(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
Joshua 18:1, “And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there. And the land was subdued before them.”
This short passage gives us the Lord’s opinion of Joshua and the task he was called to perform. There are many people today who criticise Joshua and say that he was a failure because he failed to mentor a younger man to replace him as leader. Mentor was known as a man left to care for Odysseus’ son Telemachus when Odysseus went to fight the Trojan war. This war is generally believed to have taken place from 1194-1184. Moses was training Joshua to replace him as leader from about 1440-1400 so why people talk about a Mentor rather than a Moses is a mystery. Of course having a Moses is far more important for anyone who wants to follow the Lord because Moses gave Joshua significant spiritual input while Mentor didn’t so the same for Telemachus. However, Moses was the leader of united Israel and the Lord called him to bring Israel out of slavery and to the Promised Land. Moses was prevented from entering the Promised Land because he didn’t obey the Lord at one stage and the Lord ordained Joshua to complete the task of invading the Land. When the invasion was complete Israel was required to possess the Land as well. Each tribe, family by family and clan by clan, had to take possession of their own inheritance so there was no need for a united nation until such time as the tribes completed their individual tasks. This passage reminds us that he was successful in completing the task the the Lord assigned him and he was not required to prepare a leader for the entire nation because the national task was finished. On the other hand they set up the Tabernacle showing that the nation was united under the Lord and the Priests were called upon to do their job in uniting the nation in worship before the Lord. Joshua was not a Priest so he wasn’t in a position to train priests.
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