Be Strong and of Good Courage: Joshua and the Covenant Conquest
Come Follow Me 2026 — Week 20 — May 18–24 — Joshua 1–8; 23–24
The Commissioning of Joshua
Moses has been taken. The greatest prophet in Israel's history — the one who spoke with God face to face, who brought the people out of Egypt, who mediated the covenant at Sinai — is gone. And Israel stands on the east bank of the Jordan with no Moses, an impassable river before them, and a fortified land of Canaanite city-states on the other side. The situation, by any human calculus, is impossible.
Into this moment God speaks to Joshua, and the words he speaks become the defining commission of the entire book:
“Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest… Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
The command appears four times in chapter 1 alone: “be strong and of good courage.” This repetition is itself a teaching. The courage God calls for is not bravado or military confidence. It is the courage born of knowing who is with you. The LORD your God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. This is the foundation. Joshua's strength is not his own; it is the presence of God that transforms what is otherwise impossible into what is merely challenging.
God also gives Joshua a practical instrument for this courage: the law of Moses. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein” (Joshua 1:8). Courage and covenant fidelity are linked. The courageous leader is the one who does not deviate from the word of God. Courage is not a psychological state — it is an expression of covenantal trust.
Rahab: The Covenant Hero from Outside the Covenant
Joshua 2 contains one of the most unexpected stories in all of scripture. Joshua sends two spies into Jericho to reconnoiter the city. They end up in the house of Rahab, a woman the text describes plainly as a harlot. When the king of Jericho comes looking for the spies, Rahab hides them and deflects the search. She has made a decision.
Her explanation to the spies is a confession of faith so explicit that it reads like a creed:
“I know that the LORD hath given you the land… for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”
Rahab confesses what Jericho knows and refuses to act on. She confesses what Israel believes and often fails to live. And on the basis of this confession, she negotiates the protection of herself and her entire household. The sign of that protection is a scarlet thread hung from her window on the city wall — the same wall where she lives, the mark that will identify her house when Jericho falls.
Christian tradition has long read the scarlet thread typologically: it is the blood of Christ, the mark of salvation, the sign of the covenant that protects those who trust in it. Just as the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of Israel protected the firstborn from the destroying angel in Egypt, so the scarlet thread in Rahab's window marks the house of faith in a city under judgment.
Rahab becomes part of Israel and is listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:5. She is the mother of Boaz, who will appear in next week's readings as the kinsman-redeemer. The New Testament commends her twice explicitly:
Rahab in the New Testament
- Hebrews 11:31 — “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace”
- James 2:25 — “Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”
- Matthew 1:5 — Rahab is listed as the mother of Boaz in the genealogy of Jesus Christ
The doctrine of Rahab is the doctrine of faith without prerequisites. She was a Canaanite, a woman, a harlot — outside every category that first-century Judaism would have considered eligible for saving faith. Her story insists that God's covenant is not bounded by ethnicity, prior moral status, or social standing. What matters is the confession of faith and the action that flows from it. “The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” That is enough.
The Jordan Crossing: Faith Precedes the Miracle
The Jordan crossing in Joshua 3–4 is deliberately constructed as a new Exodus. Just as God parted the Red Sea for Moses, so he will part the Jordan for Joshua. But the mechanics of the miracle differ in a theologically significant way.
At the Red Sea, Moses stretched out his hand and the waters divided; then Israel walked through on dry ground. At the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant must step into the water first. “And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water… the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap” (Joshua 3:15–16). The miracle does not precede the step of faith. The miracle follows it.
This is one of the most consistent patterns in scripture: God asks for the act of faith, and confirms it with miracle. The leper is told to wash in the Jordan before his healing (2 Kings 5). The blind man is told to go wash in the pool of Siloam (John 9). Nephi does not receive instruction about how to build a ship until after he has asked for it, trusting that God will provide the way (1 Nephi 17:8–10). The doctrine is not that miracles are automatic; it is that they are the divine response to genuine faith expressed in action.
Twelve stones are taken from the middle of the Jordan and set up as a memorial at Gilgal. They are a covenant monument: “That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever” (Joshua 4:24). The people of the next generation who did not see the crossing will ask about the stones, and the story will be told again. Memory of covenant miracles is itself a spiritual discipline.
Jericho: Covenant Strategy versus Worldly Strategy
Jericho is the gateway to Canaan, and by every military standard of the ancient world it is impregnable. It is a fortified city with walls of double construction, strategically positioned. No sensible general would attack it the way God commands Joshua to attack it.
God's battle plan: march around the city once a day for six days with the priests blowing trumpets. On the seventh day, march around seven times, then blow a long blast and have all the people shout. “And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat” (Joshua 6:5).
There is no military logic here. There is only obedience. The entire operation is designed to make it impossible for Israel to claim the victory was theirs. When the walls fall, every soldier on the field will know that this was not siege warfare. This was God. The doctrine of Jericho is the doctrine that God deliberately structures his deliverance to eliminate self-credit. The same principle Moses articulated in the reduction of Gideon's army (see Judges 7) is at work here: the method is chosen precisely because it forces dependence on the divine.
The walls fall. Jericho burns. And Rahab's house on the wall — marked with the scarlet thread — stands. It is the only structure preserved in the burning city. The one confession of faith in Jericho produces the one saved household. This is the shape of covenant salvation.
The Covenant Renewal at Shechem: “Choose You This Day”
Joshua 24 is the bookend to Deuteronomy 30. Moses set before Israel life and death; now Joshua, at the end of his life, sets before the entire assembled nation the same fundamental choice. He rehearses the history — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the Exodus, the wilderness, the conquest. Every generation needs to hear the story again. Then he delivers the ultimatum:
“Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
“As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” — this is the defining covenant statement. It is not a statement about what others choose. It is a declaration of household covenant commitment. Joshua is not demanding the people choose; he is announcing his own choice and inviting theirs. The freedom of the choice is preserved; the clarity of Joshua's own covenant fidelity is absolute.
The people respond: “God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods” (Joshua 24:16). Joshua, remarkably, pushes back: “Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins” (Joshua 24:19). This is not reverse psychology. It is covenant realism. Joshua has watched this people for forty years in the wilderness. He knows how quickly they turn. He is pressing them to count the cost, to enter into this covenant with open eyes and real understanding of what it demands.
The people insist: “Nay; but we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:21). And Joshua makes the covenant. He takes a great stone and sets it up under an oak by the sanctuary — a witness stone. “Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God” (Joshua 24:27). Covenant is sealed with witness.
Joshua dies at 110 years old. He is buried in his own inheritance. The book ends with three deaths: Joshua, the high priest Eleazar, and the interment of the bones of Joseph — the bones that Israel had carried all the way from Egypt, fulfilling Joseph's covenant request (Genesis 50:25). The end of Joshua is also a fulfillment. The covenant runs from generation to generation, and the bones of the patriarchs rest at last in the land of promise.
Doctrinal Synthesis: Courage, Faith, and Covenant Choice
The book of Joshua teaches that covenant faithfulness requires three things that these chapters model: leadership that trusts God's strategy even when it defies human logic (Jericho), faith expressed in action before the miracle arrives (Jordan), and the willingness to declare covenant loyalty publicly and permanently (“as for me and my house”).
The courage commanded in Joshua 1:9 is not once-for-all bravery in a single moment. It is the sustained orientation of a life toward the word of God. “Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed” — this is a command about the interior life. Covenant courage is the ongoing refusal to let fear determine your actions when you have the promise of God's presence.
Rahab's story adds the dimension of universal covenant accessibility: no background, no nationality, no history disqualifies from faith. The Jordan adds the dimension of sequential faith: God confirms what he has already promised, but he waits for the step. Jericho adds the dimension of obedient strategy: doing exactly what God says, without alteration, even when it looks foolish. Shechem adds the dimension of ongoing choice: the covenant must be renewed, not assumed. “Choose you this day” is an invitation that recurs across every generation.