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CHAPTER 11 : Distribution of the land - Unconquered districts - Tribes
east of the Jordan - "The lot" - Tribes west of the Jordan - The inheritance
of Caleb - Dissatisfaction of the sons of Joseph -The Tabernacle at Shiloh
- Final division of the land.
(JOSHUA 13-21)
THE continuance of unsubdued races and districts soon became a source of danger,
although in a direction different from what might have been anticipated. Sufficient had
been gained by a series of brilliant victories to render the general tenure of the land safe
to Israel. The Canaanites and other races were driven to their fastnesses, where for the
time they remained on the defensive. On the other hand, a nation like Israel, accustomed
to the nomadic habits of the wilderness, would scarcely feel the need of a fixed tenure
of land, and readily grow weary of a desultory warfare in which each tribe had
separately to make good its boundaries. Thus it came that Joshua had grown old,
probably ninety or a hundred years, while the work intrusted to him was far from
completed. In the far south and along the sea-shore the whole district from the brook of
Egypt^126 to Ekron was still held, in the south-west and south-east, by the Geshurites
and the Avites, while the territory farther north from Ekron to Gaza was occupied by the
five lords of the Philistines (Joshua 13:2, 3).
According to the Divine direction, all these, though not descended from Canaan
(Genesis 10:14), were to be "counted to the Canaanites," that is, treated as such.
Traveling still farther northwards along the sea-shore, the whole "land of the
Canaanites" or of the Phoenicians far up to the celebrated "cave"^127 near Sidon, and
beyond it to Aphek^128 and even "to the borders of the Amorites"^129 was still
unconquered. Thence eastward across Lebanon as far as Baal-gad and "the entering into
Hamath,"^130 and again back from Mount Lebanon, across country, to the "smelting-pits
on the waters," was subject to the Sidonians or Phoenicians.^131 Yet all this belonged by
Divine gift to Israel. That it was still unoccupied by them, and that Joshua was now old,
constituted the ground for the Divine command to make immediate distribution of the
land among the tribes. It was as if, looking to His promise, God would have bidden
Israel consider the whole land as theirs, and simply go forward, in faith of that promise
and in obedience to His command.^132
It will be remembered that only nine and a half tribes remained to be provided for, since
"unto the tribe of Levi He gave none inheritance," other than what came from the
sanctuary, while Reuben, Gad, and half Manasseh had had their portions assigned by
Moses east of the Jordan.^133
That territory was bounded by Moab along the south-eastern shores of the Dead Sea,
while the eastern border of Reuben and Gad was held by Ammon. Both these nations
were by Divine command not to be molested by Israel (Deuteronomy 2:9, 19). The
(^)