Journey XII
The Promised Land

The Land of Promise

For generations, Israel had lived with a promise.

God had spoken it to Abraham.
Repeated it to Isaac.
Confirmed it to Jacob.

Their descendants had gone down into Egypt.
They had become slaves.
God had delivered them.
They had crossed the sea.
They had stood before Sinai.
And for forty years...
they had wandered through the wilderness.

Now the wilderness generation was disappearing.
Moses stood near the end of his life.
And across the Jordan lay the land promised centuries earlier.

But there was a problem.

The land was not empty.

There were cities.
Kings.
Armies.
Fortifications.

And according to the spies who had already seen the land...
giants.

The Promise Was Older Than Moses

The story of Canaan did not begin with Joshua.
Long before Israel existed as a nation, God told Abraham:

“Unto thy seed have I given this land.”

— Genesis 15:18

But in that same covenant God revealed something strange.
Abraham's descendants would first live as strangers in another land.
They would suffer.
Generations would pass.
And only afterward would they return.

Why the delay?

Genesis gives an intriguing reason:

“For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.”

— Genesis 15:16

Because ten spies were afraid of the giants, walls, etc., and did not trust God, and the people getting scared also, they would not enter the land. Caleb and Joshua trusted God, so they would enter the land later.

There is:
PROMISE
but also:
JUDGMENT.

And according to Genesis...
God waits generations before that judgment comes.

Moses Sees The Land

Moses had led Israel out of Egypt.
He had stood before Pharaoh.
He had received the Law.
He had interceded for Israel.

But Moses himself would not lead the people across the Jordan.
From Mount Nebo he looked over the land.

“This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob…”

— Deuteronomy 34:4

He could see it.
But he would not enter it.

Moses died.
And the story passed to another man.

Joshua.

“Be Strong And Courageous”

Joshua faced an enormous task.
Moses was gone.
The wilderness was behind them.
And the Jordan stood ahead.

Then God spoke:

“Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan…”

— Joshua 1:2

And repeatedly:

“Be strong and courageous.”

— Joshua 1:6

Joshua's confidence was not supposed to come from Israel's military strength.
The promise was:

“As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

— Joshua 1:5

The leader had changed.
THE PRESENCE HAD NOT.

Rahab

Before Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua sent spies into Jericho.
There they encountered an unexpected person:
Rahab.

A Canaanite woman.
An inhabitant of the very city Israel was approaching.
Yet Rahab had heard what God had done in Egypt.

She told the spies:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land.”

— Joshua 2:9

Then she made an extraordinary confession:

“The LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Before Israel even enters the land...
someone inside Canaan acknowledges Israel's God.

Rahab hides the spies.
A scarlet cord becomes the sign marking her household.
And when Jericho falls—
Rahab and her family are spared.

A woman from the nations enters Israel's story.
And centuries later...
her name appears in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

— Matthew 1:5

Already the conquest contains something unexpected:
judgment and mercy stand beside one another.

The Jordan Opens

Israel reaches the Jordan.
The river stands between the wilderness and the promise.
The priests carry the Ark of the Covenant toward the water.

And when their feet touch the river—
the waters stop.
Israel crosses on dry ground.

— Joshua 3

The similarity is unmistakable.

MOSES:
Israel leaves Egypt through divided waters.

JOSHUA:
Israel enters the Promised Land through divided waters.

The Exodus began with a crossing.
The conquest begins with another.

Twelve Stones

Joshua commands twelve stones to be taken from the Jordan.
One for each tribe.
They become a memorial.

Why?
Because one day children will ask:

“What mean these stones?”

— Joshua 4:21

And Israel must tell them.
The stones are not magic.
They are memory.

God's acts are meant to be remembered—
and taught to the next generation.

The children who had not seen Egypt must still know:
who brought them here.

The Commander

Then comes one of the strangest encounters in Joshua.
Near Jericho, Joshua looks up and sees a man standing before him.
A drawn sword is in his hand.

Joshua asks:

“Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?”

— Joshua 5:13

The answer is unexpected:

“Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come.”

— Joshua 5:14

Joshua falls before him.
Then Joshua is told:

“Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”

— Joshua 5:15

The words strongly echo Moses at the burning bush.

Who exactly is this mysterious commander?
An angelic commander?
A visible manifestation connected with God's presence?
Christians have proposed different interpretations.

Gate I does not need to settle the question.
It simply records what Scripture gives us:

BEFORE THE BATTLE FOR JERICHO...
A HEAVENLY COMMANDER APPEARS.

The conquest has barely begun—
and the unseen world is already peeking through.

Jericho

Jericho was fortified.
Israel had crossed the Jordan...
only to encounter a walled city.

But God's battle plan was unlike ordinary warfare.
Israel marched around the city.
Priests carried trumpets.
The Ark went with them.

For six days they marched.
On the seventh day they circled the city seven times.
The trumpets sounded.
The people shouted.

And:

“The wall fell down flat.”

— Joshua 6:20

Israel entered.
Rahab's household was spared.
Jericho fell.

The first great obstacle inside the land had been overcome.
Not by siege engines.
Not by Israel's engineering.
The story deliberately places the victory in God's hands.

But Israel Can Also Lose

Then comes Ai.
A much smaller target.
Yet Israel is defeated.

Why?
Because Achan had taken what was forbidden from Jericho.

— Joshua 7

The lesson is immediate.
Israel's victories are not proof that they are inherently stronger or morally untouchable.
They too can come under judgment.

The land is not simply:
Israel good — Canaan bad.

Israel itself remains accountable to God.
The God judging Canaan...
also judges covenant-breaking within Israel.

The Giants Were Real To The Story

Now we return to something first encountered before the forty years of wandering.
The spies had reported:

“And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak…”

— Numbers 13:33

The Hebrew text identifies them as the sons of Anak, and the surrounding passages connect the Anakim with unusually formidable peoples.

Deuteronomy remembers:

“a people great and tall, the children of the Anakims.”

— Deuteronomy 9:2

Israel even had a saying about them:

“Who can stand before the children of Anak?”

These were not presented as ordinary enemies in Israel's memory.
They had become almost proverbial.

The Rephaim

But the Anakim are not the only mysterious people Scripture remembers.
Deuteronomy speaks about:
THE REPHAIM.

It describes earlier inhabitants of several regions as peoples considered Rephaim.
The Emim are described as:

“a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims.”

— Deuteronomy 2:10

The Zamzummim are similarly described as:

“a people great, and many, and tall…”

— Deuteronomy 2:20–21

Then Scripture gives us a name.
OG.
King of Bashan.

Og of Bashan

Deuteronomy makes an unusual statement:

“For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants.”

— Deuteronomy 3:11

The passage then describes his enormous bed or sarcophagus-like couch:
nine cubits long
and four cubits wide.

Whatever precise measurements and object are intended...
the biblical writer clearly wants us to understand:

OG WAS EXTRAORDINARY.

And he ruled:
Bashan.

Remember that name.
We will return to it in Gate II and especially Gate III.
Because Bashan becomes one of the most intriguing geographical locations in the biblical unseen-world discussion.

For now, Scripture tells us something simpler.
Israel confronted Og.
And Og was defeated.

— Deuteronomy 3

Joshua and the Anakim

Years later Joshua's campaigns reach the hill country.
And Joshua 11 makes a point of telling us:

“Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains…”

— Joshua 11:21

Then comes an important detail.
Some remained:
in Gaza,
Gath,
and Ashdod.

— Joshua 11:22

GATH.

Keep that location in mind.
Because generations later...
another giant will emerge from Gath.

His name:
GOLIATH.

The giant tradition does not disappear after Joshua.
It continues into the story of David.

Why Were There Still Giants?

At this point Scripture itself leaves us with questions.
Genesis 6 had spoken of the Nephilim before the Flood—and enigmatically added:

“and also after that.”

— Genesis 6:4

Numbers later uses the word Nephilim in the spies' frightening report concerning the sons of Anak.
Deuteronomy speaks of Rephaim and other unusually formidable peoples.
Joshua confronts Anakim.
David later confronts Goliath and other giant warriors.

How exactly are all these groups related?
Scripture does not give us a neat diagram.

And this is precisely where our three-Gate method becomes valuable.

GATE I:
records what Scripture actually says.

GATE II:
will ask what Enoch, Jubilees and other ancient traditions believed about the giants.

GATE III:
will put the pieces together and ask:
What if these traditions preserve different memories of the same ancient problem?

But we are not there yet.

The Sun Stands Still

During another battle, Joshua prays:

“Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.”

— Joshua 10:12

The biblical narrative then says:

“the sun stood still, and the moon stayed…”

— Joshua 10:13

And immediately it refers to another ancient source:
THE BOOK OF JASHER.

This is particularly interesting for The Triune Gates.
The Bible itself tells us that the event was also recorded in another book.
But that ancient Book of Jasher is lost.
The later work circulating under that name cannot simply be assumed to be the same document.

Still...
the biblical reference tells us something important:
Israel's Scriptures themselves occasionally point toward ancient records outside the books we possess today.

Gate II has just received another invitation.

“The LORD Fought For Israel”

The conquest narratives repeatedly emphasize one point.
Israel fights.
Joshua leads.
Armies move.
But victory ultimately belongs to God.

After the extraordinary events surrounding Gibeon, Joshua says:

“Fear them not... for thus shall the LORD do to all your enemies against whom ye fight.”

— Joshua 10:25

The story repeatedly returns to the same foundation learned in the wilderness:
GOD'S PRESENCE MATTERS MORE THAN ISRAEL'S STRENGTH.

Caleb and the Giants

Then comes one of my favourite moments.
Remember the spies?
Forty years earlier, ten spies saw giants and became terrified.
Only Joshua and Caleb trusted God.

Now Caleb is an old man.
He is approximately eighty-five years old.
And he asks for his inheritance.

Which territory does he request?
The easy land?
A quiet valley?
No.
He asks for the hill country where the Anakim are.

“Now therefore give me this mountain…”

— Joshua 14:12

The very thing that once frightened an entire generation—
Caleb asks to confront.

Why?

“If so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out.”

Forty-five years have passed.
Caleb's confidence has not changed.

THE GIANTS WERE BIG.
BUT CALEB'S GOD WAS BIGGER.

The Land Is Divided

Eventually the land is apportioned among the tribes.
The promise given to Abraham centuries earlier begins taking visible geographical form.

Joshua summarizes:

“And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers…”

— Joshua 21:43

And then:

“There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.”

— Joshua 21:45

The promise had survived:
Egypt.
Slavery.
Pharaoh.
The sea.
The wilderness.
Rebellion.
Forty years.
Kings.
Walls.
Giants.

And still—
the promise remained.

But The Conquest Was Not Complete

Yet Joshua and Judges also make clear that not every enemy was removed.
Certain peoples remained.
Certain territories remained unconquered.
Israel would live beside cultures worshipping other gods.

That unfinished work becomes enormously important.
Because the next great danger will not always come from a giant carrying a weapon.

Sometimes it will come from:
an altar.
an idol.
a foreign god.
a compromise.

Israel had entered the land.
But the struggle for Israel's allegiance was far from over.

The Promised Land Was More Than Land

Now step back.
The story began centuries earlier with Abraham.
God promised:
a family.
a nation.
a land.
and blessing reaching beyond that family.

Now Israel stands in Canaan.
The land is real.
The cities are real.
The enemies are real.

But throughout the narrative another dimension repeatedly appears.
A mysterious heavenly commander.
Peoples associated with ancient giant traditions.
A land filled with foreign gods.
A covenant people whose success depends upon God's presence.

The Promised Land therefore becomes the stage upon which something much larger will unfold.