Another Altar - Joshua 22

The large army that has been conquering Canaan is disbanded and the 2 ½ tribes that wanted land to settle on the east of the Jordan river were discharged from the army, probably in a ceremony of some sort. Joshua tells them that they have fulfilled their obligations to be a part of the conquering army of Israel and that they are free to return to the east side of the Jordan river to the land that they wanted. Joshua reminds them “take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law… to. Love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandment, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” It’s also important to note that Joshua had to give these departing tribes their share of the spoils of war to take back with them.

When the departing tribes got to the Jordan river, they stopped and built an altar on the west side of the river before they crossed over to their side on the east. The question of the day is, why would they build this thing? I don’t really understand why, but TB makes some good suggestions, the main one being that despite being away from paganism for decades, “they STILL did not grasp that there was but one god. They STILL did not internalize that God had no physical limitations upon Him and thus He observed no territorial boundaries, as did the rest of the world. For the Hebrews, crossing a river meant that you might be leaving behind the rules and ruler-ship of one god for another So suddenly the Trans-Jordanian tribes become anxious; now that they are leaving Canaan, WHERE is their god?” Will their brethren on the west bank allow them to continue participation in the all-important worship rituals, or are they left out in the cold once they leave Canaan?” This was a pretty good explanation for why they did it. It’s also important to note that somewhere in this chapter, the altar is described as being a replica or “pattern” of the altar in the tabernacle, so this wasn’t just some ricks put together for a memorial like we’ve seen done so many times before, but was in fact a stone version of the exact altar from the tabernacle. Interesting.

When the rest of Israel found out what they had done building this altar, they formed a delegation of one representative of each tribe to confronted the east side tribes about it, not because they were outraged by the blasphemy, but because they were scared. The delegation reminded the east siders of all the times that Israel had been endured punishment as a group because of the rebellion of just a few. They cite the examples of Achan who took spoils from Jericho when he wasn’t supposed to, and the event at Ba’al Poer when Israel committed adultery and 24,000 of them were killed by divine plague. They say basically, “if your land is so unholy and defiled then come back and take possession of the promised land with us.

The east siders were shocked that they were being accused to this blasphemy and have an interesting answer, “The Lord God of gods, he knoweth, and Israel he shall know; if it be in rebellion, or if in transgression against the Lord (save us not this day).” Basically they are saying, “God knows our hearts and if we are doing this to be rebellious then he should strike us, and only us, down.” Basically, “let God be the judge of that,” which is an interesting strategy considering in a lot of the previous incidents God doled out the punishment sometimes but a lot of other times, God commanded the people to stone the rebellious to death as a community. The answers that they give are kind of confusing for me, but TB sums it up saying, “they want to be identified with Israel and the God of Israel, and are worried that such an identity might be taken away from them.” It seems like the east siders were really worried that their land was not going to be sanctified as the promised land, which of course, it wasn’t but they thought that if they built this altar, they could make it sanctified and get God’s blessings and protections just like if they had taken land on the west side of the Jordan like they were initially commanded.

The east siders continue that the altar was not built because they intended to perform sacrifices on it, and who knows if that was true because that would be a true rebellion and afront to God. It was basically a reminder to both them and those in the promised land that those on the east side of the Jordan were also Israelites. The delegation hear that this altar was not intended for sacrifice and that they were not trying to be rebellious or disloyal and are satisfied. They head back to the promised land and the rest of Israel is convinced to not come with their armies and kill the east siders. TB does a deep analysis of why he thinks that what they did was wrong and I am inclined to agree with him. They built this altar as a “reminder” but they could have built literally anything else as a monument or memorial and they did it all the time. They didn’t build it on their own lands so for whatever reason they seemed to be trying to retain the blessings and protections of the promised land while living in the non-promised land. They say they didn’t mean to perform sacrifices on it, but was that really their intention or did they just adopt that attitude because people got upset about it.

As a side note, the fact that there were so many rules around what, when, who, and why sacrifices, rituals, ordinances, etc were allowed to be done really cements my belief that the church of Jesus Christ in any dispensation, would also have rigid rules about what, when, who, and why ordinances and rituals could be done. I’ve been having some discussions lately with people about which is the true church and I don’t think that the church of Jesus Christ on the earth today would be a one building congregation in a small town that is dependent on one single pastor who knows the truth and speaks to God. The ancient Israelites and the church as established by Jesus Christ when He was on the earth was highly organized with proper delineation of ordinances and lines of authority. There would also be a heavy emphasis on missionary work. Anyway, just reading this was more confirmation of what I believed the structure of Christ’s church on the earth today would look like.

TB thinks that they were wrong to build it, even if they didn’t have bad intentions when they did. I agree with him. The IM has a good blurb saying, “This chapter demonstrates the critical balance between true worship and apostate idolatry. Without a knowledge of why the 2 ½ tribes had built the altar on the other side of the Jordan, one would judge the action to be an adulteration of the holy worship in the tabernacle. Satan’s counterfeits can appear very convincing. Fortunately, the tribes showed that it was an act of legitimate worship and not idolatry. The tragedy is that in a short time Israel would no longer react strongly against idolatry.”