The Wisdom of Joshua

" ...because he kept his thoughts on God."

“Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.” (Joshua 1:7)

I THINK we find more wisdom in Joshua than in Solomon. Solomon is continually taught as the example of wisdom, yet an inspection of his life shows otherwise. He is a curious picture of opposites. Joshua, on the other hand, sought the Lord from the beginning, when he followed Moses, and remained dedicated to Him unto the very end of his life. He spent his entire life doing the will of God.

Reading about Solomon in 1 Kings 3, Verse 1, sets the tone for God’s question. We’ve focused on the question and on Solomon’s answer and missed his lack of obedience to it altogether. The first words of the chapter read: “And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David.” Before God asked Solomon what he desired of God, before Solomon said “wisdom” and God blessed him, the good king had already undone years of God’s work in Israel. God delivered them from Egypt with mighty signs and wonders. He destroyed Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, yet Solomon invited them right into the capital to sleep with them.

This gives new light to the reason God asked Solomon the question in the first place and turns my thoughts back to Moses and the scene with the golden calf. God said to Moses that He, God, repented of creating Israel. Moses pleaded with God to show mercy. But when God did, He followed the remark by pointing Moses to the bottom of the mountain to see what the people were doing. Take note: God was angry. Moses pled with Him to not be angry. God promised to not be angry. Then when Moses descended the mountain, the tablets of stone in hand, written with the finger of God, Moses saw Israel worshipping the golden calf and got angry. So angry, he gathered the Levites to him and killed some 3,000 men. So who had the anger problem? (Exodus 33) And I note, it was Moses’ anger which kept him out of the Promised Land.

Returning to the story of Solomon. He’d made an unwise decision to bring Egypt into the Promised Land, so when God asked him, “What can I give you (1 Kings 3:5)?” it was asked for the same reason God spoke as he did to Moses, so that both men could see themselves. Moses needed to see he was too angry, a lot. Solomon needed to see he was unwise. Solomon’s own words of wisdom condemn him. We have Proverbs where he speaks amazing truth, then there is Ecclesiastes where he’s confused. We know how his life ended, he married hundreds and hundreds of women, more than he could be with a different one each night for more than two years. He worshipped their foreign gods, which were no gods at all, and so what he’d had when his father, David, handed him the kingdom became the prophecy he’d demonstrated.

Two women argued before him over a baby. One woman’s child had died during the night, so she’d stolen the other woman’s child. This is a literal story. It actually happened, but it is a picture of the nation as well. Because when the pressure was on and King Solomon threatened to divide the child in half, the real mother gave her baby away to save its life (1 Kings 3:26). The Messiah would not come to a divided kingdom, half Judah, half Israel, both with self-appointed, selfish kings. God didn’t want them to have a king at all, but they’d insisted, so He’d given them Saul who had sinned. David was a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22) and Solomon was chosen by God as his successor. God promised there would always be a son of David on the throne of Israel, meaning Jesus. But He also promised the division of Israel would come to an end before He was born.

We see God’s heart for them in Joshua. We see Joshua’s heart for God fully display during the time of Moses.

“And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.” (Exodus 33:11)

Joshua stayed in the Presence of God, and by continuing in Him, he became wise. He knew the covenant of God and so said, along with Caleb, they could enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14:7-9). He looked not to Egypt nor to his own physical success but to Jehovah for their deliverance. God told him to be COURAGEOUS and to stay in His Law, day and night, for there, he would find strength and wisdom to lead Israel. Notice, the conquering of the Promised Land was not an overnight thing but took Joshua’s entire lifetime. Every single day he had to lean on the Spirit of God to know how to battle, who to battle, and where. God spoke which tribe would be given what land, and it was from Joshua’s own direction that Caleb, age 85, conquered the place he’d eyeballed forty years before. But his being wise enough to lead so great a people, so consistently, and with success was displayed in his words and actions, not because it was gifted to him to make him look impressive, but because he kept his thoughts on God.

“And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance.” (Joshua 14:10-13)

In Joshua 24:2, the last chapter of the book, we read, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel …” At the end of his life, he still spoke for God. And there was no greater evidence of it than the picture of Israel right then. There they stood in the Promised Land which belonged to them. After Solomon, however, the nation divided, just as he’d prophesied (1 Kings 12:19). Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, on the other hand was wicked, though he is spoken to in Proverbs and instructed to follow after wisdom (Proverbs 4:10). Rehoboam rebuilt the golden calf, doubled it even, making two of them, and he commanded Judah to worship. Whereas Joshua was buried at age 110, being known for the work of God and for all the good things he’d done for Israel. Joshua proved faithful, and there is no better way of wisdom than that.

“And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the LORD, that he had done for Israel.” (Joshua 24:31)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com