A People and a Land

volume 1

The End of the Beginning

Joshua and Judges

Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

© 2019 Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos

All rights reserved

Published 2019

ISBN 978-0-8028-6838-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

For my students

Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

1977–2017

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

—Winston Churchill, “The End of the Beginning”

Contents

Preface

Introduction

JOSHUA

Entering the Land

Introduction

Cycle I: Crossing and Conquest (Joshua 1–12)

Cycle II: Occupation (Joshua 13–21)

Cycle III: Conflict and Unification (Joshua 22–24)

Looking Back

JUDGES

Delivering the Land

Introduction

Cycle I: Setting the Stage (Judges 1:1–3:6)

Cycle II: Oppressors and Saviors (Judges 3:7–16:31)

Cycle III: To Do What Is Right (Judges 17–21)

Taking Stock

Appendix: Hebrew Words in This Volume

Bibliography

Author Index

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Preface

The Former Prophets of the Hebrew Bible are a part of the great arc of biblical narrative that begins with the creation of the world and ends with the Babylonian exile. The framework of entry and exile encloses the four books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, texts that include some of the most familiar and some of the least known material in the Bible. In Christian circles, where there is a certain amount of acquaintance with the Bible, the outlines of the David and Goliath story will be remembered, as well as the story of Solomon and the two prostitutes. Few, however, will recall the tricky Gibeonites or the prophet killed by a lion on his way home after dining at the house of one of his colleagues. The names of the prophets Elijah and Isaiah we recognize, but Deborah and Huldah are unlikely to have importance in the collective memory even of those who attend church or synagogue.

One purpose of this writing is to offer a close reading of the Hebrew text in translation to reacquaint us with the path taken by the people called Israel as they cross the Jordan into the land of the promise, live there—first under loosely organized tribal leadership but eventually embracing a form of monarchy—and finally lose the land and go into exile. In studying these books, we traverse more than six hundred years of history, much of it periods of great turbulence for the people of the Bible as well as the surrounding nations. The land the Israelites believed to be granted to them as a gift from God is a reality into which they cross, where they learn to live together, become divided from one another, and which they eventually lose. This land is not only the place where they live but it betokens for them the presence of God, a utopian ideal concentrated in the city ...