The story of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai is well known, but it is perhaps less understood that he ascended the mountain a total of six times. After the dramatic events of the first Passover the Israelites made their way from the familiar landscape of the Nile Basin into drier and less hospitable terrain of the Sinai Peninsula. Exodus 19 reports that ‘on the first day of the third month after the Israelites left Egypt – on that very day – they came to the Desert of Sinai’ (Exodus 19:1 NIV).

Joshua was on the brink of a new chapter in the history of the Israelites, who had spent forty years wandering around in the wilderness, and God instructs him to 'be strong and courageous' three times; reminding the prodegy of Moses to ‘obey all the law my servant Moses gave you' (Joshua 1:7 NIV). What follows in verse eight is a surprise.