The Victory Ledger Text: Joshua 12:1-6
Introduction: The Divine Audit
We live in an effeminate age, an age that likes its Christianity sentimental and its Jesus tame. We want the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but we are deeply uncomfortable with the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who breaks the nations with a rod of iron. And so, when we come to a passage like Joshua 12, our instinct is to skim. It looks like a dusty old inventory, a dry list of defeated kings and unpronounceable place names. It feels a bit like reading the minutes from a city council meeting two millennia ago.
But this is a profound mistake. This is not a dusty inventory; it is a victory ledger. This is the divine audit of promises kept. This is God balancing the books. He promised Abraham a land, and here He is, through His servant Joshua, listing the properties and evicting the squatters. This chapter is a memorial stone in print. Just as Israel set up twelve stones from the Jordan to commemorate God's mighty act of parting the waters, so the Holy Spirit inspired this chapter to commemorate God's mighty acts of conquest. This is not just history; it is liturgical history. It is meant to be remembered, recited, and sung. It is the record of God's faithfulness and the foundation of Israel's claim to the land.
This is not a celebration of bloodshed for its own sake. This is the execution of a divine writ of eviction. The Canaanites were not unfortunate victims; their iniquity was full, as God had told Abraham four centuries earlier. This is holy justice. And for the people of God, it is a foundational lesson. God fights for His people. God keeps His promises. And God expects His people to remember, in detail, what He has done for them. Forgetfulness is the seedbed of apostasy. Remembering is the engine of faithfulness. This chapter, then, is a call to remember that our God is a conquering God, and that the history of redemption is the history of His triumph over His enemies.
The Text
Now these are the kings of the land whom the sons of Israel struck down, and whose land they possessed beyond the Jordan to the east toward the sunrise, from the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah to the east: Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, both the middle of the valley and half of Gilead, even as far as the brook Jabbok, the border of the sons of Ammon; and the Arabah as far as the Sea of Chinneroth toward the east, and as far as the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward toward Beth-jeshimoth, and on the south, at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah; and the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei and ruled over Mount Hermon and Salecah and all Bashan, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half of Gilead, as far as the border of Sihon king of Heshbon. Moses the servant of Yahweh and the sons of Israel struck them down; and Moses the servant of Yahweh gave it to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh as a possession.
(Joshua 12:1-6 LSB)
The Down Payment on the Inheritance (v. 1)
The accounting begins not in Canaan proper, but on the other side of the Jordan.
"Now these are the kings of the land whom the sons of Israel struck down, and whose land they possessed beyond the Jordan to the east toward the sunrise, from the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah to the east:" (Joshua 12:1)
This is the preamble, the heading on the ledger sheet. The language is formal, legal. "These are the kings... whose land they possessed." This is the title deed, written not with ink, but with the sword of God's judgment. The victory is described as happening "beyond the Jordan to the east toward the sunrise." This is significant. Before Israel ever set foot in the Promised Land proper, God gave them a taste of victory. This was the down payment, the earnest money on the inheritance. It was God's way of saying, "See what I can do. See how I keep my word. Now, trust me for the rest."
The boundaries are specific, "from the valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Hermon." God does not deal in vague spiritual platitudes. He deals in real geography, in dirt and rocks and rivers. His covenant is an earthly, tangible reality. The mention of Mount Hermon is a shot across the bow of the pagan world. Hermon was a high place, a center of pagan worship, considered a sacred mountain by the Canaanites. By granting this land to Israel, God declares His sovereignty over the very strongholds of the enemy. He conquers their high places and gives them to His people. There is no territory, no matter how sacred to the enemy, that is off-limits to the kingdom of God.
The Entrenched Enemy: Sihon (v. 2-3)
The first king on this list is Sihon, a name that should have brought a surge of confidence to any Israelite who heard it.
"Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon and ruled from Aroer... even as far as the brook Jabbok... and the Arabah as far as the Sea of Chinneroth..." (Joshua 12:2-3)
Sihon was the king of the Amorites. He represents the established, entrenched opposition. He was no petty chieftain. He had a capital city, Heshbon, and a clearly defined, extensive territory. When Israel approached peacefully, he refused them passage and came out for battle. He was arrogant, confident in his power, and utterly opposed to the purposes of God. He is a picture of the world system, which stands in defiance of God's people and says, "You shall not pass."
The detailed geographical description is not filler. It serves to emphasize the totality of the victory. God did not just defeat Sihon's army in a single battle; He dispossessed him completely. He took his capital, his borders, his valleys, and his seas. Every landmark mentioned here was a testament to the fact that Yahweh had utterly dismantled an entire kingdom and handed it over to His people. This was a comprehensive, top-to-bottom conquest. When God judges, He is thorough.
The Terrifying Enemy: Og (v. 4-5)
If Sihon was the entrenched enemy, Og was the terrifying enemy. He was the stuff of nightmares.
"...and the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei and ruled over Mount Hermon and Salecah and all Bashan..." (Joshua 12:4-5)
The key phrase here is "one of the remnant of the Rephaim." The Rephaim were a race of giants. Deuteronomy 3 tells us that Og's bed was made of iron and was over thirteen feet long. This was the very kind of enemy that had caused the previous generation to quail in fear. The faithless spies had seen the "sons of Anak" and reported, "we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight." Og was the embodiment of that fear. He was the monster in the dark, the seemingly invincible foe.
And God had Israel destroy him. The defeat of Og was a powerful object lesson. It was God's way of saying that the fears that had paralyzed the previous generation were baseless. There is no giant, no power, no intimidating force on earth that can stand against the Lord of Hosts. The God who made the mountains can certainly deal with a big man who lives on one. As with Sihon, the victory is total. His entire kingdom, "all Bashan," a famously fertile and desirable land, was given to Israel. God doesn't just defeat our intimidating enemies; He turns their strength into a blessing for us.
The Divine-Human Agency (v. 6)
The summary verse brings it all together, clarifying who did the work and who received the benefit.
"Moses the servant of Yahweh and the sons of Israel struck them down; and Moses the servant of Yahweh gave it to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh as a possession." (Joshua 12:6)
Notice the partnership: "Moses... and the sons of Israel struck them down." God's people were not passive spectators. They had to pick up their swords and fight. They had to march and bleed and strive. Faith is not quietism. But they did not fight alone. They fought under the authority of "Moses the servant of Yahweh," and ultimately, it was Yahweh who gave the victory. This is the biblical pattern of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. God ordains the victory, and we are called to fight the battles in faith.
And the result? Moses "gave it... as a possession." A possession, an inheritance. It was not something they earned by their own might, but something they received by the grace of God. God conquered, and God gave. This is the grammar of salvation. The land was a gift. The two and a half tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh received this gift, this down payment on the east side of the Jordan. They saw the good land and asked for it, and God granted their request.
Our Victory Ledger in Christ
This chapter is more than a history of Israel's past; it is a paradigm for our present. We are not fighting for a patch of dirt in the Middle East, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood. But we too have a Sihon and an Og that must be defeated.
Our Sihon is the entrenched power of our own sinful flesh, the "old man" who rules from the Heshbon of our hearts. He is an arrogant king who refuses passage to the Spirit of God and contests every inch of ground. Our Og is that ancient giant, the Devil, and his chief weapon, Death. He is one of the "remnant of the Rephaim," a terrifying foe who has held humanity in bondage through fear since the fall.
But the good news of the gospel is that our greater Moses, our perfect Joshua, Jesus Christ, has already won the definitive victory. On the cross, He struck down the entrenched king of sin. Through His resurrection, He crushed the head of the giant of Death. He has conquered all the kings who stood against us.
Like the Israelites on the east of the Jordan, we have already received the down payment of our inheritance. The Holy Spirit is given to us as the "earnest" of what is to come. We have already been given a possession in the heavenly places. The victory is secured. The kings are defeated. The ledger has been written in the blood of the Lamb.
Our task now is to believe the report. It is to look at this victory ledger and to live in light of it. It is to possess our possessions. When the entrenched habits of sin rise up, we are to remember that Sihon is a defeated king. When the terrifying fear of death looms, we are to remember that Og is a slain giant. We fight, yes, but we fight not for victory, but from victory. Christ has struck the kings down, and He has given us the land as an everlasting possession.