I remember one year, when I was a teenager, we were setting up for our summer vacation Bible school when one of the ladies told us that we needed to pray earnestly for God to keep the rain at bay and not ruin our plans. It struck me as odd because I had been working on a farm that summer, and I knew they desperately needed rain.

I began to wonder: how does God answer prayers when two groups pray for opposite things? Do they cancel each other out? How does God’s loyalty show up in everyday life?

If you’re running late to work, does your prayer for green lights take priority over the mother rushing to get her child to the doctor? At every moment, conflicting prayers rise before God’s throne. His switchboard must be busy all the time, requiring the wisest prioritization.

We might think this is an insignificant, or even sacrilegious, thing to wonder about—to pit our prayers against each other before the omniscience of God—but the Book of Joshua confronts this subject head-on. We have all likely made presumptions about our relationship with God without realizing it. Fortunately, the Bible can lovingly reorder how we consider our loyalty to God and his faithfulness to us.

THE SETTING

Nestled between Israel’s crossing of the Jordan (Joshua 3–4) and the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6), there is a brief story that can go unnoticed. Joshua walked out to the walls of the city. The gates were locked tight. The people were barricaded inside, braced for a long siege (Joshua 6:1). Joshua must have been considering the strategy for how they would take the city.

Suddenly, Joshua was confronted by an unknown man wielding a sword. Alone, and with the looming battle on his mind, he asked the stranger, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” The man answered, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come” (Joshua 5:13–14, ESV). What a peculiar interaction.

Joshua’s response gives him away. No mere angel accepts worship (Revelation 22:8–9), yet Joshua fell facedown before him and asked, “What does my lord say to his servant?” (Joshua 5:14, ESV). The commander confirmed it: he told Joshua to remove his sandals, for he stood on holy ground. These were the same words the LORD spoke to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:5; Joshua 5:15). By the time he lays out the battle plan, the text has stopped calling him “the commander” altogether and simply calls him “LORD” (Joshua 6:2–5). This was no angel. It was a theophany—God himself appearing to Joshua before the walls of Jericho.

But what about that initial answer, “No”? What was that all about? This one word is the key to unlocking the literary thread throughout the rest of the book. If we take our time to ponder its meaning carefully, we will see the implications of how God determines his loyalty.

THE LORD YOUR GOD IS WITH YOU 

At the beginning of the book, Joshua has taken over the mantle of leadership for Israel (Joshua 1:1–2). The LORD reiterated the promises he made to Moses and repeated them to Joshua, but then told him three times to “be strong and courageous,” followed by, “for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:6–9, ESV).

Joshua’s strength and courage would come from his meditation on God’s Word day and night (Joshua 1:8). At the time, all he had were the first five books of the Bible. The Law of Moses made it clear that God would judge the wickedness of the land’s inhabitants. He had been patient for 400 years (Genesis 15:13–16), slow to anger, steadfast in love. But the time of their judgment had now come.

By announcing that the commander of the LORD’s army had come, God signified that he himself would lead the battle. God would judge the inhabitants of Jericho by supernatural means. 

This line of thinking has often led to vigorous debate. Did God commission genocide? The command is irrefutably clear that God intended to judge the inhabitants of the land. Yet it still causes people to recoil at the thought of a loving God who would act so violently in his judgment. But the conquest of Canaan does not allow us to sit on the sidelines and offer criticism. 

When the commander of Israel’s army, Joshua, encountered the commander of the LORD’s army, it should have been a clear-cut alliance. God had already told Joshua that he was with them. Yet when Joshua asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” the answer was, “No.” The question remains: who is God for? 

REDEMPTION FOR THE CONDEMNED

This makes Rahab’s introduction in chapter two an important detail in the overarching story of the conquest of Canaan. Why introduce an inhabitant of Jericho, a city marked for destruction? This demonstrates that God’s loyalties are not as black and white as we might initially think.

For all intents and purposes, Rahab should have been judged and perished along with everyone else in the city. The text emphasizes her sin, noting that she was a prostitute (Joshua 2:1), likely looked down upon by her own people as one of the worst individuals.

Yet she heard what the LORD had done in rescuing the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, how he had led them through the Red Sea and given them victory over their enemies (Joshua 2:10). She confessed that the God of the Israelites is the LORD, Yahweh, and she asked for his covenant loyalty to her and her family (Joshua 2:11–13).

The scarlet cord in the window (Joshua 2:18, 21) recalled the blood on the doorpost during the Passover (Exodus 12:7, 13)—a sign that marked her for safety against the looming judgment of the angel of the LORD.

So, when Joshua asked who God was “for,” and the LORD said, “No,” he clearly had Rahab and her family in mind. It is as if he intended to say, “Yes, and a few more.” Except he doesn’t say, “Yes.” He says, “No.” Why does he use the negative rather than the affirmative? 

SIN IN THE CAMP

To explore this further, we have to jump ahead in the timeline and remember what happened after the battle of Jericho. God told the people not to touch anything in the city and keep nothing for themselves (Joshua 6:18–19). The spoils of war belonged to the LORD alone. But an Israelite soldier named Achan saw some treasures and took them for himself (Joshua 7:20–21).

This led to a tragic defeat when Israel’s army, blinded by success after the victory at Jericho, rushed to take the next stronghold of Ai (Joshua 7:2–5). After their humiliating defeat, the LORD revealed that sin was in the camp (Joshua 7:10–12).

Instead of coming forward and admitting his sin, Achan put his hope in the luck of the lot and waited until his name was called before confessing his crime (Joshua 7:16–20). He had plenty of time and opportunity to repent, but he waited until his sin was exposed to acknowledge it. Because of this, he and his family were treated as enemies and given the same punishment as the people in Jericho who refused to repent (Joshua 7:24–25).

When the LORD says, “No,” he is issuing a foreboding reminder that God will not overlook the sins of his own people any more than he would ignore the wickedness of others. God is for those who submit to him—Joshua and Rahab—but he stands against those who are unwilling to repent—Achan. 

WHO IS ON THE LORD’S SIDE?

When Joshua asked whose side the LORD was on, he was asking the wrong question. That is what makes the response so provocative. He should have asked, “Who is on the LORD’s side?” The LORD is not a god who shifts his loyalties, cheering for one side today and another tomorrow. Ultimately, God is for God—loyal to his own sovereign plan. That is why the answer is “No,” not “Yes.” God is not a mascot. He is on his own side, benevolent only to those who align with him. 

Our initial response might be an obvious, “Of course we align with God,” but we must consider that, like Joshua, we often misunderstand our position of loyalty. We do so when we expect God to act in a certain way in answer to our prayers, or presume that God will side with us in our conflict with our enemies.

The Book of Joshua warns us against making such assumptions. Understanding this unique story calls our loyalty into question, not God’s. God has promised to be with us, but he does not grant every request. Assuming he will do whatever we deem good makes him answerable to us instead of the other way around—as though he were a genie subject to our whims, rather than the LORD to whom we owe our lives. Furthermore, God holds us all to the same standard of holiness: his own. It is dangerous to assume that we are more holy than our neighbors, when we all fall far short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). He does not want anyone to perish. He is patient and longsuffering, giving us time to repent (2 Peter 3:9)—and only he knows how long that will take, or what it will require.

The fact that God welcomed Rahab into his covenant and even his genealogy (Matthew 1:5) is a completely shocking turn of events. Rahab is given higher honors than anyone else named in the book. The story of Achan’s sin and punishment seems out of place for anyone cheering for Israel’s victory. But God’s loyalty to all who repent teaches us the importance of grace in our lives and reorients our focus to compassion, repentance, and trust in God to do what is right.

So the next time a question of God’s loyalty arises, remember that God is not obligated to pick a side. He calls us to rally to his cause.