Joshua & the Holy Land
The Book of Joshua is introduced in a decisive—not to say abrupt—fashion:
It came to pass, after the death of Moses, the Lord’s servant, that the Lord spoke to Joshua ben Nun, Moses’ deputy, saying, “Moses my servant is dead. Now, then, rise up, cross over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the sons of Israel. As I declared to Moses, I have given you every place that the sole of your foot may tread. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun, shall be your domain.”
Since the conquest and settling of the Holy Land is the entire story in the Book of Joshua, it is important to understand these opening lines. We may begin by observing that—in at least two senses—boundaries are being crossed. The text presents a “crossover” (’abar, the root word of “Hebrew”) in both space and time. First, space: the Jordan River is a geographical boundary; its crossing signified the end of wandering and the beginning of geographical stability.
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Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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