World English Bible · Entering the land
Joshua 23
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After many days, when had given rest to Israel from their all around, and was old and well advanced in years, called for all Israel, for their and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said to them, "I am old and well advanced in years. You have seen all that your has done to all these nations because of you; for it is your who has fought for you. Behold, I have allotted to you these nations that , to be an for your tribes, from , with all the nations that I have , even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun. your will thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight. You shall possess their land, as your spoke to you. "Therefore be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of of , that you not turn away from it to or to the left; that you not come among these nations, these that among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to by them, neither them, nor yourselves to them; but hold to your , as you have done to this day. "For has driven great and strong nations out from before you. But as for you, no man has stood before you to this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand; for it is your who fights for you, as he spoke to you. Take good heed therefore to yourselves, that you love your . "But if you do at all go back, and hold to of these nations, even these who among you, and make marriages with them, and go in to them, and they to you; know for a certainty that your will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and in your eyes, until you from off this good land which your has given you. "Behold, today I am going of all the earth. You know in all your and in all your that not one thing has failed of all the good things which your spoke concerning you. All have happened to you. Not one thing has failed of it. It shall happen that as all the good things have come on you of which your spoke to you, so will bring on you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land which your has given you, when you disobey of your , which he commanded you, and go and other gods, and yourselves to them. Then will be kindled against you, and you will quickly from off the good land which he has given to you."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Entering the land, 1250 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel crossing into Canaan and contending with fortified city-states, each with its own king, in a land Egypt had recently dominated and was now losing its grip on.
- The collapse
- The whole eastern Mediterranean is coming apart. Within about fifty years the Hittite empire falls, its capital burns, the Mycenaean palaces are destroyed, Ugarit is wiped out mid-correspondence, and Egypt is fighting for its life against seaborne invaders. Nobody fully knows why. Drought, earthquake, migration, and the failure of interlocking trade are all in the explanation.
- Egypt
- Still strong enough to record a victory over a people called Israel on a stone monument around 1207 BC, the earliest mention of the name outside the Bible. But Egyptian control of Canaan is slipping, and within a generation it is gone.
- Canaan
- Not a country but dozens of walled towns, each with its own king, its own god, and its own quarrel with the next valley. This is why the book of Joshua reads as a list of kings rather than a war with a nation.
- Further afield
- Iron is beginning to replace bronze across the region, partly because the tin trade that made bronze possible has broken down. The Olmec are building San Lorenzo. The Zhou are about to overthrow the Shang in China.