…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.Josh 24:15
After Israel came out of Egypt, “Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim” (Exod 17:8). Moses said to Joshua: “Choose men for us, and go out to fight with Amalek” (Exod 17:9), and “Joshua did as Moses had told him” (Exod 17:10). This is the first time the Scriptures mention Joshua.
When Moses went up the mountain of God, “Moses rose up with Joshua, his servant, and Moses went up onto God’s Mountain” (Exod 24:13). When Moses spoke with the LORD in the Tent, “his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn’t depart from the Tent” (Exod 33:11).
Once, two men prophesied in the camp (Num 11:26), and “Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his chosen men, answered, ‘My lord Moses, forbid them!’” (Num 11:28). Moses said to him: “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets” (Num 11:29).
In the wilderness of Paran, at the LORD’s command, Moses sent a man from every tribe to spy out the land of Canaan (Num 13:2-3). From the tribe of Judah was “Caleb the son of Jephunneh” (Num 13:6), and from the tribe of Ephraim, “Hoshea the son of Nun” (Num 13:8); “Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua” (Num 13:16).
“They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days” (Num 13:25). “Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, ‘Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!’” (Num 13:30), but the men who went with him said: “We aren’t able to go up against the people” (Num 13:31). That night the whole congregation wept and wanted to go back to Egypt (Num 14:1-4). Joshua and Caleb tore their clothes and said: “the LORD is with us. Don’t fear them” (Num 14:9); “But all the congregation threatened to stone them with stones” (Num 14:10).
The LORD said: “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him I will bring into the land into which he went” (Num 14:24). To that generation, twenty years old and upward, the LORD said: “surely you shall not come into the land concerning which I swore that I would make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun” (Num 14:30). “But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive of those men who went to spy out the land” (Num 14:38). For these things, see Lesson 1.
After this Israel wandered in the wilderness. As the forty years drew to an end, the people were counted again, and “There was not a man left of them, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun” (Num 26:65).
Moses asked the LORD to “appoint a man over the congregation” (Num 27:16). The LORD said: “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him” (Num 27:18). Moses did so: “He laid his hands on him and commissioned him, as the LORD spoke by Moses” (Num 27:23). For dividing the land, the LORD also named Joshua, and from the tribe of Judah he named Caleb (Num 34:17, 19).
Moses said to Joshua in the sight of all Israel: “Be strong and courageous” (Deut 31:7). The LORD also commissioned Joshua: “Be strong and courageous; for you shall bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore to them. I will be with you” (Deut 31:23). After Moses died, “Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. The children of Israel listened to him” (Deut 34:9). For these things, see Moses, Lesson 7.
The LORD said to Joshua: “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go across this Jordan, you and all these people” (Josh 1:2); “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you” (Josh 1:5); “Be strong and courageous” (Josh 1:6). For these things, see Lesson 2.
Joshua sent two spies from Shittim to view Jericho, and they stayed in the house of Rahab, a prostitute (Josh 2:1); later, “Rahab the prostitute, her father’s household, and all that she had, Joshua saved alive” (Josh 6:25).
At that time “the Jordan overflows all its banks all the time of harvest” (Josh 3:15). When “the feet of the priests who bore the ark had dipped in the edge of the water” (Josh 3:15), “the waters which came down from above stood” (Josh 3:16), and “all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the nation had passed completely over the Jordan” (Josh 3:17). They took twelve stones out of the river: “These stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever” (Josh 4:7). “On that day, the LORD magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life” (Josh 4:14). At Gilgal they ate the produce of the land, and “The manna ceased on the next day” (Josh 5:12).
When Joshua was by Jericho, a man stood in front of him with his sword drawn in his hand. Joshua asked him: “Are you for us, or for our enemies?” He said: “No; but I have come now as commander of the LORD’s army” (Josh 5:13-14). He said to Joshua: “Take off your sandals, for the place on which you stand is holy” (Josh 5:15).
As the LORD commanded, the people went around Jericho; on the seventh day they went around the city seven times, and the priests blew the trumpets. “When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat” (Josh 6:20). The passage records: “They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword” (Josh 6:21). “So the LORD was with Joshua; and his fame was in all the land” (Josh 6:27).
Next they went up against Ai, and were defeated: “So about three thousand men of the people went up there, and they fled before the men of Ai” (Josh 7:4). “Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before the LORD’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads” (Josh 7:6). The LORD told him why: “Israel has sinned. Yes, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things” (Josh 7:11). When the matter had been dealt with, the LORD said to Joshua: “Don’t be afraid, and don’t be dismayed” (Josh 8:1), and they took Ai (Josh 8).
The Gibeonites came with old sacks and worn wineskins, pretending to have come from a far country; “The men sampled their provisions, and didn’t ask counsel from the LORD’s mouth” (Josh 9:14). Joshua made a covenant with them, and “At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors” (Josh 9:16). Later, on the day they fought the Amorites at Gibeon, “Joshua spoke to the LORD”: “He said in the sight of Israel, ‘Sun, stand still on Gibeon! You, moon, stop in the valley of Aijalon!’” (Josh 10:12). The passage says: “There was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD listened to the voice of a man” (Josh 10:14).
“Joshua made war a long time with all those kings” (Josh 11:18). “So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD spoke to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land had rest from war” (Josh 11:23).
“Now Joshua was old and well advanced in years. The LORD said to him, ‘You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed’” (Josh 13:1).
While the land was being divided, Caleb came to Joshua in Gilgal and said: “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land” (Josh 14:7); “Now, behold, I am eighty-five years old, today. As yet I am as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me” (Josh 14:10-11); “Now therefore give me this hill country, of which the LORD spoke in that day” (Josh 14:12). “Joshua blessed him; and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance” (Josh 14:13), “because he followed the LORD, the God of Israel wholeheartedly” (Josh 14:14). For these things, see Lesson 3.
“Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak” (Josh 15:14). He said: “He who strikes Kiriath Sepher, and takes it, to him I will give Achsah my daughter as wife” (Josh 15:16); “Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, took it: and he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife” (Josh 15:17). Achsah asked her father, “give me also springs of water. So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs” (Josh 15:19). What became of Caleb afterward, and when he died, the passage does not say.
When all the tribes had received their land, “The children of Israel gave an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun among them” (Josh 19:49): “they gave him the city which he asked, even Timnathserah in the hill country of Ephraim; and he built the city, and lived there” (Josh 19:50). The passage sums it up: “Nothing failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass” (Josh 21:45).
When Joshua was old, he called for the elders, heads, judges and officers of Israel, and said: “Behold, today I am going the way of all the earth. You know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you” (Josh 23:14).
Later he gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem (Josh 24:1) and said to them: “choose today whom you will serve … but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh 24:15). Three times the people said they would serve the LORD (Josh 24:16-18, 21, 24). “So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day” (Josh 24:25), and set up a great stone as a witness (Josh 24:26-27). For these things, see Lesson 4.
“After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being one hundred ten years old” (Josh 24:29). “They buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim” (Josh 24:30). “Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of the LORD, that he had worked for Israel” (Josh 24:31). Judges goes on: “another generation arose after them who didn’t know the LORD, nor the work which he had done for Israel” (Judg 2:10).
Stephen, speaking before the council about the history of Israel, said of the tent of the testimony that “our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers to the days of David” (Acts 7:45).
The letter to the Hebrews speaks of the generation that fell in the wilderness: “For who, when they heard, rebelled? Wasn’t it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?” (Heb 3:16); “We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief” (Heb 3:19).
Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, also speaks of that generation: “However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Cor 10:5); “Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor 10:11).
Joshua It tells how Joshua succeeded Moses, led the people across the Jordan into Canaan, and divided the land, up to his death.
4 lessons, for personal study or small groups. Leader guide →
Scripture: World English Bible.