Thoughts on Joshua 13-21 (Adapted from Gospel Coalition)

What do we learn from the many chapters of Joshua devoted to the dividing up of the land? Below are a few thoughts.

• Focusing on the division of the land, these chapters implicitly focus on the land itself. After all, the land was an irreducible component of the promise to Abraham, of the Sinai covenant, of the release of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It is now distributed by God’s providential supervision.
• The inevitable conclusion is that God is faithful to his promises. “So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there. The LORD gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the LORD handed all their enemies over to them. Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled” (Joshua 21:43-45).
• The chapters revealing the distribution of the land explain how entrance into the Promised Land did not proceed in a process of unbroken triumph. Earlier God had warned that he would not give the Israelites the whole thing at once. Now we are repeatedly told that this tribe or that tribe could not defeat certain Canaanites, and they continue to live in the land. For instance, “Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah” (Joshua 15:63). In fact, Jerusalem was taken (Judges 1:8), but not all the Jebusites were dislodged. Such details explain the conflict between Israel’s fidelity to God and their spiritual and moral compromise to the ways of the Canaanites, so often resulting in Israel’s unfaithfulness.
• Some of the elements in these chapters bring earlier strands of the narrative to closure. For instance, Caleb surfaces again. He was Joshua’s colleague among the initial group of twelve spies. Joshua and Caleb were the only two who at Kadesh Barnea, at the first approach to the Promised Land, urged the people to enter the land boldly and trust God. In consequence they are the only two of their generation who are still alive to witness the Promised Land for themselves. In Joshua 15, Caleb is still looking for new worlds to conquer and receives his inheritance. Similarly, chapters 20-21 detail the designation of the cities of refuge and of the towns set aside for the Levites — steps mandated by the Mosaic Code.
• There is trouble ahead. The ambiguities of the situation, and the memories of the final warnings of Moses, signal to the reader that these relative victories, good though they are, cannot possibly be God’s final or ultimate provision.