Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 35
14:4–15:4
J osh u a
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of the Jordan River, but he had given the Levites no such allotment. The
descendants of Joseph had become two separate tribes—Manasseh and
Ephraim. And the Levites were given no land at all, only towns to live in
with surrounding pasturelands for their livestock and all their possessions. So the land was distributed in strict accordance with the Lord’s
commands to Moses.
A delegation from the tribe of Judah, led by Caleb son of Jephunneh the
Kenizzite, came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb said to Joshua, “Remember
what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, about you and me when
we were at Kadesh-barnea. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant
of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh-barnea to explore the land of Canaan.
I returned and gave an honest report, but my brothers who went with me
frightened the people from entering the Promised Land. For my part, I
wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God. So that day M
oses solemnly
promised me, ‘The land of Canaan on which you were just walking will
be your grant of land and that of your descendants forever, because you
wholeheartedly followed the Lord my God.’
“Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even
while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am e ighty-five years old.
I am as strong now as I was when M
oses sent me on that journey, and I can
still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that
the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the
descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is
with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.”
So Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave Hebron to him
as his portion of land. Hebron still belongs to the descendants of Caleb
son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite because he wholeheartedly followed the
Lord, the God of Israel. (Previously Hebron had been called Kiriath-arba.
It had been named after Arba, a great hero of the descendants of Anak.)
And the land had rest from war.
The allotment for the clans of the tribe of Judah reached southward to the
border of Edom, as far south as the wilderness of Zin.
The southern boundary began at the south bay of the Dead Sea, ran
south of Scorpion Pass into the wilderness of Zin, and then went
south of Kadesh-barnea to Hezron. Then it went up to Addar, where
it turned toward Karka. From there it passed to Azmon until it finally
reached the Brook of Egypt, which it followed to the Mediterranean
Sea. This was their southern boundary.