I will be with you
1 After the death of Moses, Yahweh spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun and the
minister of Moses, and said to him:
2 ¡°My servant Moses is dead; therefore, the hour has come for you to cross
the Jordan River, and all the people shall go with you to the land which I
give to the sons of Israel.
3 I give you all the places where you set your feet, as I promised Moses.
4 Your frontiers will extend from the mountain of Lebanon in the north, to
the desert in the south, as far as the great Eu phrates in the east and the
Great Sea in the west.
5 As long as you live, no one will be able to stand against you. I will be
with you as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or abandon you.
6 Be valiant and have courage for I will give this people the land I swore
to their fathers I would give them.
7 There fore, be brave and faithfully fulfill the whole Law which Moses, my
servant, gave you. Do not turn aside from it either to the right or to the
left, and you shall succeed wherever you go.
8 Constantly read the book of this Law and meditate on it day and night that
you may truly do what it says. So shall your plans be fulfilled and you
shall succeed in everything.
9 It is I who command you; be strong, then, and be valiant. Do not tremble
or be afraid, because Yahweh, your God, is with you wherever you go.¡±
10 Joshua ordered the secretaries of the peo ple:
11 ¡°Pass through the camp and give this command: ¡®Store up enough food for,
in three days¡¯ time, you shall cross the Jordan and enter the land which
Yahweh, your God, will give you¡¯.¡±
12 To the people of the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to half of the tribe of
Manas seh, Joshua said,
13 ¡°Re member the command of Moses, the servant of Yahweh; Yahweh has
provided you with a place of rest and has given you all this region.
14 The women and children, as well as the livestock, shall remain on this
side of the Jordan, in the region which Moses gave you; but you who are
valiant shall cross over, armed, ahead of your brothers and shall help them
15 until Yahweh gives them rest, as he has given you, that they may also
conquer the land which Yah weh, our God, gives them. So you shall return to
the region which Moses gave us and take possession of that land at the east
of the Jordan.¡±
16 They answered Joshua: ¡°We will do all you have commanded us and go
wherever you send us. Just as we have obeyed Moses, so shall we obey you in
the same way.
17 May Yahweh, your God, be with you as he was with Moses.
18 He who contradicts your words and disobeys your orders shall die. But be
valiant and courageous.¡±
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Comments Joshua, Chapter 1
• 1.1 The hero of the book is Joshua, son of Nun, who succeeded Moses (Dt
34:9). The conquest of the Promised Land is narrated here as if Joshua had
directed everything. In this way the image of a savior is enhanced
(¡°Joshua,¡± like ¡°Jesus,¡± means Yahweh-saves) who leads the people of God
into their land and to their rest. Joshua pre figures Jesus, as we are told
in the Letter to the Hebrews (4:8). The phrase ¡°Yahweh said to Joshua¡±
should not be taken literally. This merely means that, in taking such an
initiative, Joshua fulfilled Yahweh¡¯s plan. Like all the prophets seen later
in Israel, Joshua appears here as the ¡°servant of Yahweh¡± who day and night
ponders his word (Ps 1:2). The first biblical image that will come to the
mind of the primitive Christian community when speaking of Jesus will be
that of the ¡°holy servant of God¡± (Acts 3:13; 3:26; 4:27; 4:30).
I give you all the places where you set your feet. In this way we ought to
expect God¡¯s benefits. He does not do the work for us; instead, he sees to
it that we make the necessary effort. The land which Yahweh gives to the
Israelites will belong to them once they conquer it.
Sometimes, religious people have the reputation of being unconcerned about
social problems, and of not committing themselves to tasks involving the
common good. It is true that the Gospel does not speak of earthly conquests,
but biblical history shows that the Gospel could not have been understood
deeply except by people who had fought to conquer their land and to forge
their own identity, so as later to create their own culture. The Church
knows by experience that evangelization cannot be divorced from human
development.