Joshua 16 — Tyndale Study Notes
Josh.13.8-21.45
As he had promised, God brought Israel into the land. Joshua next turned his attention to the allotment of the land to Israel’s tribes.
The tribal allotments gave geographical reality to the Israelites’ covenant with God and expressed the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because God owned the land, the apportionment to the tribes was a gift. God gave them the land to dwell in and directed its distribution.
In these lists of tribal allotments, the author describes some borders in such detail that they can be plotted on a map while others were far less well defined.
Josh.14.1-19.51
The allotment of land to the tribes on the west side of the Jordan describes what God intended for each tribe to possess.
The narrator frames this section with the assignment of land to Caleb at the beginning (14:6-15) and to Joshua at the end (19:49-51). Only Caleb and Joshua had expressed faith in God that Israel could conquer the land (Num 13:30; 14:6-9).
Josh.16.1-17.18
Joseph had two sons,Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen 41:50-52). Half of Manasseh’s descendants had received their inheritance east of the Jordan River. The tribe of Ephraim and the rest of the tribe of Manasseh now received their allotments. This brought the total number of allotments to twelve and fulfilled the blessing Jacob had pronounced upon Joseph (Gen 49:22-26). Like Judah in the south, Joseph’s tribes exercised leadership from their central position in the north.
Josh.16.1
Jericho was assigned to the tribe of Benjamin (18:21).
Josh.16.3
Ephraim’s border followed the ascent from lower to upper Beth-horon (see 16:5), giving this tribe control of one of the two main roads to Jerusalem from the west.
Gezer, a large and important Canaanite town at the juncture of the coastal plain and the hill country, apparently did not come into Israel’s possession until the time of Solomon (see Judg 1:29; 1 Kgs 9:16).
Josh.16.5-8
This description of Ephraim’s northern boundary with Manasseh is general and incomplete. Because Shechem belonged to Manasseh, the border between the two tribes ran south of that town.