One of my favorite verses in the Bible can be found in the book of Joshua:
Joshua 1:9: Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
God commanded Joshua to be strong and courageous. God chose Joshua to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Joshua was a warrior, and this is what would be needed to lead the people and defeat the fierce and ungodly kings of the land. As long as Joshua and the Israelites were obedient to God, God would fight for them and displace the evil inhabitants.
The book of Joshua is about the many battles that the Israelites had as they systematically went into every corner of the Promised Land, to drive out the inhabitants and defeat the evil kings. Joshua was very obedient to the Lord, and the Lord continued to give him victory after victory.
The Lord delivers the giants into Joshua’s hands…..
If you want some idea of how courageous Joshua had to be, how much he needed to trust that God would go before him to destroy the inhabitants of the land, check out the approximate size of some of these fellows….No wonder the Israelites felt like grasshoppers compared to these giants..
This photo of a ‘fossilized Irish giant’ was taken at a London rail depot, and appeared in the December 1895 issue of Strand Magazine. The giant was allegedly dug up by a Mr Dyer while prospecting for iron ore in County Antrim (Ireland).
It was 12 ft 2 in (3.71 m) tall, weighed 2 tonnes, and had 6 toes on its right foot. After being exhibited in Dublin, it was brought to England and exhibited in Liverpool and Manchester at sixpence a head, ‘attracting scientific men as well as gaping sightseers’. After a legal dispute over ownership, nothing more appears to have been heard or seen of the exhibit. Traits often found in giants are 6-fingered hands, double sets of teeth
Deuteronomy 3:11:(For only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bedstead was an iron bedstead; it is in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon. Its length was nine cubits and its width four cubits by ordinary cubit. (more than 13 feet long and 6 feet wide).
Amos 2:9: Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, Though his height was like the height of cedars And he was strong as the oaks; I even destroyed his fruit above and his root below.
Nothing; however, is impossible with God who delivered the giants into the hands of the Israelites. When God is for you, who can stand against you? Joshua remained obedient to the Lord, and the Lord continued to bless him with miraculous military victories.
Joshua 11: 21Then Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities.
22 There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel;only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained.23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshuagave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Thus the land had rest from war.
Not only were many of the Canaanites evil giants with mixed Nephilim blood, but God our Father KNEW that if the Israelites made Covenants with them, merged cultures with them, that they would become ensnared by their “gods“. Their “gods” were DEMONS😈…and NOT the True Creator of Heaven and Earth, Elohim (The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). God was protecting the Promised Seed and He was protecting humanity from the tainted Nephilim Blood that had made people completely evil before the flood. God was also protecting Israel from the Canaanites’ idolatrous worship which included the ugly, blood-thirsty practices of their demonic rituals.
Because of Joshua’s obedience and reverence for the Lord, he was pretty successful driving out and annihilating these ancient hybrid beings; however,some did remain on the outskirts of the land. We know that Goliath was around during the days of the Kings of Israel (King David).
“A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span ( 9 feet 9 inches or 2.97 metres).He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels.” (1 Samuel 17:4)
Joshua divides the Promised Land between the 12 Tribes of Israel
After Joshua and the Israelites completed the conquest of the land of Canaan, Joshua divided the land according to the model that had been given by God to Moses to each of the 12 Tribes of Israel. The only Tribe that did not receive an allotted portion or inheritance was the Tribe of Levi (Levites) because these were to be the Priests for Israel. They were to do the work of the Tabernacle and later the Temple, perform the animal sacrifices (substitution principle), and minister to the Lord and to the people of Israel. The Levites did receive cities within each of the 12 Tribes portions of land.
Though the Levites were technically the “12th tribe”, the Tribe of Joseph is usually represented as two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s two sons, making the Levites the “13th tribe”, at least as far as the division of the land is concerned. Because the Levites weren’t given a portion of the land, the tithe that the 12 Tribes were to make to the Lord of produce and animal sacrifices were to be given to the Levites as an inheritance. This is similar to how people pay tithes and offerings in Church, and this pays for the Pastor’s salary.
Numbers 18: 23: The Levites are to perform the work of the Tent of Meeting (Tabernacle), and they must bear their iniquity. This is a permanent statute for the generations to come. The Levites will not receive an inheritance among the Israelites. “For the tithe of the sons of Israel, which they offer as an offering to the LORD,I have given to the Levites for an inheritance; therefore, I have said concerning them, ‘They shall have no inheritance among the sons of Israel.'”
The Tabernacle was placed in a place called Shiloh, where it remained all through the days of Joshua. The Tabernacle stood at Shiloh until the Philistines captured the Ark and destroyed Shiloh in 1104BC (1 Samuel 4:10-11)
He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh, the tent which He had pitched among men, and gave up His strength to captivity and His glory into the hand of the adversary. —Psalm 78:60-61
All of the Tribes of Israel moved into their own apportioned lands and for the most part lived independently of each other. When Joshua approached the time of his passing, at 110 years of age, he gathered all of the sons of Israel together so he could bless them and repeat the same warnings and admonitions that Moses had repeated to the Israelites prior to his passing. Joshua warned them that if they failed to keep the law of Moses, if they disobeyed the Lord God and followed the idols of the land (demonic ‘gods’), then the Lord would hand them over to their enemies.
Joshua’s farewell address…
Joshua 23: 4See, I have apportioned to you these nations which remain as an inheritance for your tribes, with all the nations which I have cut off, from the Jordan even to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun. 5The Lord your God, He will thrust them out from before you and drive them from before you; and you (israel) will possess their land, just as the Lord your God promised you.
6Be very firm, then, to keep and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, so that you may not turn aside from it to the right hand or to the left,7 so that you will not associate with these nations, these which remain among you, or mention the name of their gods, or make any oneswear by them, or serve them, or bow down to them. 8 But you are to cling to the Lord your God, as you have done to this day. 9 For the Lord has driven out great and strong nations from before you; and as for you, no man has stood before you to this day
Joshua 23:16When you transgress the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, then the anger of the Lord will burn against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which He has given you.”
The Israelites then agreed to this Covenant, that they would follow the Lord God and not follow the idolatrous “gods” of the land. But it didn’t take long, maybe one generation after Joshua passed away, for the Israelites to completely forget everything that God had done for them and begin to do exactly what they had promised not to do.
My name is TFJ, which stands for Thankful for Jesus. I'm a wife, a mom, and a grandma. I have a passion for Jesus because He literally drug me out of the pit, washed me clean, and made me new. I know He will do the same for you, if you let Him.
