The Sword Was Already Drawn

A man stands in the road with his sword already drawn, between an army and the city it came to take.

Joshua walks up and asks the question any soldier would ask: are you one of us, or one of them?

The man says no.

Here is the setting. Israel had been slaves in Egypt. God brought them out, and they spent forty years crossing a desert. Moses, the man God spoke through, had died, and Joshua led them now. They had just crossed the Jordan River into the land God promised them. Ahead stood Jericho, walled and shut tight. Joshua is out near that wall alone when he sees the man with the sword.

1. Joshua asked whose side he was on, and got a flat no

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries?"

Joshua 5:13

Adversaries means enemies. The question offers two boxes and expects the stranger to pick one.

And he said, "No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come."

Joshua 5:14

The Hebrew word is lo, the everyday no you say to a second helping of dinner. Some English Bibles print it as "neither." He is not fighting for the other team. He is saying the question is wrong. (LORD in capitals is how English Bibles print God's personal name.)

Jesus made the same move. A man wanted him to make his brother split the family property, and Jesus answered, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?" (Luke 12:14). He refuses to be a weapon in someone else's fight, and warns the crowd about greed.

A prophet named Amos pushed further. Israel looked forward to "the day of the LORD," when God would sort everything out at last — assuming he meant their enemies.

Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light.

Amos 5:18

"Woe" is a warning: you have no idea what you are asking for. Amos told his own people that God does not check passports on that day — he checks them.

One verse seems to say the opposite, and skipping it would be dishonest.

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all...

Romans 8:31-32

Paul, an early Christian teacher, tells Christians in Rome that God really is for them. So God does take a side. But read the next line: being "for us" cost him his Son. Joshua assumed that side was already his. Paul says it was bought.

2. He did not come to help. He came to command.

I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.

Joshua 5:14

A commander is not a reinforcement. Reinforcements join your plan; a commander replaces it. The man with the sword has just told Joshua who is in charge. What follows is orders: God says Jericho has already been handed over before a sword is raised (Joshua 6:2).

Israel had heard this before, the night they ran from Egypt with an army behind them and a sea in front.

The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

Exodus 14:14

Moses said that to panicking former slaves with no weapons and nowhere to run. "Be silent" is not advice about staying calm. It means stand still, because this one is not yours to win.

Centuries later a king of Judah named Jehoshaphat heard the same thing, with three armies marching on him at once.

Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God's.

2 Chronicles 20:15

A horde is a huge crowd of fighters. Notice what is not promised: not an easy battle, not that nobody gets hurt, only that it belongs to someone else.

Now the hard part. Jericho falls. Then Israel attacks a much smaller town called Ai.

And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men.

Joshua 7:4-5

They lose, and thirty-six men die, because Israel had quietly kept things they were told not to take. The commander is not a lucky charm. Orders can be ignored, and it costs.

3. Joshua stopped asking questions and asked for orders

And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my lord say to his servant?"

Joshua 5:14

His first question was "whose side are you on?" His second is "what are your orders?" In one sentence he goes from recruiting officer to servant, face down in the dirt.

Easy to read past: the man lets him stay down there. Compare John, near the end of the Bible, kneeling to the angel who has been showing him visions.

You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you... Worship God.

Revelation 22:9

The angel is alarmed and stops him on the spot. The commander outside Jericho does not, and in the next breath calls the ground holy. The text never names him, and it is better not to invent a name. But it tells us what he accepted.

A Roman officer once showed Jesus he understood this.

Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority...

Matthew 8:8-9

A centurion — an officer over about a hundred Roman soldiers — wanted his servant healed, and told Jesus not to bother walking over. He gave and took orders all day, so he knew authority when he met it. He asked for a command, not a favour.

That is the test Jesus set: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Luke 6:46). Calling someone your commander costs nothing. Joshua's worship counted because he then did what he was told.

4. A dirt road outside an enemy city was holy ground

Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.

Joshua 5:15

Holy means set apart, belonging to God. Bare feet were a way of showing it: you do not stand in front of God the way you stand anywhere else.

So where is this holy place? Not a temple. Not an altar. A patch of road outside a city Israel plans to attack in the morning. It is holy because of who is standing on it.

Joshua would have known those words. Moses heard them first, at a bush in the desert that burned without burning up.

Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

Exodus 3:5

Almost word for word. God had promised Joshua, "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you" (Joshua 1:5). The promise has arrived in person, in the same sentence.

But holy ground is not a place you get to keep. Jesus said as much to a woman at a well who asked which mountain was the right one for worship.

The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

John 4:23

She wanted a location. He gave her a person and a moment. The holiness was never in the dirt.

The second Joshua

Now the name. "Joshua" comes from the Hebrew Yehoshua, shortened to Yeshua. It means the LORD saves. In Greek that becomes Iesous, and in English, Jesus. Same name. An angel told a carpenter named Joseph to call the baby that, because "he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

The first Joshua did not finish that job.

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

Hebrews 4:8

Joshua got the people into the land, but not all the way home. If he had, God would have stopped speaking of a rest still to come. A second Joshua came to finish it.

Centuries before Jesus was born, a prophet named Zechariah wrote about another sword raised at God's command. It does not fall where you expect.

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me, declares the LORD of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.

Zechariah 13:7

A shepherd protects the sheep, so God calling for a sword against his own shepherd makes no sense at first. We are not left guessing. On the night he was arrested, Jesus quoted that line about himself and his friends (Matthew 26:31), and then let it happen.

That is a different sword from the one outside Jericho, in a different book. But it is the sword that fell, and it fell on God's own shepherd.

What to do with this

Change the question before you pray it. You are probably in a disagreement right now, at home or at work. Before you ask God to back you, write down one sentence: if his answer is no, what would I have to change? Then pray. If you cannot name one thing you might be wrong about, you already have your answer.

Take one order you have been avoiding. Not "obey God more." Pick the thing you already know about: the apology you owe one person, the money you said you would pay back, the truth you have been bending. Do it this week.

Treat ordinary ground as holy. Yours is the kitchen at six in the morning, the desk, the classroom, the bus. Nothing makes a place holy ground except God being there.

Joshua walked up to that sword with a question about sides. He walked away with orders and no shoes. You do not get the ally you asked for. You get a commander — and a God who did not spare his own Son.