1And it happened after the death of Moses servant of the LORD, that the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’s attendant, saying: 2“Moses My servant is dead. And now, arise, cross this Jordan, you, and all this people, to the land I am about to give to them, to the Israelites. 3Every place where the sole of your foot treads, to you I have given it, as I spoke to Moses, 4from the wilderness and this Lebanon to the Great River, the River Euphrates, the whole land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea, where the sun sets, will be your territory. 5No man will stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, I shall be with you. I shall not let go of you and I shall not forsake you. 6Be strong and stalwart, for you will make this people inherit the land that I vowed to their fathers to give to them. 7But you must be very strong and stalwart to keep and do according to all the teaching that Moses My servant charged you. You shall not swerve from it to the right or the left, so that you may prosper wherever you go. 8This book of teaching shall not depart from your mouth, and you shall murmur it day and night, so that you may keep to do according to all that is written in it; then you will make your ways succeed and then you will prosper. 9Have I not charged you, ‘Be strong and stalwart’? Do not be terror-stricken and do not cower, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
10And Joshua charged the people’s overseers, saying: 11“Pass through the midst of the camp and charge the people, saying, ‘Prepare yourselves provisions, for in three days you are to cross this Jordan to come to take hold of the land that the LORD your God is about to give you to take hold of it.’” 12And to the Reubenites and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said: 13“Recall the word that Moses servant of the LORD charged you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is about to grant you rest and will give you this land. 14Your wives, your little ones, and your herds shall dwell in this land that Moses has given you across the Jordan, but you shall cross over arrayed for combat before your brothers, all the mighty warriors, and you shall help them, 15until the LORD grants rest to your brothers like you and they too take hold of the land that the LORD their God is about to give to them, and you shall return to the land of your holding and take hold of it, which Moses servant of the LORD has given to you across the Jordan where the sun rises.’” 16And they answered Joshua, saying, “All that you charged us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. 17As in all that we heeded Moses, so we will heed you. Only may the LORD your God be with you as He was with Moses. 18Every man who flouts your command and does not heed your word in all that you charge him shall be put to death. Only be strong and stalwart.”
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. And it happened after the death of Moses. These opening words are an explicit device to create a direct link with the end of Deuteronomy, which reports the death of Moses (Deuteronomy 34:5ff.), and the beginning of this book, in which Joshua takes up Moses’s task.
servant of the LORD. This identifying phrase, reiterated in this initial passage, is a formal epithet for Moses, also used in Deuteronomy. Joshua is called his “attendant,” as he is in Numbers 11:28; the implication is that the attendant of the LORD’s servant will now assume the role of his master.
2. this Jordan . . . this people. The repeated use of the deictic zeh, “this” (and again in verse 4, “this Lebanon”) is positional. God is addressing Joshua across the Jordan from Canaan. First, He points to “this Jordan,” across which Joshua will have to take the people, then to “this people,” whom Joshua must lead, and then to “this Lebanon,” marking the northern limits of the land.
4. from the wilderness and this Lebanon to the Great River, the River Euphrates. These are utopian—or perhaps one should say fantastic—borders never occupied by Israel and never within its military capacity to occupy.
the whole land of the Hittites. This can scarcely be the region in Asia Minor that was once the center of a Hittite empire. There were Hittite immigrants scattered through Canaan from an early period. Shmuel Ahituv proposes that the phrase reflects a usage in Neo-Assyrian texts where it indicates everything west of the Euphrates, including the Land of Israel.
to the Great Sea. The “Great Sea” is, as elsewhere, the Mediterranean.
6. Be strong and stalwart. This reiterated exhortation clearly reflects the military setting of this initial charge by God to Joshua, who is commander in chief of the army about to invade the land.
8. This book of teaching shall not depart from your mouth. The book in question is almost certainly Deuteronomy, and the phrasing of the entire verse is strongly Deuteronomistic.
10. the people’s overseers. This is the same term used in the Exodus story (5:6ff.). It derives from a verb meaning to document or record, and so it is not necessarily a specialized military term.
11. three days. This is a conventional time span in biblical narrative for an interval of relatively short duration.
13. Recall the word that Moses . . . charged you. The episode of the two and a half tribes that chose to settle on land east of the Jordan is initially reported in Numbers 32.
grant you rest. The verb here has the obvious technical sense of granting respite from previously hostile neighboring peoples.
14. arrayed for combat. The Hebrew ḥamushim appears to derive from the word for “five,” and it has been plausibly explained as referring to a battle formation, with troops on all four sides and a unit of fighting men inside the rectangle. In modern Hebrew, it means “armed.”
17. As in all that we heeded Moses, so we will heed you. The Israelites in fact were repeatedly rebellious against Moses, but it is best to view this declaration of unswerving loyalty as an idealized representation of the people, not as an intended irony.
18. Every man who flouts your command . . . shall be put to death. What appears to be reflected in these stern words is the strictness of military justice: Israel is about to enter into battle, and whosoever does not obey the commander’s orders will be summarily executed.
Only be strong and stalwart. The opening section of Joshua comprises four speeches: God to Joshua, Joshua to the people’s overseers, Joshua to the trans-Jordanian tribes, and the response of the trans-Jordanian tribes to Joshua. These interlocked speeches are meant to convey a sense of perfect solidarity on the eve of the conquest of the land. Thus, the concluding words of the tribal spokesman exactly echo God’s twice-asserted exhortation to Joshua, with the addition of the emphatic raq, “only.”