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• Did you realize we were at the end of Joshua already!  Starting Judges tomorrow 😬

Joshua 22: I am ‘not’ going to insert any application into this read.  I truly believe that God will highlight for you what He wants to say to you.  But I love Joshua 22- I call it “The Misunderstanding…Again”.   It happened before when the Transjordan tribes asked for the land and Moses yelled at them.  NOW they are building an altar and they get yelled at again.  It’s amazing how quick we are to judge when we don’t have all the facts.

An altar was built that caused quite a stir and almost led to civil war in the newly founded nation of Israel. God prohibited the building of altars other than those He had commanded (Deuteronomy 12). Yet the tribes on the east side of the Jordan River—Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh—constructed an altar. As a result, the western tribes felt the Law had been violated and intended to go to war against their own people.

Deuteronomy 13 is dedicated entirely to making false altars.  But it does say “¹² If you hear it said about one of the towns the Lord your God is giving you to live in that troublemakers have arisen among you and have led the people of their town astray, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly. And if it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done among you,  you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town”

Once I saw his name in the chapter I thought “Oh stars”.  He is the zealous priest who stabbed the couple dancing the horizontal mambo in the tent.  He put his spear through both of them at the same time!  Click here if you want to reread it.

Thank heavens the western tribes investigated the situation before they went to war. As it turned out, the altar built by Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh was a memorial to the Lord God. They had built the altar on the east side of the Jordan to show their connection to the rest of the Israelites who lived in the Promised Land. The altar was a sign of unity, not rebellion.

If you don’t realize how close the Transjordan tribes came to being killed then you may not remember the guy mentioned in verse 13: Phinehas. 

¹³ So the Israelites sent Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, to the land of Gilead—

²⁶ “That is why we said, ‘Let us get ready and build an altar—but not for burnt offerings or sacrifices.’ ²⁷ On the contrary, it is to be a witness between us and you and the generations that follow, that we will worship the Lord at his sanctuary with our burnt offerings, sacrifices and fellowship offerings. Then in the future your descendants will not be able to say to ours, ‘You have no share in the Lord.’

❤️

Joshua 23 Joshua’s Farwell Speech:

Just like Moses’ speech, there is a reminder of the blessings and curses. I try not to bring the current events into the Blog…however…one of the key points I noticed was individual sins would bring down the whole community. So here are the instructions for America, Israel:

• Be very strong; be careful to obey all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, without turning aside to the right or to the left. 
• Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.  But you are to hold fast to the Lord your God, as you have until now.
•  So be very careful to love the Lord your God.

Big Butt!!

• But if you turn away and ally yourselves with the survivors of these nations that remain among you and if you intermarry with them and associate with them, then you may be sure that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become snares and traps for you, whips on your backs and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land, which the Lord your God has given you.
•  If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”

Chapter 24:  Joshua is renewing the Covenant in Shechem.  This is the 25th time we read the word Shechem (unfortunately, it was where Dinah was raped).  So why is the Covenant being renewed there?  Want to read something cool??  Flip to Genesis 12:1-9 or click here. Mind-blowing!

I sound like an infomercial…Wait there’s more! Is this new land for them or did they already have the pink slip on Shechem?  Oh, I am unglued with excitement.  Read Genesis 33:18-20. They purchased the land a long time ago.

Chapter 24 is a great recap. I bet you do some underlining and God speaks to you about it.

• “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. 
• Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped
•  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. (If you can’t make application of this in your life,  you need another cup of coffee this morning)

You have seen that 100 times at Hobby Lobby.  Now you know the context behind it. ❤️

Tomorrow we finish Joshua.  It went fast!  But if you have fallen behind in the read-through….this recap video will get you to the start of Judges.  The book Judges contains shocking stories involving murder, human sacrifice, gang rape, killing their own brothers, dismemberment, and even some “poop”.  Everything you might see on a Netflix show. So watch this instead….and jump into Judges!

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Maybe you read this word for word, but if you skimmed some of these distributions (I did 🤪),  the summary can be found on 19:51

⁵¹ These are the territories that Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun and the heads of the tribal clans of Israel assigned by lot at Shiloh in the presence of the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. And so they finished dividing the land.

Ch. 19. – If you went all the way back to Genesis 49 (click here if you want to read it, it’s pretty cool now).  But one caught my eye (other than the obvious Judah tribe)

⁵ “Simeon and Levi are brothers—
    their swords are weapons of violence.
⁶ Let me not enter their council,
    let me not join their assembly,
for they have killed men in their anger
    and hamstrung oxen as they pleased.
⁷ Cursed be their anger, so fierce,
    and their fury, so cruel!
I will scatter them in Jacob
    and disperse them in Israel.

In today’s reading, we see that the tribe of Simeon did not technically get their own land, they were given the land Judah’s did not need or occupy.

Click here for a printable copy

Click here to print the one below instead

• Chapter 20-Cities of Refuge.Then the Lord said to Joshua: ² “Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, ³ so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and find protection from the avenger of blood.

• Chapter 21- Towns for Levites

We talked about this in Numbers 35 but here is a quick recap.

The yellow dots are Levitical Towns, the red dots are the Cities of Refuge. The cities were divided 3 on each side of the Jordan River so that no Israelite would have to travel far to reach one of them.  These were safe cities so that they had protection from revenge or injustice from accidental death.  (Today, Jesus is the High Priest that protects us from injustice at death.  He is our refuge)

• – Kadesh– in Naphtali
• – Shechem– in West Manasseh
• – Hebron– in Judah
• – Golan– in East Manasseh
• – Ramoth – Gilead in Gad
• – Bezer– in Rueben

The tribes also had to set aside 42 additional cities for the priests and Levites to inhabit.  In all, the Levites received 48 cities with their surrounding pasturelands, including the six cities of refuge. God arranged the distribution of the 48 Levitical towns in such a way that the Levites, whose responsibilities included the teaching and counseling of the other Israelites in the Law, were not far from anyone in Israel.

Today’s read ends with:

So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there.The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands. Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

So cool!

If you are curious about the size of the land, click here for a reference.

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OK, I did not post this morning.  I woke up early as I always do.  Like every morning I make coffee, feed the dogs, throw a load in the washer…(this is where I am supposed to say and opened my Bible).  But I went back to sleep!  When I woke up the sun was up (usually it is dark).  To be transparent, I looked at my Bible and I looked at the remote…and I chose the remote and watched TV ☹️.    Then I got 2 comments put on yesterday’s reading asking for today’s post?  It made me feel so good that someone noticed. ❤️.

I know this reading may appear boring but it is not.  Take a look.  I ALSO put 3 trivia questions on this one!  Try them.  What do you have to lose?

Who are Manasseh and Ephraim?  They are Joseph’s two sons that were adopted as equal tribe leaders of Israel.

The eastern half-tribe of Manasseh had already received its inheritance, and the remaining “half-inheritance” would have been small compared with the other tribes. These one and one-half tribes together formed a large group of Israelites. Their lot fell in central Canaan, and their territory consisted of two parts: with Ephraim settling in the southern portion, and Manasseh in the northern. A single lot determined the inheritance of both Ephraim and Manasseh, which resulted in Ephraim complaining later (17:14-18).

Bad News!¹⁰ They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer; to this day the Canaanites live among the people of Ephraim but are required to do forced labor.

Chapter 17

³ Now Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons but only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah.“

The Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our relatives.

Trivia: Do you remember this?  What chapter in the Bible was this?

More BAD NEWS!¹² Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region. ¹³ However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely.

Did the Lord tell them to do that?  Trivia #2: What did the Lord tell them to do with the inhabitants of the land?

Chapter 18.  Joshua is at Shiloh.  Find it on your land distribution map.  Shiloh is in the Division of Ephraim. (It is going to come up 33 times in our reading).

The rest of the land is divided by the continuing process of “casting lots”.

So you have all figured out how weird my brain is…I picture this scene like a Vegas Craps table….”C’mon, C’mon….give mamma a river or a coastline”….It WAS NOT LIKE THAT…just in my head!

BUT please underline:

18:3 So Joshua said to the Israelites: “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you?

Uh oh…looks like they are losing steam now that they feel “comfortable” in the land with all the major kings destroyed. I wonder if they will get lazy and start to ignore God’s commands?  So what I am hearing is “When things are going my way, I tend to ignore God?” (This is the conversation in my head, just ignore me)

Trivia #3- Which tribe in the Reading would not receive land?  Because I am a teacher I am going to also say “Explain your answer”.

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• I know this is a skimmable read, BUT don’t miss the LAST scripture in Ch 15.

If you opened your Bible 87 days ago to these chapters many of us would not know who the names were,  where this land is, or why this is important.  So this might not be exciting to read, but it is pretty stinking cool that you could explain the overview of it to someone who has not read a Bible.

So as you read, listen or let’s be transparent…skim a little.  Here is a fun activity for you while doing it.  As you read them,  color them.

Click here to print.

Chapters 13—24 describe how Joshua divided the land, and the events following that division, including the settlement of the tribes and national rededication. Many, if not all, of the Israelite tribes, did not conquer or control all the land allotted to them.   At the end of the seven-year period of conquest, Israel occupied very little of the Promised Land. Consequently, dividing all the land among the tribes required great faith, that God would eventually give His people all of it. Joshua (well, the Lord) had removed the significant military threats to Israel’s existence. From now on, each tribe was responsible to conquer its own designated territory.

Tribes on the East side of the Jordan River-(Transjordan Tribes)-

⁸ The other half of Manasseh, the Reubenites and the Gadites had received the inheritance that Moses had given them east of the Jordan, as he, the servant of the Lord, had assigned it to them.

Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh.  These tribes requested this land, and Moses approved AS LONG AS they joined the army and fought the battles and then returned to that land.

Quick little assessment: Read this and tell me if there is ANY part of it you do not understand?

Eleazar the high priest, Joshua, and the heads of the tribes took the leadership in dividing the portion of the land by “casting lots”.  (The stones the High Priest used to confer with God when a decision was to be made. The stones were called the Urim and Thummim)

Moses had promised Caleb land in Canaan but had not specified its location. The reason for this special blessing was Caleb’s faithfulness to God.  The portion that Caleb requested was within the tribal allotment of Judah.

Caleb was from the tribe of Judah and he was given Hebron.  If you went back to Genesis 23, this was the land that Abraham purchased knowing one day they would claim the land.  He purchases Hebron to be a burial site for his wife.  Actually, Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, are buried there.  Hebron also will become King David’s first capital (before Jerusalem)

The tribe of Judah probably received first consideration in the text, because it was this tribe that had received Jacob’s blessing. It was also the largest tribe.  This part of Canaan contained four distinct regions: the southern
Negev, the lowland plain (Shephelah), the mountains (hill country), and the desert.

• The “Negev” (“south” land)
• The “Foothills” (“lowland”)
• Five groups of cities stood in the mountainous “hill country” of
  Judah, north of the Negev, east of the Shephelah, and west of
  the wilderness of Judah
• The “wilderness” of Judah was the northeastern part of the
  tribal inheritance.

“Othniel” (put his name in your pocket) later became one of Israel’s prominent judges.  He was Caleb’s younger brother.

Optional Extra Credit Info (so cool)-

It ended today with:

⁶³ Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah.

Will this become an issue? Well, I would say YES since we have been reading…

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying…“To your offspring, I give this land,  the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

I am going to give you some scriptures to go underline so when we get there it will be cool to read:

Judges  1:19- The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had chariots fitted with iron.²⁰ As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of Anak. ²¹ The Benjamites, however, did not drive out the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the Benjamites.

If you want to read a story that you NEVER thought you would read in the Bible…read Judges 19!  If ONLY they had been able to stay the night in the city of the Jebusites.   This is an “OH MY”.

¹¹ When they were near Jebus and the day was almost gone, the servant said to his master, “Come, let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites and spend the night.”¹² His master replied, “No. We won’t go into any city whose people are not Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.”    What happens next??  Read Judges 19.  wow.

Next flip to 2 Samuel 5:⁶ The king and his men marched to Jerusalem to attack the Jebusites, who lived there. The Jebusites said to David, “You will not get in here; even the blind and the lame can ward you off.” They thought, “David cannot get in here.” ⁷ Nevertheless, David captured the fortress of Zion—which is the City of David.

So how long will we be reading about the Jebusites since the Israelites did not obey the Lord FULLY??  I am going to fast forward to Sept 25th.  (Not a typo)

9 After these things had been done, the leaders came to me and said, “The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. ² They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.”

You know I don’t do “application”, you have a Holy Spirit for that.  BUT what is your Jebusite?  If you leave a ‘little’ Jebusite in your life it will come back to haunt you.  I have about 500 Jebusites I can list I should cut out of my life…

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The Gibeonites decided that if they could not defeat the Israelites, they would join them. Gibeon stood seven miles south of Bethel. It was one of the largest towns in the central part of Canaan, larger than Ai. The Gibeonites deceived the Israelites and pretended to fear the Lord, but their objective was to save their own lives.

So now the Israelites are stuck between a rock and a hard place when they find out about the deception.  It was their fault for getting into the mess because in 9:14 it states they did not inquire of the Lord.  However, they chose to honor their oath since in Numbers 30:2 God stated:

“This is what the Lord commands: When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

In the end, they made the right choice:

• The Gibeonites submit to the Israelites
• The Israelites took necessary steps to keep them under their thumb by making them the workers to support the tabernacle (service to creating proper worship, not their own types of altars) 9:23
• The Gibeonites are a large group of fighting men that can be used in the conquering of the land

(Unfortunately, in a couple of weeks we will read that our first King, Saul will break this treaty and attacks them in 2 Sam. 21, bringing a judgment of famine to the Israelites.  Why Saul???)

The news of the powerful Gibeonites treaty with the Israelites raises red flags to the other major cities and they ban together.  Look at the map again at the yellow dots: Kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon (verse 10:5).

However, instead of attacking the Israelites, they target the Gibeonites.  The Lord honors the keeping of the oath and the Lord takes over this massive battle in 3 ways:

1. Throws the enemy into confusion (10:10)
2. The Lord hurled large hailstone (10:11)
3. The sun stood still so they would have more time to fight in daylight.  (10:12)
   • First, let me say that I am weird and I thought of God throwing hail like snowballs in the scene in “Elf”
   • Also, for all my science people: we know that the sun does not move,  but that the Earth stood still.  (But Copernicus wasn’t born yet so we are good).  For those who don’t know me, I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade at the same time so I have to prove my worth at times 😉 In case one of my teachers reads this.

The battles we are reading appear to go quickly, but note that this is over a 7 year period.  After the victory over the Amorite Kings, the Israelites conquer the major cities in the South and the North.

When you read about these battles, keep in mind ONLY the Lord could bring these victories to the Israelites.  We are in the midst of the Bronze age and cities like Havor are a city that had ramparts, horses, and chariots.  Joshua went back himself to burn this city. (this is, by the way, the largest archeological site in Isreal with 3 feet of ash to dig through.   We continue to find artifacts, weapons, tools, and cuniform tablets that affirm these events.)

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• It’s a long read today so I will make this brief

Chapter 5.  Now that the Israelites are on the other side of the Jordan they are told to be circumcised.  I found it puzzling that for 40 years the Israelites did not do this,  however, now they are in enemy territory and they are told to do this.  Here are some of my random thoughts:

• This must be done to celebrate the Passover
• When they are in Canaan, they must have the “sign” of the Abrahamic Covenant (if you jumped in late, message me and I will explain) so they are set apart, Holy)
• This is a true act of faith!  They will be vulnerable for days.  If they truly trust that God will protect them on that Land then,  they will do it!
• The city is named Gibeath Haaraloth “hill of the foreskin”.  Have mercy!

The Israelites celebrated the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened bread to commemorate their Exodus from Egypt out of slavery.  On this day the Lord stopped providing manna.  To be transparent,  I totally forgot about the manna until I read this.  From here forward they will now eat from the land.

Jericho- Let’s start with some visuals:

Israel’s army had no siege engines, no battering rams, no catapults, and no moving towers like in Game of Thrones 😋 . Their only weapons were slings, arrows, and spears—which were like straws against the walls of Jericho.  While Joshua was approaching the city walls,  a “man” was standing there with a message from the Lord. I am looking for help on this.  Is this an Angel with a message from the Lord or an incarnate figure of the Lord?  Please let me know your thoughts.

Either way, this manifestation is humbling and Joshua takes off his sandals in reverence.

The instructions to prepare for battle are given:

• march around the city with armed men.  The priests will carry their trumpets in front of the Ark.
• Do this for 6 days
• On the 7th day, something will be different (look at verse 6:5): a long blast!

Go back to Numbers 10:⁸ “The sons of Aaron, the priests, are to blow the trumpets. This is to be a lasting ordinance for you and the generations to come. ⁹ When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy who is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the Lord your God and rescued from your enemies. ¹⁰ Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the Lord your God.”

I could sit in these chapters all day and talk about the Feast of Trumpets…let me put it to you this way…if you hear a loud trumpet sound, and people disappear, but you are still here…panic!  The Feast of Trumpets will occur at the Rapture.  Also, there will be 7 trumpet blasts in Revelation.  Oh my stars…can you imagine how great this read-through is going to be when we get to Revelation…STAY WITH IT!   Ok, Ok…back to Joshua!

The trumpets blasted and the men shouted and the Walls Collapsed.  By the way, archeologists have proven that the walls fell forward! Completely corroborating that the Lord won this battle.

Rahab and her family are ushered out just as promised

Chapter 6 ends with a warning “Cursed before the Lord is the one who undertakes to rebuild this city.” Have you ever heard of Ahab?  NO?  What about his wife Jezebel?   Guess who refortified the city??

Chapter 7- Achan’s sin- As the Israelites defeated Jericho,  Joshua said in 6:18

But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.

Joshua, after giving the Israelites this warning sent out only 3,000 warriors to take Ai.  After all, it was small potatoes compared to Jericho.  What Joshua did not know was Achan would bring destruction to the Israelites through his sin.

I am going to leave this story application between you and God.  I am sure He spoke to you about something in your life you have hidden that He sees.

Chapter 8- Ai (pronounced  “aye  eye” just like the 2 letters)

The Lord sets the Israelites out now to defeat the city of Ai in an ambush attack.  I picture Joshua using X’s and O’s like a football play, drawing it in the sand.

This time they are given the command to take the plunder.  The first battle was the equivalency of the “firstborn or first fruit”.  That one was dedicated to the Lord (no plunder).  NOW they may.  Jericho was to be destroyed but this city will be used as provisions for the Israelites.  Ai in Hebrew means “Ruin”, and that is exactly what happens to this city (to this day).  If you look at Bible maps you will usually see it with a question mark because it was destroyed and cannot be found to this day.

The Israelites return to where the Blessings and Curses were read near Gilgal and read the commandments again.  They made an altar to the Lord and at this time were following the Law.