King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 2
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And the son of sent out of two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even . And they went, and came into an ’s house, named , and lodged there. And it was told the king of , saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the to search out the country. And the king of sent unto , saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the , when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued after them to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the . 8And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof; And she said unto the men, I know that hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how dried up the water of for you, when ye came out of ; and what ye did unto the two kings of the , that were on the other side Jordan, and , whom ye . And as soon as we had heard these things, our did melt, neither did there any more courage in any man, because of you: for your , he is in above, and in earth beneath. Now therefore, I you, unto me by , since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto ’s house, and give me a true token: 13And that ye will alive , and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and our lives from . And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way. And the men said unto her, We will be blameless of this thine which thou hast made us . Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy , and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy ’s household, home unto thee. And it shall be, that whosoever shall go out of the doors of thy house into the street, his shall be upon his head, and we will be guiltless: and whosoever shall be with thee in the house, his shall be on our head, if any hand be upon him. And if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine which thou hast made us to . And she said, According unto your words, so be it. And she sent them away, and they departed: and she bound the scarlet line in the window. And they went, and came unto the mountain, and abode there three days, until the pursuers were returned: and the pursuers sought them throughout all , but found them not. 23So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to the son of , and told him all things that befell them: And they said unto , Truly hath into our hands all the land; for even all the inhabitants of the country do faint because of us.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. 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.