Bible stories for the elderly: Joshua saves the day

“Not again!”, groaned Joshua, obsessively polishing his sword with his sheepskin cloth. For the umpteenth time the Lord had rebuked him for failing to prevent the Israelite tribes under his command from transgressing while laying waste to other tribes on the way to the Promised Land. Following their astonishing victory over the city of Jericho, the walls of which had crumbled after only seven circumambulations and a bloz or two on the shofar, the Israelites had become a bit too complacent, not to say delinquent, and needed to be taught a lesson.

When the time came for the Israelites to embark upon the next stage of their obstacle course, the conquest of people of Ai (known as Oi in Hebrew) they found that they were facing a much smaller army, so the encounter should have been a walkover. Instead,the Israelites were in for a terrible shock and were throughly trounced by the piepkedikke army of the Oinks. Something had gone badly wrong and Joshua was forced to hold a commission of enquiry.

This soon concluded that some no-goodnik from one of the Israelite tribes had pilfered a few items of booty intended for Holy purposes and secreted them away for his own personal use and that as a result the Lord Himself was in a wrathful frame of mind.

“How was I to know we had a ganef in our midst?”, whined Joshua to the Lord when the latter summoned him to deliver his report. “Why do I get the blame for everything?” The Lord was unmoved. “Because you’re in charge, stupid”, He said acidly.

Privately, the Lord was wondering whether Joshua was the right man for the job. He had appointed Joshua because he had considered him as a warrior, but lately he was proving to be more of a worrier. Nevertheless, he decided to extend Joshua’s tenure and grant him just one more chance to make good. He wagged his mighty index finger reprovingly. “Find the culprit!” He thundered, “or you and your whole ragtag army of noch-schleppers will regret the day you were chosen for this mission.”

Joshua’s first impulse was to shoot back with “Don’t make with the finger! I heard you already!” But he thought the better of it and simply hummed softly to himself while deliberating what to do next.

“The go forth! Bestir your toches!” roared the Almighty. “For what are you waiting? A climate change maybe? A second opinion?” His Lordship could feel a headache coming on at the thought that He had replaced his favourite underling, Moses, with this nebbechl.

Joshua quaked in his sandals and promptly set about his appointed task of narrowing down the list of suspects from about six hundred thousand to about sixty thousand, by identifying the tribe which was harbouring the miscreant. To do so, he employed the tried and trusted technique of casting lots, and sure enough, a representative from the tribe of Judah found himself miserably fingering a piece of papyrus on which was written, “Guilty until proven innocent”.

This of course was good news for all the other tribes, who heaved a collective sigh of relief and returned to their business of burying their own misappropriated booty, sharpening their swords and doing press-ups in preparation for the next bout of mayhem.

Fortunately for Joshua, the tribe of Judah was not short of yentes and traitors, and in less time than it takes to bench geymel they came up with one of their number, a schlimazel by the name of Achan, who abjectly confessed to the crime, offering only the excuse that he had been saving up to pay for his mother-in-law’s operation.

But Joshua knew what to do. He reached for his black yarmulka and solemnly pronounced the death sentence, not only on Achan, but on the ganse mishpoche, throwing in all of Achan’s asses and oxen for good measure. Less squeamish readers can look up the details in Joshua book 7 but for the rest of my elderly readers, suffice it to say that all that was left of the clan of Achan was buried under a pile of stones and rocks in a far-off valley called Achor, difficult to access except by vultures.

The good news is that the Lord saw that the heinous crime had been expiated, rewarded the Israelites with a few more victories and lifted the probationary sentence of Joshua, who had once again proved his worth and saved the day.