Canter Bridge

The early chapters of the book of Joshua twist together twin threads. First, there is Joshua’s assumption of the dead Moses’ leadership of Israel. Then, the occupation of the land promised to the Israelites a very long time ago.

Twin threads. The emerging nation, in this literary history, is required to ’embrace change’—as we say a little too often today—in two important ways.

First, they must choose whether they will follow YHWH’s newly anointed leader, who is very much unlike his famous predecessor. Second, they must learn to provide for themselves in a land that seems poised to cooperate with the effort.

The text brings home the latter point with nimble severity. The desert’s manna comes no more. It ended yesterday.

On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

YHWH could be counted on for emergency provisions in the barren, hostile desert, with its snakes, Ammonites, and shallow graves. The miracle of manna came with such consistency that it doubtless lost its surprise.

Now Israel finds itself on turf that it can, in the trajectory of promise and fulfillment, name as its own. True, the new immigrants will drink wine from vineyards they have not planted, live in houses they have not built, even take as their wives virgins from a gene pool different than their own.

But not for long.

Soon, they must till, build, and train, or there will be no future, no provision, no blessing.

We’d better start a shop class.

YHWH’s emergency provisions give way to stop-gap means, which in turn give way to the summons to find YHWH’s blessing in the courageous and sweaty labor that falls upon us all if we are not to end our lives wondering what happened and where it all went.