Joshua

Oversimplified

  • The assistant and successor of Moses who led Israel across the Jordan and into the Promised Land.
  • His name is the Hebrew form of "Jesus" — "the LORD saves" — and the Fathers read him as a type of Christ.

His Story

Joshua, son of Nun, first appears as the young minister of Moses, attending him on the mountain of God (Exodus 24.13; Exodus 33.11). Sent with the twelve to spy out Canaan, he and Caleb alone brought back a faithful report and urged the people to trust God, and so alone of their generation they were permitted to enter the land (Numbers 13–Numbers 14). When Moses was to die, God set Joshua in his place, a man "in whom is the Spirit," commissioned before Eleazar and the assembly (Numbers 27.18-23; Deuteronomy 34.9). Under his hand the Jordan parted and Israel crossed on dry ground (Joshua 3–Joshua 4), the walls of Jericho fell (Joshua 6), and the land was conquered and divided among the tribes. At the end he gathered Israel to renew the covenant, setting his own house as the example: "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24.15).[^1]

Joshua and Jesus

The deepest thing about Joshua is hidden in plain sight in his name. Yehoshua — rendered Iēsous in Greek — is the very name later given to the incarnate Word: Jesus. Where Moses, who stands for the Law, could bring Israel to the edge of the land but not in, it is Joshua who actually leads the people across into their inheritance. The Epistle to the Hebrews makes the type explicit: "if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterward of another day" (Hebrews 4.8) — the rest Joshua gave was real but partial, a shadow of the true and lasting rest into which Christ, the new Joshua, leads his people.[^2]

Sources

[^1]: The wilderness narrative and the book of Joshua — Joshua as Moses' minister and faithful spy (Numbers 13–Numbers 14), his commissioning as successor (Numbers 27.18-23; Deuteronomy 34.9), and the crossing, conquest, and covenant renewal. [^2]: Hebrews 4.8 on the "rest" Joshua gave as a figure of the greater rest given in Christ — who bears his very name (Yehoshua / Iēsous).