Gilbert House Fellowship

ON THE surface, the song of Deborah and Barak in Judges 5 is a celebration of a miraculous military victory over a superior enemy. It is that, but it’s much more. When we dig into the Hebrew and consider the cult of the dead from the surrounding Amorite culture, Judges 5 tells of a supernatural battle between Yahweh and His forces against the small-g gods of the Canaanites. The mentions in Judges...

STRONG WOMEN rose to the occasion when Israel fell under the oppressive hand of Jabin, the Canaanite king of Hazor. This week, we discuss the victory of Deborah and Barak, which was sealed by the decisive act of Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite. We discuss Barak’s reluctance to lead Israel’s troops against the iron chariots of Sisera, Jabin’s general, explain why Sisera was probably the leader of a...

IT DIDN’T take long for Israel to forget God. Within thirty years of arriving in Canaan, God was compelled to tell the Israelites that because of their disobedience, He would not drive out the people before them. This is a pattern that repeats throughout the Book of Judges. We discuss the failure of Israel to obey God’s command to push the Canaanites, Amorites, and Perizzites (Philistines) out of...

THE PEOPLE of Israel are finally dispatched to their homes after the allocation of the land and establishing the cities of refuge, sanctuaries for those who inadvertently commit what we today would call manslaughter. Before they go, however, Joshua binds them with another oath, demanding that they choose who they will serve, “whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the [Euphrates...

THE DIVISION of the land continues in this week’s study as we read through the boundaries of the lands allotted to the seven tribes who had not yet claimed their inheritance. We note the influence of the pagan Amorites on the people of Canaan, with cities devoted to pagan gods like Dagon, Shemesh (sun-god), Horon (an underworld deity), and Anat (war-goddess). This is significant. The pagan Canaani...

THE SECOND HALF of the Book of Joshua begins with a list of kings defeated by Moses and Joshua. Interestingly, our Bibles list 31 kings while the Septuagint, translated into Greek by Jewish religious scholars about 200 years before the birth of Jesus, only names 29. Then we begin describing the allotment of the land to the tribes of Israel, a process that will take us through the month of February...

THE CONQUEST of Canaan was a war to drive the Anakim out of the hill country of Judah and Israel. This week, we discuss Joshua’s two campaigns in Canaan, against coalitions of Amorites, Perizzites (Philistines), Hittites, Hivites (Mycenaean Greeks), and Jebusites (probably Hurrians). We explain how the deception of the Gibeonites was perceived by the Amorite kings in the south as a divide-and-conq...

THE DESTRUCTION of Jericho was not just a military victory. It was another statement of God’s superiority over the gods of the Amorites, whose land was about to be given to the Israelites. This week, we discuss the conquest of Jericho and Ai. We explain why God’s command to march around the city may have been a reversal of an ancient ritual known in Mesopotamia a thousand years before the Exodus....

THE CROSSING of the Jordan River by the Israelites was more than preparation for the conquest of Canaan. It represented God breaching the veil between the spirit realm and the land of the living. We discuss the mission of the two spies sent by Joshua and more examples of the “third day” in the Bible. It was on the third day after the spies visited the inn run by Rahab that the Israelites crossed t...

PSALM 91 is often called the Soldiers’ Psalm, but the warfare it describes is spiritual rather than physical. The “terror,” “pestilence,” and “destruction” referenced in Psalm 91 were evil entities named Pachad, Deber, and Qeteb who were well-known to the ancient Canaanites. We also note that the “adder” of verse 13 is nachash, the “serpent” of Genesis 3, and “the serpent” of Psalm 91 is a tannin—...

MOSES’ FINAL blessing on Israel was in the form of prophecies over the tribes, along with a reminder that when God led the people from Sinai, He was accompanied by “ten thousands of holy ones.” “Holy ones” is a term used elsewhere in the Old Testament, always in reference to angelic beings. Yahweh’s “march from the south” is a theme also noted in Habakkuk 3:3–7 and Judges 5:4–5. The references to...

MOSES’ LAST message was a warning—not just to the Israelites, but to the lesser elohim who’d rebelled against the authority of God. We discuss Moses’ warning to the people against disobeying the commandments of God, the commissioning of Joshua, and the Song of Moses, which lays out the consequences of following other gods. Deuteronomy 32 makes it clear that these small-G “gods” are real and that n...

GOD’S COVENANT with Israel was conditional, with blessings for obedience to His commandments and curses for disobedience. Disobedience can be summarized as serving other elohim. The promises of harsh punishment for worshiping other gods may seem extreme to us, but the consequences of following those entities are actually worse than the awful things that God warned would befall Israel if the people...

GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS to the Israelites were surprisingly progressive for the time, prohibiting His people from engaging in predatory lending practices and providing for the poor, widows, and orphans (without a government agency to collect and redistribute wealth!). We discuss God’s command that oxen not be muzzled while they’re treading out grain and its interesting connection to the war of Gog and...

HALLOWEEN CELEBRATES death and the dead. Today, we set aside our schedule of scripture to discuss the spirits and how they’ve convinced humanity that engaging in practices forbidden by God is not only harmless, but profitable and fun. We discuss Santa Muerte’s rise to prominence in Mexico, California’s schools embracing Aztec death cults as “ethnic studies,” and the spiritual and symbolic links be...

THE PUNISHMENT God ordered for a number of sins, ranging from sexual relations before marriage (for women) to rebelling against one’s parents (for sons), seems harsh by today’s standards. We discuss the cultural and spiritual contexts for a number of things declared sin by God. Many of these things make no sense to us today because we don’t understand the world of the prophets and apostles or how...

THE PEOPLE in Canaan engaged in what God called “abominable practices”: First, burning a child as an offering to Molech, followed by divination, reading omens, augury, sorcery, enchantment, consulting mediums, necromancy, and inquiring of the dead. Derek argues in his forthcoming that these seven acts, which all involve contacting the spirit realm to gain influence or information, are connected to...

GOD NEVER intended for us to be in perpetual debt. Our modern banking system is a reversal of God’s will and the fulfillment of prophecy—the work of the rider on the black horse (Rev. 6:5–6). Financial servitude is not how God intended us to live. In our modern age of seven-year auto loans, twenty-year student loans, thirty-year mortgages, and perpetual credit card debt, the concept is almost unim...

THE PUNISHMENT for an Israelite who led people to worship other gods was harsh: Death by stoning. We explain why God was so insistent that His people followed His commands, especially the first commandment about not worshiping other gods—because those gods are real entities bent on destroying what God created and called good, including humankind.

OUR GOD is “God of gods and Lord of lords.” This isn’t just hyperbole; it means that Yahweh is supreme among the denizens of the spirit realm. This week, we discuss Moses’ admonitions to the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan to dispossess the nations of Canaan, why Moses singled out the Anakim, and his warning to remember that God didn’t choose the Israelites as His inheritance because of...

HEAR, O ISRAEL: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. This week, we discuss the Shema, the affirmation of loyalty to God that represents the greatest commandment of Christianity and Judaism. We explain why “the Lord is one” more accurately means that God is unique in substance. A better sense of the verse is, “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone,” or, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is unique.” We als...

GOD ALLOTTED other gods to the rest of the world, but kept Israel for Himself. This week, we discuss another important verse for understanding the nature of the world: And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all the...

THE BIBLE is not a history book, but the history recorded in the Bible is accurate. This week, we take a deep dive into Deuteronomy 3, in which Moses retells the history of the Israelites from the conquest of Og of Bashan through their encampment on the plains of Moab opposite Beth-Peor. We follow a number of rabbit trails, including a discussion of new research, brought to our attention by Aaron...

THE REPHAIM were remembered by Israel as giants, or at least as people who venerated the giants of the pre-Flood world. That’s why God marked them for destruction before Israel entered the Promised Land. This week, we discuss the history of the Israelites as told by Moses while the people camped in the Arabah, before they began their campaign to take Canaan from the Amorites. Moses reminded the Is...

THE BOUNDARIES of the land of Israel are a lot bigger than what’s on our maps today. This week, we discuss God’s command to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan, but the boundaries of the land promised by God to Moses extended well into what is now Syria. We also talk about the cities of refuge and rules for female heirs, which were more progressive than many today might expect.