The Daily: Friday August 2, 2024

Daily Lectionary Reading: Psalm 51:1-12 (NRSV, The Message); Joshua 23:1-16 (NRSV, The Message); 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 (NRSV, The Message)

Joshua, speaking to the people of Israel:
...and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. The Lord your God will push them back before you, and drive them out of your sight; and you shall possess their land, as the Lord your God promised you.
Joshua 23:3-5 (NRSV)

The circumstances of the state of Israel and the Palestinians are heartbreakingly difficult to wade through. There is no discernible solution.

One of the underlying factors is the claim that both Israelis and Palestinians have to the land. Here it is very clear that, according to the story that Israel told, God drove all of the other nations from the Jordan to the Mediteranean and gave the land to them. That should settle it right?

We should remember that the text from Joshua is itself a cultural claim upon the land. God did not drive out the other nations and give the land to the Hebrew people. That is not how God works. To the extent that other nations were driven out, it was the people of Israel that did the driving. Joshua is a piece of literature written by the victors. No nation can claim God's favor upon them over and above another nation.

Also, should all borders be returned to the earliest records we can find in ancient texts. That could get messy fast, especially for some genocidal "pilgrims" I count as my own ancestors.

None of this deligitimizes Israel's claim to place in the area "from the Jordan to the Great Sea," only its exclusionary claim. God's desire, in our extremely limited capacity to discern such, would be for peoples to figure out how to care for one another and live together in peace.