, Yahweh typically operates on Israel’s behalf in mercy and grace, not in response to the people’s manifest spirituality or merit.31