Closing Notes on Joshua

· Rahab, the harlot mentioned in Joshua 2:1, is referred to as being the wife of Salmon (Matthew 1:5), who was presumably one of the two spies she sheltered. It is likely that the gratitude Salmon felt for Rahab ripened into love, and when grace erased her former life of shame he made her his wife. In turn, she became the mother of Boaz, who married Ruth from whose son, Obed, Jesse the father of David came, through whose line Jesus was born. Salmon was a prince of the house of Judah, and thus, Rahab, the one time heathen harlot, married into one of the leading families of Israel and became an ancestress of our Lord, the other foreign ancestresses being Tamar, Ruth and Bathsheba.

· Joshua’s friend and assistant Caleb was not an ethnic Jew!

In Numbers 32:12 and Joshua 14:6 & 14 he is called Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. Now in Genesis 36:11 we learn that Kenaz is an Edomite name. Hence the conclusion that at some point of time the family of Kenaz, and therefore the family of Caleb the son of Jephunneh, was incorporated into the tribes of Israel just as so many other foreigners, such as Jethro, Rahab, and Ruth, who in virtue of their faith became members of the people of God. This explains a characteristic phrase in Joshua 15:13: 'And to Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a portion among the children of Judah according to the commandment of Jehovah to Joshua...that is, Hebron.' And in Joshua 14:14: 'Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel."

As we begin the study of the book of Judges we will notice that Caleb’s youngest brother, Othniel, would be the first deliverer/judge of Israel (Judges 3:9). Othniel is called 'the son of Kenaz' (Joshua 15:17; Judges 1:13; Judges 3:9, 11). So we see that Joshua’s close assistant and Israel’s chief commander during the conquest was grafted into the Nation by faith. And his son, who became the first judge of Israel, was also grafted into the Nation. The Old Testament Nation of Israel were a people called out to be a display in addition to being a refuge for those Yahweh called out from the surrounding pagan nations.

Robin