Joshua was probably about ninety years of age when the conquest of Canaan was complete. But a very important part of his work had yet to be performed. It would not have been enough for him to assert the supremacy of Israel over the Canaanites, unless he had taken measures to follow up his victories by settling the people in their stead. The work of destruction must be succeeded by that of construction. The warrior must give place to the administrator and statesman.
1. The aged chief of Jehovah's armies had earned his rest, but he was oppressed no less with anxiety than with fatigue. He had a real danger to contend with in the supineness of the Israelites who were not yet possessed of their territory. Weary of the war, distrustful of the support of Ephraim and Judah, whose whole strength was diverted to their political organization, and finding themselves in the midst of Canaanites who were often of the same race and language as themselves, they indolently slipped into treaties with the natives and gradually lost their individuality and religion through reciprocal encroachments and alliances in which Baal had more to gain than Jehovah.
We need higher qualities to bear with good fortune than with bad.1 [Note: Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, trans. by Walter Scott, 6.]
This Nebuchadnezzar curse, that sends men to grass like oxen, seems to follow but too closely on the excess or continuance of national power and peace. In the perplexities of nations, in their struggles for existence, in their infancy, their impotence, or even their disorganization, they have higher hopes and nobler passions. Out of the suffering comes the serious mind; out of the salvation, the grateful heart; out of endurance, fortitude; out of deliverance, faith: but when they have learned to live under providence of laws and with decency and justice of regard for each other, and when they have done away with violent and external sources of suffering, worse evils seem to arise out of their rest; evils that vex less and mortify more, that suck the blood though they do not shed it, and ossify the heart though they do not torture it. And deep though the causes of thankfulness must be to every people at peace with others and at unity in itself, there are causes of fear, also, a fear greater than of sword and sedition: that dependence on God may be forgotten, because the bread is given and the water sure; that gratitude to Him may cease, because His constancy of protection has taken the semblance of a natural law; that heavenly hope may grow faint amidst the full fruition of the world; that selfishness may take place of undemanded devotion, compassion be lost in vainglory, and love in dissimulation, that enervation may succeed to strength, apathy to patience, and the noise of jesting words and foulness of dark thoughts to the earnest purity of the girded loins and the burning lamp. About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine; the iris colours its agitation, the frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which, so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder-stricken, maintain their majesty, but when the stream is silent, and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them and the lichen to feed on them, and are ploughed down into dust.1 [Note: Ruskin, Modern Painters, ii. Pt. 3. (Works, iv. 30).]
2. Joshua, vexed at their listlessness in a cause which was Jehovah's, urged them to send representatives from each tribe throughout the land and bring back a plan of the cities in the various districts thereof, to be solemnly apportioned to the tribes by lot. On their return, Joshua collected all the information and cast lots, and the apportionment was made at Shiloh, before the tent of meeting. What exactly was each one's portion we cannot know for certain. The division was never so definite as the later calculations of the Priestly survey would imply. When Joshua had settled all the tribes, he obtained for himself a modest inheritance among the hills of his own tribe of Ephraim. It was a rugged spot in his native district at Timnath-serah (“the portion that remains”), the name being probably then applied to the spot as it was the last allotment. It is suggestive of the unselfishness and simplicity of Joshua's character that he should have selected a home for himself among the deep valleys and rugged hills of Timnath-serah. “First in service, last in reward.” He had done a great work, yet received no exceptional recompense.
The “wages” of every noble Work do yet lie in Heaven or else Nowhere. Not in Bank-of-England bills, in Owen's Labourbank, or any the most improved establishment of banking and money-changing, needest thou, heroic soul, present thy account of earnings. Human banks and labour-banks know thee not; or know thee after generations and centuries have passed away, and thou art clean gone from “rewarding,”-all manner of bank-drafts, shop-tills, and Downing-street Exchequers lying very invisible, so far from thee! Nay, at bottom, dost thou need any reward? Was it thy aim and life purpose to be filled with good things for thy heroism; to have a life of pomp and ease, and be what men call “happy,” in this world, or in any other world? I answer for thee deliberately, No!1 [Note: Carlyle, Past and Present.]
