Okay, well we're going to pick up where we left off, but before doing that, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to do a little drill of the Kings of Israel and Judah. Sort of for calisthenic purposes, for aerobic purposes, I actually want this on tape so that the viewing audience at some future date can also do this drill. I'm going to put myself on the spot since I don't have it before me. The handout you see there is organized in such a way that it confuses you completely, but no, it's actually organized in such a way that you can see approximately what century these various kings reigned. And so you'll see you begin with the 10th century and then the 9th, 8th, 7th century. In fact, probably it would be a good idea. I hate to move too much for my cameraman, but can someone hand me that? Would you hand me that just a minute? Just so that I can explain it to you. If you notice, those of you who still have one, I just took his, if you notice, there are 20, by my calculation, there are 20 rulers in Judah and 20 rulers in Israel. Now one way to remember the fact that the rulers in Judah had a great deal more stability in the Kingdom of the Southern Kingdom lasted a good deal longer, is to notice that there are approximately, and I say approximately, because people did not choose to die at the turn of the century. It makes a little awkward that some kings span the bridge of the gap, so I can put them in one century or the other, have been so much better if they just ended it all on the dot, but they didn't. So this is more or less arbitrary the way I've arranged this, but in Judah you have three kings in the 10th century, then you have five rulers, and I say that because Atholaya was a queen not a king, and the ninth, and then five in the eighth, five in the seventh, and the remaining two in the sixth. So by learning three, five, five, two, you can, more or less, once you know the names, keep them in sequence and have a skeleton and know approximately where they come. Now for Israel you have three in the 10th, nine in the ninth, and eight in the eighth. There's that right, eight in the eighth, yeah, which makes it easy, nine in the ninth, eight in the eighth, more or less. Okay? Now you see that there's a dotted line under some of the kings, those are your cancellation marks that tells you where to start and stop as you chant these things. And so there's a complex system, there's a complex system of hand motions that go along with what you're saying, and they work at cross purposes, the hand motions tell you count off the centuries. So you do, like, reabomabaija asa, all right, that tells you, those are all 10th century, and then you're still chanting and you go jahasha fat. That tells you, okay, now I'm in the ninth century. So I'll do three, and then I'll do five, five, five, and then I'll do two, all the while pausing in different places. It's a lot of fun when you get into it. All right. So read along and chant along with me, perhaps, well, I think it's easier if we actually do it in unison. So try to kind of look up, look down, look up, look down. I'll get all confused if I say repeat after me, particularly doing the hand motions. All right. So let's try it this way. With Judah, first of all, reabomabaija asa jahasha fat, jahorum asa, atalaya, jowaj, amazaya as a raya, jatham, ae has, hazekiah, menasa, ammon, jahsyah, jahoa has, jahoyakim, jahoyakim, zedakaya, if I babble on, then I would be a liar. All right. Very good. Now you have it in print. You can incriminate me with it. I'm sorry. My fingers got mixed up, and I got one king off while we're doing that. Let's try that again. Reabomabaija asa jahasha fat, jahorum asa, atalaya, jowaj, amazaya as a raya, jatham, ae has, hazekiah, menasa, ammon, jahsyah, jahoa has, jahoyakim, jahoyakim, zedakaya, if I babble on, then I would be a liar. Okay. Very good. I just want to stress that this is graduate school, that you're attending. And now let's do Israel. Let's do Israel. Remember, in this case, it's two hands, and it's much more complicated, but it's three, nine, and eight. And of course, the kingdom of the North fell in 722, 721 BC, so they fell toward the end of the eighth century. So beginning with Jeroboam, notice that there are two Jeroboams. There's Jeroboam, the first, and then much later in the eighth century, Jeroboam, the second. So don't let that confuse you. All right. Beginning with Jeroboam. Jeroboam, Nadab, Basha, Eilah, Zimri, Tivni, Amri, Ahab, Ahazaya, jahorum, Jahu, jahoa Ahaz, Jahoash, Jeroboam, Zechariah, Shalom, Minahem, Pekaya, Pekah, Hoshaya, then came Assyria, and took them all away, okay? All right. Well, share this with your family and friends. Actually, I find that it's helpful to take something like this and pin it to the mirror. You know, somewhere in your house where you comb your hair, those of you fortunate ones who's... But put it somewhere in your house where you will be reminded to do this because this is one of those things that's best done by wrote memory. And you say, well, really, I don't care to know the kings of Judah and Israel, but it's good. It's good for this reason. It provides some kind of skeleton around which you can then hang events. Just to know the sequence and more or less the century in which they came really makes you feel more comfortable when you hear about something in the life of Ahab, or something in the life of Ahaz, otherwise these 40 individuals get so messed, meshed together that it's just such a depressing feeling to say, I don't know who that guy is. So if you know the sequence, you can at least say, oh, yeah, that was a king of Judah, and he came in the eighth century. I think early eighth century in fact, and it will help, really, it will help you have something to feel good about as you get into some unfamiliar territory. So we will make this part of our regular practice to drill these things. Please do it at home. Most of the time they say, don't try this at home. Try this at home. Try to learn this in that way. You know, hand motions in all, according to the centuries, and we'll drill this on a weekly basis when you begin to look drowsy, okay? All right. Well, back to the order at hand. We are talking, we were talking about the theme of the Pentatook, the developmental theme of the Pentatook. And now we want to talk about the thematic progression because I think David Client has an interesting theory which seems to be borne out by the evidence, and it helps us understand kind of where the Pentatook is moving, where the first five books are moving, and how they lead up to the book of Joshua, and in fact, require it in a sense. David Client says that a good way to discover the theme of a book is to ask where it begins and where it ends to look particularly at the beginning of a book, and at the end of the book. And some of you may read textbooks that way. It's not advised if you have to pass a test on it, but in my days of youth, when I was far less responsible than I am now, and had to read sometimes things in one night for a test the next day, I would sometimes read the first and last sentence in the paragraph and hope that all the stuff in the middle was fluff. If my test grades were fluff, but where something begins and where something ends does say something about it, the beginning and the ending, and so he focuses on the beginning and the ending of the Pentatook, and on the beginnings and endings of the books within the Pentatook. And of course, then he goes on to look at the entirety of those books, and he comes up with a notion as to what the theme of the Pentatook is. He says there can be little doubt, or at least these are my words, no, these are his words actually. There can be little doubt that the answer of the theme of the Pentatook must be the promise to the patriarchs. Just what we were talking about, where it's first articulated in Genesis chapter 12, that is the theme of the Pentatook with its various elements and its various formulations. So what then is Klein's articulation of the theme of the Pentatook, he puts it this way. The theme of the Pentatook is the partial fulfillment, which implies also the partial non-fulfillment of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise of or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster and a reaffirmation of the primal divine intentions for man. Now that's scholarly writing, and thus some of it watches over us and we have to kind of reread it, but let me do that. The theme of the Pentatook is the partial fulfillment, which implies also the partial non-fulfillment of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster and a reaffirmation of the primal divine intentions for man. If you don't get all of that, I hope you get the main idea that he's saying. The theme really focuses on the promise to the patriarchs, the fulfillment thereof, but also the partial non-fulfillment of the promise to the patriarchs. What does he mean by that? Well, the promise has three elements. We talked about the land, the seed, and the blessing, or the land, descendants, and being a blessing, being blessed, and being a blessing to others. He describes this as posterity, the seed element, the descendants, posterity, divine human relationship. That's what he sees as the essence of the blessing, that God is entering into relationship with his creatures and the land, so posterity, divine human relationship, and land. Now what's interesting is he sees these fulfilled, more or less, in that order. He says the posterity element of the promise is dominant in Genesis 12 to 50. From the time Abram receives this promise from God that these three things will happen, the issue for the rest of the book of Genesis is, will Sarah ever have children? Where is this great nation going to come from? I'm childless. My wife is childless, and so that is what motivates much of the movement in the book of Genesis, whereas when you come to Exodus and Leviticus, it's the relationship element that comes into prominence, this divine human relationship that comes into prominence, and then in numbers and deuteronomy the focus is more on the land element. So he sees this tripartite patriarchal promise as providing sort of the structure for the flow of the Pentateuch. Let me elaborate just a little bit on that. In Genesis, by the end of Genesis, the promise of descendants has begun, at least, to take effect, but it is still largely unrealized. At the end of Genesis, Abram has not become a great nation, but we do have the blessing of Jacob's sons, okay, so the sons that would then become the tribes of that great nation are already in existence. The promise of land, by the end of Genesis, is hardly realized at all, and the promise of relationship has begun to take effect, but the shape it will adopt is as yet uncertain. A God is dealing with Abram, but it's not clear exactly how their relationship is to develop. Well, then you come to Exodus, and as Klein's puts it, the promise of God's relationship with the descendants of Abraham is most clearly brought to expression, at two focal points. The Exodus event, God takes the people out of bondage, and delivers them, that's an expression of his commitment to them, of his relationship with them, and then the Sinai revelation. Exodus 19 and following. Now in the book of Leviticus, which you can see there's a lot of overlap with what we were talking about earlier, in the book of Leviticus, we have the spelling out in detail of the means by which the relationship now established in Exodus is to be maintained. Klein says the regulation of ritual worship is its almost exclusive interest, and that's probably why we find it so difficult to understand, is we don't have much common ground with that kind of ritual worship. Nevertheless, it is still significant because its presuppositions are that men will wish to offer gifts to God, will sin against God, will want to know the will of God for everyday life, and that is to say Leviticus depicts a community as Klein's puts it, a community exploring its relationship with God. I might want to change that slightly, his words there. I don't think Leviticus is so much a community exploring its relationship as God communicating to that community how it should relate to him. It's more of a divine communication to his human creatures than a human exploration of how they might relate to God. At any rate, the focus is on this divine human relationship in Exodus and in Leviticus. Then we come to numbers, and the remaining aspect of the promise is land. You might say, but didn't we say they were out wandering in the wilderness all that time, and they weren't really to the promised land by any stretch of the imagination at that point. Of course, they do approach it at one point, but because of their faithlessness, all but two of the twelve spies that are sent out bring back a report that intimidates the people, and they don't go up as God has commanded. So they come to the board of the promised land, but they don't actually enter it. However, enumerous aspects in the book of numbers indicate that the focus is on the land. For instance, the book of numbers is given the name numbers because of the many censuses that are taken in the book of numbers, and predominant among these are the military census, which counts who are the warriors, who are the men able to fight. Why are they counting up their military personnel? Because they have a land to take. It's of interest to know who is available to go in and how to take this land. Also the disposition of the camp, the way in which the camp is laid out in chapter two, also clearly presupposes movement toward the land. And I won't get into a description of how that is, but it does indicate that they're moving somewhere. There's much more that clients develop on this, but perhaps I could just point out that having prepared for movement toward the land, the actual movement begins in Numbers 10, verse 11. The departure is not a voyage into the void. It's not just going anywhere, but expressly, as Moses says to Hobab, a setting out for the place of which Yahweh said, I will give it to you. In other words, in chapter 10, verse 29, again the words of Moses to Hobab show an awareness of the promise made to the patriarchs. God had said, leave and go to the land which I will show you. And Moses is echoing those words. He says, this is where we've been moving. The patriarchal promise is still in force. Then we come to the book of Deuteronomy. Numbers is focusing on the land. Deuteronomy likewise focuses on the land, the people of Israel are on the plains of Moab, the theme of progeny or descendants is now coming into pretty full fulfillment. They are a nation, a landless nation, but they are a great people on the plains of Moab, and yet they are still expanding. The notion of relationship is touched upon in many places in the book of Deuteronomy, including the possibility of forefitting the blessing of that relationship and experiencing the curses of that relationship. I'm not sure that what is threatened is the forfeiture entirely of the relationship, but rather a question of how is God a loving God going to administer his love to his people. Obedient people will tend to find that that love is administered in blessing. Disobedient people will find that that love is administered in punishment, or perhaps discipline is the better word. The Old Testament uses the word curse, which is stronger still. At any rate, in Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy, we have Moses preparing the people to enter the land. The Pentateuch itself breaks off with the patriarchal promise partially fulfilled, but also partially unfulfilled, and so it cries out for a continuation. It calls for the book of Joshua, and this has led some scholars to divide the Bible in different ways. Some have spoken of a Hexatuch that because Deuteronomy ends with the people still outside the land is rather anticlimactic, and you need to co-op the book of Joshua, and instead of talking about five books, the Pentateuch, let's talk about a Hexatuch, six books, and make Joshua the climactic chapter. The problem is Joshua bears a close relationship to what follows after it, and it's hard to kind of break it off at the end of the book of Joshua. You need to go on into judges and then into Samuel, and so forth, and so on. Others have said, well, wait a minute, let's talk about a Tetratuch, a four books, Genesis to Numbers, and start a new chapter, a new episode, in the book of Deuteronomy, because Deuteronomy is very much like Joshua, and we'll start there, so they talk about Tetratuch, and then the Deuteronistic history. Well, I prefer the division that we have, and just say the books of Moses end with the death of Moses, and the book of Joshua, who was Moses' aid, pick up, and they do relate quite a lot to the language and imagery and theology of the book of Deuteronomy, as one would expect, but nevertheless, a distinct beginning is made in the book of Joshua. In terms of the patriarchal promise and its fulfillment, really, the story is not told until the end of the book of kings. There's no reason to truncate that early history anywhere. We're back to this notion of the primary history, Genesis to Kings, as one continuous story. Now, the one last thing I have on your outline, I'm just going to touch on exceptionally briefly, and that has to do with grace and law in the primary history, grace and law. We talked a bit about grace, and how it is introduced, even in the primeval prologue and how it sets up, sets the stage for the call of Abram after the Tower of Babel, and how we look for that expression of God's grace, and we find it in his calling out of Abram and the beginning of his redemptive work through the descendants of Abram. But what about law? Law is also present in these early books of the Bible, and they provide a background to what happens in Joshua and in Judges and in Samuel and in Kings. And what I've given you here just for information and for your perusal, this is a theory by David Noel Friedman in an article called The Nine Commandments, which I'm sorry I didn't bring the reference, I think it's in Bible review. He suggests that the primary history is structured so as to accent God's justice or the justice of God's judgment on the people of Israel for their covenant breaking. In essence, what he is doing is he's taking the decalogue, that is the commandments which God gave, the Ten Commandments as we know them, and is showing how in sequentially moving through the books, he begins in Exodus, after Genesis, beginning in Exodus after the time that the decalogue is given, God's law is given. He shows that one by one, by one, in the books that follow these commandments were broken, so that by the time you get to the exile of the Southern Kingdom, when the Southern Kingdom falls, all the commandments have been broken, and thus it is high time that God visit the curses, the judgment which had been threatened upon his people and send them into exile. Now you might say, are you kidding me, he's not saying that it was a period of centuries before all ten were broken, well certainly not, I mean in every century, probably every day, all ten were broken somewhere, somehow, but what Friedman points out, which is I think an interesting observation, is there are certain episodes recorded in each of these books that have caused commentators to wonder why this episode, what's so significant about that little thing, what about that man who was gathering wood on the Sabbath, why do we hear just that, just there, and what I think he's been able to show, or perhaps, it's worthy of consideration, is that the narrators in their wisdom may have chosen to highlight from among the various things they could have recounted, highlight episodes in each book that show gradually over time, corporately as a nation, Israel broke the one commandment, then the next, then the next, and these are highlighted in these little otherwise curious episodes, so that by the time you come to the end of the book of kings, they've all fallen, and it's high time that God judge his people, which he then does. So you see apostasy, idolatry, blasphemy, Sabbath observance, paternal respect, stealing murder, he gives a elaborate discussion of the fact that stealing comes there rather than later, there are different orders in different texts for these commandments, murder adultery, false testimony, and coveting. So I give you that just as a kind of a brain teaser to see what you think of it, it's a theory where the evidence is not, I mean the assessment is not fully in, but it is an interesting thing that shows sort of a mastermind overseeing the composition of this primary history. Now some people would wonder about the notion of a mastermind overseeing this entire composition, but if we hold to an inspired scripture, then of course the notion of a mastermind overseeing the entire thing is not a problem, we can understand how God and His providence may have worked it out, so that this kind of structure is apparent, even if it were not intended by any given editor along the way. Now, let me stop there for just a moment and ask if there are questions about background. We do want to move into the book of Joshua shortly. I also want to make a brief announcement about that missing portion and how we're going to get to that in just a minute. But let me ask first if there are questions about this background. Talk about moving through the Pentateuch rather quickly, much quicker than it would take to read the Pentateuch which I encourage you to do. You're not required to for this course. All right, let me just break frame a minute here and talk about the awkward question that William raised. I mentioned this also that I'm going to come back next time. See, I'm so absentmind at the night, I can't remember what I said when, but we will bring that, we'll come back to that next time, so keep bringing your outlines with you. I now recollect that I did talk about that. All right, now you have another outline before you, or at least you had until I took it back. Would you go get me one over there and or get him one and hand that to your husband and I'll keep this one just so that we all have one. Now, first of all, as we move into the book of Joshua, again, let me remind you that this is meant to be sort of an outline of the progress of the lecture where we're going to be moving with it and not necessarily providing enough space to take notes. So don't think that there's necessarily a bunch of space there right at the bottom to take notes. We'll have much more to say than what that might indicate. I gave you a little bit of literature suggestion at the start. I'll try to do that as often as possible just to let you know some of what is out there and what I'd like to do before we get into the book. Itself is to highlight just a few works that I particularly like in this material. First of all, among the the commentaries that you see there, I have commentaries and introductory articles. In my view, one of the most useful commentaries for our purposes for your purposes and my purpose is probably Martin Woodstra's commentary, the NYCOT commentary, which stands for the new international commentary of the Old Testament. That's the last one listed. That's a fairly high-level commentary without being completely baffling to non-specialists, but that is a good commentary that sheds good light on the book of Joshua. I recommend it to you. Also, often when I pick up commentaries, I like to try to find commentaries that come at texts from different vantage points. A lot of times we read books that are all written by people that are pretty much alike. They're all westerners, for instance, or they're all Christian writers, for instance. I think when you're dealing with the Old Testament, sometimes it's interesting to know what the rabbi said about the texts. Another one that's quite interesting, if you can get your hands on it, is the one by honey. You see that, which means honey in German honey. The book of Joshua, a new English translation of the text, and Rashi with commentary digest. Rashi is one of the more authoritative rabbis who made notations on the texts, which achieved quite a status. The commentary digest draws on other rabbinic writers and condenses those, digest them, and you get a little English description of what the rabbis had to say about some of these books. That can be quite interesting because sometimes if you're reading all Christian writers, they're just kind of repeating each other. They're reading each other's commentaries and quoting each other and having a grand old time. But it's good if you can draw in a different perspective. Sometimes if you can draw a perspective of a third world commentator, for instance, oftentimes they see things in text that we don't see because their life issues are maybe different than ours, or a far eastern commentary. That can be very useful. Another commentary that I would recommend is Goslinga. You see C.J. Goslinga. This is a Dutchman whose commentary has been translated into English. I think the B.S.C. I think stands for Bible Students Commentary. It's now available in English. That is quite good. The others are reasonable there. I haven't chosen just Evangelical commentators, so don't assume that because they're on the list that they necessarily are Evangelical. You want to read critically. In any case, you want to read critically when you're reading the writings of human beings. But don't assume that I've only chosen Evangelical commentators here. I've chosen different ones for different reasons. Woodstrew would be my number one choice. I've also given a list of concordances because we're going to talk about the use of concordances a little bit later today. These are in ascending order of difficulty. The first one is largely English speaking, though it does have some notations as to what the original language might have to say either Hebrew or Greek, whereas the last one is entirely Hebrew, so you might want to file that away until in a year or two when you've had a chance to take your Hebrew you can use it. But we'll come back and talk a little bit about those commentaries in a minute. All right, well let's begin talking about the book of Joshua then. I like to begin by just reiterating and elaborating a little bit of a comment on reading method. How do you go about reading a biblical book? What should be your impulses as you dive into the book of Joshua? Well, remember I said before as Martin Woodstrew puts it in his commentary that the task of the theologian exegy is a humble yet a significant one. It begins with listening. It continues and ends with listening. It's like the realtor's principle of location, location, location. In reading the Bible, listen, listen, listen. It's kind of like a counselor who listens to what the client, I don't know if we call them clients or patients, but listens to what the person on the couch is saying in an attempt to understand and will ask probing questions and listen to the response. Now the vast difference in in biblical study and that kind of counseling situation is in counseling the counselor is asking questions and listening in order to try to help the patient. Whereas in studying the Bible we are listening carefully and asking probing questions in order to gain help ourselves in order to gain understanding of what God has said to us. Now as a as a brief experiment on this, what I want you to do is to take out your Bible, turn to Joshua chapter one and I want you to jot down on a piece of paper. I'm only going to give us about five minutes to do this which seems like an exorbitantly long time for what I'm going to ask you to do but actually you could probably spend much much longer doing what I'm getting ready to ask you to do. I want you to look at Joshua chapter one verses one and two and think of as many questions that you can as you can about that you can pose to these two verses just two verses I want you to jot down as many questions as you possibly can about these two verses. Now for taping purposes I think they'll probably stop at this point and say now take your five minutes but I'm going to give you five minutes he can let the tape roll or you can cut it off if you like either way. Five minutes exactly I'll time it. Now we'll begin again take two in five seconds no no sound okay having taken but five minutes to ask questions of the text maybe you could ask more I think you probably could but what kinds of questions have you asked just reading these first two verses what kinds of questions came to mind I'm going to jot a few of these on the board here without too much movement yes who has who has yes okay all right how much time after the death of Moses all right that's it that may be a difficult question to answer it probably and it came to pass is really a Hebrew idiom that has to is often the way a narrative will begin so it may not be suggesting a particular passage of time but you mentioned the death of Moses who had a question about that yeah when did he die how did he die okay who is Moses who is Moses okay who is Moses I'm taking a big chance writing things on the board because I'm a terrible speller but we'll see who is Moses I meant to leave out the verb that sort of hebraic who is Moses what about what is the significance of his death in a why why begin a narrative that way after the death of Moses that presupposes some background what else after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord yeah what is the meaning of servant of the Lord is that is that some kind of a technical term or is that a term that's used loosely we tend to kind of use it loosely I'm a humble servant of the Lord whereas it's an interesting question is this is this a title is this an honorific title perhaps being given to Moses what else what other questions sorry well maybe we better have hands up in that way I can hear one at the other time yes you for yes okay who is the Lord all right there's a very big and fundamental and basic question okay I'm not going to write that one up here but that that that that's a good one particularly if we don't have an answer to it we need to search it out who is the Lord in the back yes that's you how did God speak okay the mechanism of God's speaking that's another one that's tough to answer I think we could we could search for answers and we'd learn a bit about how God spoke to Moses in exceptional ways face to face it says God speaks to Samuel in a night vision he speaks through through to profits in that way often there's a lot that the Bible doesn't actually answer though in terms of the mechanisms of some of these things what other questions are prompted by this text yes who would lead the people well yeah that one sort it sort of answers it in the sense that God speaks then to to Joshua you know you and all these now then now then you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan the Hebrew text actually says just cross the Jordan doesn't really say to get ready to it says do it cross the Jordan that I'm about to give to them yeah but it does raise a question who's going to lead them I see many hands oh yes over here yes yes why why Joshua okay assuming Joshua was the one to lead why Joshua what else yeah who is who is none you know who is who is none now I'll go ahead and anticipate that one and say Joshua is often called son of none but we don't know anything else about none and we can't discover much in the Bible at least Bishop okay how to how to cross the Jordan yeah could be considered easier more easily said than done yeah cross this Jordan oh yeah okay where's the pontoon bridge yes did Joshua want the job okay yeah a lot of these a lot of these kinds of questions are are interesting to explore sometimes the the text prompts certain kinds of questions and not others but I think I think it's fair enough to wonder I wonder how Joshua felt about this I mean have we we've said why Josh we really haven't said who Joshua who was Joshua why did God speak to Josh with this stage and that raises a whole question of who this guy is where's he been what's he been doing Beth okay what land all right what land what else yes yeah well again that's where that's where I would say compare your translations are there translations that don't say get ready who's got one that doesn't say get ready what's your translation now therefore rise cross this Jordan okay what translation are you reading okay the new American standard more word-for-word accurate now the in the NIV feels a freedom to say get ready to cross this Jordan because in fact they do some preparation they send out some spies and they prepare themselves and so forth and so on but when I first noticed that that that the real text doesn't say get ready the original text shouldn't say the real text but the original text says that doesn't say get ready it made me wonder at least whether Joshua was right to be sending out spies and so forth and so I mean he had already spied out the land at one point did God order the sending of spies or should he have just a risen and crossed the sending of the spies didn't accomplish much it did actually delay their departure and the next time they sent spies was to spy out the little village of I and the spies came back and said peace of cake not a problem and it was a problem because of acon sin and so the spies eventually run them into trouble you can't rely on the spies report yeah way in the back right surely yeah providentially certainly her point is that providentially the the sending the spies did mean that they encountered Rahab and Rahab is in the lineage of Christ and so providentially it did certainly accomplish something God does work all things together for good um even sometimes the mistakes we make now I'm not saying Joshua made a mistake I'm just saying it's it's it's an interesting question because there's nowhere recorded that God specifically ordered him to send spies Jan okay why is why is Joshua called um Moses minister or Moses aid now here's where I run into trouble I think it spelled that way a French derivation I'm sure okay other questions yes William yeah yeah which raises the question is God giving Joshua information that he didn't have or is he saying as you know Joshua Moses is dead now therefore okay interesting yeah interesting question yes Betsy why is Lord capitalized in the text in fact it's in what we call small caps all caps but small caps notice that's a good question to ask of your translation the answer to that is that this is the personal name of God what what is sometimes misread as Jehovah probably trend better pronounced Yahweh but it's it's God's personal covenant name as opposed to the more generic word Elohim which would be like the word God Yahweh is the Lord Yahweh personal name is suggesting that relational aspect okay well yes yeah who are the people all right so you again all of this begs to have some knowledge of what went before now we're gonna we're gonna come back to this I'm gonna talk we're not breaking quite yet we'll break when the big hand reaches the 12 but let me let me ask you how would you go about just be thinking about this how would you go about searching for answers to these questions or questions like them and I mean you can see that from one or two verses you can ask a bunch of questions how do you go about looking for answers what are your basic tools as a Bible student the Bible good start the Bible yeah the Bible tough to get by without it what a concordance now see he's remembering that I listed a bunch of concordances yeah a concordance is a good way to look for answers to some of these questions for instance servant of the Lord if you use a concordance to search that phrase if you particularly in this day and age of computers where you can get a concordance on a computer and search not only a word or single word but an entire phrase and many other sophisticated searches you can very quickly see where that occurs and see if that somehow significant we'll come back to that after the break what other tools do you have yes okay a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia very very useful tool if you don't have one you should probably buy some kind of Bible dictionary or encyclopedia I think I've mentioned that before the new Bible dictionary is certainly a good one and there are many others new international standard Bible encyclopedia I also mentioned but and you can find answers to some of these questions like who was Joshua why was Joshua chosen who was he anyway what what was his relationship to Moses what was the significance of Moses death all of those things you you find in the pages of scripture but sometimes you gain a quicker access by looking something up in a Bible dictionary that gives you a synthetic treatment okay when we come back in 10 minutes we will pick up on this and begin this exploration answer some of these questions and then move on to to look more at the broad sweep of the book of just Joshua we've got to reflect and explore a little bit and then and then we'll move on