Day 17 ~ Be strong and courageous

31:6 "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” The instruction to be strong and courageous occurs 7 times in our reading today.

I've been trying a new tactic in my third week of reading (hey, we're in our third week!). I've been using biblegateway.com to read the passage while I have the blog open and make my notes as I go. I had been reading and writing out the notes long-hand then trying to read my scribbles. I find that I get side-tracked more easily using this online method with ready access to do quick searches via the internet (remember the whole sheep per square mile tangent?), but I'm getting some questions answered, and I think it is helping me to keep alert. Of course, like many of you, I'm also grabbing a few minutes here and there with the book in hand and jotting down notes as I go.

This has put a serious dent in my tv-watching time, which isn't a big deal because everything is in reruns right now anyway. I'm usually only a sucker for the hour-long serial type series, and who gets time to sit down and watch tv before 10pm anyway?? I'm still recording my summer favorites and find 40 minutes to zip through without commercials. This season it's Top Chef and Design Star. Padma Lakshmi, the host of Top Chef, is the soon-to-be ex-wife of Salman Rushdie. What an odd combination. But the new season of Lost won't even start until February (that's a crock!), so I won't have too much anticipated tv luring me away in the fall. Grace, on the other hand, becomes a tv zombie when Tom and Jerry cartoons are on, and she would watch the Boomerang cartoon channel on satellite until her eyes dried up if you let her.

I haven't spent much quality time with her since I started this challenge because I've spent so much time in the reading, exploring and documenting. If I don't start until she goes to bed, I'll be up half the night! Plus with Jeff's work schedule, there are several nights a month when he's not available to get help her with her homework and get ready for bed while I do my "homework." He's been encouraging me through this simply by keeping her homework and bedtime routine on track. I need to sneak more time reading when she's not around. She asked me if I'd finished my homework chapters tonight so I could read a chapter of Junie B Jones to her ~ which I did. Those books are cute. She's asleep in my bed now while Jeff's at the firestation on his 24-hour shift. I'll have to put a pillow between us or she'll kick me repeatedly in the middle of the night.

Nuff about me. Let's talk about the Israelites.

• God bluntly tells Moses and Joshua that the covenant he has made with the chosen people of Israel will be broken by the Israelites. Moses must have grieved at his death knowing that the Israelites were doomed.
• The laws were mandated to be read to the people at least every 7 years during the feast of tabernacles. We see that they are read after a battle against Ai in the passage today as well.
• That was quite a song that Moses wrote. It would have had to have a catchy tune, because the lyrics aren't all that engaging. What a sad swan song. I feel sorry for Moses.
• Who/what is Jeshurun - and why did he/it become fat? (32:15) Apparently this is a poetic name for Israel. Rolls right off the tongue.
• The mysterious Thummin and Urim appear in 33:8 when Moses gives the blessings to the Levites. What are these things? Urim is used by God to determine judgement (Numbers 27:21). They appear to only be used by Priests, and they are part of the high priests breastplate. Was it a way that God communicated judgement to the priest?
• In the blessing given to Benjamin, the description reminds me of the location Benjamin will get in the new territory - securely seated at the head of Judah. Might be a stretch.
• 33:22 - “Dan is a lion’s whelp; He shall leap from Bashan.” That doesn't sound flattering. Will Dan loose his territory?
• Although still in good health with good eyesight at 120, Moses dies after God instructs him to go to the top of Mt. Nebo and he views the territory. I was curious if it actually said he died, or if God just takes him, like he does Enoch (Genesis 5:24). But chapter 34 clearly states several times that he died.

Deuteronomy is complete (Moses held out till the last chapter!). Five books, the books of Law, are complete, 61 more to go. Let's find out how Joshua fares leading the childish Israelites.

• Right away in the first several verses we see a theme that we've read several times already in the later chapters of Deuteronomy - be strong, be courageous, I will be with you, do not fear.
• Joshua 1:16-17: “All that you command us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we heeded Moses in all things, so we will heed you." We'll see about that. I bet we don't read another full chapter before the Israelites mess up.
• Okay, I was wrong. They didn't get the wrath of God in the next chapter (3). Although, technically, they aren't supposed to make any oaths with the foreigners, but they did so with Rahab. I believe Rahab is key to the line of Jesus...let's see...ah, yes, Rahab is the mother of Boaz, great-great-grandmother of king David, and then on to Jesus. But how did the spies know that she was legitimate, and not trying to trick them?
• The troops were lead out by the priests assigned to carry the ark of the covenant. Must have been some sight...four guys (I'm guessing) carrying a gleaming gold box with two angels on top followed about a half mile behind by 40,000 (4:13) warriors.
• 3:6 - the Jordan was halted and they crossed the Jordan on dry ground. I hadn't remembered that. And not just the narrow brook that I remember seeing in Israel, but a swollen river during rainy season.
• I think this is just the first of many commemorative pillars of stones to come (chapter 4).
• What is the first thing you do when you go to conquor the land? Why, get circumcised, of course! (Chapter 5). Good thing the Amorites were scared, otherwise they would have been watching what the Israelites were doing and would have tried to attack them when they were recovering (Levi had pulled this trick before, remember?). Weren't the Israelites instructed to circumcise the infants at 8 days? (Gen 17:12 - introduced to Abraham; Isaac was circumcised as instructed at 8 days (Gen 21:4). Leviticus 12:3 again instructs to do so on the 8th day. Exodus 12:48 says no uncircumcised person was to eat the Passover.
• The passed through the Jordan on the 10th day of the first month (4:19). If you remember, you know they're required to have Passover on the 14th day of the first month (numbers 28:16 and others). Did they have Passover before the circumcisions? Wouldn't the act itself have made them unclean?
• 5:12 - the Manna stopped. Before this 90 day challenge, I was thinking that they had manna in the morning an quail at night the entire time, but I think the quail was only a one- or two-time event. Ex 16:12-14 the quail looks like it came in the evening, with no discussion of the the plague that came with the quail sent after complaints for meat in Numbers 11:31-34.
• I bet the commander of the army of the Lord was an awesome sight (5:13-15).
• The march around Jericho is described in Joshua chapter 6. The ram's horns trumpets are called shofar. We had one for VBS this year and I attempted to blow it (a few times I was successful). It wasn't easy. It made your lips tingle and go numb. When it got wet, it stunk. The trumpet blowers had to blow continually as they marched around the city. That would have been difficult.
• 7:1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass...It took 4 chapters for the Israelites to disobey. Well, at least one of them disobeyed...Achan. They assess the city of Ai and determine with cockiness that they only need a few thousand soldiers. They didn't ask God about it. But one disobedient person was all it took for God to allow 36 to be killed. Is this the first that we hear of any soldiers of Israel being killed? I think so. The Israelites quick loose their pride and their courage flows away like water.
• 7:10 uses the word "stuff" - as in "their own stuff". Doesn't seem like a very Biblical word to me. I looked it up, and this is the only verse in the entire New King James Version where this word appears. I found the needle in the haystack, and I wasn't even looking! 7:26 - another heap of stones to remember Achan and his entire family who suffered death for his misdeed (not to mention the 36 soldiers killed).
• They're not so prideful this time when they go against Ai - they take 30,000. They used the good ole' fake like we're scared and run away while we ambush you from the other direction strategy.
• Did Joshua literally hold out his spear during the entire battle, like Moses did at the Red sea, and in the early battle in the wilderness? (8:15)
• 8:29 - another heap of stones, marking the death place of the King of Ai.
• 8:30 Another heap, this one used as a sacrificial altar, presumably whitewashed (Deut. 27:2-4) before writing the law of Moses on it, and reading the law of Moses. What exactly was "the law of Moses" - was it just the 10 commandments, or the details in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy?