25 December Joshua 11

God keeps His Promises

Joshua 11:21-23 (NIV) At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns. 22 No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive. 23 So Joshua took the entire land, just as the Lord had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war.

Joshua 11:21–23 gives a summary of what happened in that chapter—how God’s people took the promised land. Verse 21 says they cut off the Anakim. The Anakim were a race of very tall and strong people. If you stop and think, you might remember hearing about them before—in Numbers 13 and 14.

Back then, Moses sent twelve spies to explore the promised land. When they came back, only Caleb and Joshua said, “We can take this land because God has promised to help us.” The other ten spies said, “No way—we can’t win. The Anakim live there, and they are so huge that we look like grasshoppers next to them.”

Because the people believed the fearful report instead of trusting God, they refused to enter the land. As a result, an entire generation wandered and died in the wilderness.

But now, in Joshua 11, what God had promised long ago is actually happening. The Anakim are defeated—not because Israel’s army is stronger than before, but because they now believe God’s promise. Joshua leads the people to do exactly what God told them to do, and God gives them the victory.

This victory is not because Israel’s army had grown stronger, but because they believed God’s promise and obeyed His command.

God had already told them, Numbers 23:19 (NIV)“God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”

And as they moved forward in faith, they discovered what Moses had taught them:

Deuteronomy 7:9 (NIV)“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments”.

By the time Joshua’s leadership was coming to an end, they could look back and say with confidence, Joshua 21:4 (NIV)“Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled” .

The defeat of the Anakim in Joshua 11 is living proof: God keeps every promise He makes—no matter how impossible it looks at first.