The Promised Land · c. 1400 BC
Chapter 7
Dividing the Land
As yet I am as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, to go out and to come in.
For parents
Little in this chapter is hard. It recalls that Moses struck down King Sihon and the five chiefs of Midian, and that Israel killed Balaam with the sword (Joshua 13:21–22). Caleb drives three sons of Anak out of Hebron and promises his daughter Achsah as a wife to whoever takes Kiriath Sepher (15:14–17); Canaanites who aren’t driven out are put to forced labor (16:10; 17:13); and the people of Dan take the city of Leshem by the sword (19:47).
was old now, far along in years. The said to him, “You are old and far along in years, and there is still a great deal of land left to take.
“This is the land that is still left. There are all the regions of the , from the edge of north to the border of : the land of their five rulers, and of the people of , , , and Ekron. There is all the land of the , up to the land of the and the border of the . And there is all , toward the sunrise, from below to the entrance of .
“I will drive out all the people of the hill country ahead of the , from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, all the Sidonians. Just give the land out to Israel to inherit, as I have commanded you. So now share out this land to the nine and the half-tribe of .”
, the Lord’s servant, had given the land east of the to two and a half tribes. had the south, from the valley of the to , where , king of the Amorites, had ruled. The Jordan was Reuben’s border. had , up to the . Half the tribe of Manasseh had , with the sixty cities of . Bashan had been the kingdom of , one of the last of the . Moses had attacked these kings and driven them out.
Along with Sihon, Moses had struck down the five chiefs of , princes under Sihon who lived in the land. The Israelites had also killed the son of Beor, the fortune-teller. He died by the sword, along with the others they killed.
But the Israelites didn’t drive out the people of or of Maacath. Geshur and Maacath live among the Israelites to this day.
These were the shares Moses gave out in the plains of , across the Jordan from , to the east. But the got no land from Moses. Their share is the offerings burned for the Lord, the God of Israel: the Lord is their inheritance, as he told them.
These are the shares the Israelites took in the land of . the , Joshua the son of , and the family heads of the tribes of Israel gave them out by to the nine tribes and the half-tribe, as the Lord had commanded through Moses.
Moses had given the two tribes and the half-tribe their land across the Jordan, but he gave the Levites no share among them. The descendants of were two tribes, Manasseh and . The Levites were given no part of the land, only cities to live in, with pasture lands for their livestock and their goods. The Israelites did as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they divided the land.
Then the people of came up to Joshua in . the son of , the , said to Joshua, “You know what the Lord told Moses, the man of God, about me and about you at .
“I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. When I came back, I told him what I truly thought. My brothers who went up with me made the people lose heart, but I followed the Lord my God with my whole heart.
“That day Moses swore to me, ‘The land you walked on will surely belong to you and your children forever, because you followed the Lord my God with your whole heart.’
“Now look: the Lord has kept me alive, as he said he would. It has been forty-five years since he told Moses this, while Israel was traveling in the wilderness. And look, I am eighty-five years old today. Even now I am as strong as I was on the day Moses sent me. I can still march out to war and come home, just as I could then.
“So now give me this hill country, the one the Lord spoke of that day. You heard it yourself that day: the were there, with great walled cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I’ll drive them out, as the Lord said.”
Joshua blessed him, and he gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as his share. That is how Hebron came to be Caleb’s, and it is his to this day, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, with his whole heart.
Hebron used to be called , named after the greatest man among the Anakim. Then the land had rest from war.
The tribe of Judah was given its land by lot, family by family. The land reached the border of and the wilderness of , in the far south. It ran from the to the shore of the , and its north border passed along the south side of the city, which is .
As the Lord had commanded Joshua, Caleb the son of Jephunneh was given a share among the people of Judah. His share was Hebron, which was also called Kiriath Arba, after the father of Anak. Caleb drove out the three sons of Anak: , and .
He went up to attack the people who lived in . Debir used to be called . Caleb said, “The man who attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it will have my daughter for his wife.”
the son of , the brother of Caleb, took it, and Caleb gave him his daughter Achsah to be his wife.
When she came, she had Othniel ask her father for a field. She got off her donkey, and Caleb said, “What do you want?”
“Give me a blessing,” she said. “You have given me land in . Give me springs of water too.” So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs.
These were the cities of the tribe of Judah. Farthest out, in the South toward the border of Edom, there were twenty-nine cities with their villages. was one of them.
In the lowland there were fourteen cities, then sixteen more, then nine more, each group with its villages. Then came Ekron, Ashdod and Gaza, each with its towns and villages. Judah also had all the land from Ekron to the sea, down to the and the shore of the Great Sea.
In the hill country there were groups of eleven, nine, ten, six and two cities, with their villages, and Debir and Hebron were among them. In the wilderness there were six more, one of them the City of Salt.
But the people of Judah couldn’t drive out the Jebusites, the people who lived in Jerusalem. The Jebusites live in Jerusalem with the people of Judah to this day.
The lot came out for the descendants of Joseph. Their land started at the Jordan by Jericho, at the waters of Jericho on the east. From Jericho it went up through the wilderness and the hill country to . From there it went on west to , and it ended at the sea. So Joseph’s descendants, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their land.
Ephraim’s land reached from Jericho and the Jordan west to the and the sea. Ephraim also had some cities set apart for it inside Manasseh’s land.
The people of Ephraim didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer. Those Canaanites live in Ephraim’s land to this day, and they have become servants, made to do forced labor.
Then the lot came out for the tribe of Manasseh, because Manasseh was Joseph’s firstborn. was Manasseh’s firstborn and the father of . He was a man of war, so he had the land of Gilead and Bashan. This lot was for the rest of Manasseh’s male descendants. There were six families of them, and ’s was one.
was the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh. But he had no sons, only daughters. They were , , , and . They came to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun and to the leaders. “The Lord commanded Moses to give us a share among our relatives,” they said.
They had asked Moses for it before. They had stood at the door of the , in front of Moses and Eleazar, the leaders and the whole community. Their father had died in the wilderness and had no sons, they said, and they asked why his name should be lost from his family because of that. And the Lord had told Moses, “The daughters of Zelophehad are right. You must give them property to inherit among their father’s brothers.”
As the Lord had commanded, they were given land among their father’s brothers. So Manasseh’s share came to ten parts, besides Gilead and Bashan across the Jordan, because these daughters of Manasseh got land just as his sons did. The land of Gilead went to the rest of the sons of Manasseh.
The brook of Kanah divided the two tribes: the land south of it was Ephraim’s, and the land north of it was Manasseh’s, reaching to on the north and to on the east.
In the lands of Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also had six cities, each with its towns, among them and . But the people of Manasseh couldn’t drive out the people who lived in those cities, and the Canaanites went on living in that land. When the Israelites had grown strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, and didn’t drive them out completely.
The descendants of Joseph spoke to Joshua. “Why have you given us just one lot, one share?” they said. “There are a great many of us, because the Lord has blessed us so far.”
Joshua said to them, “If there are so many of you, go up to the forest, and clear land for yourselves in the land of the and of the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.”
“The hill country isn’t enough for us,” the descendants of Joseph said. “And all the Canaanites who live in the valley land have chariots of iron, both those who are in Beth Shean and its towns and those in the valley of .”
Joshua spoke to Joseph’s descendants, Ephraim and Manasseh. “There are a great many of you,” he said, “and you have great power. You won’t have just one lot. The hill country will be yours. It is a forest, but you will cut it down, and it will be yours out to its farthest edges, because you will drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.”
The whole community of the Israelites came together at , and they set up the Tent of Meeting there. The land was now under their control.
But seven of Israel’s tribes still hadn’t divided up their land. Joshua said to the Israelites, “How long will you hold back from going in to take the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, gave you?
“Choose three men from each tribe. I will send these men out to walk through the land and write down what they find, so that it can be shared out. Then they are to come back to me. They are to divide it into seven parts. Judah will stay inside its borders in the south, and Joseph’s descendants will stay inside their borders in the north.
“Mark out the land in seven parts, and bring the description here to me. Then, here in the presence of the Lord our God, I will cast lots for you. The Levites have no share among you, because serving as the Lord’s priests is their inheritance. Gad, Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their land east of the Jordan, the land Moses the Lord’s servant gave them.”
The men got up and set off, and Joshua gave orders to those who went to mark out the land. “Go and walk through the land,” he said. “Mark it out, and come back to me. Here at Shiloh, in the Lord’s presence, I will cast lots for you.” So the men went through the land and wrote it down in a book, city by city, in seven parts. Then they came back to Joshua at the camp at Shiloh. There, in the Lord’s presence, Joshua cast lots for them and divided the land among the Israelites, tribe by tribe.
The lot came up for the tribe of , and their land lay between Judah and Joseph, from the Jordan west to , a city of the people of Judah.
The tribe of Benjamin had twenty-six cities, a group of twelve and a group of fourteen, each with its villages. Jericho and Bethel were among them, and , and the Jebusite city, which is Jerusalem.
The second lot came out for ’s tribe. Their land lay in the middle of Judah’s. They had thirteen cities, Beersheba among them, and four more, each with its villages. They also had all the villages around those cities. Simeon’s share was taken out of Judah’s, because Judah’s share was too big for the people of Judah.
The third lot came up for . They had twelve cities with their villages.
The fourth lot came out for Issachar. Their land took in Jezreel, and its border ended at the Jordan. They had sixteen cities with their villages.
The fifth lot came out for Asher’s tribe. Their border went as far as great Sidon, and it ended at the sea. They had twenty-two cities with their villages.
The sixth lot came out for . Their border met Zebulun on the south and Asher on the west, and reached the Jordan toward the sunrise. They had nineteen walled cities with their villages.
The seventh lot came out for ’s tribe. Their land took in , Ekron and other towns, and its border ran opposite Joppa.
The border of the people of Dan went out beyond these towns. They went up and fought against . They took it, struck its people down with the sword, made it their own and lived there. They renamed Leshem , after their ancestor Dan.
So they finished giving out the land by its borders. The Israelites gave Joshua the son of Nun a share among them. At the Lord’s command, they gave him the city he asked for, , in the hill country of Ephraim. He built the city and lived there.
Eleazar the priest, Joshua the son of Nun, and the family heads of the tribes of Israel gave out these shares by lot in Shiloh, in the Lord’s presence, at the door of the Tent of Meeting. So they finished dividing the land.