“One day, when Y’hoshua was there by Yericho, he raised his eyes and looked; and in front of him stood a man with his drawn sword in his hand. Y’hoshua went over to him and asked him, ‘Are you on our side or on the side of our enemies?'”-Joshua 5:13
All of a sudden, we run SMACK headfirst into quite a perplexing verse in Joshua 5.
Verse 13 tells us that Joshua looked up and standing right in front of him was a man wielding a sword.
Joshua asks the man and I paraphrase…
…“Are you for us or against us?”.
The man answers in Hebrew LO.
LO simply means “no” but can have different meanings depending on the context.
It can mean a simple “no” or it can mean “neither” as in “neither one of the choices you mentioned in your question”.
And that is the nuance being communicated to Joshua in this particular situation.
The mysterious man tells Joshua that he is the commander of Hashem’s hosts.
Specifically, in Hebrew he says he is the SAR of Hashem’s army.
What does SAR mean?
It means a “prince” or a “leader”.
As soon as hears those words, Joshua drops to his knees and bows down to worship the divine warrior figure manifestation.
Joshua asks the man…
…“What does my lord have to say to his servant?”
The warrior answers…
…”remove your sandals because the ground you’re standing on is holy”.
And with that answer, a flood of theological controversy is introduced that we could spend an eternity discussing.
Well, the first thing we must keep in mind is Joshua is NOT hallucinating here.
This isn’t a dream or a vision.
Joshua was well awake and alert and there was indeed a man or at the least a physical appearance of a man standing in front of him.
And this man spoke with the full authority of Hashem.
The Christians will say this was what they call a “pre-incarnate Christ” and they couldn’t be more wrong.
Joshua’s reaction to this divine being was not unusual.
Whenever an angel or some other messenger sent from God appeared, the normal reaction was to bow down and worship the divine apparition.
And in pretty much every case, the angel or divine being would tell the person to straighten himself up and NOT worship him because he was NOT the Almighty.
However, in this case, the man standing in front of Joshua accepts his worship…
…which leads us to the $64,000 question.
Who or what is this divine being standing in front of Joshua?
We’ll talk about this some more the next time we meet.
Incidentally, out here in Asia, bowing to show respect is something that happens all the time.
Whenever I have a business meeting with the head of some company, the first thing I do is pull out my business card, present it to him with both hands and then bow down in respect.
I’m certainly not worshipping the man as “God in human flesh”.
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