Solid as a Rock
A devotional reflection on love from Joshua 5:11-12
There’s a little postscript to the conclusion of the story of the Israelites in the wilderness that teaches us a lot about God’s love.
The community had crossed the Jordan river, and now they’re sitting up on the plains overlooking the city of Jericho. There they find some beautiful grains, growing naturally in the fields. They cook it up and make bread with it—a simple act that had been impossible for the previous forty years.
The story then offers this little postscript: the morning after they’d made a meal with the grains they’d found, the manna ceased.
“…The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.”
— Joshua 5:11-12
This little verse gives us great insight into the nature of God and the answer to the question, what is love?
Rewind forty years. The scene opens on a hot day on the desert flatlands. The people are griping. They are crowded around a bitter little pond of water, undrinkable. And they are quite thirsty.
Three days prior, the Israelites had left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea. They had survived the threat of the army and had been walking in the sun without water since.
At first this may seen mock-worthy. What faithlessness on the part of the people, after having seen the seas part! They’d just witnessed one of the most dramatic miracles of God in history. Then they start walking, and what happens? They gripe. Proving that spectacle does not hold a candle to the basics when it comes to what moves the needle for us humans.
Three days is a long time to go without something to drink.
God hears the problem and tells Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water. Moses obeys. The chemical reaction somehow makes the water drinkable, and the people are satiated.
The night they had fled Egypt, it was chaotic, but the plan had been for them to grab some unleavened bread and take with them—with the unleavened (no yeast) part important, because it would last a bit longer for travel than the good yeasty kind.
Presumably, they’d been munching on their flatbread for a few days. God solved the water problem. But the people needed a place to camp. So they continued walking and came upon Elim, with twelve springs (one per tribe, how neat) and seventy palm trees for shade and comfort.
They stayed there a bit, then left and entered the Desert of Sin, now six weeks after they’d left Egypt. Sounds fittingly ominous.
Supplies are low and morale is lower. The tribal leaders come to Moses and Aaron, saying, “Ah, remember Egyptian meat? Those were the days. Now what are you going to do? We’re starving to death!”
God heard and immediately speaks for the leaders: I hear you. I will rain down bread from heaven for you. So God did.
This is love.
If you’re of a certain age, you may know a great 80s song by Ashford and Simpson called Solid as a Rock—“for love’s sake, each mistake, you forgave and soon both of us learned to trust…”
God’s love is solid as a rock.
Consider some other understandings of love: is love compassion or feelings of mercy? Is it acts of service, or quality time or any of the “love languages”? Feelings of concern help us understand how to love, but that’s a human lens. Empathy can be good and important, but that’s not the love of God.
Beyond our feelings or any specific action we take, love is best understood by two biblical words: hesed and agape.
The first is hesed, which we can best understand as steadfast. Solid as a rock.
The linguistic root of hesed is reciprocity. Consider: all relationships are built on shared reciprocity. We do for one another. Relationships in which one person completely gives, and another completely takes, don’t last long. The giver just ends up exploited and used.
To be steadfast means that you uphold your end of the bargain by taking care of the other person, no matter if they reciprocate or not. It is faithfulness, even when the other does not respond in kind.
The wife who takes care of her dementia-addled husband, even when he no longer recognizes her.
The beleaguered parent who takes care of their special-needs child, even though the child is unable to appreciate it.
The Jewish student who picks up campus trash left by the anti-Jewish protestor.
These acts of love are hesed—steadfast. Without personal benefit.
Second is agape. Jesus later clarifies our understanding of God by introducing this Greek term, which is about sacrificial action, given without regard for what you get in return.
Both words are characterized not by our feelings but by our faithfulness. To serve another, without looking for what benefits you—this is love according to God. God loves even when we do not. You can be in a relationship with someone, and promise to care for them, and then fail spectacularly. Perhaps you ignore them or cheat on them or treat them without cruelty. All of us fail at love. We’re human.
But God does not fail. God’s defining characteristic is not the feeling of concern, but the selfless act of mercy for another, and the ability to do it over and over and over. The unfailing part. God’s love is faithful, to a thousand generations.
We have no concept of the magnitude of this sort of love. We marvel at a couple that stays together for two generations. To a God who can handle a thousand generations, two generations is nothing.
The little postscript in the book of Joshua puts a bow on what had been forty years of faithful delivery of manna, every single morning.
I love the simplicity and minimalism of the postscript: the manna stopped the day after they ate the food from this land. Boom, That’s it. No great fanfare or grandstanding by God, no selfish attention seeking behavior. God simply said he would provide manna. Then he did. God did it for forty years. Then, the day he no longer needed to provide it, he stopped.
The Lord’s faithful provision to the Israelites in the wilderness is a beautiful part of the grand story, a reminder that God loves you without fail.
God cares enough about the details of your life to give you what you need, down to the day you no longer need it.
God is solid as a rock.