Joshua Chapter 1: God Commissions Joshua

The book of Joshua is all about entering, conquering, and settling in a new land. The Israelites are to go into and live in the land which God had promised to give them, and where their forebears had dwelt many centuries before.

This chapter kicks off the story. Joshua has taken on the leadership of the Children of Israel, and he is commissioned to lead the people across the river Jordan and to take the land.

The inner meaning of this story is not a political one but, because it is in the Bible, it’s a personal or spiritual one. The land of Canaan represents our own personal life (see Apocalypse Explained 569[5]). We have some high ideals and good intentions, which are represented by the people of Israel, and we have some of the common human failings - being self-centred, critical, greedy, judgmental (you name it!). These traits are represented in the Book of Joshua by the several tribes of Canaan who have taken up residence there while Israel was in Egypt. Their tribal names have meanings like ‘low-lying’, and ‘mud-dwellers’. Conquering them symbolizes our need – with God’s help – to overcome our low-life human shortcomings and instead be led by God’s truths (Arcana Caelestia 4816).

Joshua is commissioned by God to lead the people (Arcana Caelestia 8595). Moses has died, and now Joshua is in charge. In commissioning him, God describes several things that we also need to relate to personally. First, we are told we need to cross the river Jordan to go into the land. A river is a very definite boundary and this tells us that there is a sharp distinction between our old life and our new life, without shades of grey.

Next Joshua is told that every place your foot treads upon shall be yours. This brings out our need to use God’s truths practically by living and doing them rather than intellectually just thinking about them, because our ‘foot’ is the lowest point of our body which directly touches the ground (see Heaven and Hell 97). The ground we walk on is life itself.

Then, the borders of the land of Canaan are described by namem and these give us ideas about our need to be challenged (wilderness), to think well (Lebanon), to do good (Hittites), and much more (the Great Sea). Then God says that if we make our decision to live God’s truths, nothing will be able to stand in our way.

After this come the famous words ‘Be strong and very courageous’ (Arcana Caelestia 6343). These come several times in chapter 1, to encourage us and to hold us in the strength of God’s power. We are also told not to turn to the right hand or the left, meaning that we are to obey God and do what is right without deviating. After a great start we can so easily slow down and turn away.

The Book of the Law shall not depart from our mouth but we must meditate on it day and night and keep it in our mouth, in our mind, our heart and our actions and our intentions.

Joshua then gives orders to the leaders to get the people ready to go. This means, for us, that our realisation that we must follow God and conquer our life needs to trickle down from our mind into every part of us in the smallest detail of this and this and even that. And to always be ready.

The last part of chapter 1 is about some of Israel’s tribes – Reubenites, Gadites and half of Manasseh. Earlier on, these tribes made the decision that they would rather settle on the east side of the river Jordan where there were good pastures. Moses had told them ‘Yes’ but now Joshua says that before they do, all the men must go with everybody into Canaan and fight and only then return over the Jordan to be with their wives and children and flocks.

This is telling us that there is place in our lives for external pleasures and possessions, but only when we have owned and lived the things of God first (Arcana Caelestia 870).

870. That 'a dove' means the truths and goods of faith residing with a person who is to be regenerated is clear from the meaning of 'a dove' in the Word, especially from the dove that alighted on Jesus when He was baptized, as mentioned in Matthew,

When Jesus was baptized He went up immediately out of the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on Himself. Matthew 3:16-17; and in John 1:32, Luke 3:21-22; Mark 1:10-11.

Here 'a dove' meant nothing else than the holiness of faith, and the 'baptism' itself meant regeneration. It also meant therefore the truth and good of faith residing with the new Church that was to arise, which truth and good people receive through being regenerated by the Lord.

[2] Similar things were represented and embodied in the young doves or the turtle doves - mentioned in Leviticus 1:14-end; 5:7-10; 12:6; 14:21-22; 15:14-15, 29-30; Numbers 6:10-11; Luke 2:22-24 - which they used to offer as sacrifices and as burnt offerings in the Jewish Church, as becomes clear from each of the references just given. Anyone may grasp that they had such a meaning merely from the fact that they could not have been anything else than things of a representative nature. Otherwise they would be pointless, and in no sense Divine, for the external side of the Church is lifeless, but is made alive by the internal, as is the internal by the Lord.

[3] That 'a dove' in general means the intellectual concepts of faith is also clear in the Prophets, as in Hosea,

Ephraim will be like a stupid dove with no heart; they called Egypt, they went away to Assyria. Hosea 7:11.

In the same prophet, speaking of Ephraim,

They will tremble like a bird out of Egypt and a dove from the land of Assyria. Hosea 11:11.

Here 'Ephraim' stands for one who has intelligence, 'Egypt' for him who has knowledge, 'Assyria' for him who is rational, and 'a dove' stands for what belongs to the intellectual concepts of faith, the subject there being the regeneration of the spiritual Church. In David,

O Jehovah, deliver not the soul of [Your] turtle dove to the wild animal. Psalms 74:19.

'Wild animal' stands for people without any charity, 'the soul of a turtle dove' for the life of faith. See what has been stated and shown already in 40, 776, about birds meaning intellectual things. Harmless, beautiful, clean, and useful birds in particular mean intellectual truths and goods; but harmful, ugly, unclean, and useless ones, such as the raven, which is here used as the opposite of the dove, mean their opposites, namely falsities.