Land Division 2 - Joshua 17-20

I listened to TB’s lecture on chapter 17 and got some insight into some of the questions that I had from yesterday. The first insight was about the timeline of conquering Canaan vs settling the land. TB suggests that at this point all 12 tribes had been given their land but 7 of the tribes had refused what was offered. He says that the reason they rejected the land was “the element of responsibility and obligation of the inheritors to the divine giver… what they didn’t realize was that connected with the inheritance of the land was an obligation to finish conquering it. Up to now the 12 tribes worked together as a large and formidable army to battle the Canaanites in order to take their land from them, The Holy Was against Canaan had largely been successful; but much remained to be done… Acceptance of their land inheritance meant that each tribe now assumed full responsibility to finish conquering and to govern their allotted territory. Inheritance neither meant peace nor stability for Israel; it was but a step along the way in a very long process that suddenly added a new and very challenging obligation.” So this was the next step in Israel’s spiritual progression and they were now responsible for clearing out the rest of the peoples themselves.

Another note was that these tribes accepted their land allotments in different orders so some of the mentions on tribes having land in other tribe’s territories were usually because the other tribe settled their land first and took over that part and then when the other tribe finally accepted their land, they didn’t take that part back. Apparently there were all types of disputes as well among the tribes because who got what and which was bigger and better, etc. and it was just a pain in the butt all the way around with everyone complaining about everything all the time. The first part of chapter 17 has to do with the daughters of one of the clans in Manasseh receiving land because their father had no sons and if we remember, there was a provision set for that back in Numbers. It’s noted that Manasseh couldn’t drive out the Canaanites from their land so they just stayed and lived there too. Again, it is said that “when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out.” Verse 12 says that Manasseh “could not” drive out the inhabitants of their land, but it says that when Israel was strong, they didn’t drive Canaan out, they made them tributary, implying to me that they had the ability to obey God and drive the Canaanites out, but chose not to so that some of them could gain wealth personally. Interesting.

The rest of the chapter is about the “children of Joseph” complaining to Joshua about their allotments, meaning Ephraim and Manasseh fighting with each other over land. Apparently the land given to Ephraim was very large and the best farm land in the whole of Canaan, but they were still mad and the way TB describes the recorded interaction is pretty funny. Basically, according to TB, the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh go to Joshua and say “we are very large and strong tribes, why did you give us one lot of land to share.” Joshua answers, “if you’re so strong, then go clear the trees on the mountains and gain more land for yourselves.” Then they say “That’s not enough because the Canaanites who live in the valley by that land have chariots of iron.” And Joshua answers, “you’re all so big and strong, then you can defeat the iron chariots and take their land for yourselves and get more land that way.” Joshua was not interested in their shenanigans.

Chapter 18 and 19 is Joshua doing pretty much anything to get these 7 tribes to accept their land allotments, including sending tribal representatives to go out and scout the land and write all about it. Then when they got back, Joshua personally divided all the land up. And chapter 19 is a detailed description of who got what lands. Chapter 20 is Joshua being commanded by God to set up those sanctuary cities that we’ve talked about a lot for the people to flee to who had accidentally killed someone so that the relative of the killed person couldn’t seek revenge. It also says exactly where these cities were to be built.