Today’s reading: Joshua 11; Luke 24
A few days ago I mentioned that I used to be kind of bothered by Achan’s family getting caught up in his punishment, and in this morning’s reading there is another piece that used to bother me, and that is seeing God harden peoples’ hearts so that they turn against Him.
The famous instance of this is the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus, but we also see it here in Joshua 11 where we read:
“There was not a city that made peace with the people of Israel except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon. They took them all in battle. For it was the Lord’s doing to harden their hearts so that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses.”
At face value this sounds like these people might have turned to subject themselves to Yahweh like the Gibeonites did, so God hardened their hearts so that instead of turning to Him they would be killed. That seems more than a little messed up…
However, as messed up as that scenario would be, that is not what is happening. When we read the word “harden” in a context like this, we read it as though God is making their hearts unresponsive to Him, but that is not what the word means in Hebrew. In Hebrew, this word means to strengthen. In the case of Pharaoh in Exodus, we are actually told initially that it is Pharaoh who hardens (or strengthens) his own heart in the face of the plagues, and it is not until the last couple plagues that God is said to harden (or strengthen) his heart. What is happening in Exodus is that Pharaoh, in his heart, does not want to listen and let Israel go, but the power and threat of the plagues is compelling, and so, in the face of this compelling case for capitulating, Pharaoh strengthens his heart to do what he really wants to do, despite the threat of the plagues. Similarly, when God then hardens Pharaoh’s heart at the end, it is still the same idea, it is God giving Pharaoh the strength of heart to continue to be defiant in the face of the increasingly dire destruction and threat of the plagues.
With that context for “hardening” in mind, along with the context of the mercy shown to the Gibeonites, I think what we see in Joshua 11 this morning is really exactly what we saw in Exodus with Pharaoh. These nations have no regard for Yahweh and no interest in submitting themselves to Him, but the more military success Israel has, the more fearful these nations are going to become and the more likely they will be to try to surrender to Israel or make some kind of treaty to avoid being wiped out. Their heart desire is to wipe Israel out, but the stronger Israel is shown to be by conquest after conquest, the less inclined these nations will be to try to carry out their desire. So just like with Pharaoh, God strengthens their existing convictions to be able to overcome their trepidation so that they carry out what they desired to do.
These nations are very different from Gibeon. The Gibeonites recognized the hand of God working on Israel’s behalf and they were willing to subject themselves to Israel’s God, but these other nations are not recognizing and seeking to submit themselves to God. This is not God turning away genuinely seeking hearts, this is God giving nations that have no regard for Him and want to eradicate His people the strength of will to try to do exactly what they want to do.
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