Joshua's long day 



123 



those forty years, and of the deliverance which closed them — 

 sings of them as if both had occurred on the selfsame day : — 



What ailed thee, 0 thou sea, that thou fleddest ? 

 Thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back ? " 



The Israelites had crossed the Red Sea and the Jordan, and they 

 were encamped in the Promised Land. They had crossed the 

 Jordan at its fullest, for " Jordan overfioweth all his banks all the 

 time of harvest " (Josh, iii, 15). " And the people came out of 

 Jordan on the tenth day of the first month and encamped in Gilgal 

 in the east border of Jericho " (Josh, iv, 19). 



The first stage of the entrance of Israel on its promised 

 possession was devoted, not to military measures, but to spiritual. 

 For Israel was the Chosen People of God : the nation that knew 

 God ; and through all its varied history, all w^ho were best and 

 truest in it recognized continually the presence of God in their 

 midst. On the fourteenth day of the first month, therefore, the 

 people kept the Passover, and during the week that followed 

 they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread, not with bread made 

 with manna from heaven, which now ceased for ever, but with the 

 old corn of the land. 



In our inquiry this evening, we are not concerned with the 

 spiritual aspect of the Passover of Joshua, or of the events which 

 followed in the next few weeks. But they are important to us 

 as giving a measure of the flight of time. 



The Passover was held on the fourteenth day of the first month 

 of the Mosaic calendar, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread was 

 held on the fifteenth, and six following days ; then came the siege 

 of Jericho, which was straitly shut up for a full week or more, and, 

 after its destruction, the purely military operations of the con- 

 quest began. These two weeks — the week of Unleavened Bread 

 and the week of the siege of Jericho — bring us to the end of the 

 first month, that is of the month Abib. It is not likely that 

 Joshua would be slack in taking up his own specially appointed 

 duty, that of acting — under the Lord his God — as Captain- 

 General of the Host of Israel. His army was encamped on the 

 plain at the bottom of that great Rift — the valley of the Jordan. 

 For the time being , he was there well suppHed with food and 

 fairly secured from attack. But the climate was enervating 

 and he would have no wish for the nation to make that their 

 settled residence. Further, he had an important duty to fulfil : 

 the charge had been laid upon him to proceed into the heart of 



