Joshua 5: It just appears
When I arrive at my office there is coffee in the coffee pot. I don't make the coffee, it just magically appears there. I guess someone makes it and puts it out, along with the cups, cream and sugar, but I never gave it much thought, until.......
One day arrive, turn my key, go in and put my things in my office and even picked up my coffee cup before I realized there was no coffee in the pot. The person that quietly made our coffee each day wasn't there, she was on vacation. I was confused for a minute, then I smiled to myself; I guess I need to make the coffee. Time to find the supplies. I also needed to remember to thank the coffee supplier when she returned next week!
I wonder if it was like this for the young Israelites. They were too young to remember when the manna first appeared in the wilderness of Sinai. They had grown accustom to it quietly appearing each morning. Their parents may have told them the story of God's rescue from Egypt and provision in the wilderness, but like my coffee each morning they enjoyed the provision without much thought to the provider. Now as they ate the fruit of the promised land the manna disappears as quietly as it started. The time has come for them to know God as their parents did.
Summary of Joshua 5:
- Before they begin to take the land of promise God commands Joshua to circumcise the men. This will mark them as His.
- A renewal of the covenant between God and Israel needs to be established as this new generation of Israelites learns to trust and be devoted to God.
- Joshua has a visitor (the commander of the Lords Army) and is asked to remove his shoes, much like Moses in the wilderness some 40 years earlier.
- A new leader, a new land and a new day for Israel. Next stop Jericho.
Comments
Post a Comment