THE MISSION OF THE TWO SPIES
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Joshua 2:1. Joshua sent] Or, as in the margin, had sent. It is probable that the spies had left the camp for Jericho one or two days before the giving of the two addresses by Joshua, which are recorded in chap. 1. Out of Shittim] Called in Numbers 33:49, Abel Shittim. The last camping-ground of the Israelites in connection with their nomadic life, and the scene of their sin with Moab. (Cf. Numbers 25.)
Joshua 2:4. Hid them] “Heb. ‘hid him,’ i.e. each one of them; implying, probably, that she hid them separately, at some distance from each other” (Bush).
Joshua 2:5. The time of shutting the gate] This was at sunset. The absence of artificial light would render this precaution necessary, especially in a time of war. When it was dark] As it grew dusk (De Wette). The evening twilight in the East is of very short duration.
Joshua 2:6. Stalks of flax] “Flax of the word, that is, undressed flax, or flax with its ligneous parts” (Kitto).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Joshua 2:1-7
EMERGENCIES IN THE LIFE OF PIETY
1. Here was an emergency to Joshua and all the people. They were on the eve of a bloody and terrible war. Omnipotence and Omniscience had guaranteed success; how far were jealous precautions and earnest efforts on the part of men to be coupled with the promised help of God? Joshua had to choose between idle trust and active co-operation.
2. Equally eventful is this same period to Rahab. Her newly found faith in God was tried hard in its very beginnings. She had to choose between her country and her newly discovered God; she chose God, and chose rightly. She had also to choose between telling a lie and giving up the spies; she chose the lie, and thus sinned. We see here, faith working to ensure a victory which God has already promised; faith choosing between a country on the one hand, and God on the other; and faith mixed with sin, and God graciously over-ruling the sin for the good of men.
I. The relation between man’s efforts and God’s guarantees. “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you,” said God to His servant Joshua, and immediately after Joshua sent out the two spies, saying, “Go, view the land, even Jericho.” The spies were sent out as a special precautionary measure. They were thoroughly to acquaint themselves with Jericho; its situation, its approaches, its surroundings, its fortifications, its weak places, the tone of the people—whether they were confident or, as we should say, demoralised by fear; all these things, and more as they might be able, these men were to spy out. Here was as much care as though all things depended on Joshua. Would not the Divine omniscience do the spying, and omnipotence secure the victory already guaranteed? As it proved, the work of the spies had nothing to do with the victory; it was in no way accessory to triumph. This was peculiarly God’s battle, in which for wise purposes He seemed to be saying, “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” Yet God manifestly approves the sending of the spies, giving the whole mission the stamp of His approval in the salvation of Rahab, and in the commendation of her faith in the N. T.
1. God’s help was never intended to make us idle. The promises are not so many arm-chairs in which we may quietly ensconce ourselves, and letting ecstasy take the place of service, cry out in lazy rapture,
“My willing soul would stay
In such a frame as this,
And sit and sing herself away
To everlasting bliss;”
neither are they couches on which we may recline, softly chanting about
“that sweet repose.
Which none but he that feels it knows;”
a truth which however happy as it concerns the world in general, would, in such an application of it, be simply wickedness in the lips of the singer. The promises of the Bible have sometimes been compared to golden stones with which God has paved for His children a highway to heaven. Let us rather say, God has given them to us, that we may pave with them this firm and beautiful way; but that unless each one of them is laid and imbedded in active service and holy obedience, none will be firm; they will simply precipitate us into the Slough of Despond, or, if not, they ought to, lest like Ignorance we presently find that even from the gate of heaven there is a by-way to hell. The promises have been likened to a boat in which God’s children ride to their desired haven; yet are there times when we must row hard to keep the head of the boat to sea, lest the waves prevail and swamp us, and we perish. If we would know the true value of God’s assurances, it must be by using them for something better than idleness.
2. God’s help should not only mean no less work; it should mean more work. It is because the end is guaranteed that we should work cheerfully and strive manfully. Is not this what fervent John intended, when he said, “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith”? How some of the old heathen, whose deeds have been sung in the Iliad and Æueid, used to offer their sacrifices, pour their libations, and then fight! How some believers in fate have striven on in life’s battle, just because of faith in an idea, like the last Napoleon, who was always “accomplishing his destiny.” Oh, how we ought to fight, who have for a faith and a guarantee the many and beautiful words of the Scriptures from the “God that that cannot lie,” and “who made the worlds.” How beautifully significant is Paul’s phrase, “Fight the good fight of faith;” that is just why we should fight—the issue is guaranteed, and the very battle is a faith. (a) With faith in God, we should go into every conflict zealously. (b) It should be just the same in our temporary defeats; we should look on them as only temporary. What led David and Peter back into the way of truth, but faith? there was faith in forgiveness, in God’s love, and the Saviour’s tenderness; in help for future. (c) No true Christian should complain, because life will have to be like this to the very end. The inheritance to all of us is on the other side of the river; our strife is all on this side, and it will last all the time we are here. The long conflict is meant to develop manhood and womanhood in ourselves, as well as to inspire it in others. The life of an infant in heaven, saved ere it fell, will be beautiful; the life of the aged saint, made strong by many a conflict, seamed it may be by not a few scars, but graced withal by numerous victories, will be far nobler. The penitent thief’s life above is doubtless glorious, but that of Paul must be incomparably more so.
3. The assurances of victory given us by God demand not only our active efforts, but our caution and prudence. Promise does not free us from work, neither does it absolve us from the consequences of indiscretion. The late Mr. Binney once said, “If the twelve apostles were walking on a railway when a train was rushing along, it would go over them, if they did not get out of the way, and the whole twelve apostles would be crushed to atoms. God would not interfere.” Certainly God would not; such interference would be a miracle to save careless men from their folly; it would put a premium on imprudence, it would make law uncertain, not only for destruction, but for protection, and it would make carelessness the best form of prayer out. It is very instructive to hear God say, “I will not fail thee,” then to see Joshua turn away and command the spies to “Go, view the land,” and finally to see God stamp this mission with His manifest approval. To some people zeal is everything, and prudence is nowhere. They seem to think that Zeal is the very chief among the elect angels of the Almighty, sitting on His right hand, and close to His throne, whenever found sitting at all; and that Prudence, if in heaven, can only have a mission in keeping the most remote gate of the city, so that none but zealots may he suffered to enter. These good people make Zeal not only the chief, but almost the sum of the graces; Prudence is a stranger and a foreigner in the land—a mere Gibeonite, fit for nothing better than to be “a hewer of wood, and a drawer of water” on behalf of the disciples of Zeal. Such is not God’s way, and such is not the spirit of the Saviour. “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently.” is a word embodied with marvellous emphasis in the life of the Messiah. Christ’s true followers must have not only the zeal which consumes, but the prudence which is wise. No man has any commission for abolishing all but his own pet graces; we are to be Christians all round and all through, “transformed into the image of His Son.”
II. The relation of patriotism to piety. This woman had to choose between her country and her God, and she chose to put the claims of the King of kings before those of her sovereign. She was no traitor, who sold her country for considerations which were mean and paltry. True, she stipulated for the safety of her family, but even this could only spring from faith in God. This conclusion was right; but the case must be taken on its own merits: the N. T. does not speak one way or the other about the character of her works; it merely commends her faith because that was not inactive. God’s claims must come before those of earthly monarchs. Would not this justify the claims of Rome, which are based on the Vatican Decrees? Ought not those of our soldiers and sailors who are Roman Catholics to desert to the enemy in a time of war, if the infallible (?) Pope bade them? The whole question lies in another—Is the voice of Rome the voice of God? A history of pontifical crime and sensuality, stretching through many generations, is answer enough to any who are not devotees. The simple truth as to Rome is this—it is a great mixed system, having a single name; the system is political and spiritual, but the name is wholly religious; its deepest political schemes are baptized with the name of God, and backed, by the claims of God. It is on this ground that it claims the right to subvert the allegiance of the Roman Catholic subjects of any sovereign on earth. English dignitaries of that Church tell us that this will never be done. History answers, “It often has been done, and still oftener attempted; and this was so many generations before the decrees were defined and declared; the war stirred up between France and Spain in 1556, Black Bartholomew, the Spanish Armada, the Oath of Allegiance which followed the Gunpowder Plot, and not a few other instances bearing prominent official witness.” The recent case of the Roman Catholic dignitaries is this—“Even if the Vatican Decrees mean what they have been said to, it is impossible that Rome should ever interfere to require English soldiers or sailors to desert the cause of their country;” that is to say, “Rome having done this kind of thing for many generations, when she had no decrees to declare her voice to be the voice of God, cannot POSSIBLY do it now that the process is made comparatively easy since the passing of these decrees.” I must grieve all lovers of freedom to say it, but surely when a church with a history like this claims liberty to teach high treason in every nation in the world—to teach it to the uneducated and superstitious, backed by all their hopes of heaven and fears of hell—the time has come to insist on so much of civil disability to Roman Catholics as shall ensure the safety of the state in which they may happen to live. This is not a question merely of tolerating a religion; it is a question of tolerating an open claim of right, made by the largest and most compact society in the world, to establish an imperium in imperio throughout the earth. That the claim is made in the name of religion is perfectly true; but when religion condescends to become an instrument of grave political disturbance, men must treat with the facts, and cannot afford to be duped by a label.
III. The relation of human sin to Divine triumphs. About this woman’s lie there can be no doubt whatever; it was as palpable a lie as human lips ever uttered. About the universal condemnation in the Scriptures of all lying there can be no doubt; no temptation, no danger, no good aims ever justify an untruth; to do evil that good may come is always sin in the judgment of the Bible. The N. T., however, absolutely commends the faith of Rahab, and the fact that her faith had works is the very point of the commendation given by the apostle James. The fact that she worked as well as believed was good; the manner of her working in this matter was indisputably wicked. The austere morality of James is alone sufficient to tell us that he could give no approval to that. The question has often come up, could the woman have protected the spies in any other way? Probably not; it is enough that God could have protected them. The woman evidently did not think the lie very wrong, and God will probably judge her, as others, in light of the word, “To whom much is given,” etc. A great part of the difficulty about this case lies in assuming that this woman should at once be an angel the moment she begins to be a saint. Her faith was mixed with much sin, but was good as far as it went. One difficulty remains; God seems to have suffered both a lie and a liar to be the means of sheltering His people, and that when they were engaged in a work intimately connected with the fulfilment of His covenant. God often takes sin in its own snares, and that is what He is doing here. The Canaanites, though children of Noah, and warned by many judgments, had chosen a lie for their very religion. As this woman, who had learned both her morality and religion of the Canaanites, turns to desert them, she fires this lie like a Parthian shot, which they themselves had taught her how to aim, and God suffers the lie to wound those whom the woman meant to wound, and to rescue those whom she sought to defend. “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee;” and why should it not? Blessed be God, who condescends to overrule even sin for good. So God suffered Jacob’s lie to work out good; so He permitted the malice and lying of scribes and Pharisees to work out the greatest of all mercies, the cross of Christ. And this principle is in the gospel of nature, and belongs to all men, Christians or not. The atheist should rid it from his book, ere he condemns it in ours. Drunkenness is seen working its own cure, sensuality its own shame, war its own healing, while even such outrages as that of the persecution of the Huguenots laid the foundation of much of the commercial prosperity of our land. Oh, there is hope for sinners, when God by sin overthrows sin. Just as He set Midianites against Midianites, and Philistines to beat down Philistines in some of the later battles of Israel, so He arrays sin against itself. With Christ for us, and sin working its own ruin, who may not dare to hope?
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Joshua 2:1-7.—SECRET SERVICE.
I. The secret service of governments. The sum yearly voted for this in our national estimates. The necessity for it born of human deception and sin.
II. The secret service of the world. Secret pursuit of sinful pleasures. Secret enmity against, and watching of Christians.
III. The secret service of the Church. The spying out of the world’s most secret pleasures. None should go, but such as are wisely chosen and sent. It is always a service of danger. It is ever tending to the light. If necessary at all, the sooner it is over the better.