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The New American Commentary Volume 5 - Joshua

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Karl Barth, perhaps more than his peers, understood the Biblical sense of "covenant" and the serious methodological flaw of glossing over the history of Israel in the work of Christian theology. For serious students of the Scriptures who share these sentiments, the New American Commentary is a worthy academic and theological entry into the thrust of both Hebrew and Christian canons. David M. Howard, Ph.D., associate professor of Old Testament at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has produced this 400-page study of the Book of Joshua, a scriptural text about which most of us know a great deal about a very little portion of the work.

The importance of Joshua in the scriptural canon cannot be overstated. If in the course of history the text of Obadiah, for example, had been tragically lost, the dynamism of the covenant would still have been conveyed in the Hebrew Canon. The Book of Joshua, on the other hand, is an historical and theological lynchpin to the history of the Covenant. The Pentateuch texts, the five books prior to Joshua, were books of promise: the reward of faithful adherence to the Law and the possession of a land delivered by God as a perpetual inheritance. The Pentateuch had promised these things: Joshua is the story of the Pentateuch's fulfillment. Without Joshua, the Pentateuch's vision of the future is as lame as that of, say, Marxism.

The first dozen chapters of Joshua describe the takeover of Canaan and contain the vignettes we are most familiar with: the walls of Jericho tumbling down, the courage and faith of Rahab the prostitute in sheltering the spies, etc. The second dozen chapters are perhaps less read and thus less well known because of the technical style involved in precise land measurement and allotments to the various tribes.

Howard traces the continuing ventures under Moses' hand-picked successor Joshua, and the linguistic and narrative segue between this work and the preceding Deuteronomy is virtually seamless. Much of this continuity may be due to the probability that in terms of authorship, the Book of Joshua, like Deuteronomy, owes its existence to Deuternomic sources, one of the four discernible sources traditions in the historical books. Moses having died at the conclusion of Deuteronomy, this work begins with Joshua actually leading the Israelites across the Jordan River in a scene nearly parallel to the crossing of the Red Sea forty years earlier. Having enshrined the Tabernacle and circumcised this new generation of Israelites, Joshua turns to the task of conquest.

What is troubling for readers of the Book of Joshua--as with the Pentateuch itself for that matter--is the seeming ruthlessness of God who commands Joshua's armies to destroy the Canaanites [an umbrella term for numerous kingdoms and cities of the region] to the last man, woman, and child. Like other Biblical commentators, Howard offers his explanations in an excursus [184ff] which, broadly speaking, suggests primarily that the Canaanites are being punished post facto for generations of evil including child sacrifice, with the attendant purposes of emphasizing Israel's need for cleanness and obedience to the Law, and God's desire that Israel understand the land is totally theirs, as His gift. Howard's intentions are good; whether they are convincing to the reader is probably a personal matter of value and belief.

In truth only a handful of battles are recounted, and Israel lost one of them at the city of Ai in punishment for violating the Lord's prohibition against looting. Oddly, despite the divine command of total population destruction the Israelites seemed to have made some accommodations with wily natives--indentured slavery of a sort. Overall the impression one gets is that the conquest went smoothly, with limited casualties, under the direction of the Lord as commander-in-chief, as in the Jericho campaign. Howard estimates the campaign as a five year effort. [273n]

Chapter 13 marks a major division of the Book of Joshua. Howard observes correctly that the optimistic tenor of the previous chapters may have been somewhat overstated [295]. Joshua himself observes in 13:1 that large portions of the land remained unconquered. The main thrust of the second half of the Book is the division of the Promised Land and its allotment to the nine and on-half tribes without designated territory. [Moses, it may be recalled, had apportioned some land east of the Jordan to parts of three tribes.] This portion of the work is more detailed and less glamorous, but Howard's commentary goes a long way toward clarifying its importance. He notes the exactitude of the surveyor's efforts and descriptions, as well as the problem of future resistance, since some tribes were allotted portions that would prove too hard to capture.

Howard does his best to balance some theological inconsistencies in the text itself. On the one land, the Book goes to pains to show that each tribe's land allotment was made by the direct intervention of God. On the other hand, several tribes--Judah, most notably--did very well in terms of the quality of the land they received, while others, like Dan, were never able to even settle their land but moved elsewhere. Howard notes that the distribution seems to favor certain tribes for a variety of reasons reaching back to Genesis. On the other hand, Joshua himself was open to special situations with Caleb and others regarding land arrangements, and he made provision for Levite cities and the so-called cities of sanctuary for accused murderers. From both the Biblical text itself and Howard's commentary, Joshua does little wrong. At the end of the work the author[s] refer to him with the title applied to Moses, "the Servant of the Lord."

Howard himself is highly conversant with recent Biblical scholarship of the Evangelical tradition, and he is successful in producing a smooth reading commentary while providing the technician with an oasis of sources. At minimum, a thorough reading of the Pentateuch is a prerequisite for this work, preferably with a mainstream commentary.

David Howard does a great job expounding the book of Joshua and emphasizing its theological message. This is exactly the kind of commentary I look for when I'm preparing a sermon. Howard comes to conservative evangelical conclusions throughout the book, beginning with the introduction. He believes the book of Joshua was written no later than the time of David and probably earlier. He believes that the Exodus happened in 1446 BC and that the events in Joshua occur around 1400 BC and later.

Howard also rejects the notion that Joshua should be grouped with the first five books of the Old Testament, noting that Joshua should be considered a the first of the Former Prophets. He contends that the central message of the book is Israel's inheritance of the land in fulfillment of God's covenant promises.

Howard highlights the emphasis on obedience to God's word in Joshua chapter one. He concludes that the emphasis on prosperity and success in verses 7 and 8 refer not so much to financial success as it does to success in life generally speaking.

Howard also concludes that while it was wrong for Rahab to lie in chapter two, what she should have done instead is less certain. He dismisses the idea that God blessed her decision to lie about the spies, but that God overlooked and forgave this so that she is remembered more for her faith than for her lie (Hebrews 11).

There is also an extended discussion of the parting of the waters of the Jordan River. This confirms to the community that God is with Joshua in the same way He was with Moses.

Howard also discusses the identity of the commander of the Lord's army in Joshua 5. He believes that this commander is more than just an angel, but that he is unlikely to be an theophany of Yahweh, since he is distinguished from Yahweh. Howard is unsure about the idea that the commander is to be identified with the Angel of the Lord, but he doesn't get any more specific than this.

He also discusses the important of the holy character of God, and of the need for the land to be cleansed. The gross sin of the Canaanites called for them to be devoted to the Lord in destruction. This is hard for the modern reader, but it emphasizes that God is a holy God and that He only puts up with flagrant disobedience for so long.

Howard notes that we see this again in Joshua 7 with the judgment on Achan. By disobeying the command to devote the possessions of Ai to the Lord, he too displayed a flagrant disregard for God's holy character. God does not play favorites.

Howard notes how God's land promises come true in chapters 8-10. There is a lengthy discussion of whether or not the sun and moon literally stood still for nearly a day. After considering most of the possibilities, Howard surprisingly concludes that it is poetic language: The sun and the moon stood still in awe of what the Lord had done for Israel.

Many readers are bored with the land assignments described in chapters 12-21, but Howard says that this represents the heart of the book. This is where you see God's promises to His people coming true: City by city, wadi by wadi, town by town. As these places are assigned one by one to the children of Israel, we see the glorious unfolding and fulfilling of God's covenant blessings to His people. It wouldn't have been boring to them! They had been waiting for this all their lives!

Chapters 22-24 contain some parting words from Joshua to his people.

This was a great exposition of Joshua. The strength of the commentary is that Howard gets it. He understands the message of the book and drives it home clearly and forcefully.

The weakness of the book is that it is naive about inter and intratextual issues. There are so many places in Joshua where there are repetitions (then the land had rest from war) that there needed to be more discussion about literary theories. Howard rejects the JEDP theory of composition, as well as the idea of a Deuteronomist historian, but I would have liked a tad more discussion on the composition of the book.

But other wise, this is definitely a terrific commentary and I recommend it to all pastors and theological teachers.

I have not gotten much out of this commentary.

The author is a "word study" guy, which some people love but not me. I found most observations in the book were restatements of the obvious or a plain restatement of the text without much insight or theological probing.

The writing is a bit dull for me and I dropped out after about 2/3s of the way. So, my review is not based on the complete book.

Pleased with the service. Received the book in good condition within a very reasonable time frame.