Joshua 13-17
Now Joshua was old and advanced in years … What a sobering way for Joshua 13 to begin!
There was a saint in our church in Metropolis, a true pillar, named Ella Mae Main. I was so excited when I discovered, quite accidentally, that we were shirt-tail relations: her son-in-law was Becky’s second cousin. When Ella Mae died, the family loaned me her Bible so that I could use the Scriptures that had touched her. One passage she had circled and underlined was Joshua 13:1.
Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess.”
Ella Mae, in her later years, connected with these words, not just because she was old, but because there remained so much for her to do for God’s kingdom.
Despite the many battles and campaigns, Joshua was growing old and Israel had not completely secured the Promised Land. This incomplete conquest would haunt God’s people for generations, and help cause the kind of turbulence that cycles through the book of Judges.
Another Israelite who was old and advanced in years, in fact the only other Israelite besides Joshua to survive the wilderness, was Caleb. I love his take on old age: I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then. (Joshua 14:10-11). With confidence Caleb lays claim to the allotment of land Moses had promised him: Abraham’s old campsite, Hebron!
The rest of Joshua 16, 17 and 18 is pretty dry reading, mostly lists and allotments of land. In the midst of these words, notice God’s kindness to women: Achsah in Joshua 15:19 and the daughters of Zelophehad in Joshua 17.
Man or woman, young or old, there is much to do in the kingdom of God!
Until tomorrow,
Pastor Gary
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