Strategically Redundant
Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” So the men went up and spied out Ai. Joshua 7:2 NASB
Spy out – Hey, wait a minute! Didn’t Joshua learn anything from his first reconnaissance? Or from Jericho? Didn’t he know that God had given the Land to the Israelites and that military victory did not depend on human tactics? Why would he send “spies” to check out Ai (or any other place) if he was sure God had already guaranteed the victory? He seems to make the same mistake that Moses made.
“Then all of you approached me and said, ‘Let us send men ahead of us, so that they may spy out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up, and the cities which we should enter.’ The plan pleased me, and I took twelve of your men, one man for each tribe.” Deuteronomy 1:22-23
Of course, the biblical text apparently exonerates Moses in the other account of this event.
“Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send out men for yourself to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.” So Moses sent them . . .” Numbers 13:1-3a
In Numbers Moses is responding to a divine command. In Moses’ own account (Deuteronomy), Moses is pressured by the people. Which is it? Perhaps you’ll want to review our previous investigations (CLICK HERE and HERE and HERE). For our present investigation, Moses acts as context. Joshua was part of that previous event, an event that was partially responsible for a forty-year hiatus in the plan. You would think that he learned something from that disaster.
This apparent lack of confidence in the divine directive bothered the rabbis. Their solution was to distinguish between “the Land” in general and “this particular place.” Joshua knew that the Land was given to the Israelites, but any particular place still needed to be militarily appraised. He doesn’t send spies to determine if victory is possible. Victory is assured. He sends spies to determine how best to accomplish what God has guaranteed. Maybe there’s a lesson here for us. God does guarantee some important things in our lives, but that doesn’t mean we can sit back and wait. How those things come to be is still a process of involvement with the divine guarantee. Human effort is not redundant even if the end is divinely assured. Maybe Joshua did learn a few things from the Moses mistake. Go out from yourself in concert with God. It’s interesting that the Hebrew verb is rāgal, a verb that is literally about the feet/walking. Maybe God accomplishes His purposes through our feet. As Heschel once said when marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., “I’m praying with my feet.”
Topical Index: spied out, rāgal, Moses, Numbers 13:1-3, Deuteronomy 1:22-23, Joshua 7:2
There’s lots to consider here (from all of the selections/passages to which you’ve given attention in past posts), Skip… thank you for your “redundancy” in your effort to convey God’s communication to his people. Human effort that is effective in the outworking of God’s plans and intentions is not that which merely goes out from ourselves; it is that which goes out in concert with God, partnering/“walking” with him to pursue that which he purposes and obtain that which he wills. (In that relation He is Sovereign; we are his vassal-servants… who love our Master… for he first loved us, and gave himself completely for our sake.)
Excellent word, very thought-provoking and helpful at this juncture of my life. Thank you so much.🙏
Consider… given the lesson of God’s people “going out from themselves” to accomplish God’s promised victory that resulted in a 40-year hiatus in the plan of God… the possibility of a cumulative effect—over those years intervening since that event—of God’s people continuing in “going out from themselves” to obtain that which God has already promised. Could it, perhaps, look like the state of affairs that we are even now presently experiencing?