If You are Over 60, You Could be Part of the ‘Joshua Generation’ by Michael Brown for Ask Dr Brown
If you’ve been in church circles over the years, you may have heard people refer to “the Joshua Generation,” meaning young people who are full of spiritual fire and zeal, ready to make an impact for the Lord.
But if we want to be accurate biblically, while the people Joshua was leading were all under 40, he himself was at least 60.
How do we know this?
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The math is simple. He was one of the 12 leaders sent out by Moses and the people to spy out the land of Canaan while the nation of Israel was still in the desert.
He and his colleague Caleb came back with a good report. “It’s true,” they said, “that there are giants in the land. But God is with us and we can take the land.”
The other 10 spies, however, were totally negative. “They will kill us all! We’re doomed to die!” (This is a paraphrase; for the actual text, see Numbers 13-14.)
Unfortunately, the nation as a whole believed the negative report of the 10 spies rather than believing God. And Moses. And Joshua. And Caleb.
As a result, those 10 spies died soon after.
As for the rest of the nation, which had been full of unbelief and rebellion despite the many miracles the Lord performed for them, the judgment was severe: “In this wilderness your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.” (Numbers 14:29)
That is exactly what happened over the next 40 years.
That entire generation died in the wilderness, including Moses himself. Only Joshua and Caleb survived, along with all those who were under 20 when the divine verdict was passed.
