Text: Joshua 22:5
OT Text Referred to: Deuteronomy 6:5
Subject: The Shema as the conquest generation's covenant test
Source: Daniel I. Block, The Gospel According to Moses; Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Longitudinal Theme
Anchor Text: Deut 6:4-5 — The Shema
Significance: As Joshua dismisses the trans-Jordan tribes to their inheritance, he charges them in unmistakable Shema language: "to love the LORD your God... and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul" (bəkol ləbabəkem ûbəkol napšəkem). The wording is Moses's, redeployed at the hinge between conquest and settlement: the very command Israel received on the plains of Moab now becomes the test by which the settled tribes will keep covenant once the land is won and the unifying labor of war is past. Joshua adds the cluster that the Shema's surrounding verses imply — walk in His ways, keep His commandments, hold fast (davaq) to Him — showing that love for Yahweh is not sentiment but whole-life allegiance. The connection demonstrates the Shema's earliest canonical career: it propagates as the standing measure of covenant fidelity across the Deuteronomistic History (Josh 22:5; 1 Kgs 8:48; 2 Kgs 23:25). The telos: the love demanded of Israel-in-the-land is the love perfectly rendered only by the true Israelite, Jesus, who held fast to the Father in the wilderness where the nation failed — and who gives His people a settled heart that clings to God as their portion better than any land.