The Elephants in the Room

Joshua Chapter Eight, the Strange and the Spectacular

Vital Stats:

Verses: 35

Is It Read At Synagogue?: There is a custom among Italian Jews in Jerusalem to read the last six verses of this chapter as part of the Haftarah for the Torah portion of Ki Tavo.

Famous Quotes/Phrases: Joshua’s name appears 19 times in this chapter alone, more than in any previous chapter.

Basic Plot: With the disobedient Achan out of the way, God tells Joshua to make a second attempt at capturing Ai, this time with a new strategy. Joshua chooses 30,000 men to hide near the city, while he and 5,000 troops approach Ai itself. When the people of Ai see this, all them leave the city to pursue Joshua and his troops — allowing the hiding soldiers to emerge from hiding and set the now-abandoned city on fire. Once the people of Ai realize their mistake, they find themselves surrounded by Joshua’s troops and the ones who had been hiding. The people of Ai are destroyed, and this time, God allows the Israelite soldiers to capture Ai’s possessions. To memorialize the victory, Joshua sets up a pillar of stones on which the Israelites bring sacrifices of thanksgiving, and etches the words of “Torat Moshe”, the teaching of Moses, which he reads aloud to the people.

What’s Strange: In her book Conquering Character: The Characterization of Joshua in Joshua 1-11, Sarah Lebhar Hall notes that while God tells Joshua in Verse 2 to ambush the people of Ai, Joshua takes five subsequent verses to describe how the ambush is to take place. Given how successful the invasion is, doesn’t Joshua deserve the bulk of the credit for this victory?

Not so fast. To Hall, God’s role still can’t be underestimated: “Yahweh consistently chooses to work, sovereignly, through divinely chosen human leaders, whose agency does not in any way exclude their own initiative and action. More specifically, the distinction between divine and human action does not hold up within Joshua 8 itself. Yahweh’s own ambush command reflects the importance of tactical planning and human resources, and Joshua’s detailed strategy is inspired by Yahweh’s instructions. There is no clear-cut line between divine and human action. Joshua’s role as a strategist is a function of, not a departure from, his role as a servant of Yahweh.”

What’s Spectacular: I need to take a slight departure from my usual format to address a couple of questions that have been raised to me in recent days. It has not gone unnoticed that these posts about the book of Joshua — and, specifically, the descriptions of total war — might be challenging to read during a time of violence and destruction in Israel and Gaza.

First off, it’s important to note that these summaries and discussions are not meant to be a celebration of the annihilations described in the book of Joshua. Quite the contrary.

Because, second, the fact that these stories of the worst aspects of war are in our sacred texts mean they need to be reckoned with, perhaps now more than ever. We need to ask whether our society has taken the brutality of ancient warfare and learned to transcend it, or to succumb to its worst features. We can’t ignore that these passages are in our holy books, and we need to determine to what extent our modern civilization reflects them or transcends them.

I continue to pray that both Israelis and Palestinians will emerge from this conflict with the ability to live with and next to each other with serenity and mutual understanding, without being torn apart by terrorists who wish to only scare and divide.

Shabbat Shalom!