How to Pray a Lament (Joshua 7.7–9) ‣ Praying Through the Bible
“Ah, Lord GOD! Why have you brought this people across the Jordan at all, to hand us over to the Amorites so as to destroy us? Would that we had been content to settle beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has turned their backs to their enemies! The Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it, and surround us, and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name?”
Joshua 7.7-9
Background
In their battle to take the Promised Land, God instructed the Israelites to destroy certain things completely. This was called herem, meaning “devoted thing.” In the context of Joshua, this means “a thing devoted to destruction.” The language comes from the practice of sacrifice. Sometimes, part of a sacrifice offered to God could be kept by the priests for their own use, such as meat, olive oil, or grain. The rest was burned as an offering to God. The latter part of the sacrifice was called the herem, the “devoted thing.”
In the book of Joshua, this concept is applied to the spoils of battle. Because the land was given to Abraham by God, lost, and then to be restored, the battle for it was a holy act, commanded by God. Because there was theological meaning to the battle and the land, some things in it had to be utterly destroyed, that is, completely offered to God. This sometimes included men, women, children, animals, and goods. Many commentators explain these troubling commands to destroy everything as a warning to those to oppose God, and because if they remained, they might tempt God’s people into materialism, corruption, or idolatry. For many, this makes the practice no less disturbing. Maybe it just a mystery of God, and we take on faith that this was what God required in those circumstances, which were unique to that time and place.
- The only other lament in this volume is Hagar’s lament in Gen 21.16, but there are many more throughout the Old and New Testament. See the following footnote for some Psalms of lament; the entire book of Lamentations is, not surprisingly, a lament. ↩
- See, for example, Pss 74.10, 18; 79.9; 83.4, 16, 18; Ps 106.8; 109.21; 143.11. ↩
