Say Hey

Joshua Chapter 12, the Strange and the Spectacular

Vital Stats:

Verses: 24

Is It Read At Synagogue?: No.

Famous Quotes/Phrases: One. As in, “אחד” (echad), the number one. Over and over again. To be explained below.

Basic Plot: This is the type of biblical chapter that is often skipped, even by the most devoted readers of the Hebrew Bible. On the surface, it’s easy to see why: it’s a summary of the Israelites’ conquests, first while led by Moses in the wilderness, and then by Joshua in the Promised Land. But while the text names the kings that Moses vanquished, Joshua’s royal victims are identified by the kingdom they led, followed by the word “one.” It brings to mind a checklist, a collection of items that Joshua has crossed off, one by one.

But beyond that curiosity … there’s no real plot to speak of.

What’s Strange: While the long list of vanquished kings is anything but action-packed, it is important because it seems to exist separately from the chapters that preceded it. So argues J. Alberto Soggin in his book Joshua: A Commentary, and he also claims that this list actually predates the rest of the book of Joshua. Why retain this account? Soggin writes that Joshua’s “redactor did not want to give us so much an account of historical facts, as to bear witness to the mighty acts of Yahweh in history, the conquest being one of the most important of these mighty acts.”

What’s Spectacular: I want to go back to the kings Joshua defeated and how their names are not included in Chapter 12. It reminds me of a story about Willie Mays.

Mays, as you may know, died Tuesday at the age of 93. He was one of the most famous baseball players of all time, and arguably the greatest. For more than 20 years, he electrified fans in New York and San Francisco and everywhere in between with his otherworldly talent and unstoppable hustle. The actress Talulah Bankhead famously said that the two greatest geniuses of all time were “Willie Shakespeare and Willie Mays.”

But Mays’ legend was about more than just talent. He was nicknamed the “Say Hey Kid” because he seemed to greet everyone he encountered with a broad smile and the phrase “Say hey!” To many, this tendency was the essence of his heroism: he was Superman with the buoyant spirit of a young child. The only problem was that this was an illusion; Mays had the hardest time remembering the names of the people he met, and the phrase “Say hey!” helped him to avoid the awkwardness of acknowledging his forgetfulness.

I don’t mention this to speak ill of him. He is far from the only person to have a hard time with names (I admit that remembering others’ names isn’t my strongest attribute), and I’ll bet it was especially difficult being a ballplayer who was under pressure to be all things to all people. I only bring it up to reflect on the names we remember and the ones we forget. While re-reading Joshua Chapter 12, it feels that the anonymity of the vanquished kings makes a point that the Israelites’ conquest is so thorough that the people they defeat all seem the same to them. Likewise, for a 20th-century American icon like Willie Mays, the many people who passed through his life might have blended together in his mind at some point. The point to remember is that when we recall a person’s name, we extend a sense of dignity to them, so even if we aren’t necessarily skilled at doing so, it’s still worth the effort to try.

Shabbat Shalom!