United Commentaries

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.18.1

Israel had been encamped at Gilgal in the Jordan Valley (14:6). Shiloh was about twenty miles north of Jerusalem, in the hill country of Ephraim. By setting up the Tabernacle there, Joshua made Shiloh Israel’s religious and political center. The Tabernacle remained at Shiloh until the Philistines captured the Ark (1 Sam 4:10-11).

Josh.18.4

The three selected representatives from each tribe came from the seven tribes that had not yet received their allotments.

a written report: Israel was not an entirely oral society. If an event or record was important enough to be remembered over time, leaders ordered that it be written down.

Josh.18.5

The remaining land was divided into seven sections, one for each tribe not yet assigned its territory.

Josh.18.6

Joshua publicly cast sacred lots to eliminate envy or suspicion (see also study note on 7:16-18).

Josh.18.7

The Levites: See ch 21.

Gad . . . Manasseh: See 13:15-33.

Josh.18.9

The Canaanites of the hill country now feared Israel and allowed twenty-one men (18:4) to walk through these territories and return unharmed.

The written record was probably a scroll, which might have provided the original source for the descriptions of the tribal allotments in chs 18–19.

Josh.18.11

Benjamin was Jacob’s twelfth and last son, and the second son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife. The land received by his descendants reflected this favored position; they received a small but central portion between . . . Judah and Joseph.

Josh.18.21-28

While Judah’s land included eleven or twelve districts (see study note on 15:59), the tribe of Benjamin had two, totaling twenty-six towns. However, the location between the lands of Judah and Joseph gave Benjamin an economic and military importance significantly greater than its size.

Josh.18.28

Jerusalem: See study note on 15:8.

Kiriath: The Kiriath-jearim of 18:14 belonged to Judah; another town with this name might have existed but is otherwise unknown. The word Kiriath here was probably originally followed by a word that has been lost in the process of copying.