A promise … from God to Joshua!

Unusual as it is, the Lord fulfilled it too!

Still is doing so, really!

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I BEGIN TO MAGNIFY thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.” Joshua 1:7

The Lord solidified Joshua’s leadership position among the Jews!

God magnifying a man?

Read it again please, “This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel.”

Wow!

The verb “magnify” is “gadal,” meaning “to make great!” Also having the idea “to grow up, to nourish up.” In a continuous action sense, daily God will do this for Joshua! The verb is framed in the Piel stem as well, indicating intense action on God’s Part!

And come to think of it … Joshua did NOT face the rebellion and anarchy and insurrection that Moses (often) did! God indeed so “magnified” him!

But the verb “begin” is interesting as well. It is spelled “chalal” in Hebrew and clearly means “begin” 52 times in the King James Version. But it occurs 141 times in the Bible! And most of those times it is translated in ways like this: “break, wound,” and related terms, some even stronger!

Lesson?

Maybe God makes us “great” by humiliating us! By showing us often we are mere clay, dirt, housing the precious substance of the Grace of God!

Wow!

Still, Joshua had the Word of God on it. “That they (the Israelites and other peoples of the world) may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

The preposition “with” is powerful!

Spelled “im” in Hebrew, it means “in fellowship and companionship!”

With Almighty God!

I don’t know if I’ve ever written a 3 “Wow” Lesson or not …

But here goes … Wow!

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.”

I stand amazed!

Now I’m remembering Psalm 75:6-7. “For PROMOTION cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and SETTETH UP another.”

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

Really I sit amazed, in front of a keyboard on a cold Tuesday morning in January, 2017. A text or two today, concerning the Lesson, might be encouraging! At 770-844-7627, my cell number.