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Thoughts on Rahab

One other thought that I had today about Rahab’s story is that God had to have known beforehand that she was the type of person who could have acted in faith to assist the Israelite spies, out of all the thousands of other people in Jericho at the time. So God had to place her in that city at that time so that she could intercept the spies and assist them. Then God had to arrange it so that her house was attached to the city wall so that the spies would have had easy and unsuspicious access to her and her house and so that they could have been let down outside of the city walls undetected. I mean, if it wasn’t right there, they probably could have come up with another plan that would have worked, especially with God’s protection on them, but that was a pretty easy plan. And then not only did God arrange for Rahab’s house to be situated in a place with easy access for the spies, but God had to walk them right up to her door. Of all the thousands of houses that might have been as easily ...
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Rahab - Joshua 2

God has commanded Joshua that it’s time to make the move into the promised land, so he has his officers get things ready and he also sends two spies into Jericho to get a look at what they are up against. Some people liken this to when the other group of spies went into the promised land to scope things out and think that Joshua is being disobedient, but that’s not the case. First off, Joshua was only one of two men who went with the initial scouting mission and came back unintimidated, ready to militarily move against the Canaanites. Secondly, that first scouting group consisted of representatives from each tribe who were going to see if they even wanted to invade. The scouts from the first group were elected to go by committee and were sent by tribal leaders who didn’t know if they wanted to send their people in to take the promised land like God commanded. These two spies were sent in by Joshua only and the recon mission was probably only known to Joshua and his top commanders. This...
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The Beginning - Joshua 1

Ok, here we are the first chapter outside of the Torah is over 4 years, pretty exciting. I’m also really excited to start in the military warfare part because like I explained before, God’s warfare strategy is fascinating to me and I want to eventually write a book about it. TB spent 3 lecture hours going back through the history of how the Israelites got to the point where they were led by Joshua and stood at the bank of the Jordan river, ready to enter the promised land. There were a few interesting points in it, the first was that Abraham’s father was a merchant of idols for the pagan gods and he sold these idols to people. Interestingly, TB said something to the effect of “I bet it was a very strained relationship between Abraham, who believed in Jehovah, and his father, who made money in idolatry.” When I heard that, I was reminded of the picture and Abraham’s account in the Pearl of Great Price, of his father trying to have him sacrificed to the pagan god of Elkenah. In reading t...
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The End - Deuteronomy 33 & 34

This last bit is where Moses “blessed the children of Israel.” He’s going up the mountain to die in just a few minutes and now that he’s passed on the obligation of leadership to Joshua, he’s able to reflect on the good that he wants for Israel instead of the inevitable wrongdoing that he knows will happen. TB likened it to being a grandfather who can dote lovingly on his grandchildren because the obligation for the care of the children has passed. Moses has bourn the crushing responsibility for the welfare of Israel for so long and they had complained and rebelled against him almost the whole time, so it must have been nice to be able to focus on the positive for once. The IM says that this blessing is also similar to the one in Genesis 49 in which Jacob individually blesses each of his sons before he dies, but notes that Moses added some more things into each individual tribe’s blessings. In his blessing he goes through each tribe and pronounces specific words for them. The order in...
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Moses' Song - Deuteronomy 32

Chapter 32 is the song that God commanded Moses to write and teach to the people of Israel so that they would be reminded of the consequences of disobedience. It’s very long, the IM has a few blurbs about it, TB had 4 hour long lectures on it, but after the first 2, there were just so many tangents, that I gave up. So this probably isn’t going to go as in depth as it is possible, but I’m ok with it and I’m ready to move on. Verse 4 refers to God as “the rock,” which will be referenced by and about Jesus as being the “rock” or “foundation” or “head of the corner.” There is almost an entire hour long lecture by TB that discusses what verse 8 means “when the most High divided to the nations their inheritance,” it was interesting but kind of weird. Apparently in some interpretations of this chapter, there are many references to others gods that TB covers in depth, some might find it interesting, it went a little bit too deep for me, but it’s there for any who are interested. The followin...
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Moses' Farewell - Deuteronomy 31

This is essentially Moses’ farewell address. He says “I’m 120 years old and God said that I’m not going into the promised land, so this is it for me,” essentially. We talked about it previously, that Moses was forbidden by God from going into the promised land and the reason given was because Moses talked out of turn on a certain occasion. I don’t think that was it, I think that was the reason, but just like Joseph Smith not being the one to take the saints to Utah, Moses couldn’t be the one to take the people into the promised land. It had to be another leader, for a lot of reason which we discussed earlier. Moses reiterates to the people that God will win the military victories that it will take to clear the people out of the land of Canaan so that the Israelites can inhabit it. He also calls and talks to Joshua “in the sight of all Israel” indicating that Joshua is Moses’ successor, even though it’s going to be a split authority. Moses was the spiritual AND political leader of Israe...
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The Covenant - Deuteronomy 29 & 30

Chapters 29 and 30 are where the whole book of Deuteronomy has been leading up to, the covenant that Moses will put the people under before they go into the promised land. TB makes a point that I think is important here. He reminds us that this is the 2nd of 3 covenants the people will make with God before settling into the promised land. The first covenant was at Mount Sinai after the incident with the golden calf, then the people wandered in the desert for 40 years. Now the second one in Moab, right before they cross the Jordan river, and the last one that Moses will do. Then the third one will be once they cross the Jordan river into the promised land to start taking it. The reason that God had the people do this was because at the time the prevailing belief of ALL people was that the gods they worshipped had geographic boundaries, meaning that the gods worshipped at Mount Sinai were different than the gods worshipped at Moab and in the promised land. We know that the God of the Tor...
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