Year 1, Day 197: Joshua 12

Cisjordan

Okay, first things first.  It’s new vocabulary time for me: Cisjordan.  I’d heard of Transjordan before.  That word literally means “across the Jordan.”  From the perspective of the Promised Land, the Transjordan land is across the Jordan River – or the east side.  Cisjordan is a word I’d never heard used until I was doing some reading on this chapter.  Cisjordan literally means “this side of the Jordan.”  Hence, from the perspective of the Promised Land the Cisjordan is west of the Jordan, or literally, the Promised Land.  Not that this is a spiritual comment at all, but sometimes it is fun to learn new vocabulary words.

There isn’t much to this chapter other than a list, so I’m not going to go very deep today.  But that’s okay, too.  We’ve been hitting pretty hard lately, and it is nice to take a break once and a while.  It’s like reading a genealogy.  They are easy to read, but you don’t get much out of them.

Moses and Joshua

What I did focus on as I read was the difference between how Moses is written about and how Joshua is written about.  I’m not saying Moses is preferred, because the difference could have simply been that Joshua was the author and didn’t want to praise himself as much as he was willing to praise his mentor.  Anyway, did you spot the difference?  When Moses is referenced in this chapter it is “Moses the servant of the Lord.”  But Joshua is simply “Joshua.”

I don’t want to make anything more of this chapter than to put forth how that is perhaps the greatest title any of us could want to possess: Servant of the Lord.  That just about says it all.  It says humbleness towards God.  It proclaims God as the dominant in the relationship.  It shows a person who worked for God’s end, not his own end.  It’s a nice epitaph.  I wouldn’t hope for anything more, and Lord willing when we do die that will honestly be able to be said about all of us, too.

At the same time, what do you think the world would have to say about this title?  Does the world seek to be anyone’s servant?  I imagine that the world would correct anyone who declared as they were growing up that they want to be someone’s servant.  It’s just not how the world works.  Yet here in this chapter being a servant to God is a high note of praise.

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