History – Joshua 11-15

The battle campaign of Joshua continues in today’s reading passage.

Bible Passage:  Joshua 11 – 15

In the last 2 readings of Joshua, we have read how the conquest of Canaan by Joshua started with him attacking the central part of Canaan first (Joshua 6 – 9) – conquering Jericho and Ai.  Then he set his sights on the southern part of Caanaan (Chapter 10).  Today, we read how he attacked the north.

The Conquest of Canaan

The map may give you a better idea of how the conquest of Canaan took place.

Faith Coupled With Obedience:

Joshua 11:1-15

When we read about the battles of Joshua, sometimes we may feel overwhelmed by the ruthlessness of Joshua.  We are uncomfortable with the ‘heartlessness’ of Joshua and the people in ‘utterly destroying’ all the people and burning their cities and ‘looting’ from them.

But Joshua did not do all this because he was a battle crazy guy who has an insatiable appetite for conquests.

He did this because…

“As the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses.” – Joshua 11:15

A successful faith is one that is coupled with obedience.

Joshua was a successful leader beasue not only did he had faith in God, he was also obedient to whatever the Lord’s commands were. And becasue he completely obeyed God, he was able to lead the people of Israel to gain their promised land.

The Division of the Land (Joshua 13 – 15):

Joshua Chapters 1 – 12 can be called the “Action Chapters” as they described in exciting detail how the Israelites conquered Canaan.

But from Chapter 13 onwards, the division of the land was given to the different tribes of Israel as their inheritance (Joshua 11:23).

In reading these chapters, several things came to mind:

God is faithful and His promises are perfect and will never fail.

When Abraham separated from Lot, God told Abraham:

Genesis 13:14-17

And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are—northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. 17 Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”

Now these words have been fulfilled and every tribe of Israel now receieved their allocated land.