Today’s reading: Joshua 5; Luke 18
Joshua’s interaction with the commander of the Lord’s army at the end of Joshua 5 is really interesting.
When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
The first thing that makes this really fascinating is that this has to be the Lord Himself who is standing in front of Joshua because he accepts worship from him. There are plenty of other times in the scriptures that a heavenly messenger or being appears to someone and they fall down in worship, and when it is not God, they stop them and tell them to only worship God. But this man, the commander of the Lord’s army, doesn’t stop Joshua from worshipping Him. And since, as the commander of the Lord’s army, he is clearly aligned with the Lord, this isn’t just a being opposed to God happy to accept worship away from God. So all that leaves us with this man having to be the Lord Himself.
But then this being God appearing to Joshua is amazing in its own right because even Moses was not allowed to look upon God lest he die, and was only allowed to see His backside after He passed by the crevice Moses was hidden into. So how could Joshua look upon the Lord and not die?
This is one of a handful of passages in the Old Testament that clearly exhibit two Yahwehs. There are passages where the angel of the Lord appears, that at times seem ambiguously like he might be Yahweh, but there are also passages like this one that don’t allow for any confusion. This clearly can’t be the same Yahweh from Mount Sinai who could not be looked upon, but he also accepts worship as Yahweh. And this is not the first time we have seen this embodied Yahweh. On Mount Sinai itself Moses and the elders of Israel ate in the embodied presence of Yahweh, clearly differentiating Him from the non-embodied form that Moses could not look upon. We also saw the embodied Yahweh meet with Abram before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
So on the one hand, the idea that Jesus and God the Father are both fully God but also unique individuals at the same time is not a New Testament invention but is something seen in even the earliest of the Jewish Scriptures. But on the other hand, if this is God Joshua is talking to, it makes what He says really curious. When Joshua asks Him if He is for Israel or for their adversaries, His response is just to say, “No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.” But if Israel is God’s chosen people, shouldn’t we expect Him to say that He is for Israel?
I think this is a glimpse into God’s heart for all people. Israel is His chosen people in that He is working through them to ultimately bring about salvation for all nations through the Messiah, but that does not mean He is against everyone else. God’s desire is for all people, Jew and Gentile alike, to respond to His love and grace. So while He is there and will deliver the people and land of Canaan into Israel’s hands, it is not because He is against everyone other than Israel, it is because He is working out a plan for the good of the whole world and that plan involves delivering this land into Israel’s hands.
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