Concluding Thoughts on Josue

It can't be overstated -- Joshua leads us still today from the pages of Sacred Scripture as a model of perfect faith in God and as a most worthy prefiguring of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Bernard O'Reilly says, "[t]he blameless man chosen to be the successor of Moses, to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land, to defeat the combined armies of the heathen Canaanites, to divide the national territory thus conquered among the Twelve Tribes, and to leave them in secure possession of their independence, was a fit type of the Redeemer to come, who could alone reconquer for all our race the forfeited inheritance of eternity, who alone could introduce us into His Kingdom, and share its glories with us."  It's one of the most stunning symbols in all of Scripture.  Moses and his Law could get the people only so far.  And the people under Moses were quite a disloyal bunch!  Murmuring or outright disobeying, they were constantly failing to live up to the stringent Mosaic Law.  It took Joshua, a figure of supernatural goodness, to put the people on his back and slay the enemy to allow them to step foot in a most Holy Land.  So it is with us -- a law will only get us so far, mainly because as fallen creatures we will never be able to uphold a law perfectly.  It took Jesus Christ to come and freely offer us redemption and salvation.  This is, for us today (and probably the intended eternal message), the supreme lesson and value of the Book of Josue.  Throughout the Book of Josue, the people are actually pretty faithful and good.  We don't see nearly the same amount of murmuring and disloyalty that we saw in the Pentateuch.  Moses was an imperfect figure himself, and as we know was not able to step foot in the Promised Land.  But Joshua seems to be almost without fault (just as our Savior was a sinless person), and so all of Israel is likewise more faithful under his leadership.  However, we know the history and the eventual fall of the Jews.  Joshua saw this, too.  The last chapters contain his premonitions and he makes it clear he sees them falling into their old ways in the future.  But Joshua remains for us a shining example of faith.  This is the most valuable lesson I've taken away from this book.  I look forward to reading the historical books ahead, but I know I will be reading about a faithless people and it will be a constant reminder of my own lack of faith and failings in trying to follow our Lord.  I'm thankful God gave us Joshua, though, to be an everlasting example of what we can accomplish if we only have faith.