Day 087 (Joshua 19-21) - Year 8

Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

Today we continue looking at the land allotments for the tribes.

Remember, they've been waiting 40 years for this.

They've been fighting for this quite literally.

These assignments are where they will build their lives and raise their families.

If you've ever been in a military family or you've ever waited to find out where your

residency is or to see what colleges have accepted you, you might know a little bit about

how this feels, but chances are you weren't waiting 40 years to find out where you'd live.

Plus, for the Israelites, this wasn't a temporary placement.

This was marked out as the home of the people of their tribe forever, provided they kept

up their end of the covenant they made with God.

Since many of the ways these places are referred to in Scripture mean nothing to us,

I'm going to give a short description of each place we see today.

Here are one of the seven tribes who haven't gotten their land yet, and you're waiting

to find out where your family will live.

We're also including that general map of the tribal allotments again in today's show notes.

Simian gets the land assigned in the midst of Judah's plot of desert in the south.

Pass.

Zebulin gets a tiny plot in the north.

It's the smallest plot besides Benjamin's, but it's a lush green area with lots of

plants and flowers.

By the way, you may have noticed that Zebulin got the city of Bethlehem, but that's a different

Bethlehem than the one you're probably most familiar with.

There are two Bethlehem's in the Promised Land, and this one in Zebulin is further north

than the one where Jesus was born.

That one is just outside of Jerusalem.

Issacar also gets a really small fertile area near the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River.

Asher gets the Mediterranean coastline to the north, some of which belongs to Lebanon

of today.

Afterley gets the mountainous north, including a mountain range that reaches over 9,000

feet high.

You can ski there if you visit Israel in the winter.

The people from the tribe of Dan get the awesome coastline near a major port city called

Japa.

You may recognize that as the place where Jonah caught a boat to escape going to Nineveh.

But Dan loses this land later and they relocate to part of Naftalee's plot in the north.

Stay tuned to find out how and why that happens.

Today the plot of land where they relocated is a gorgeous nature preserve, complete

with a rushing river and lots of wildlife.

As far as I'm concerned, Dan had good land both times around, but they're kind of a

terrible tribe as we find out later.

Since Joshua was one of the two spies who believed God 45 years earlier, he gets to choose

where he wants to live.

And like a gentleman, he waits until everyone else gets their land first.

He chose the hill country of Ephraim, north of Jerusalem in a somewhat isolated area.

He probably wants to be alone and knows his years are drawing to a close and doesn't

want to have to yell at a bunch of young Israelites to get off his lawn.

Most people don't realize how diverse this little nation is.

It may only be the size of New Jersey, but it covers a wide range of climates and altitudes

from the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea, which is 1400 feet below sea level.

To snow-capped Mount Hermon.

And yes, I know in English we probably say Mount Hermon, but the first time I ever heard

this said aloud, it was pronounced Hermon, so that's how I say it.

Bear with me.

Anyway, the land given to these different tribes is pretty diverse from group to group,

which makes it even more of a big deal, which land God assigns to you.

After all the land has been distributed to all the tribes, it's time to set up the cities

of refuge.

Those are the places where a manslayer, someone who accidentally killed someone, can go

to live without fear of retribution from the Avenger of Blood, which is the next of

kin of the person who was killed.

These cities of refuge are less like prisons and more like safe houses, but the manslayer

is never allowed to leave, not until the high priest dies.

God spread out these cities of refuge throughout the territories of the tribes so that any manslayers

would have a good chance of getting to one before the Avenger of Blood caught up with

him.

Don't tell me God didn't think of everything.

The last assignments we saw today were for the Levites, who had no land allotment of

their own, so they were distributed among the tribes, like local pastors of sorts.

My God shot was in the last few sentences we read today.

I couldn't help but think of all it took to accomplish this for the Israelites.

Not just generosity, not just faithfulness, but strength, and power, and persistent love,

forgiveness, and grace, and mercy.

God had ushered them into this land, he promised them long ago, despite themselves.

I feel a little nervous for them, knowing they'll soon be going their separate ways, apart

from the presence of their leader Joshua and their high priest Eliasar, and mostly the

manifest presence of God.

He has been so good to his people.

He has given them everything, but most important of all is himself, because he's where the joy

is.

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