Joshua, Chapter 15 - Promise Fulfilled | Prophets of Israel

[music] >> Shalom friends and welcome back to the Prophets of Israel daily. This is Joshua chapter 15. All right. Now, this chapter this is one of those chapters that if you're not paying attention, you can [music] just kind of uh you know, move through it quickly. For much of it, it's really a long list of names. There's borders, cities, stuff like that. But if we slow down even just a little, you start to realize it's not a list. It really is it's a love story. It's the manifestation of a promise that was spoken to Avraham Avinu to Abraham hundreds of years earlier that is finally taking physical shape in the world. Because what are we reading here? We're reading about the inheritance of the tribe of Judah. Right? This is not just any tribe. This is Yehudah. The tribe of kings, the tribe of David, the tribe from which Mashiach will come bimheira beyameinu, may it be soon. And where is their portion? In the heart of the land. In the hills of Judea. The very hills that we're living on right now, that we're building on, that we're planting our vineyards on and and that we're collecting our chicken eggs upon. I got five this morning. Some of them are blue. I'm telling you my friends, once you've eaten a blue egg from a Judean chicken, there's simply no going back. Anyways, we're talking about Judea, the very place where we are broadcasting to you from this very moment. And so, listen to how it begins. This is verse one. And the lot for the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families was to the border of Edom, the wilderness of Zin southward, and at the farthest end of the south. Right? And the chapter begins by it's carefully mapping out the borders. From the southern edge of Edom to the wilderness of Zin to Hebron stretching all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. And you could almost feel the text telling us don't rush past this. Right? Because every boundary, every city, every ridge is real. It's not symbolic or abstract. Every name of every place is a testimony that Hashem's promises are not symbolic or abstract, they're real. And I think that's actually one of the deepest messages of this chapter because we live in a world that is constantly trying to turn the story of Israel into something symbolic or metaphorical, something abstractly spiritual. And then we learn here Joshua chapter 15, it comes and says, "No. The promise is physical. It has borders and coordinates. It's something you could walk on, build on, you could live on, you could raise children on. Right? Many of these names you could actually put into Waze." You know, Ari, I think that's exactly the point because when you can plug something into Waze, it means the promise isn't just something you learn about, it's something you can actually drive through. Like right now, you can turn left to Hebron, head down towards south to the Negev past the same ridges and valleys Yehoshua is describing and suddenly you realize we're not reading history, we're living inside it. Hashem made an eternal covenant with Israel and one physical thing in the world that's eternal and unmoving throughout the generations is the land. That's the reason the land is the covenant, is the testimony for all times and for everyone to see. Right, right. So, the chapter is listing the borders and then right in the middle, the chapter seems to like slow down and transition into a very interesting story about our old friend and the hero of Israel, Caleb. Right? The same Caleb who together with Joshua stood against the fear of the spies, the same Caleb who when everybody else saw giants said, "No, they're our bread. We can do this thing." Right? And now decades later, he's still here. He's still strong and ready to claim his portion because remember that although God gave it to him, he still had to make it his. He still had to step into the promise. Right? Let's look at verse 16. And Caleb said, "Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him I will give Achsah, my daughter, as a wife." You know, by the way, Ari, you know, someone with a daughter approaching marriageable age, it makes perfect sense to me. Caleb is basically saying, "No pressure. Just go conquer a fortified city and then we'll talk." Because, you know, at the end of the day, who do you want marrying your daughter? Some guy with smooth lines and a nice watch? Or a guy who can take down giants in a city? And by the way, Ari, I know we're not there yet, but in the book of Judges in chapter 1, we actually learn that Othniel's father, Kenaz, is Caleb's younger brother, which actually makes the whole story that much richer because Caleb isn't just giving his daughter over to some random hero, he's giving her over to someone within the family who proves himself worthy through his faith and his action. And that's just really beautiful. Yeah, it is. I I didn't know that, you know, that's completely true. And Othniel ben Kenaz definitely rises to the challenge. He conquers the city. Not a lot of story made about it, just conquers the city and marries Achsah. Very romantic. And then something happens that's easy to miss, but it really is powerful. Achsah turns to her father and she says, "But tomar t'nali brakha." Right? She says, "Give me a blessing. For you have given me land in the upper Negev. Give me also springs of water." And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. And I just want to sit with that for a second because I took a deep dive into what it's about. There's many, many levels here. But that's the idea. Achsah understands something very deep. Land is not enough. You can inherit land, but without water, it's dry. It's potential. Right? But it's not life. And she has the courage to say, "I want more. I want more blessing. I want living water." And I have to tell you my friends, this really spoke to me because she she was given land. Right? It was just dry land. She could have built on it and settled it, but that wasn't enough for her. She didn't just want to build structures. She wanted to create beauty and and vibrancy and life. She wasn't rejecting the land she was given, she was just revealing that she had a redemptive consciousness. She didn't want to just survive, she wanted to bring life. And Jeremy, tell me you're not thinking what I am right now because what she is asking for isn't that different from what Hashem has blessed us to do out here. I mean, we didn't come out here just to build and put up caravans. At the time, that's what most of the farms in Judea were doing. We wanted to create a diamond in the crown of Judea. We have to we have to put up pictures here and just show a little bit. I mean, you know, there's the Beit Knesset, there's the beautiful farm, there's the pool. I I mean, what Achsah is doing here and what we're trying to do in her footsteps is literally the prophetic story of Judea. Right? When the prophets say, "The desert will bloom." Chavat Ze'elim will be like a blossom like a lily because we are in the Sefat Hamedbar. As it says, we're in the last mountains right before the Judean desert. This was dry land. But we we built a we we aspired to build a Garden of Eden-like oasis in the desert and an ecological pool bursting with life. Essentially, what she's saying, "I don't want a portion in the land of Israel. I don't want to just want a portion, I want a portion that can live. I want blessing flowing through my land." And that's a massive difference. In some ways, it's the difference between exile consciousness and redemptive consciousness. And she wanted redemption consciousness. And she doesn't only want it, she has the courage to ask for it, to go and get it. You know, I just want to interject here, Ari, before we move on. You know, it's worth noting that by making that request, Achsah is really following in her father's footsteps and continuing his legacy. You know, he had to be proud. I mean, he was the one that said, "Alon Na'aleh, let's go up to the land. We can inherit it." He pushed for it. He conquered the land and now she's cultivating it. She's taking his legacy to the next level. He conquered it, she's developing it, she's making it beautiful. And that's really the two stages of redemption for our generation. Last generation had to inherit the land, but after you inherit the land, now it's our generation to bring it to life. Yeah, and I think that's speaking directly to us just like you said. You know, because really her request wasn't just practical, it was also strategic. Right? After all, water determines agriculture, settlement, and ultimately long-term viability. Meaning that Achsah was not just thinking like a settler, she was thinking like a nation builder. She looked at the Negev and saw a place that appears dry and harsh and almost resistant to life itself, but she had the eyes to see that within it a hidden promise was waiting to be unlocked. She understood that the future of the land and really the future of the nation depends on drawing out that that hidden potential. And in that sense, she's speaking directly to us because the question is not whether we return to the land, but whether we're really willing to draw down the Mayim Chaim and really bring it to life. Mayim Chaim, living waters. I mean, bring it to life. And I think that we today in our generation need to ask ourselves whether we will settle for inheritance alone or insist, like Achsah, on a living redemption where the land itself becomes a place of of flowing life and of blessing and of the meeting point between the divine above and the world below because you know, we're not there yet. The way the chapter ends is also where we're holding right now. Things are still incomplete. Let's look at verse 63. But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive out. And the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah in Jerusalem to this day. Right, the chapter makes a point to to end by reminding us that the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, were not fully driven out. They remained there alongside the tribe of Judah. Because like today, even in in the moment of fulfillment, it's not complete. There's still work to do. There are still challenges ahead. Jerusalem itself, the heart of everything, has not yet been fully claimed. And maybe that's the deepest truth that this chapter is leaving us with. Right, on the one hand, we are living inside the fulfillment. The borders are real, the cities are real, the land is in our hands, the promise to Abraham is no longer a dream. It's something we can walk on and build on and raise our children on, but at the very same time, it's not finished. Jerusalem itself, the heart of it all, is not yet fully redeemed. There's still forces that don't belong here. Right, there are still layers of the land and of ourselves that have yet to be fully claimed and fully purified and brought to life. And so right now we're holding that tension that tension, right? Between promise and completion. Right, between inheritance and redemption. And maybe that's exactly where we're meant to be because Joshua 15 is not just telling us what was, it's telling us where we are. We are the generation that has returned to the land. And like Caleb, we have to step into it. And I think we're doing it. I I do. You know, like Aksah, we need to draw out its waters. And like Yehudah, we have to finish the story. Okay, my friends. I uh I want to wish us a hazak ve'amatz. May we be strong and courageous in our return to the land and our return to ourselves. And be'ezrat Hashem, we'll see you tomorrow here when we are diving into chapters 16 through 19 with Jeremy. Shalom.