In the five years following Israel’s arrival on the east side of the Jordan River, they completely changed the face of Canaan. Today’s reading opens with the list of kings and city states they conquered in that time and there are thirty-one names in the list. They mean very little to us today, but God knew every person associated with those names. The list was a memorial to the Canaanites.

But now Israel was in possession of the Promised Land

The Scope of the Land

All of ancient Israel could have fit inside less than one third of the state of California. It was perhaps 250 miles long and a little over 100 miles wide, but inside that land was everything the nation needed to thrive. When God called it “the land of milk and honey,” he was probably referring to good pastureland for producing milk and rich crop land where bees pollinated flowering plants and made honey.

In the north were beautiful mountains with streams and rivers that fed the great lake of Galilee. There was wild game and fish in abundance. The heartland of Canaan had good rains for crops and orchards, and there was grass for livestock. Along the coast there was shipping for trade and seafood to harvest. In the south, around the Dead Sea, was a wealth of minerals and fleets of boats facilitated trading with other nations.

The Land Yet to Be Conquered

Joshua spent the last part of his life leading Israel in war.  Can you imagine nearing eighty years of age and then being given the biggest assignment of your life? God had a lot of faith in his servant Joshua.

“When Joshua had grown old, the Lord said to him, ‘You are now very old and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over.’” Joshua 13:1

It was one thing to take the territory Israel now controlled; it was another to hold on to it. Along the Mediterranean coast were the Philistines, a fierce people group that was going to plague Israel for years to come. To the south were the Avvites and far to the north were the Sidonians.

God was going to drive out the northern people himself, but the rest of Canaan was in Israel’s hands. God designated the borders of the Promised Land and the Israelites had to secure it with his help.

Dividing the Inheritance

Why was Canaan referred to as Israel’s inheritance?

According to the Bible, the ownership of this land was given to Abraham by God. While he never took possession in his lifetime, it was granted to him and his descendants. The title passed to his son Isaac, then to Jacob and finally to the children of Jacob’s children. After many centuries, the family of Abraham had finally arrived to take possession of their inheritance. It was theirs because God, the Lord of all the earth, had given it to them.

Now Joshua was in charge of making sure the inheritance was divided up properly among the twelve tribes.

Dividing the Land

Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh already had their inheritance. Moses gave it to them after he led Israel in defeating the Ammonites east of the Jordan. In the description of this land we see one of the problems that continued to plague Israel.

“But the Israelites did not drive out the people of Geshur and Maakah, so they continue to live among the Israelites to this day.” Joshua 13:13

For Israel, just as for us today, there was no way to live free of complications. Even when Israel completely drove out enemies from part of the land, more were waiting to come in.

Joshua 13 describes the division of the land given to the three eastern tribes, and chapters 14 and 15 explain how the land west of the Jordan River was distributed. Joshua and Eleazar the priest worked together to allot the tribes their portions.

The Levites were not part of that process because their inheritance was from the gifts and offerings given to the Lord by the people. They had towns to live in in each of the other tribes.

The Tabernacle and the Pillar of Cloud

We no longer read about the tabernacle being set up. The Israelites were not together in one big camp anymore. The Ark was still the focus of their religious life, but the tent, the courtyard and, perhaps, the altar, were not in use as they had been. Israel was waiting to see where the Lord would choose to center their religious life after they were settled.

The pillar of cloud and fire seem to have gone away, too. God was now speaking through Joshua, Eleazar, and the words he had already given through Moses.

Caleb

The tribe of Judah came to receive their allotment of the Promised Land and Joshua’s old comrade Caleb was with them. He reminded Joshua about the good report they gave Moses when they first scouted Canaan so many years earlier, before Israel disobeyed God and went back into the wilderness forty years. God promised Caleb the land in Canaan that he walked on as a spy. Now Caleb wanted what God had promised him.

“So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” Joshua 14:10-12

Joshua blessed his old friend and gave him the hill country of Hebron, “because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly.” Joshua 14:14

Judah

Judah’s territory was in the hill country west of the Dead Sea. In the future, when other tribes faltered and were lost Judah would still stand. It was the tribe of kings, the home of Jerusalem, and eventually the birthplace of Jesus. When the Israelites went into exile in Babylon hundreds of years after Joshua’s time, they were known as the Jews, a name drawn from the name Judah.

Caleb marched into the heart of Judah and did battle with the people living on his land grant. He offered his daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who captured Kiriath Sepher for him. His nephew Othniel took the city and got the girl.

Aksah was a great wife, too. She urged her new husband Othniel to ask her father for a choice piece of land and when he got it, she got off her donkey and went to see her dad in person.

“Caleb asked her, ‘What can I do for you?’ She replied, ‘Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water.’ So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.’” Joshua 15:18-19

Caleb raised quite a daughter.

Settled At Last

Israel spread out across Canaan and became a settled nation. Joshua had first been Moses’s aide de camp, then Israel’s fighting general, and now he was the executor of their inheritance.

The Israelites were no longer nomads. They were at home in the Promised Land and “the land had rest from war.” Joshua 14:15

From then on Israel’s problems would be the kind that came from being a prosperous nation, with all the temptations and trials success brings.