The Journey Remembered

They traveled from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day, the day after the Passover. The Israelites went out with their heads held high, while all the Egyptians watched. The Egyptians were burying their firstborn, all those the Lord had struck down among them. The Lord had also judged their gods.

From Rameses they went to Succoth and camped there. Then they went from Succoth to Etham, at the edge of the wilderness. From Etham they turned back to Pihahiroth, facing Baal Zephon, and camped in front of Migdol. Then they set out from there and went through the middle of the sea into the wilderness. They traveled three days in the wilderness of Etham and camped at Marah.

From Marah they came to Elim. Elim had twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they made their camp there.

From Elim they went on and camped by the Red Sea, and then in the wilderness of Sin. After two more camps they came to Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink. From Rephidim they went on and camped in the wilderness of Sinai.

They traveled from Kadesh and camped at Mount Hor, at the edge of the land of Edom.

At the Lord’s command, Aaron the priest climbed Mount Hor, and there he died. He was one hundred twenty-three years old. It was in the fortieth year after the Israelites left Egypt, on the first day of the fifth month.

The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the South, in the land of Canaan, heard that the Israelites were coming.

From Mount Hor they went on and camped in six more places, one of them on the border of Moab. Then they camped in the mountains of Abarim, facing Nebo.

From the mountains of Abarim they went on to the plains of Moab, and camped by the Jordan at Jericho. Their camp ran along the Jordan from Beth Jeshimoth all the way to Abel Shittim, in the plains of Moab.

“Take the land and live there, because I have given the land to you to own. Divide it among your families by lot, as their inheritance. Give a larger share to a larger group, and a smaller share to a smaller one. Whatever land the lot gives each person will be his. You are to inherit the land tribe by tribe, by the tribes of your ancestors.

“But if you don’t drive out the people who live in the land ahead of you, the ones you let stay will be like sharp points in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will trouble you in the land where you live. Then I will do to you what I meant to do to them.”

The Lord told Moses to give the Israelites a command. When they came into the land of Canaan, it would be the land they inherited, and these would be its borders.

In the south, their land would run from the wilderness of Zin, beside Edom. The south border would start in the east, at the end of the Salt Sea. From there it would turn and run past Zin and south of Kadesh Barnea, on to the Brook of Egypt. It would end at the sea.

In the west, the border would be the Great Sea and its coast.

In the north, they were to mark out the border from the Great Sea to the entrance of Hamath, and on to Hazar Enan, where it ended.

In the east, they were to mark out the border from Hazar Enan. It would go down to the eastern side of the Sea of Chinnereth, and then down along the Jordan, to end at the Salt Sea. This would be their land, with its borders all around it.

Moses gave the Israelites this command. “This is the land you will inherit by lot,” he said. “The Lord has commanded that it be given to the nine tribes and the half-tribe. The tribe of Reuben and the tribe of Gad, family by family, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance. These two tribes and the half-tribe have received theirs on the east side of the Jordan, across from Jericho, toward the sunrise.”

The Lord told Moses the names of the men who would divide up the land for the people to inherit: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. One leader from every tribe was to be chosen to divide the land with them.

For the tribe of Judah, the leader was to be Caleb the son of Jephunneh. Then the Lord named nine more leaders, one for each tribe. There was one each for Simeon, Benjamin and Dan. There was one each for Manasseh and Ephraim, the two tribes of Joseph’s sons. And there was one each for Zebulun, Issachar, Asher and Naphtali.

These were the men the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance among the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

“The pasture lands of the cities you give the Levites are to reach out a thousand cubits, about fifteen hundred feet, all around from the city wall. Measure two thousand cubits, about three thousand feet, outside the city on the east side. Measure two thousand cubits on the south side, on the west side and on the north side too, with the city in the middle. That will be the pasture land for their cities.

“The cities you give the Levites are to include the six cities of refuge, where someone who has killed a person can flee. Besides those six, give them forty-two cities. In all, you will give the Levites forty-eight cities, with their pasture lands. When you give cities from the land the Israelites own, take many from a tribe that has many, and few from a tribe that has few. Each tribe is to give the Levites some of its cities, depending on how much land it inherits.”

“The cities you give will be six cities of refuge for you. Give three cities on the other side of the Jordan, and give three cities in the land of Canaan. These six cities will be a refuge for the Israelites, and for foreigners and outsiders who live among them. Anyone who kills a person without meaning to can flee there.

“But if someone strikes a person with something made of iron, and the person dies, the one who struck him is a murderer, and a murderer must be put to death. It is the same if he holds a stone or a wooden weapon in his hand, one that could kill someone, and he strikes the person with it, and the person dies. Then too, the one who struck him is a murderer, and he must be put to death.

“The avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death himself. When he meets the murderer, he is to put him to death.

“Suppose someone hates a person and shoves him, or hides and waits for him and throws something at him, or hits him with his hand as an enemy, and the person dies. Then the one who struck him is a murderer, and he must be put to death. When the avenger of blood meets the murderer, he is to put him to death.

“The community is to rescue the one who killed from the avenger of blood and send him back to the city of refuge he fled to. He is to live there until the high priest dies, the priest who was anointed with the holy oil.

“But suppose the one who killed leaves the city of refuge he fled to and goes outside its border. If the avenger of blood finds him there and kills him, the avenger won’t be guilty of his death. The one who killed should have stayed in his city of refuge until the high priest died. After the high priest dies, the one who killed will go back to his own land.

“These are to be your laws for all the generations to come, wherever you live.

“When someone kills a person, the murderer must be put to death on the word of witnesses. But one witness alone is not enough to have anyone put to death.

“Don’t take a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty and deserves to die. He must be put to death. And don’t take a ransom for someone who has fled to his city of refuge, to let him come back and live in his own land before the priest dies.

“So don’t pollute the land where you live, because blood pollutes the land. Nothing can make atonement for the blood shed in the land except the blood of the one who shed it. Don’t make the land unclean, the land where you live and where I live too, because I, the Lord, live among the Israelites.”

“My lord,” they said, “the Lord commanded you to give the land to the Israelites by lot, as their inheritance. The Lord also commanded you to let the daughters of our brother Zelophehad have his inheritance. But suppose they marry men from Israel’s other tribes. Then their inheritance will be taken away from the land our ancestors left us, and added to the land of the tribe they marry into. So it will be taken away from the share we were given by lot.

“And when the Israelites’ year of jubilee comes, their land will be joined to the land of the tribe they belong to. It will be taken away from the land of our ancestors’ tribe.”

At the Lord’s word, Moses gave the Israelites a command. “What the tribe of Joseph’s sons says is right,” he said. “This is what the Lord commands about Zelophehad’s daughters: ‘Let them marry whoever they think best, as long as they marry within a family of their father’s tribe. That way no inheritance of the Israelites will pass from tribe to tribe, because every Israelite is to keep the inheritance of his ancestors’ tribe.

“‘Every daughter who inherits land in any tribe of Israel is to marry someone from a family of her father’s tribe. That way every Israelite can keep the inheritance of his ancestors. No inheritance will pass from one tribe to another, because each of the tribes of Israel is to keep its own inheritance.’”

Zelophehad’s daughters did as the Lord commanded Moses. There were five of them: Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah and Noah. They married their cousins, the sons of their father’s brothers. They married into the families of Manasseh, Joseph’s son, and their inheritance stayed in their father’s tribe.

These are the commandments and the laws that the Lord gave the Israelites through Moses there in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan at Jericho.