Bible -- Commentaries; Bible -- Feminist criticism; Women in the Bible
According to the sacred fabulist, Joshua surpassed Moses in the
wonders which he performed. In taking the city of Jericho, as
recorded in Chapter viii., he did not use the ordinary enginery of war,
but told his soldiers to blow a simultaneous blast upon their trumpets,
while all the people with united shouts should produce such a violent
concussion of the air as to bring down the walls of the city. He not
only subsidized the atmosphere to overpower his enemies, but he
commanded the sun and the moon to stand still to lengthen the day and
to lighten the night until this victory was complete.
It seems that the Lord was so well pleased with Joshua's refined
military tactics that he suspended the laws of the vast solar system to
vindicate the superior prowess of one small tribe on the small planet
called the earth. The Lord also resorted to more material and forcible
means, sending down tremendous hailstones from heaven, and thus with
one fell blow destroyed more of his enemies than the children of Israel
did with the sword.
There are no events recorded in secular history that strain the faith
of the reader to such a degree as the feats of Joshua. Moses, with his
manna and pillar of light in the wilderness and his dazzling
pyrotechnics on Mount Sinai, fades into insignificance before these
marvellous manifestations by Joshua, with the Canaanites, Jericho, and
the sun and moon under his feet. Though teaching the people that all
these fables are facts, still the Church condemns prestidigitators,
soothsayers, fortune tellers, Spiritualists, witches, and the
assumptions of Christian Scientists.
Joshua xv.
16 And Catch said, He that smiteth Kirjathesepher and taketh it, to
him will I give Achsah my daughter to wife.
17 And Othniel, the son of Kenez, the brother of Caleb, took it; and
he gave him Achsah his daughter to wife.
18 And it came to pass, as she came unto him, that she moved him to
ask of her father a field: and she lighted off her ass; and Caleb said
unto her, What wouldest thou?
19 Who answered, Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a south
land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs,
and the nether springs.
In giving Achsah her inheritance it is evident that the judges of
Israel had not forgotten the judgment of the Lord in the case of
Zelophehad's daughters. He said to Moses, "When a father dies leaving
no sons, the inheritance shall go to the daughters. Let this henceforth
be an ordinance in Israel." Very good as far as it goes; but in case
there were sons, justice demanded that daughters should have an equal
share in the inheritance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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