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Fundamentals of Dispensational Truth.
(Second Series).
JOSHUA.
#12. Taking the land, and possessing it--a difference (11:-13:).
pp. 15 - 18
The confederacy of the five kings of the Amorites, recorded in Josh. 10:, is followed
by another confederacy, recorded in chapter 11: These two confederacies must be
carefully distinguished from each other, and typify two different phases of the conflict of
the ages.
Adoni-zedec, "Lord of righteousness", leads the first confederacy (Josh. 10:); Jabin,
"Intelligence", leads the second (Josh. 11:). The overthrow of the first, in Gibeon, is
accompanied by signs in the sun and moon suggestive of the Second Coming of Christ.
The second confederacy assembles at Merom ("High Place"), a word that comes very
significantly in the prophetic passage in Isaiah:
"The Lord shall punish the host of the high ones (marom) that are on high (marom)"
(Isa. 24: 21).
Kings of the earth are not the only enemies that are to be dealt with in that day, and
"the high ones that are on high" are typified by this second confederacy of Josh. 11: The
wording of Josh. 11: 4, 5, is so like that of Rev. 20: 7-9 that the parallel cannot be other
then intentional.
"And they went out, they and all their host with them, much people, even as the sand
that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many. And when
all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of
Merom, to fight against Israel" (Josh. 11: 4, 5).
"And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and
shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and
Magog, to gather them together into battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints
about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from heaven and devoured them"
(Rev. 20: 7-9).
In the twenty-third verse of chapter 11: we read:
"So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and
Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes.
And the land rested from war."
Yet the thirteenth chapter opens with the words:
"Now Joshua was old and well stricken in years; and the Lord said unto him, Thou art
old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."