Hey, this is a year in the Bible of daily grace, I'm Shelby and I'm here with Scott.
We're in the book of Joshua and today we're in chapters 16 through 18.
So yesterday we started a more tedious section of scripture.
There's land allotments happening to the tribes of Israel and I know we even talked yesterday
about how there's some important land allotments to certain tribes happening in chapters 16 and 17.
So we'll carry over that conversation into today what's going on in 16 through 18.
Yeah, so I mentioned back how in Genesis 49 when Jacob's blessing his sons Judah and Joseph were
particularly prominent and the book of Joshua reflects that by first recording the land that Judah
would inherit which we saw yesterday in chapter 15. And then by covering the land that Joseph
would inherit Joseph being the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. And that's what chapter 16 and 17
are all about. As a reminder, Manasseh had already inherited some land east of the Jordan River.
Here we see that they inherited some to the west of it as well. I think it's worth mentioning
too that one way I think you see Ephraim's importance to Israel in this book is Joshua himself.
Joshua was from the tribe of Ephraim, the man who led the Israelites into their inheritance.
And I think another way you see Ephraim's importance is that it's the land of Ephraim where
Shiloh is. Yeah, so Shiloh comes up in chapter 18. It seems to be significant if I'm reading this
correctly. Can you tell us more about Shiloh and its significance? Yeah, so it's important because
that's where the tabernacle gets set up. And it's going to stay there until the book of first Samuel.
And it's here at Shiloh that the rest of the land starts to get portioned out among the other
tribes. So some tribes had already taken possessions of areas of the Promised Land. You had
Judah, Ephraim, Manasseh, Gad, Ruben. There's still seven other tribes who have not received their
land a lot. And what happens at Shiloh is that the remaining land is then divided up among these
seven tribes by the casting of lots. So they just kind of like by chance get what they get?
They get what they get. Yeah, sure. But I think it's interesting, though, is that three times you
read that Joshua would cast lots in the presence of the Lord. And so while this might feel random
to us, we're meant to see God's sovereignty at work here. God is sovereignly portioning these
parts of land out to the various tribes. And I can't help but think of Proverbs 1633 here,
which says that the law is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord.
And then I also thought about Psalm 16 verse 6 where David writes that the boundary lines have
fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. And this comes right
after a verse where he calls God his portion. And we don't know if sure David might be on the run
from Saul at this point, meaning he's literally been driven from this land and his inheritance.
Even if not, though, I think the point is the same that the greatest inheritance
that Israel, that any Israelite can get, isn't ultimately land. It's got himself. It's dwelling
in this land with him. And I think that's just a great reminder for us as readers of Joshua that
the best gift God can give to any of us is himself. Yeah. I think my takeaway from this is just
asking myself, am I treasuring him as that greatest gift? I think over time, as you walk with the
Lord longer and longer, maybe it just starts to become something that you're like, oh yeah,
I have a relationship with God, you know, I have for a long time. And it's just a part of my daily life.
So I think here I'm reminded what a treasure that gift is. And it's causing me to pause and
reflect on things that maybe have just become a normal part of my life that are actually
incredible gifts that would be good to take time to behold. So love that we're pulling that out
of the book of Joshua. There's a couple more episodes in this book and then we'll be wrapping it
up. And in moving on, I love going throughout scripture. I love the connections we're making across
scripture. And every episode we record just gets me so excited to keep going in our journey through
the Bible this year. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Okay, we'll see you tomorrow for
Joshua starting in chapter 19.
