Joshua 22 – Joshua
releases the Gadites, Reubenites and half-tribe of Manasseh to go to their lands east
of the Jordan, instructing them “to observe the commandment and instruction
that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to
walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to
serve him with all your heart and with all your soul” (22:5).
When
they get there, though, there is a serious misunderstanding. They
construct an altar by the Jordan, “an altar of great size” (22:10). When
the other Israelite tribes learn of it, they “gathered at Shiloh, to make war
against them” (22:12).
The
Ephraimites were in possession of the ark and the sanctuary and opposed
proliferation of altars, but each tribe had a sanctuary according to The Jerusalem Bible. They send out
Phineas, Eleazar’s son, to talk to them along with ten chiefs. When they get there they confront them by
saying, “What is this treachery that you have committed against the God of
Israel in turning away today from following the Lord, by building yourselves an
altar today in rebellion against the Lord” (22:16). They compare the offense
with the trouble they had at Peor [see Numbers 25] when a plague was attributed
to Israelites having sexual relations with the women of Moab. They tell them rather to come across the
Jordan and take lands there if they are tempted to apostasy.
But
the eastern tribes had no intention of rebelling. They do not intend to “offer
burnt offerings or grain offerings or offerings of well-being on it” (22:23). What they want is a physical reminder that
will establish their connection to the tribes west of the Jordan. “We did it
from fear that in time to come our children might say to our children, ‘What
have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made the
Jordan a boundary between us and you, you Reubenites and Gadites; you have no
portion in the Lord,’ So your children might make our children cease to worship
the Lord. Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, no for burnt offering,
nor for sacrifice, but to be a
witness between us and you, and between the generations after us, that we
do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and
sacrifices and offerings of well-being; so that your children may never say to
our children in time to come, ‘You have no portion in the Lord”’ (22:24-28.) This is satisfactory to Phineas
and the Israelites.
Joshua 23 – A long time later,
when Joshua is old, he summons everyone
to him and admonishes them to be steadfast as Moses did before his death. He tells them to love the Lord and avoid
intermarriage with the women of the region lest they “be a snare and a trap for
you,” (23:13). The blessing has been
experienced, but the curse is always there for them to consider. If they transgress the covenant “then the anger
of the Lord will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from the
good land that he has given to you” (23:16).
Joshua 24 – Joshua
gathers the tribes at
Shechem and goes over with them the
whole narrative from Terah and his sons, Abraham (who built an altar at
Shechem) and Nahor to the present. And
again he asks them to renew the covenant by choosing “this day whom you will
serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or
the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (24:15). The people
choose likewise, not once but three times (24:16-18; 24:21 and 24:24).
Joshua
wrote their promise “in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone, and
set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord. [And he said] ‘See,
this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the
Lord that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you, if you
deal falsely with your God’” (24:27).
Joshua
was 110 when he died and he was buried in the hill country of Ephraim, north of
Mt Gaash. Joseph’s bones were buried at
Shechem in the plot Jacob had bought from the children of Hamor [see
Genesis 33:18]. And Eleazar dies too and
is buried at Gibeah (his son
Phineas’ town).
Origen (185-254 AD)
De Principiis (First
Principles)
Chapter IV – On
Defection or Falling Away
1 – Origen compares how
some “fall away” from the faith with people like doctors or mathematicians who
spend so much of their lives learning their crafts, their “art.” A person like
this is not going to lose everything all at once. He still may “repair the
losses” his negligence will bring and recover the knowledge.
2 – If we wish to examine
the “divine benefits bestowed upon us by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” we must
start with considering three different natures we are dealing with.
Chapter V – On
Rational Natures
1 – There are in Origen’s
intellectual landscape different “species and orders” of “rational natures.” We
find, he says, in the Holy Scriptures different “orders and offices, not only
of holy beings, but also of those of an opposite description” and he intends to
examine references to such “beings” in this section as best he can.
“There
are certain holy angels of God whom Paul terms ‘ministering spirits, sent forth
to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.’ In the writings also of
St. Paul himself we find him designating them, from some unknown source, as
thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers; and after this
enumeration, as if knowing that there were still other rational offices and
orders besides those which he had named, he says of the Savior: ‘Who is above
all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.’
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