Introduction

The Book of Joshua opens with a command that still confronts me every time I read it: “Be strong and courageous… go in to possess the land” (Joshua 1:6). It is a stirring beginning, but the next chapters carry a moral weight that cannot be ignored. Israel is told not only to enter the land but to cleanse it—to remove what would corrupt their worship and fracture their life with God.

For many years I struggled with those words. Not in the abstract, but as a chaplain who has walked hospital corridors, as a man who grew up around the harms alcohol can unleash in pubs, and as the grandson of Arthur Chapman, who perished on the Sandakan death march. Commands involving conflict, judgment, and the taking of life have never been theoretical for me. They press hard upon memory, conscience, and grief.

So I returned to Joshua slowly, carrying the same moral plumb line I used in my earlier study of the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder.”¹ Only when that command is understood as a prohibition of murder rather than all taking of life can Joshua be approached with fairness and theological clarity.

What Joshua Commands — and What It Does Not

The Hebrew text itself pushes us to clarity. English translations often use the single word “kill” where the Old Testament uses several different verbs with distinct moral weight. If we collapse them into one, we risk misrepresenting both the text and the character of God.

1. “You shall not murder” — רָצַח (rātsaḥ)

This verb denotes unlawful killing: private vengeance, criminal homicide, malicious harm. It is morally prohibited across Scripture. Critically, this verb does not appear in Joshua’s conquest commands.²

2. “Strike / kill” — נָכָה (nākhah)

A broader verb meaning “to strike”, “smite”, or “attack”. Its moral meaning depends entirely on context—legal punishment, warfare, or wrongdoing.

3. “Devote to destruction” — חֵרֶם (ḥērem)

This term means to set something apart to God—sometimes including destruction under divine judgment. It is fundamentally a covenantal category: a judicial act carried out under divine authority, not private murder or personal revenge.³

Without these distinctions, “kill” appears indiscriminate. With them, the moral structure of the text comes into focus and the character of God is not misrepresented by our English shorthand.

God’s Command, Israel’s Failure, and Divine Knowledge

As I continued reading Joshua, another conviction formed: God commanded what needed to remain pure, knowing Israel would not fully do it. Israel begins well, yet the Book of Judges shows the consequences of partial obedience—alliances that should never have been made, idols tolerated in the margins, violence rising within tribes, and spiritual decay spreading like rust in a workshop beam.⁴

God was not surprised. He did not command with crossed fingers, hoping for the best. He commanded knowing what Israel would freely choose under the pressures of fear, convenience, and compromise. This insight grew in me through Scripture and through years in hospital wards and mental health units, where I have seen how compromise accumulates and how the human heart folds under pressure.

Divine Knowledge and Middle Knowledge

I did not have the vocabulary for it at the time, but this conviction aligns with what theologians call middle knowledge: God knows not only what will happen, but what would happen under any possible circumstance.⁵ Joshua’s story becomes a case study:

• God commands what is right.
• Israel acts freely.
• God’s plans move through their obedience and their failure.

This is neither determinism nor divine helplessness. It is divine wisdom interacting with human freedom—a sovereign God working with people as they are, not as we pretend to be.

Calvinist, Arminian, and Molinist Roads

For most Christians, the debate about sovereignty and freedom is framed as a binary. Two positions usually dominate the conversation. Calvinism emphasises God’s sovereignty such that all events unfold according to divine decree; Arminianism emphasises genuine human freedom and responsibility, with God’s foreknowledge not requiring determination. Molinism walks a road between these, holding that God knows every possibility, every counterfactual, and every actuality in the world He freely chooses to create, so that His sovereignty and our real freedom stand together.⁶

A Pastoral Word

When people ask how sovereignty and freedom coexist, I seldom begin with philosophical language. I begin with stories—Israel’s story, my own, and the many entrusted to me in chaplaincy.

The pattern is consistent: God speaks truthfully; we respond freely; God works faithfully. Joshua shows all three vividly: a God who commands righteousness, who knows we will stumble, and who refuses to abandon His people when we do. This is the God I trust—in Scripture and in the quiet hospital rooms where people meet their final moments.

Pastoral Application: Suffering, Regret, and the God Who Knows Our “Would Haves”

Sitting with the dying, listening to the stories of families who feel they “didn’t do enough”, I have learned that one of the deepest wounds in the human heart is not only guilt over what actually happened, but regret over what might have happened. We torture ourselves with “if only”. If only I had made a different choice. If only I had seen the signs sooner. If only I had spoken up. If only I had been braver.

I have seen this burden in fathers who feel they failed their sons, in mothers grieving children lost to addiction, in mates who stood helpless as a co-worker’s life spiralled down, and in elderly men who remember words they cannot take back from forty years earlier.

An overly deterministic theology cannot bear the weight of that sorrow. An overly libertarian theology can make the burden crushing. But the God revealed in Joshua—the God who knows not only what occurs but what would have occurred—speaks something deeper.

God Knows Our “Would Haves”

This is not a threat. It is a mercy.

God knows what we would have done if we had been less tired; what we would have done if trauma had not shaped our responses; what we would have done if someone had taught us differently; what we would have done if our hearts had been stronger; what we would have done if grief had not blinded us.

He knows every possibility, including the ones we never could have accessed because of wounds, pressures, histories, and generational patterns.

What Do We Do with Regret?

We do what Israel eventually learned to do in exile: bring our imperfect history into God’s perfect mercy, name our regrets without pretending they did not happen, and trust that God weaves His goodness even through what He always knew we would not do.

God sent Israel into the land calling them to holiness. He knew they would compromise. He knew they would regret it. He also knew that from their failure would come a longing for a redeemer—not just a better Moses, not merely a stronger Joshua, but the One who enters our failures and bears their consequences.

This Changes How We See Ourselves and Others

If God knows our “would haves”, then God is not shocked by our brokenness, nor cynical about our capacity, nor dismissive of our attempts.

He knows the mother’s courage even when she felt cowardly. He knows the father’s effort even when he thinks he was passive. He knows the nurse’s heart even when exhaustion numbed her voice. He knows the chaplain’s stumble even when the right words were not found.

This is not cheap absolution. It is truth-telling under sovereignty.

We Carry Regret; God Carries Redemption

Molinism, applied pastorally, is not a philosophical trick. It is a theological doorway into mercy:

• Human choices are real and morally weighty.
• God’s knowledge is exhaustive and morally compassionate.
• Our failures do not derail His purposes.
• Our regrets are known, not dismissed.

People often tell me, “I failed God,” and under this light I can say: “No, you did not surprise God. He knew this choice, its cost, and its pain. He also knew what you would have done at your best, and He loves you with that knowledge.”

God’s Omniscience Makes Compassion Possible

A God who knows only what we actually did might condemn us harshly. A God who knows only possibilities might seem remote and uninvolved. But a God who knows actuality, possibility, and counterfactuals is a God who can judge truthfully, forgive meaningfully, and heal thoroughly.

I have watched people die holding regrets that crushed them. And I have watched the same people surrender those regrets into the arms of a God who seems to say: “I know your heart. I know who you would have been without these wounds. I do not dismiss your brokenness; I redeem it.”

That is not sentimental theology. That is holiness meeting humanity with grace. In Joshua, mercy stands behind judgment. The command is strong; the failures are real; but the story does not collapse. Because God knew the ideal Israel would not meet, the misery Israel would endure, and the redemptive thread He would weave through their history. He knows the same of us.

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Conclusion

I came to these insights slowly, long before I knew that scholars call some of this Molinism. I simply knew that God’s commands were good, that our choices were real, and that His purposes were never thwarted by human failure—only deepened in mercy. Joshua, read through the Sixth Commandment and the Hebrew grammar, shows a God who knows the heart, honours freedom, and calls His people to a holiness He knows they will struggle to keep. The lesson is not Israel’s perfection, but God’s patience—a truth as relevant in a hospital ward as it was in the Promised Land.⁷

Endnotes

1. On the Sixth Commandment as a moral plumb line for war and covenant judgment, see my earlier essay, You Shall Not Murder: A Study of the Sixth Commandment as the Moral Plumb Line for War, available at forrestministries.com . ↩
2. Lexical clarity on rātsaḥ, nākhah, and ḥērem can be found in HALOT, BDB, and Bruce Waltke & Michael O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. ↩
3. For covenant judgment language and holy war, see Richard S. Hess, Joshua (Tyndale), and Trent C. Butler, Joshua (Word Biblical Commentary). ↩
4. For the moral pattern of partial obedience and its consequences, see John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology, Vol. 2, on Judges and Israel’s life in the land. ↩
5. On the structure of divine knowledge, including possibilities and counterfactuals, see Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account; Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Concordia); and William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God. ↩
6. On evaluating Calvinist and Arminian frameworks while allowing for middle knowledge, see Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (sections on divine foreknowledge and providence). ↩
7. For discussions of divine judgment, just war, and reconciliation, see Augustine, City of God; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II.40; Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics; Oliver O’Donovan, The Just War Revisited; Paul Copan & Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide?; and Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace. ↩

Bibliography

Biblical Studies / Joshua

Butler, Trent C. Joshua. Word Biblical Commentary.

Goldingay, John. Old Testament Theology, Vol. 2.

Hess, Richard S. Joshua. Tyndale Old Testament Commentary.

Hebrew Language & Lexicons

Brown, Driver, Briggs (BDB). Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament.

Koehler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. HALOT: Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.

Waltke, Bruce, and Michael O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax.

Systematic Theology / Divine Foreknowledge

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Baker Academic.

Erickson, Millard J. God the Father Almighty. Baker Academic.

Flint, Thomas P. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Cornell University Press.

Molinist / Analytic Theology

Craig, William Lane. The Only Wise God.

Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge (Concordia). Translated by Alfred Freddoso.

Covenant Judgment / Just War

Augustine. City of God.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, II-II.40.

Copan, Paul, and Matthew Flannagan. Did God Really Command Genocide?.

O’Donovan, Oliver. The Just War Revisited.

Ramsey, Paul. Basic Christian Ethics.

Pastoral and Ethical Reflection

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion and Embrace.