(Continued from page 175.)
We shall thus find as we proceed with this chapter 4, and chapter 6, that the priests with the ark of the covenant, have a much larger footing as well as Eleazar and the tabernacle at Shiloh in this book, than we are accustomed, or perhaps know how, to make room for or give to the fact, especially when we come to apply it to ourselves and Christianity, and still more so when we attempt to run a parallel between the book of Joshua and the writings of Paul. Leaving this too for the moment, the priests, with the ark, whether in Jordan or when over it, and confronted by a great city instead of a river, are not only in prominence, but take the lead of the whole congregation and the armed men as at Jericho, or else stay in the danger, till all beside are gone clean over, as in Jordan.
In chapter 4, “twelve men” out of every tribe, were to take up twelve stones out of the river, “where the priests’ feet stood firm,” and carry them over, and leave them in the place where they would lodge that night. Besides this, “Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests stood which bare the ark of the covenant,” as a memorial that the twelve tribes who had risen up, out of the power of death at Gilgal, were the same people who had been there.
In this typical history of the children of Israel we may observe, that at the Red Sea they neither left twelve stones in its bed, nor took twelve out with them upon the other-side. On the contrary, Pharaoh and his captains, with their chariots and horses, lay dead at the bottom, as a witness that the mighty power of the enemy which held them captive in Egypt had been overthrown, and that the depths covered them. “But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on the right hand, and on the left.” Thus the Lord saved them that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, whom they saw dead upon the shore, whilst He put the song of redemption into their mouths, saying, “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously.” The Red Sea was a memorial between Jehovah and His people, that the antagonistic power which held them captive and refused to let them go, had been all broken in pieces; but Jordan was to be the overthrow of an opposing power of the enemy that refused to let the people enter into their inheritance. It is in these two ways, we have still to watch against the devil. God brought them to Himself at the Red Sea, having on the way sheltered them by “the blood of the Lamb as roast with fire,” and then taught them redemption by power when they sang unto the Lord, “Thy right hand, O Lord, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” Beyond this difference in the ways of God with them or with us in our redemption out of Egypt by blood and by power (as confirmed to us now by the sacrifice and vicarious death of Christ) all that generation was cut off in the wilderness. They had crossed the Red Sea, but in their journey onward, they proved how incapable flesh and blood were, to walk with God, much less to keep company with Him.
A further lesson was taught by Jordan, beyond redemption by blood and by power as known at the cross and foreshadowed by the Red Sea, namely that the people thus brought to God must pass through their own death and resurrection by figure of the twelve stones in Jordan, and the twelve stones out. They were to begin another history with the ark of the covenant, and their new circumcision at Gilgal, with Joshua and the passover and the captain of the Lord’s host, with the drawn sword. The priests bearing the ark were not to be seen in the bottom of the Red Sea, but the enemies lay there, who had been consumed as stubble by the wrath of the Lord. On the other hand, no Canaanites were in Jordan nor was a single foe overthrown there; but it was sanctified to the Lord and to Israel, by the priests and the ark of the covenant for glory and victory; as much as were the waters of the Red Sea “when they returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh in terrible judgment.”
It is to our purpose here, as believers in Christ, to notice that at this juncture the epistles of Paul take up these types from Exodus and Joshua, and carry them out unto their fulfillments, in Christ, where He now sits “at the right hand of God.” The one to the Romans, which is founded on deliverance and redemption, accomplished typically at the Red Sea, is generally admitted. So also Jordan finds its spiritual application in the Colossians, by our own death and resurrection, as united to Christ who is our life and Head.
May we not, or rather must we not, on the same principle say, that the tabernacle at Shiloh, in the land of Canaan with Eleazar, find likewise their similitudes and accomplishments throughout Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews, in our great high priest, “passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God,” as maintaining the relations of God with His people here below on the ground of His own sovereign purpose and grace? How necessary were Shiloh and the tabernacle as the witness of this to the Israelites in Joshua’s day. And how indispensable for the Hebrews, and to ourselves, for whom Paul wrote his epistle, leading them on into “the heavenly calling [by faith] under the apostle and high priest of our profession!”
Further yet, the agreement of the battles in Canaan with the epistle to the Ephesians, and our spiritual conflict with principalities and powers in the heavenly places, is admitted on the same principles of exposition. Nor do I judge that this group of epistles by Paul cannot be separated one from another (however profitable and necessary it be to distinguish them) without loss to the typical book of Joshua, and far greater to the completeness of Christianity, and our own relations to the heavens and the earth, of which they treat. “And it came to pass when the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord were come up out of the midst of Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto their place, and flowed over all the banks, as they did before.” It was on such a day as this that “the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they feared him as they feared Moses all the days of his life.”
It was on the selfsame day, too, that the Lord put honor on priesthood, and even upon the soles of the priests’ feet, when they touched the brim, or stood firm in the midst of that Jordan till all the people had passed over. It was when they reached the dry land for themselves that the waters returned to their banks, and all because of “the ark of the God of the whole earth,” which they bore. Moreover, “those twelve stones which they took out of Jordan, did Joshua pitch in Gilgal, and there they encamped. And he spake unto them, saying, When your children shall ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean these stones? then ye shall let your children know that Israel came over Jordan on dry land.” Gilgal and the twelve stones, were a witness yet further “that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty; that ye might fear the Lord your God forever.” Beyond all these memorials of rivers and their stones to the twelve tribes, was the witness they carried everywhere to God, that He was “the Lord their God” by relationship with them through the ark, for they had followed it in triumph to the other side; and likewise that He was “the God of the whole earth,” for Jordan had fled away and stood up as an heap before Him. It is in this double title and character that the Lord now appears before them and “all the people of the earth” at Gilgal, as a God that doeth wonders.
But there was another lesson at Gilgal, for “at that time the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time,” for a people in the flesh had been cut off, even all the previous generation, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. This new or second generation of the children of Israel, had in Jordan accepted their own death and resurrection before God, by “the ark of the covenant,” which they followed, and were to learn their further separation to the Lord by circumcision at Gilgal, as suiting for the land into which they had now entered. The Colossian epistle in particular, takes these great typical facts out of the book of Joshua and connects them with our history as new creatures in Christ, and applies them to us as on our way with the second Adam into the new creation of God, as “not in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (beyond Romans). We pass on, and are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ, made without hands, in “putting off the body of the flesh.” Moreover, as dead and risen with Christ, “our life is hid with Christ in God;” and as in the power of the Holy Ghost (Gilgal) we “set our mind on things above,” not on things upon the earth. As spiritual men, we are over Jordan with “the ark of the covenant” which precedes us, and subsequently “with the tabernacle and Eleazar at Shiloh,” which maintained the relations of God with them through priesthood, in the times of the judges, and Eli and Samuel; and in which He has planted us (see Heb. 8) in the sanctuary which the Lord pitched. To this we belong, as a heavenly people, though actually upon the earth, and in the time of need; yet in respect of the heavenly calling we are the heirs who are “entering into rest” with Joshua and David’s Son and Lord, for “there remaineth a rest” for the people of God. (Heb. 4)
We may remark here that the walls of Jericho fell not by strategy, nor by the strength of the armed men, but “before the ark of the covenant, and the priests who bore it,” and even then not by sword or spear, but when the priests blew the rams’ horns. Indeed, it is as a victorious and a worshipping people who follow the ark with the priests, through the water floods, or walking up straight into the city of Jericho upon its prostrate walls, that the Israel of God first shine forth in the greatness of the Almighty, who refuses every obstacle, and makes a way for Himself and for them. Perhaps before going out with the captain of the Lord’s host, and much more in using the sword in our holy war, it is of more moment than we conceive to listen to the voice of the Prince, who bids us “loose the shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.” Some oversight as to this, and the right of the ark to the forefront, and the pre-eminence in Israel, may have occasioned the sad reverses of Joshua through the boasted sufficiency of the two or three thousand armed men who went up against Ai and were driven back, so that the hearts of the people melted, and became as water. Possibly the same neglect may have occurred as regards the sin of Achan and his concealment of the Babylonish garment and the wedge of gold, because of which trespass the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Where was “the Urim” of Num. 28?
Be this as it may, “the ark of the Lord, and the priests,” were in the midst of the host, not merely as a token of the covenanted blessings to them outwardly in the land, but also as a means of approach as worshippers on their own part, and of consultation, too, by Him, when needed, through Eleazar their great high priest. Joshua, as the leader and commander of the people, failed to take counsel, either directly by the ark, or immediately by Eleazar, “at whose word they were to go out and come in, even he [Joshua] and all the congregation.” Under this double failure of Achan and Ai, “Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face, [and mark] before the ark of the Lord,” until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and “put dust upon their heads.” And alas! in this breakdown, by which Joshua had separated himself and Israel in its unity from the guidance of the ark, by accepting the counsel of the men who went to spy out Ai, he is further betrayed by his own mouth and the hard thoughts of his heart against God. “And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, wherefore hast thou at all brought this people over Jordan, to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side of Jordan.”
So it is with us of to-day individually or collectively. We must either maintain ourselves in the right, by going when and where the ark goes, and by taking counsel of the Lord, and getting the victory in His sufficiency, or else be brought back in humiliation and confession before the Lord from whom we have departed, and, like Joshua, fall down before the ark, and wait for God.
In the midst of declension and departure like this (if indeed it be such) how good of the Lord to recover His servant by grace, and to the true thought and care for God’s glory! “O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies”; for the Canaanites shall hear of it, and “what wilt thou do unto thy great name?” God who waited upon them, by the mystery of the Urim, and Eleazar the high priest, in His own excellency and sovereign power as at Jordan and Jericho, now condescends to the prayer and contrition of Joshua and meets him upon the ground “of a broken and a contrite spirit.” The unity of the twelve tribes had likewise been violated, by this detachment of two or three thousand men; and these breaches and offenses are taken in hand by the Lord, in rebuke and chastisement, in the matter both of Achan’s trespass and of Joshua’s oversight. The unity of the tribes is righteously insisted on by God, who says “Israel hath sinned,” and He will have them all to share the shame and blame of Achan: so likewise in chapter 8, “the Lord said to Joshua, Take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see I have given the king and all into thine hand.”
A foreshadowing of “Ichabod” casts its dimness on the book of Joshua at this point where the ark is offended by the negligence of the leader, for certain it is, that from 7:6, when “he and all the elders of Israel fall upon their faces before it till eventide, and put dust upon their heads”, the ark of the covenant of the Lord retires. It only comes out again in chapter viii. to sanction “the altar in Mount Ebal, unto the Lord God of Israel, which Joshua built, an altar of whole stones, upon which they offered burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace-offerings.” And afterward Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings and comings, according to all that Moses commanded, before all the congregation of Israel. After this retirement of the ark we necessarily find ourselves upon lower ground, where human thoughts get into place, and also natural expediency. We read of strategy and ambushments on the one hand, where Joshua is successful; but on the other, we see him and the princes over-matched and outwitted by the craft of the Gibeonites. Still God abideth faithful, for He cannot deny Himself; but we sadly miss “the ark of the covenant,” and the soles of the priests’ feet, and the blowing of the rams’ horns, and the victories which were won simply “by faith,” as the Spirit tells us in Heb. 11
Though the order of battle be thus changed, and the fighting more like “wrestling with flesh and blood,” yet the conquest is sure, and the kings of the countries are killed, and the confederated nations broken in pieces at Jerusalem, with its willful king, Adonizedec, as a type of the latter-day overthrow, in the greater confederation of Rev. 19 under the beast and the false prophet.
Grand it is to see the eternal God come forth to their help upon the heavens, and in His excellency in the sky— “yea, to cast down great hailstones upon the enemies of his people, so that they were more who were slain after this manner than those whom the children of Israel slew.” As “the possessor of the heavens and the earth,” and as the Creator of all they contain, He puts honor again upon Joshua, by commanding the sun to stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, at the bidding of His servant.
After all these conflicts, by the ark and its priests, and the shout of the people, at the first, or by the Prince of the Lord’s host with a drawn sword, or by the flesh and blood wrestlings under Joshua and his spear at the close, the thirty and one kings are slain, and the land rested from war. Israel is in quiet possession,, and the time is come for them to inherit the land according to their tribes, as the heirs of the Lord’s inheritance.
It is at this new point of their history that Eleazar personally takes his place, in conjunction with Joshua, for the distribution of the land at the door of the tabernacle. “Caleb” also takes a distinguished place, as “an heir of promise,” and claims the mountain of which “the Lord spake to Moses.” As to the common allotment “of the children of Israel, Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun,” distributed their inheritances to them in Shiloh. When difficulties arose, as in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, they came near before Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, for their settlement. The tabernacle, in chapter 18, also takes its permanent place at Shiloh, where the whole congregation of Israel were assembled together. So that, what Gilgal was to Joshua and the armed hosts for power in their days of conflict, Shiloh and the tabernacle were to Eleazar and the priesthood, for maintaining the precious relations of Israel with Jehovah, as a worshipping people, in the time of peace and rest. Concerning the tribe of Levi and the Levites, they had no part among the people, “for the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance.”
The tabernacle and Shiloh take their place as a new center, in chapter 18, from whence Joshua sent out the three men from each tribe to pass through the land, and describe it by cities, into seven parts, in a book. On their return to Joshua, “he cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord; and there he divided the land unto the children of Israel.” Their traveling days, by the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, were over and gone, and their migratory character as a people was to give place to citizenship in due season; but at present, under Joshua, they are only as dwellers in the land. “These are the inheritances which Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and the heads of the fathers,” divided by lot in Shiloh before the Lord, at “the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.” So they made an end of dividing the country. As a yet farther proof of the important and necessary place which the priest holds throughout these chapters, we may notice, in chapter 21, that “the heads of the fathers of the Levites came unto Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun, and spake unto them in Shiloh, in the land of Canaan, respecting the cities and suburbs which Moses commanded should be given to them to dwell in.” Finally, upon this point, in chapter 22, touching “the great altar, Ed,” which had been set up on the other side of Jordan, it was the priest, Phinehas, son of Eleazar, who was sent with ten princes to investigate this grave matter. On their return, “the children of Israel blessed God,” and gave up their intention of going to war against Reuben and Gad.
These quotations and references to the Book of Joshua have shown us “the ark of the covenant of the Lord” as going before the congregation, and borne along by the priesthood. A space of two thousand cubits was to be left between the ark and the people, “that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore.” Need we say that, in Christianity, the Holy Ghost, as the glorifier of Jesus, gives this place and precedence to our blessed Lord, as having superseded the splendor of the typical ark in the full and eternal glory of His person?, This will be readily admitted when we follow the synoptical Gospels, and view Jesus as the Messiah, with the repentant nucleus of Israel, and baptized with them in Jordan, as the antitype of this ark of the covenant. The heavens opened over this scene as He begins their history over again, and the voice of the Father, and the descent of the Holy Ghost as a dove, do more than accredit these associations between “the ark” and another generation of the people. The Messiah, who goes before them, to lead them, by a way—they had not heretofore gone, into the kingdom of heaven, is also their true Joshua, to clear the way of every obstacle. If they had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, “they might say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and it should obey them.” As the Son called out of Egypt, He had come into the wilderness, and met His forerunner, at the end of the law and the prophets, who prophesied till John. There the Messiah stood, with the Baptist in Jordan, as the veritable Ark, between Jehovah and Israel, to begin a new history as the “fulfiller of all righteousness,” and in grace to identify Himself with them, as come in the flesh, and to carry all their sorrows and griefs, as a disgraced people. God had driven them out of the inheritances in Canaan, into which the typical ark, under Joshua and Eleazar, had formerly brought them and planted them.