Dennis Tuuri

# Joshua Chapter 15 Sermon Transcript
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Joshua 15 is 63 verses long and it is filled with things that are going to be difficult for me to pronounce. I thought it’d be good before we begin the scripture reading to just read a quote from Matthew Henry who comments in his preface to actually chapter 13 but it applies to 15 as well. He said, “Therefore, we are not to skip over those chapters of hard names as useless and not to be regarded. For God has a mouth to speak and a hand to write. We should find an ear to hear and an eye to read. And God give us a heart to profit.”

**Joshua chapter 15. This then was the lot of the tribe of the children of Judah by their families. Even to the border of Edom, the wilderness of Zin. Southward was the uttermost part of the south coast and their south border was from the shore of the salt sea from the bay that looked southward and it went out to the south side to Maaleh Akrabbim and passed along to Zin and ascended up to the south side into Kadesh Barnea and passed along to Hezron and went up to Addar and fetched a compass to Karka. From there it passed toward Azmon and went out under the river of Egypt, and the goings out of that coast were at the sea. This should be the south coast, and the east border was the salt sea, even unto the end of the Jordan. And the border in the north quarter was from the bay of the sea at the uttermost part of Jordan. And the border went up to Beth Hoglah and passed along by the north of Beth Arabah. And the border went up to the shore of the stone of Bohan, the son of Reuben. And the border went up toward Debir from the valley of Achor, and so northward, looking toward Gilgal, that is before the going up to Adullam, which is on the south side of the river. And the border passed toward the waters of En Shemesh, and the goings out thereof were at En Rogel. And the border went up to the valley of the son of Hinnom, under the south side of the Jebusite, the same is Jerusalem. And the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward and the border was drawn from the top of the hill to the fountain of the waters of Nephtoah. They went out to the cities of Mount Ephraim. And the border was drawn to Baalah which is Kiriath Jearim. And the border compassed from Baalah westward unto Mount Seir and passed along to the side of Mount Jearim which is Chesalon on the north side and went down to Beth Shemesh and passed down to Timnah. And the border went out unto the side of Ekron northward. And the border was drawn to Shicron, and passed along to Mount Baalah, and went out unto Jabneel. And the goings out of the border were at the sea. And the west border was to the great sea, and the coast thereof. This is the coast of the children of Judah, roundabout, according to their families. And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh, he gave a portion among the children of Judah, according to the command of the Lord to Joshua, even the city of Arba, the father of Anak, which city is Hebron? And Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak. And he went up from there unto the inhabitants of Debir. And the name of Debir before was Kiriath Sepher. And Caleb said, He that smiteth Kiriath Sepher, and taketh it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife. And Othniel the son of Kenaz the brother of Caleb took it and he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife. Then it came to pass as she came unto him that she moved him to ask of her father a field. And she lighted off her ass. And Caleb said unto her, What is it that thou wouldest? Give me a blessing, for thou hast given me a south land. Give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs and the nether springs. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families. And the uttermost cities of the tribe of the children of Judah toward the coast of Edom southward were Kabzeel and Eder and Jagur and Kinah and Dimonah and Adadah and Kedesh and Hazor and Ithnan and Ziph and Telem and Bealoth and Hazor Hadattah and Kerioth Hezron which is Hazor, Amam and Shema and Moladah and Hazar Gaddah and Heshmon and Beth Pelet and Hazar Shual and Beersheba and Bizjothjah and Baalim and Iim and Azem and Elteloah and Cherish and Hormah and Ziklag and Madmannah and Sansannah and Lachish and Shilhim and Ain and Rimmon. All the cities were twenty and nine with their villages. And in the valley Zorah and Asthnah and Zanoah and En Gannim, Tappuah and Enam, Jarmuth and Adullam, Sokoh and Azekah and Shaaraim and Adithaim and Gederah and Gederothaim, 14 cities with their villages. Zenan and Hadashah and Migdalgad and Dilean and Mizpah and Joktheel, Lachish and Bozkath and Eglon and Cabbon and Lahmam and Kithlish and Gederoth, Beth Dagon, and Naamah, and Makkedah, 16 cities with their villages. Libnah and Ether and Ashan and Jiphtah and Ashnah and Nezib, and Keilah and Achzib and Mareshah, nine cities with their villages. Ekron with her towns, and her villages. From Ekron, even unto the sea, all that were near Ashdod with their villages. Ashdod with her towns and her villages. Gaza with her towns and her villages under the river of Egypt, and the great sea in the border thereof. And in the mountains Shamir and Jattir and Sokah and Dannah and Kiriath Sannah, which is Debir, and Anab and Eshtemoa and Anim and Goshen, 11 cities with their villages. Arab and Dumah and Eshan and Janum and Beth Tappuah and Aphekah and Humtah and Kiriath Arba which is Hebron and Zior, nine cities with their villages. Maon Carmel and Ziph and Juttah and Jezreel and Jokdeam and Zanoah, Cain, Gibeah and Timnah, 10 cities and their villages. Halhul, Bethzur and Gedor and Maarath and Beth Anoth and Elton, six cities with their villages. Kiriath Baal which is Kiriath Jearim and Rabbah, two cities with their villages. In the wilderness Beth Arabah, Middin and Secacah and Nibshan and the City of Salt and Engedi, six cities and their villages. As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out. But the Jebusites dwelt with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.**

We’re back to the book of Joshua and we’re dealing with chapter 15 again. This week we’re dealing with the book of Joshua. We come now to a long recitation of areas and cities. And I’ve tried to basically divide up the chapter according to five basic points on your outline. You can look at them there. You’ll notice that the back side of the outline is a map, which my map is now ruined because I wrote on the front side with this real dark pen. But in any case, you have a map on the back side. I’ll try to be doing that regularly throughout the next few lessons from the book of Joshua. And that helps you to see the division of the land. That’s what we’re dealing with now is that portion of the book of Joshua. The inheritance is allotted out to the tribes. Their numbers come up, so to speak. You know how you’re dealing a deck of cards, people talk about their number coming up. Well, the lot was apparently a small pebble. That’s what the word lot meant was a small stone or pebble and it was drawn up for the particular tribe. So, their number, their lot came up. The borders would have been assigned to particular pebbles etc. So, here we see the division of the first portion of land and it goes to Judah and I want to basically talk about five points. First of all, Judah was the fourthborn. I want to talk about the preeminence of Judah as the fourthborn. Some lessons from that briefly. Then this chapter is really divided up into four basic sections.

After that, the next part of the outline reveals the first section which is verses 1 through 12. We have there a list of the borders of the tribe of Judah. We’re going to talk a little about the importance of geography. And then in the middle of this allocation to Judah we have another relation or story relating to Caleb. We had that last week you remember as we began the inheritance section of this book. And now we have the story of Othniel and Achsah. Achsah was Caleb’s daughter and Othniel was his cousin apparently. And so we have in the middle of this recitation of the inheritance of Judah after the description of the boundary of the borders rather and the geographic areas. Then we have a love story right in the middle of this list of what some people may consider long and boring names but they’re not boring because God gave them to us and we should understand them.

Right in the middle we have this love story and in the middle of that love story is this blessing of land and springs to Achsah and then after that in the concluding portion, the concluding section of this chapter verses 20-62, we have a recitation of numbers of names of cities. The first part is borders. The next part is Caleb and his daughter Achsah, her husband Othniel, and that love story. And then at the end of the chapter is a long list of cities now, specific political entities. And we’ll talk there about the preeminence or the importance rather of communities. And then finally there’s the concluding verse of a sort of warning, but I want to use that warning and the failure of the tribe of Judah to drive out all the enemies of God as a stressing again the importance of Judah whose name means to praise. We’ll talk about praising in the context of difficulties as well as in the context of victory.

So that’s where we’re going to look at this chapter and we’ll move right on then into the first section which is the preeminence of Judah. If you turn in your scriptures to the 29th chapter of the book of Genesis, we’ll see at the very concluding section of Genesis 29, the birth order of some of the tribes. I’ve got here fourthborn. Judah was the fourthborn. If you look at Genesis 29, we’ll read there beginning at verse 32 and following. And you remember the situation here, Jacob has two wives, Leah and Rachel. And Leah has a series of children that are recorded for us in verse 32 and following.

And actually, we begin at verse 31. When the Lord saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah conceived and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, “Surely the Lord has looked upon my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.” Reuben means “see a son.” Rue or Reu, Ben is son. As most of you probably know in the Hebrew, Ben means son. Benjamin is “son of the right hand,” for instance. It’s my youngest son’s name. But Reuben then is the firstborn and Reuben means “see a son.” She conceives again in verse 33 and bears a son and said, “Because the Lord hath heard that I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son.” And she called his name Simeon.

Simeon comes from the Hebrew word rather Shama or Shemah, which means to hear. You know the great Shema, “Hear, O Israel.” Well, Simeon is related to Shema. And she says, “The Lord has heard me and given me a second son.” And so the second son is Simeon. And verse 34, she conceives again and bears a son and says, “Now this time will my husband be joined unto me because I have borne him three sons. Therefore was his name called Levi.” Levi means to be attached or joined or cleave. So Leah is hoping that this third son now, boy, she’s gotten three sons for this fella. He’ll really be happy. And now he’ll really cleave to her obviously in a covenantal sense in a sense of affection and commitment to her.

Verse 35, she conceives again and bears a son and said, “Now will I praise the Lord. Therefore, she called his name Judah,” and she left bearing. In other words, she stopped having children. So, Judah is the fourthborn. And his name means as we’ve said before, praise God. Hallelujah. Judah. Praise God. So, she’ll praise God. Now, the point of this is that Judah is the fourthborn. And yet, Judah has the preeminence in terms of the distribution of the land in the promised land. Why is this? What happened to Reuben, Simeon, and Levi? We touched on it last week, but now let’s turn to the scriptures again in Genesis chapter 49 and we’ll read there the blessings that Jacob places upon his sons.

Okay, as he dies, he blesses the 12 tribes. We’ll be going back to this portion of scripture in the next few weeks as well as we deal with the inheritance of the other tribes. Genesis 49, Jacob calls his sons unto him. He says, “Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which will befall you in the last days.” Okay, so here’s what’s going to happen to him. He says, “Hear ye sons of Jacob, hearken unto Israel your father.”

Verse three, “Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength. The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power, unstable as water, thou shalt not excel, because thou wentest up to thy father’s bed then defilest thou it. He went up to my couch.” So Reuben gets bumped from the preeminent inheritance here, who is the firstborn, he falls because he actually goes up to and has sexual relations with Bilhah. Now, Bilhah was one of the wives that Jacob had children by. Bilhah was Leah’s handmaid. Leah gave her to Rachel. Then Rachel gave her to Jacob and she was essentially a concubine then of Jacob. Well, Reuben then later on as he grows up into sexual maturity enters into a sexual relationship with Bilhah and because of that, he loses his right as firstborn.

Well, that leaves Simeon and Levi verses 5 and following. Simeon and Levi are brethren. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. Oh my soul, come thou not unto their secret. Unto their assembly mine honor be thou not united. For in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they dig down a wall. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce, and their wrath, for it was cruel. I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel. Simeon and Levi were the two that destroyed the Shechemites. Remember Dinah where the prince of the Shechemites were going to get hitched or something. He had an interest in Dinah. And Simeon and Levi didn’t like that. Didn’t like what had happened. So they tricked the Shechemites into circumcising themselves, saying, “We’re going to have a covenant with you. The sign of our God in terms of covenant is circumcision.” So he had them circumcise themselves. And Simeon and Levi then killed them all. And because of that, Jacob says their anger was fierce and they were self-willed.

And as a result, the second and thirdborn sons who would have taken Reuben’s place. They’re bumped as well, which takes us to the fourthborn son, which is Judah. Now, there’s a lesson here for parents as they raise boys. The lesson is that one son fell by sexual sin, and two sons fell by anger and being self-willed. And you see common in all three of those sons who get bumped from the list of priority in terms of being the firstborn, you see the failure to control themselves. And if there’s one thing we should be teaching our children, it’s to be self-controlled leading of course to the control of the Holy Spirit.

But now let’s see what happened to Levi. Later on in the history of Israel, there’s a very important event. When the people came out of Egypt and they came to Mount Sinai, they received the law from God. And at that time when they received the law, there was a terrible incident. The people had fashioned a golden calf and they were worshipping that golden calf in the sight of God. And it was an incredible idolatry. Now, Levi came forth at that time. The tribe of Levi came forth and they slew those who were engaged in idolatry. They slew members of their own families who were involved in the worship of that golden calf. Now, this is a very important picture for us in the context of covenant loyalty. Levi had sinned by putting family relations above the covenant sign of circumcision. And later, Levi demonstrates true repentance because they put covenant loyalties to God above loyalties to family.

Family was idolatrous to Levi. And Levi had to get a proper sense of correct family under covenant relationship to God. And of course, that’s another picture of the fourthborn receiving the inheritance here, isn’t it? What it tells us is in the words of R.J. Rushdoony that God does not move in terms of natural privilege. Birthright, physical relationships or even family relationships do not have preeminence over faithfulness and covenant. Natural privilege is nothing in the sight of God except a great stumbling block to people like you and me. We want to see ourselves as having privilege because of our special relationship to God. The Jews did it with circumcision. The Christian church can do it in terms of baptism, we were brought into some sort of special relationship to God. And because we’re God’s children, we have natural privilege. No, God says that privilege, inheritance is on the basis of faithfulness and specifically putting God’s interests above our own.

So Levi’s curse of being scattered amongst the land is changed and brought back around and they become blessed as they become the ministers of God scattered in the context of the land. Okay. So the fourthborn is Judah. And then the prophecy of Judah is in verses 9 and following in Genesis 49. Judah is a lion’s whelp. From the prey of my son, thou art gone up. He stooped down. He crouched as a lion, as an old lion. Who shall rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his asses colt under the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine and his teeth white with milk.

So Judah, praise God, has been given a great blessing here and a preeminence in terms of the 12 children of Jacob. It’s interesting that this prophecy is very much fulfilled in what happens in the life of Judah later on. The allotment of the land was by lot, by chance so to speak, but God superintends that process to give Judah a much larger inheritance than any other tribe demonstrating the prominence of the fourthborn, the prominence of those who would be faithful to him and take their place as God’s rightful heir.

Well, Judah is in the context of enemies. You’ll notice we’ll talk about a little bit, but those borders that are laid out for us in the first section of the book of chapter 15 shows us that on the south, there’s nobody further south than them. And on either side, they’ve got enemies. So, they’re really walled about by enemies. And Judah has more enemies in the context of its dwelling than the tribes that are interior to the land of Canaan. And this prophecy said that Judah would exist in the context of enemies. Judah would be trained through those enemies to have strong leaders. Men such as David, for instance, who comes forth, of course, from the tribe of Judah.

Secondly, this portion of scripture tells us that Shiloh will come eventually from the tribe of Judah. That’s Jesus Christ, the peace of Jesus Christ who comes to the line of Judah. The lion of Judah, we’ll read about it in our communion service from Revelation. The lion of Judah comes to open up covenant blessings to his people. And then third, this talks about Judah in the context of the vine and the area of land that Judah was given and the providence of God was a land in which vines and grapes grew very well. So we have in this first section of the book of the 15th chapter of the book of Joshua the fourthborn, the preeminence of Judah as a tribe and as a people.

Later on, when we, and we won’t get to it actually, but the book of Judges follows right after the book of Joshua in your scripture. And it does in terms of the literary structure of the Old Testament as well. The book of Judges picks up where Joshua leaves off. Joshua dies. The first thing that happens in the book of Judges, the people say, “Who shall go up for us against the enemies of God?” And God’s answer is the tribe of Judah shall go up. So Judah is seen as the conquering tribe leading the people of God into battle against God’s enemies.

So point one here is that Judah becomes and receives the preeminence, is the fourthborn and this teaches us that we are not to rely upon bloodlines, certainly not natural privilege etc. Now the world all around us tends to want to rely upon those things, the rights of people and the entitlements to them as opposed to the blessings of God upon faithful people. It’s a warning to those of us in the context of the visible church, the loss of the preeminence of the first three sons of Jacob. So this church as well, or any church cannot claim natural privilege because of its supposed special relationship to God. God moves to bless those who are faithful to him. We talked about this last week, but the land grants that God gives to his people should never be seen as a claim upon God somehow, but rather they’re a gift to his people as a claim upon them and their covenant loyalties to the God who gives those things to them.

And if they fail to see it that way, and if they fail to see that they’re there to serve God, then they’ll be taken off from that land as Simeon was eventually. And of course, all of the tribes were eventually removed from the land because they were disobedient to God. I suppose in the context of the church today, this would probably speak somewhat against what’s commonly called “name it and claim it” approaches to the Christian faith. You know, you got people who say that what we should do as a Christian people should go through the Bible, find out all the blessings that God says there, name that blessing and claim it for ourselves.

Well, I guess the Bible in terms of, for instance, we see the land of Canaan as an analogy of the Christian life today. I suppose a better way to do it to see that instead of “name it and claim it” would be “tame it and claim it.” In other words, tame yourself, will tame the area that God has called you to inherit and moves you in the context of and then you can claim right of ownership over that land if you use it for God’s purposes. So, “name it and claim it” religions are really frequently, at least in terms of the Christian faith, perversions of this natural privilege idea that somehow that we Christians get blessing just because we are Christians. But God always links his blessings to the conditional aspect that we are called to be faithful as we administer God’s word in the context of our inheritance.

Okay. Second part of this scripture then, chapter 15 verses 1-12. Now that we’ve seen why Judah is preeminent and the lessons there for us, verses 1-12 contain a series of descriptions of the borders of the tribe of Judah. And the way this is structured is you’ve got two descriptions of the inheritance of these tribes. First are borders and then there are cities. Borders are lines of demarcation. The word border actually means a line. You know David talks in the Psalms about “you’ve drawn out the lines for me in pleasant places.” The lines of the borders are important in the context of God’s word.

Dale Ralph Davis says two things about this particular portion of scripture in his commentary. He calls this a chapter of “promise geography.” That this really is the budding forth, as he says, the promises of God in terms of geography made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and Genesis 15. And we see here the blossoming of those promises that God makes to Abraham. Now, of course, the promises are made to Christ ultimately, the one seed, as Galatians tells us that Abram was really was to his seed, Jesus Christ ultimately that these promises are made. But as we are in Christ and faithful to him, God wants us to think in terms of promise geography.

Geography is important. Again, Davis talks about how this chapter talks of God’s realism, that God’s blessings are not some sort of spiritual thing off in the distance that have nothing to do with his life. Davis says this in his commentary: “The God of the Bible tends to be concrete, his gifts tangible and visible. The inheritance he bequeaths is not an idea but boundaries, not thoughts but towns. In a word,” David says, “real estate.” God wants us to think about real estate. He wants us to think about land. He wants us to think about boundaries. He wants us to think about geography.

Now, this is the time of the year when we do think about geography a little bit. Christopher Columbus Day is coming up tomorrow. It’s the 500th anniversary, as I’m sure you’re well aware of. And the Columbus episode, the Columbus saga, the founding of America, and what he was doing is extremely important to us to remember the importance of geography. Geography is created for God’s people. And God wants his people to think in terms of the boundaries that he has drawn for us and where we live and how we’re to then stretch forth the boundaries of God, the boundaries rather of our dwelling places to recognize that God’s boundaries plainly pointed out in the New Testament changed from the land of Canaan to the whole earth.

Now obviously God has rights over the whole earth to begin with. But there is a shift in terms of eschatology. God wants his people today to think in terms of geography being the whole world as we know it and to go into all of it proclaiming the gospel of Christ. That’s what Christopher Columbus did. And the geography of America is important in the context of God’s blessings. Promise geography, realistic blessings from God, real estate. That’s what God gave us through his secondary means of Columbus.

Now, there are many in the land today who hate Columbus. There, I don’t know if you saw it or not, there was going to be a Columbus Day parade, I think, in Colorado or Denver or someplace. Cancelled because Indian activists were going to protest against it, etc. So, they canceled the parade. I saw an advertisement last night on PBS for a special on Columbus Day, and it shows the Indian really as the suffering savior of the world somehow, the one who is berated by these terrible people coming in and they raped us, they killed us, they diseased us, they took our kids, and it’s all about how terrible the conquering people were of Columbus’s day.

And then they show a mission with the cross on top of it and make sure you really get the full anti-Christian message that public television so often gives us. Well, Columbus was doing, I think my understanding of the man and the historical documents, he was doing what Judah was doing. He was moving into geography that is God’s land and he was proclaiming the gospel of Christ. And to those people that repent and believe the gospel, fine. But otherwise, the land is not owned as natural privilege by the pagan tribes of the Indians who had essentially rejected God. The geography is owned by God and he puts his people in it to occupy its borders and to stretch them out for us.

And so geography is important in the context of the Christian faith. Reverend Rushdoony again talks a lot about how the scriptures give us Christianity is a land-based faith. And here we see in this great list of borders of Judah, the importance of land in terms of the faith. Yes, there’s a new heaven and a new earth. Yes, Christ is coming again. Yes, heaven’s important, but what we do here now in the geography we have or don’t have is important as well. And we should think in terms of geographical realities when we think of God and his blessings and the goal of what we’re going to be doing as a church in the future.

Geography and land is a good thing. I would recommend along the same line of God being a God of realism who is a God of our everyday activities as well. Another book by Rushdoony called “Flight from Humanity.” An excellent book. Christianity has become increasingly over the last several generations in America a religion that is portrayed as a flight from humanity. Somehow a removal from all things concrete into an abstract idea realm. The scriptures do talk about ideas and having consequences, but they have consequences in terms of the real world, real estate, and real thoughts and people, real activities as well. So, land is vital to our faith and geography is very important as the boundaries of the tribe of Judah tell us.

It’s interesting that if you look through these first few verses and the boundaries, we’re first given the southern boundary in verses 1-4. Verse 5 gives us the eastern boundary. It also begins to give us verses 5-11 the northern boundary. Then the western boundary is sketched out in verse 12. So there are boundaries established north, south, east, and west. All four points. Ultimately, of course, we know that to the true people of God, the Israel, those who rule for God, that’s what the word means. Their boundaries extend to all four points of the compass. The four corners of the world are the limits of God’s geography. There are no limits to God’s control over the earth, and his people are called to inhabit all of it.

Okay? So, boundaries are important, and those boundaries are sketched out for us in this first section of the chapter 15. But then before we get to a description of the cities of Judah. We then have a very interesting love story thrown into the text for us in verses 13-19.

A love story. We have the story of Caleb first of all making an unusual offer in terms of his inheritance. Last week we talked about Caleb getting his inheritance, making a claim upon it. Here we have him taking that land and conquering it for God. Caleb in this story makes an offer. It is a very inventive sort of dowry or I guess you could call it that. He says that whoever will go out and do battle with this particular area and drive out these giants and control this particular portion of my land—Debir is the particular city that’s laid out there—I’ll give to him my daughter as wife.

Now we don’t know the exact relationship between Othniel who was the son of Caleb’s brother. Apparently Caleb’s brother is Kenaz and apparently Othniel is his son which would make him Caleb’s cousin, or I guess that would make him his nephew, wouldn’t it? Nephew. That is—I’m sorry—we don’t know the exact relationship between Othniel and Achsah who was Caleb’s daughter but we so we cannot infer from this that somehow this is an arranged marriage that has nothing to do with the relationship of the two parties. It is probable, I would say, that Othniel and Achsah knew each other being of the same group, close fairly close in terms of where they would live or their relatives etc. They knew each other and operated in the context of each other and by doing this Caleb of course assures that he’s going to get a very worthy husband for his daughter. He assures that whoever this guy is going to be he’s going to be a man of faith, of God’s faith, to go conquer giants and faith to go take the areas that may seem difficult to men of lesser faith but he’s going to have a very good son here, a man with faith and also a man as a result of his faith given abilities for conquering. And so Caleb shouldn’t be seen here as some sort of bad guy. Some commentators portray this whole thing in a very negative light but this is not a negative light sort of story properly understood. This is a tremendous story of blessing and love and faithfulness.

So Bush here in his commentary says in terms of the offer of the hand of this fella to his daughter he said that deeds of valor have seldom failed in any age of the world to prove a powerful transport to the female heart. And that’s certainly true, isn’t it? I mean, this is essentially Othniel is the knight in shining armor in terms of Achsah at least. And so these deeds of valor that he performs to gain her hand are certainly appreciated by her as well. And we have no hint of any kind of problems between Othniel and Achsah. In fact, we have them considering together a request they then make to Achsah’s father for springs as well as a land.

He’s given them this southland now. And then as they’re married and they come together in the story. We see Othniel and Achsah discussing together a plan to ask the father respectfully for water, for springs of water as well as for the land. So after this offer is given and the victory is won by Othniel and he becomes then Achsah’s wife in the story for us here—they then become together to ask for a further gift, another benefit from them, a blessing they call it explicitly from Caleb—and that blessing is springs of water.

Now you’ll notice that in the story, it said that Achsah lighted from her beast that she was riding on and makes this request of her father. We could go into it. I won’t belabor the point, but suffice it to say, as you look through the details of what she did there and the description of the terms used in the Hebrew, she is showing a great deal of respect for her father. She doesn’t ask above him. She humbles herself, gets off the beast, comes to him in a supplicant posture here to ask for this blessing. And Caleb then grants the blessing as well. He gives them not just a spring of water, but he gives her the upper springs and also the nether springs, or lower springs. And so Caleb gives this couple that have come together by the providence of God to conquer for him and to live faithful in terms of their inheritance. He gives them a further blessing of water for their land.

Bush says that there are at least two lessons from this story that should be learned. First of all, he says that a moderate desire for the comforts and conveniences of this life is no breach of the commandment, thou shalt not covet. In other words, some people who don’t understand the scriptures could say they coveted the spring. It’s a bad thing. No, God does not equate thou shalt not covet with a failure to have desire. It is good to desire the things that are blessings from God and to work toward that end. That’s not covetousness in the scriptures. This clearly tells us that. And again, it’s reinforced here then that the blessings of God are concrete in nature.

Secondly, Bush said that parents should never think that loss which is bestowed upon their children for their advantage. They forget themselves and their relations who grudge their children what is convenient for them when they can easily part with it. You know Caleb today, of course, if you set this love story in the context of modern America, Caleb would ask for his daughter, for anything even the land would say forget it. I’m going to spend your inheritance for you. You’ve seen those bumper stickers. But there’s tremendous sense in the scriptures. Think of this now. There is this land, we’re in—now you go outside you look at trees you look at hillsides etc.

That land is here long before you are here. It’ll be here long after you leave. And what biblical history is all about as portrayed in the book of Joshua and other places is that land is occupied by people who are faithful to God. To try to hold on to the property that we have—money, for instance, is a value of property really. It’s the extension of property. It’s all included in the concept of property. To try to hold on to those things and to get rid of them, consume them totally by the time we die is so ridiculous in terms of what our responsibility as God’s created beings is that it’s beyond thinking that a thinking person could even think that way.

In other words, if you’re accumulating property, you should be accumulating it not for your own benefit, but to pass on to those who will take your place as you move on to be with Christ in heaven and then in the new earth to come. And that inheritance then transcends your life and gives you a perspective that is much longer than the 60, 70, 80 years you’re going to walk here. It gives you an eternal perspective through passing that inheritance on to your children. And so the scriptures are very clear that we should never begrudge our children the passing on of the inheritance, particularly, of course, when they’re faithful.

As we pointed out with Jacob and his first four sons, you don’t pass the inheritance on to faithless children. They have no natural claim to your property. The humanists are right in terms of that. But they do have a claim on it as they are faithful to God because you’re just a steward for him and you’re to pass it on to them in that way.

Now, in addition to this simple love story, James B. Jordan has some excellent comments in his commentary on the books of Judges. The same story has a two-fold witness to it. This love story of Othniel and Achsah. This basic same story is repeated almost verbatim in the first chapter of the book of Judges. God tells us twice. This is something important. He says, understand the nature and the lesson of this.

Jim Jordan in his comments on this talks about several things and we’re going to quote here a couple of portions of his commentary. Jordan says that in a vignette we have a great love story. Othniel to win the bride destroyed the city. No medieval dragon slayer ever did more for his princess. And of course this romance is but an emblem of the gospel. For it was the greater who conquered the wicked world of wicked—excuse me—the wicked word of this world in order to win his holy bride. Why does he say the wicked word? Because the name of this city is given for us—Kiriath Sepher—and it becomes Debir.

Debir means word and the name of the city prior to it being renamed Debir by God’s people meant city of books and another description of it where it’s tied to Debir is city of learning. This was the city of the repository of the philosophy, the books, the learning of the Canaanites in the land. And so God’s Othniel here conquers the city of the philosophy, these books and learning of the Canaanites and makes it the city of the word, not the books anymore. The single word that is Jesus Christ. So we have a transition in this inheritance from the land of the learning and the philosophies of the pagans to the word of God established. And that’s what Othniel does. Well, Jesus Christ is the same word Martin Luther said in that great hymn of the Reformation, “A Mighty Fortress”: “One little word shall fell him,” and that’s Jesus Christ. That word that is Jesus Christ when it’s preached for what conquers philosophies and mentalities and the learning of the pagan who attempts to see things and understand them apart from a knowledge of God.

Jordan said that the destruction of Debir is one more revelation of what it means to conquer Canaan. The words, the philosophy of the Canaanites must be destroyed and replaced with the word of God. And that is certainly true. Jordan also wrote, “The family property of Achsah and Othniel became a miniature garden of Eden fruitful and well watered. Such as the promise to every faithful man and wife. Such also is the promise for the bride of Christ where we may go to our heavenly father and ask for whatever we need to carry out the wonderful tasks he has given for us.”

The point is we have a picture here of the heavenly father who gives to his daughter the church the blessings of a conqueror first of all—the greater Jesus Christ. We become engaged to him and married to him—and then God gives us blessings as we approach his throne room, the way that Achsah approached her daughter for a breed of blessings in terms of her inheritance from him. And so, I think Jordan’s comments are right on target.

And so, it’s important. We just sang this song about “may our homes be built firm upon the Savior.” And we should see in this love story a picture of what our homes should be like, where we have harmony and peace, and where we see that our fathers and mothers are supposed to love each other and consult on things, and then go to their heavenly father in heaven and ask for blessings to help them be prospered in their way of subduing whatever calling they’re brought into for the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, to exercise dominion over each of those portions that God has called us to do.

Beyond this though, Jordan points out a greater picture. He says, “When a father sets a task for a son or gives a gift to a daughter, this images the way God has acted toward his Son and toward his daughter, the church.” While it would be pressing matters to insist on a full-blown typology here, there is certainly some imaging going on in this story. Caleb wins Achsah by destroying the giants just as Christ won the church. The father gives the bride to the faithful groom. Finally, the bride church asks for water—the spirit—and the water is frequently associated with the spirit of course in the New Testament particularly. And this additional blessing is given as well at Pentecost. So we have here a picture, I think, and I think Jordan correctly interprets it, a great picture that gives us not just a wonderful love story in the context of human life and a model for us then in our own homes. It gives us a great picture as well of the relationship of the church to Jesus Christ and the gift that God gives to the church in the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, the spirit. The scriptures say, comes out of our bellies like water and goes out to water the whole world.

The garden of Eden, the streams went out to water the whole world. And the people were supposed to follow those streams down then and recreate all the world, moving it from glory to glory, just as they did in the garden, growing new things, maturing the earth. And so, we’re called as the church to go out to do these tasks for God, to go into this Canaan and wherever we go in our jobs or our education or our physical communities etc. and we’re to go with the assistance, the gift of the Holy Spirit, those springs of water that water the earth. And so eventually then the whole world becomes pictured as the garden of Eden as God’s church moves victoriously and triumphantly behind the greater Othniel and given the gift of the spirit of God which flows into everything that we do.

So we have here in the middle of what can be seen as a dry set of recitation of boundaries and cities. This tremendous love story to teach us the importance then that the context for occupying boundaries, the context for the political reorganization of cities that will be accomplished by Judah and its inheritance will be accomplished by us and our inheritance. The context for all of that is the death of Jesus Christ, his resurrection, his slaying the greater giant, the gift of the spirit to us that we may use that spirit and be directed by it as we seek to reconstruct what we’re called to do. This is a tremendous picture here of the gospel and the implications of it in all that we say and do. The word, Jesus Christ and the spirit go forth then and the philosophies of this world are turned back and defeated as the word of God battles for the hearts and minds of men. And that battle is a successful one.

We have in the final portions of this scripture a recitation of cities. And I’ve intended this portion of your outline “the importance of communities.” Not simply geographic boundaries, but cities are described as being the inheritance of Judah. We’re going to think about it in context of Oregon. We have the boundaries of this state that we’re called to inhabit. And some of you live in Washington, perhaps the boundaries of that state. But within that boundary, there are cities here and there, lots of them. We can make a list a lot longer than however many cities were listed in Joshua 15.

Those cities each as well are seen as the inheritance of God’s people and our inheritance. What’s the significance of that? The significance is that cities are communities. Cities are the extension of life. Cities with a political base, if you want to look at it that way, for the affairs of men. And God calls his people not simply to occupy geographic borders, but then to occupy cities, to come together as communities and to replace, for instance, the philosophies, the books of learning and the city of books at Salem, and the philosophies that control that city and control the state and to roll them back with the preaching of God’s word to make Salem deeper again—and then it really becomes Salem, the peace of God—to roll back those philosophies and to occupy these cities.