Day 100 – Joshua & Dividing the Land

Day 100 – well done! A great milestone reached. In the last 100 days we have gone from the dawn of time through to the start of life in the Promised Land, which is quite a story. In the next 100 days we are going to look at life in the new land – stories of judges, kings and prophets, including Samson, David, Ruth, Saul, Isaiah, Elijah and Solomon. Keep going!

• Today’s passages may have been a bit of a blur of names of tribes, cities and land areas. It’s OK to not worry too much about the specifics. You don’t need to remember everything. You should, however, see what is happening in the grander sense. All three of the passages today recount giving (in other words, splitting up and sharing) the different sections of the Israelites’ new land to the different tribes. This, of course, was done as God had commanded earlier in the time of Moses. There were detailed accounts in Numbers 32-35 (which we skipped in our readings) which explained how the land should be shared. This wasn’t “every man for himself”!
• These passages talk of a time which was gradually moving away from war-filled, nomadic chaos to the ordered peace of the Israelites homeland. This is, in many ways, a high point in the history of the Israelite people as they finally start to live in peace and harmony in their new home. And it should be! God had promised Abraham’s descendants a land, and here they are, ready to start life in it.
• I’ve uploaded a map of the general splitting up of the land to the different tribes. See if you can piece together the history listed in the passages with the image. For example, you can see the two and a half tribes which were given land to the east of the Jordan river – this is detailed in Joshua 13:8-13. The rest – except for one special tribe – had land to the east, as we read in the verses in Joshua 13.
• Despite the fact that this should be a high point, not all is perfect though. What was Israel supposed to do with the people who already inhabited the land already? Why was it important to destroy them? Look back at Deuteronomy 12:29-31 for help.
• Did they remove everyone? Look at Joshua 13:13. What do you think was the result of their failure to do so?
• How does God bless Caleb and Joshua for their faithfulness when they were spies? You can read about how they were given special inheritance to land in Joshua 14. It’s one of several passages about land given to specific people. Notice that Caleb says it has been 45 years since he was a spy – that’s 40 years in the desert, and presumably five years that may have been spent taking over Canaan.
• Which tribe didn’t receive a physical part of the land (apart from a place to live)? Do you remember why? Look back at Numbers 18:20-24 to jog your memory. What do they get instead?
• Look at the final verse in Joshua 14. The land had rest from war – a great reminder to us that while life was tough going for a long time, God’s way always leads to peace and goodness. I wonder how long the peace will last?

Don’t forget that God’s plan for a “land” for His people extends to us too. We have an inheritance in a Promised Land for ourselves, but it’s Jesus that’s leading us to that, not Joshua. In John 14 we read these wonderfully comforting verses from Jesus about the place He’s preparing for us in our eternal land:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

We, like the Israelites, wait patiently for that day. It will be pretty special when it happens though!