Joshua 12 Devotional

Every King by Name

Joshua 12 is a list of defeated kings. It begins east of the Jordan with Sihon and Og, whose land Moses gave to Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh (12:1-6). Then it turns west and names the kings Joshua defeated, each one counted separately, from Jericho and Ai through Hazor and Tirzah, thirty-one in all (12:7-24).

It reads like an inventory, and in a sense it is. But every name on it was once a threat. Jericho had been shut up tight against Israel (6:1). Hazor had led a northern army as numerous as sand (11:4). Now each is a single line in a record of what God has done. The list also passes from Moses to Joshua without a break, because the work belonged to the same LORD the whole way through. Faith grows stronger when it remembers specifically. The things that once loomed largest in your life can become, by God's hand, a single line in the long record of his faithfulness, and naming them is a way of thanking him.

To think about: What specific things has God already brought you through that you could name and thank him for today?