A few weeks ago, on a Friday night, we were sleeping in our basement because the weather forecast was predicting strong storms for our area overnight. Around 5am, I was awakened by loud noises. At first, in my sleepy daze, I actually thought we were in the middle of a tornado. There was no train noise, but it sounded like there might be debris blowing and banging around. I quickly realized it was hail. In fact, our entire community was affected by the hailstorm, with some locations having pretty significant damage. Some hailstones were as large as softballs! At our house, they seemed to be around marble to golf ball sized.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about a story in the Old Testament. In Joshua 10, we read that the Israelites and the Gibeonites, led by Joshua, fight a series of battles against five other kings and people groups. During one of these battles, “the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.” (Joshua 10:11) What’s fascinating about this is, though it doesn’t say so explicitly, it’s safe to assume the hailstones only struck the enemy and not the Israelites. “The Lord hurled large hailstones on them,” them being the enemy.
I was able to see a few moments of the hailstorm after I emerged from my bedroom in our walk-out basement and looked out at the patio. Those hailstones were coming down hard and fast. It’s not like there was one here, and another one way over there, as if they’d been gradually sprinkled down from the sky. There were so many of them, they covered the ground and piled up in some places until they melted. Now imagine a battlefield with people everywhere and intense fighting going on. For the hailstones to only hit select people means they came down with crazy perfect accuracy. It’s almost unfathomable.
What’s my point? God is powerful. God is precise. God does not miss. God does not make mistakes. God is in control. These are things that Christians “know,” but an experience like that hailstorm really brings to life the stories we read about in scripture.
Much could be said about hailstones elsewhere in the Bible, and we could do a deep dive into their relationship to God’s wrath and judgment. But the other thing that I remembered about that story in Joshua, the thing that I think is so profound, is that God delivered His people even though they should never have been in that battle in the first place.
Prior to these battles, a neighboring people group called the Gibeonites had deceived Joshua and the Israelites into establishing a treaty, or a covenant, with them. They knew that God was with Israel and had enabled them to achieve great victories against enemies who were stronger and mightier than they were (like Jericho). They knew that Israel had a directive from God to destroy the people of Canaan. So, the Gibeonites (who were people of Canaan) decided it would be wise to form an alliance with Israel for their protection. The problem with this, however, was that the Israelites were supposed to be driving out the pagan inhabitants of the land, not getting friendly with them. They were certainly not supposed to enter into covenants with them. Israel’s covenant was with God. He was their King, their provider, their protector. However, when the Gibeonites arrived and made themselves appear to be travelers from a far away land, and therefore not people from Canaan, Joshua and the other leaders fell for their ruse and, most importantly, “did not ask counsel from the Lord.” (Joshua 9:15)
So when the other neighboring people groups heard of this, they took action and decided to attack Gibeon. Because of the covenant that Joshua and the leaders made with Gibeon, they were now obligated to fight on their behalf. See, that’s the thing about covenant. In the Bible, it’s more than just a contract or an agreement. It’s eternally binding. It says, “Your enemies are now my enemies.” God expects covenants to be honored. So even though Israel was not supposed to have formed this alliance, it had to be upheld.
You may be thinking, as before, so what’s your point? My point is, even though Israel did not consult the Lord as they made this covenant that they should not have made, the Lord was still on their side. He did not abandon them. God did not say, “Sorry, but you messed up. You’re on your own. Figure it out.” He came to the aid of the Israelites, and by extension, the Gibeonites. God is faithful to us even when we are not faithful to Him. That’s because God is bound to us in covenant. Covenants work both ways; we are bound to God and He is bound to us. Nearly every time a covenant is mentioned in the Bible, God says, “You will be my people, and I will be your God.” And just like with the Gibeonites, because we are in covenant with God, He comes to our defense when our common enemy, Satan, is on the attack. We fight the enemy together. Sometimes, like with those hailstones, God does the fighting for us.
Exodus 14: 13-14 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”