Gods Sabbath

S UCCESS AND F AILURES

135

against Ai. Send two or three thousand men to take it and do not weary all the people, for only a few men are there.’” Joshua 7:2–3. There was no difference between the course adopted by Josh ua before the attack on Ai and the action of Israel in sending ten spies from Kadesh Barnea. In both cases the men were selected and sent out with the commission to investigate the situation and devise a plan based on those observations. At Ai, as at Kadesh, it was the introduction of a new order in which men again usurped God’s position as Plan Maker. It naturally result ed in a similar outcome. Compare these situations with Jericho where Joshua asked God for His plan. In contrast to those spies returning to Kadesh with a discoura ging report, those who came back from Ai were very self-confi dent. Accepting their plan, the people advanced against the for tress, following a strategy in which divine Leadership was absent. Believing that they were carrying out God’s orders, the Israelites were quite satisfied that they were doing His work and that He was pleased with them. They felt assured of a speedy conquest when, in reality, they should have known that they could not pos sibly succeed. For Joshua and the people, it was an inexcusable reversion to the wrong way—a formula for guaranteed failure. The outcome was not surprising. The sortie was a disaster, with the enthusiastic and confident Israelites being put to flight and losing thirty-six fine warriors. Those who went out to give the returning army a hero’s welcome met battalions of shocked and disheartened men. “... and they fled before the men of Ai.” Joshua 7:4. They had experienced the only possible outcome—failure, loss, impossibility and defeat. Not seeing the true reasons for this tragic outcome, the Isra elites would have been tempted to feel that God was capricious ly playing with them, but this would have been to misjudge Him. The fault lay entirely with them, not with Him. From this point, the story could have developed exactly as it did at Kadesh, but Joshua had learnt from this failure caused by hu man planning and did not turn to still more of his own works. He did not trust in the mistaken assumption that if so much effort had not produced success, then he would have to work even hard er along the same lines to achieve it. He did not fall for such false, but seemingly logical, reasoning. It would have been a natural