[A Meditation on One Verse]

(Joshua 11:20) “For it was the LORD himself who hardened their hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy…”

This verse truly makes our hearts uncomfortable. Did God harden the hearts of the Canaanites in order to destroy them and withhold grace from them? Is God the author of evil? Faced with such questions, we often want to turn away from this verse.

However, the Bible does not say that God incited them to be evil while they were passive. Their very nature was already a hardness of heart that did not want to have God. Like a car with broken brakes heading down a hill, their hearts were already racing toward destruction. When it says God ‘did this,’ it means that He did not forcibly stop or fix the car, but ‘let them go’—allowing their hardened hearts to continue on the path they were already set on.

But Israel was different. Their nature was also hard, and they constantly opposed God in the wilderness, but God did not ‘let them go’. Like the love of Hosea, He bound up their broken and wounded hearts and held on to them to the end, drawing them into His embrace. This is grace.

Therefore, true grace is to see how hard one’s own heart is, and at the same time, to see the God who does not give up on such a person but holds on and leads them even today.

This morning, we start the day seeking this amazing grace.

”God, thank you for not letting go of my heart and for holding me fast with Your grace. May my hard heart be broken before the cross, and may this ‘today’ be a day I walk in Your love.”

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(Daily Reading)

– Joshua 11:16-12:6