Conquering Your Promised Land
In this story, we examine archaeological evidence from the Israelite conquest of Canaan. We also discuss giants and spiritual warfare.
In the previous story, Exodusing Addiction, we discussed the parallels between the ancient Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt and modern day readers escaping slavery in addiction. After the Israelites escaped, they didn’t just waltz into the promised land of milk and honey, they had to conquer it. So this story looks at the parallels between the Israelite conquest of Canaan and our own self-mastery.
We continue reading from books in the Old Testament, but in the original order of the Hebrew Tanakh. They include:
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Samuel (1&2)
Kings (1&2)
These books document the historical transition from Moses to King David. I really don’t know why Saint Jerome shoehorned Ruth and Chronicles into this sequence back in 382 AD. We will discuss them in our next story, Spiritual Puberty.
Leviticus
The Hebrew name for this scroll is Torath Kohanim, which literally means “the law of the priests”. The ancient Greeks called it Levi-ticus because all the priests in Israel came from the tribe of Levi.
Leviticus contains 613 laws designed to show people how imperfect they are. Have you ever listened to it? It is post-modernly ridiculous. Let’s see how well you “keep the law”:
Have you ever spread any gossip? You fail. (19:16)
Have you ever eaten bacon or sausage? Fail. (11:4-7)
Have you ever not told “the whole story” about something you borrowed from a neighbor? Fail. (6:2)
Ever lie? Fail. (19:11)
Cheat? Fail. (19:11)
Steal? Fail. (19:11)
Have you ever waited a day to pay a doctor or lawyer bill? Fail. (19:13)
Have you ever gotten revenge? Fail. (19:18)
Have you ever worn workout clothes? Fail, they have mixed materials in their garments. (19:19)
Have you ever grown a mustache or got a tattoo? Fail. (19:27-28)
Have you ever sold your house and bought a new one? Fail. (25:23)
If you are a Christian using Leviticus 18:22 to discriminate against gay people, maybe you should check the plank in your own eye first. Shave that mustache, get off social media, and toss out all your workout clothes before you tell anyone else the “right way” to live. The right way to live is impossible on purpose. You can learn more about why these rules are so impossible in:
God Loves Numbers
After Leviticus is Numbers. Isn’t it interesting that the Bible includes an entire book called Numbers?
Throughout this book, we have argued that God is a quantum computer scientist who creates human neural networks in DNA. The Bible says God numbers every hair on our heads and has a name for every star in the sky. That’s very computer science-y behavior. The universe has 2 trillion galaxies and each one has 100-400 million stars, so that’s a lot of names. I wonder what kind of naming convention he uses. 🤔
God is really into numbering and naming things, but so are his chosen people. The book of Numbers begins by numbering and naming all the Israelites who escaped slavery in Egypt by tribe and head of household. One reason the ancient Israelites (and modern Jews) are unusually good at accounting is because the Hebrew language can represent numbers as well as names. The Hebrew word for this is Gematria. Here’s a mind-blowing introduction to Hebrew gematria called, The Hebrew Language is The DNA of Creation. (77 mins)
If you play this video for 1 second, it will make your YouTube algorithm smarter. YouTube will probably recommend it to you later. If you watch the video all the way to the end, you’ll know something way smarter than us created the Hebrew language. If you want to learn more about Hebrew, check out this lecture by Dr. Douglas Petrovich called, Is Hebrew the World’s Oldest Alphabet, and Why Should Lay People Care?. (117 mins)
The book of Numbers also documents the ancient Israelite journey through the Sinai desert to reach the land of Canaan. Their journey was incredibly difficult because God uses fasting and scarcity to test our character. Anyone who rebelled against the authority of Moses was swallowed up by the desert. Others dropped dead from complaining, idolatry, or sex with Moabite women. There were plenty of casualties, but eventually the Israelites were culled and pruned into a mighty nation.
Let’s pickup the story in Numbers 13. Moses has led the entire nation of Israel to the eastern edge of the Jordan River and selected twelve spies to go into the promised land. This chapter seems to follow the Cryptographic Bible Key, so I’ve included the hidden meaning next to each verse number.
Numbers 13: 17 (go forth) When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 (strong man) See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 (test) What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20 (witness order) How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”
It was the season for the first ripe grapes.
After 40 days exploring Canaan, the spies return to Moses.
Numbers 13: 27 (strong judgment) They reported to Moses: “We went into the land where you sent us. Indeed it is flowing with milk and honey, and here is some of its fruit. 28 (witness new life) However, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified. We also saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 (test results) The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”
30 (strong order) Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!”
31 (strong beginning) But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” 32 (strong witness) And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 (enduring strength) We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.’”
Remember the Titans?
We have discussed the Nephilim several times in the last few stories. The Nephilim were not just tall people, this was a legit race of giants produced by the “sons of God” coming down from the heavens to mate with the “daughters of men” in Genesis 6. The Nephilim were part alien, for lack of better word, because one of their parents was not from this world. 😳
So the Israelite conquest of Canaan was way more miraculous than they talk about in church. The promised land and surrounding areas were ruled by half-alien giants with supernatural strength. 😳
The Nephilim after the flood are also known as the Rephaim or Rephaites. The most notable are the Anakim or Anakites, who all descend from a Nephilim named Anak. Here are a few others mentioned in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 2: 8 “So we bypassed our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned away from the Arabah road and from Elath and Ezion-geber. We traveled along the road to the Wilderness of Moab. 9 The Lord said to me, ‘Show no hostility toward Moab, and do not provoke them to battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, since I have given Ar as a possession to the descendants of Lot.’”
10 The Emim, a great and numerous people as tall as the Anakim, had previously lived there. 11 They were also regarded as Rephaim, like the Anakim, though the Moabites called them Emim.12 The Horites had previously lived in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out, destroying them completely and settling in their place, just as Israel did in the land of its possession the Lord gave them.
13 “The Lord said, ‘Now get up and cross the Zered Valley.’ So we crossed the Zered Valley.14 The time we spent traveling from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley was 38 years until the entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. 15 Indeed, the Lord’s hand was against them, to eliminate them from the camp until they had all perished.
Journey past Ammon
16 “When all the fighting men had died among the people, 17 the Lord spoke to me, 18 ‘Today you are going to cross the border of Moab at Ar. 19 When you get close to the Ammonites, don’t show any hostility to them or fight with them, for I will not give you any of the Ammonites’ land as a possession; I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.’”
20 This too used to be regarded as the land of the Rephaim. The Rephaim lived there previously, though the Ammonites called them Zamzummim, 21 a great and numerous people, tall as the Anakim. The Lord destroyed the Rephaim at the advance of the Ammonites, so that they drove them out and settled in their place. 22 This was just as He had done for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites before them; they drove them out and have lived in their place until now. 23 The Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, and settled in their place.
The Israelites battle giants long before they reach the Jordan river. They completely destroy Sihon, king of Heshbon, at the end of Deuteronomy 2. Then in chapter 3, they battle Og, king of Bashan, who was a descendent of Anak.
Deuteronomy 3: 1 Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan came out against us with his whole army to do battle at Edrei. 2 But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have handed him over to you along with his whole army and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.’ 3 So the Lord our God also handed over Og king of Bashan and his whole army to us. We struck him until there was no survivor left. 4 We captured all his cities at that time. There wasn’t a city that we didn’t take from them: 60 cities, the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All these were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a large number of rural villages. 6 We completely destroyed them, as we had done to Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying the men, women, and children of every city. 7 But we took all the livestock and the spoil from the cities as plunder for ourselves.
The Land of the Transjordan Tribes
8 “At that time we took the land from the two Amorite kings across the Jordan, from the Arnon Valley as far as Mount Hermon, 9 which the Sidonians call Sirion, but the Amorites call Senir, 10 all the cities of the plateau, Gilead, and Bashan as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of Og’s kingdom in Bashan. 11 (Only Og king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed was made of iron. Isn’t it in Rabbah of the Ammonites? It is 13 feet six inches long and six feet wide by a standard measure.)
One of the reasons I like this quote in Deuteronomy is because the length of a giant’s bed is a great way to demonstrate their height. The ancient historian Herodotus also mentions seeing the bed of a giant, named Ozymandias, during his time in Egypt.
Another good way to demonstrate the size of a giant is a coffin. Check out this video called, Out of Place Ancient Artifacts in The Cairo Museum in Egypt. You will see two coffins for people who were 10 feet tall. (15 mins)
Another good way to demonstrate the size of a giant is their weapons.
Here is an archeological video that examines a cache of giant weapons currently on display in the Israel museum. (13 mins)
If it’s difficult for you to imagine giants or aliens living on Earth, realize that there’s a lot we don’t know about Earth’s history. For example, someone who lived on Earth in ancient times knew how to liquify granite.
They also knew how to transport 100 ton blocks without wheels or cranes. There are megalithic construction sights like this scattered all around the world.
Modern defense contractors may have reverse engineered this technology, based on the eyewitness testimony of this Army combat veteran. (47 mins)
If you want to learn more about ancient technologies we can’t explain, watch Pre-Egyptian Technology Left By an Advanced Civilization That Disappeared. At the end of the video, you will see how the Egyptian pyramids are actually massive electrical power plants. It’s been verified in the Journal of Applied Physics. (116 mins)
The ancient historians, Herodotus and Pliny, both testify to the existence of giants. Antonio Pigafetta, the official chronicler of Magellan’s voyage around the world, documented living giants in Patagonia who were twice the height of the European explorers. The 19th century explorer Josiah Porter visited the Biblical city of Bashan and documented ancient houses with doors over 9 feet tall. You can see his sketches and diagrams in the book, The Giant Cities of Bashan. News of giant skeletons was common all the way up to the 1800’s. Here’s a good example.
Here is a video that presents lots of old newspaper clippings about giant skeletons in the New York Times, among other reputable sources. (30 mins)
My favorite quote in the video comes from President Abraham Lincoln. Just listen to the way he describes the beauty of Niagara Falls,
When Columbus first sought this continent, when Christ suffered on the cross, when Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, nay, even when Adam first came from the hand of his Maker then as now, Niagara was roaring here. The eyes of that species of extinct giants, whose bones fill the mounds of America, have gazed on Niagara, as ours do now.
The Bible isn’t just mythology and folklore. Giants were real, and the Lord didn’t want the Israelites to intermix with their DNA in any way.
Deuteronomy 7: 1 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2 and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today. 12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. 15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
17 You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 23 But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.
Yeshua to the Rescue
By the end of Deuteronomy, Moses is dying. Moses lived 40 years as an Egyptian in Pharaoh’s house, 40 years as a lowly shepherd in Sinai, and 40 years leading the Israelites to the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 27, Moses instructs the Israelites to build an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal with uncut stones. Here’s an archaeological video that will take you there called, Exploring Joshua’s Altar in Israel. (9 mins)
The most interesting archaeological discovery of the past few years was found at this site. Dr. Scott Stripling 🤘 actually found the curse tablets that contain the first use of the name of God in Israel. These tablets prove that the ancient Israelites were literate hundreds of years earlier than most academics believed. Here’s an interview with Dr. Stripling about the find. (51 mins)
Deuteronomy 31: 1 Then Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel, 2 saying, “I am now 120 years old; I can no longer act as your leader. The Lord has told me, ‘You will not cross this Jordan.’ 3 The Lord your God is the One who will cross ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will drive them out. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, as the Lord has said. 4 The Lord will deal with them as He did Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and their land when He destroyed them. 5 The Lord will deliver them over to you, and you must do to them exactly as I have commanded you. 6 Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified or afraid of them. For it is the Lord your God who goes with you; He will not leave you or forsake you.”
7 Moses then summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you will go with this people into the land the Lord swore to give to their fathers. You will enable them to take possession of it. 8 The Lord is the One who will go before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”
Moses climbs to the top of Mount Nebo in modern day Jordan and dies within sight of the promised land. Here is the view from Mount Nebo looking west into Israel. The Dead Sea (on the left) has retreated significantly since Moses’s day from modern agriculture.
Joshua’s name is important. The original Hebrew word is Yeshua, which means “Yah saves” or “Yah rescues”. The Greek translation of this word is JESUS.
Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan and the battles were epic. Most of the battles required divine intervention—like the walls falling down in Jericho. If you don’t think that event required a miracle, check out this video from Bible Expedition that explains the archaeology at Jericho. (34 mins)
If you still don’t believe in the Israelite conquest of Canaan really happened, watch this archaeology lecture by Dr. Douglas Petrovich called, Can Archaeology Teach Us Anything About the Conquest of Canaan?. (83 mins)
Start the video for just 1 second and let YouTube recommend it to you later.
Hunting Giants
For all the miracles in the conquest of Canaan to work correctly, God gave the Israelites very specific instructions to conquer each city—like walking around Jericho for seven days and then blasting their trumpets. If you carefully observe the stories in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 Chronicles; you’ll see that God only demands that the Israelites “kill every man, woman, and child” in the cities that held the descendants of Anak—the Anakim.
The best explanation for why this happened is in Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm.
Heiser writes,
Israel is Yahweh’s elect portion of humanity, and the land of Canaan is the geography that Yahweh, as owner, specifically allotted to his people. In the view of the biblical writers, Israel is at war with enemies spawned by rival divine beings. The Nephilim bloodlines were not like the peoples of the disinherited nations ... the target of kherem was the Anakim.
Kherem is the Hebrew word for “take no prisoners”. It means to sacrifice something completely to the Lord, which is why the Israelites had to kill every man, woman, and child in the cities that held the Anakim. The bigger point Heiser makes, though, is that there are heavenly beings responsible for various territories here on the Earth. This concept is known as Cosmic Geography. Here’s a video from Heiser to explain more about it. (71 mins)
Dr. Heiser also discusses Cosmic Geography in this Q&A video. (49 mins)
So in addition to the human warfare that happens here on Earth, there is a simultaneous spiritual battle “in the heavens” that affects what happens here on Earth. There is a great Biblical example of this in Daniel 10. Listen to the reason this angel gives for taking an extra 3 weeks to respond to Daniel’s prayer.
Daniel 10: 12 “Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for 21 days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me after I had been left there with the kings of Persia. 14 Now I have come to help you understand what will happen to your people in the last days, for the vision refers to those days.”
When this angel shows up, Daniel collapses to the ground out of fear because the angel’s face “shined as bright as lightning”, his “eyes were like flaming torches”, his “body was like topaz”, his arms and feet “gleamed like polished bronze”, and the sound of his words “sounded like a multitude”. I gave the description of this angel to the artificial intelligence from Midjourney and this is what it imagined:
What would you do if you encountered a being like this? Would you think it was an alien? Have you ever noticed how every time a person in the Bible meets an angel the first thing the angel tells the person is, “Don’t be afraid”? Well wouldn’t you be afraid if an angel like this popped out in front of you one day speaking in some ominous “voice of multitudes”?
Daniel 10: 20 He said, “Do you know why I’ve come to you? I must return at once to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I leave, the prince of Greece will come. 21 No one has the courage to support me against them except Michael, your prince. However, I will tell you what is recorded in the book of truth.”
The “prince of Persia” and “prince of Greece” sound pretty scary too. But the real point of this quote is there are “rulers” in the heavens that control specific territories here on Earth. Like Heiser said, “Israel is Yahweh’s elect portion of humanity, and the land of Canaan is the geography that Yahweh, as owner, specifically allotted to his people.” So the Israelite conquest of Canaan was actually a supernatural conquest. When the Israelites finally complete their conquest, almost all the Anakim had been removed from the land. Let’s skip ahead to Joshua 11 to read the conclusion.
Joshua 11: 21 At that time Joshua went and destroyed the Anakites from the hill country: from Hebron, Debir and Anab, from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua totally destroyed them and their towns. 22 No Anakites were left in Israelite territory; only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod did any survive. 23 So Joshua took the entire land, just as the Lord had directed Moses, and he gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war.”
So this finally leads us to the young King David because last remaining Anakite on Earth lived in Gath. His name was Goliath. King Saul had the opportunity to stand up to Goliath, but failed to find the courage for 40 straight days. So the real reason King David is the true King of Israel is because David killed the last Anakite on Earth. If you want to learn more about the archaeology of King David, watch Searching for a King: Israel’s United Kingdom: the Complete Series by Appian Media. (111 mins)
Conquering Your Promised Land
Throughout this chapter, we have discussed the various ways that God is parenting our civilization. God took away our technology during Noah’s Flood. God took away our technology again at the Tower of Babel. These are the interventions of a parent with a very young child. When God parted the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army, he didn’t ask for any help from us.
But this relationship starts to change with the conquest of Canaan. God gives his chosen people rules to follow in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He asks them to eliminate the false gods in their lives on their own. Every time they face a scary giant, they beg God for help, just like a young child who is facing the world for the first time.
So there’s a metaphorical lesson we can take away from the conquest of Canaan. We all have little addictions that rule our lives as “false gods” or “idols” that we need to eliminate. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus says if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off? Or if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out? Jesus is asking us to devote the evil parts of ourselves to total destruction, just like God commanded Joshua in the conquest of Canaan. Inside each of us, is our own “promised land”, and it’s our job to conquer for ourselves.
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