Monday, February 27, 2012

Joshua 16

Joshua 16 - Territory of the Joseph Tribes


Above map from "Tribe of Judah - Wikipedia":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Judah

Chapters 16-19 are for the most part, a story of failure - the failure of the Israelites to finish
conquering the land.

The focus of chapter 15 was the tribe of Judah. Now, Joshua focuses on setting the borders for the descendants of Joseph - Ephraim and Manasseh. THE NORTHERN TRIBES OF ISRAEL would eventually constitute the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Old Testament Bible maps clearly show the size and scope of the Northern Kingdom surpassed that of the south. After the death of Solomon, the Northern Tribes split from the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The southern throne remained with the tribe of Judah in the south, and was headquartered in Jerusalem. The Northern Tribes elected Jeroboam I as their king. Israel tended towards idolatry more so than their southern brethren partly because their kings did not want their people to travel to Jerusalem to worship. Therefore, the Northern kings set up places of worship at Dan and Bethel. Though much larger and more powerful than the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Israel fell to the Assyrians nearly two hundred years before the kingdom of Judah would fall to the Babylonians.

Joshua dealt with the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh together since Jacob had given Joseph the second largest blessing after Judah (Genesis 49).

Above map from http://www.israel-a-history-of.com/old-testament-bible-maps.html

Under Joshua the land was divided in three stages:

  1. Judah settled in the strongholds of the South.
  2. Ephraim and Manasseh in the center plus some positions toward the North.
  3. The other tribes between Judah and Joseph (that is Ephraim and Manasseh) and in the border areas.

Half the tribe of Manasseh had already received its inheritance on the other side of the Jordan, and the remaining half would have been small compared with the other tribes. These one and one-half tribes together formed a large group of Israelites.

Their lot or inheritance fell in central Canaan (most fertile part of Palestine), and their territory consisted of two parts with Ephraim settling in the southern portion and Manasseh in the northern. The hill country of Ephraim stretches from the Jordan at Jericho in the SE to the Mediterranean Sea in the west and as far north as Mount Carmel and the rest of the mountains which border the Jezreel Valley. It is an area of rolling limestone hills containing fertile valleys and small plains, but east of the watershed the land is largely wilderness. Good rainfall and fairly high levels of dew combined with fertile limestone soils make this one of the most productive regions of the land. On the hill slopes are olive, fig and other fruit trees, while wheat and vines are cultivated in the valleys. The south border ran from Jericho to Bethel and Beth-horon to the sea (the Mediterranean); and the north border ran from Mount Carmel, along the southern border of the plain of Esdraelon to the Jordan.

Ephraim and Manasseh had been officially adopted by Jacob as his own sons, endowing them with status equal in every way to the remainder of the Twelve Patriarchs. By this maneuver, Jacob gave the "double portion," one of the prerogatives of the birthright to Joseph, the oldest son of his favorite wife Rachel. That, of course, would have made Thirteen Patriarchs instead of Twelve Patriarchs, but Levi did not inherit with the others because "The Lord was his portion.":

Genesis 48:5: “Now I am claiming as my own sons these two boys of yours, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived. They will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are.

Ephraim's border is outlined first, although that tribe was smaller (Numbers 26:34,37) and Ephraim was younger than Manasseh. This was because the birthright of Joseph's sons had been transferred to Ephraim (Genesis 48:8-22). Remember Jacob crossing his hands during the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh where Jacob places his right hand on Ephraim instead of Manasseh? The right hand is the place of honor and authority. Joseph protests, but although his father's sight is dim his mind is sharp and clear and his spiritual insight undimmed. Manasseh will be great but Ephraim greater. Manasseh became a people, but Ephraim a multitude of nations. Is this referring to the Jews being spread among many nations and flourishing?

The blessing ‘May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!’ (Genesis 48:20 KJV) is still used in Israel as a blessing over male children.

(1) The allotment for the descendants of Joseph extended from the Jordan River near Jericho, east of the springs of Jericho, through the wilderness and into the hill country of Bethel.

(2) From *Bethel (that is, Luz) it ran over to Ataroth in the territory of the Arkites.

(3) Then it descended westward to the territory of the *Japhletites as far as Lower Beth-horon, then to Gezer and over to the
Mediterranean Sea.

  • *Japhletites: Nothing is known of the Japhletites.

(4) This was the homeland allocated to the families of Joseph’s sons, Manasseh and *Ephraim.

  • *Ephraim: It was through Ephraim that the defection of Northern Israel from the Lord occurred, and through Ephraim the southern kingdom itself was also finally corrupted. When this ambitious and arrogant tribe rebelled against the house of David and took away the northern ten tribes, they usurped the name "Israel" as pertaining to themselves, but the prophets consistently referred to the Northern "Israel" as Ephraim, that name being applied no less than 37 times in the prophecy of Hosea alone! Ephraim means "doubly fruitful".
    • Ephraim was given a smaller section than Judah, north of Judah and with room left between for Benjamin.
    • Joshua was of the tribe of Ephraim.

(5) The following territory was given to the clans of the tribe of Ephraim. The boundary of their homeland began at Ataroth-addar in the east. From there it ran to Upper Beth-horon,

(6) then on to the Mediterranean Sea. From Micmethath on the north, the boundary curved eastward past Taanath-shiloh to the
east of Janoah.

(7) From Janoah it turned southward to Ataroth and Naarah, touched Jericho, and ended at the Jordan River.

(8) From Tappuah the boundary extended westward, following the Kanah Ravine to the Mediterranean Sea. This is the
homeland allocated to the clans of the tribe of Ephraim.

(9) In addition, some towns with their surrounding villages in the territory allocated to the half-tribe of Manasseh were set aside for the tribe of Ephraim.

(10) They did not drive the *Canaanites out of **Gezer, however, so the people of Gezer live as slaves among the people of Ephraim to this day.

  • *Canaanites: God told Abraham over 400 years ago, that the sins of the Canaanites were not yet so bad that it was necessary to wipe out these people. (See Genesis 15:13-16). However, God is "limited" in His patience. The point is God gave the Canaanites a specific amount of time to see if that group would change their behavior. The point here is that God did not call the Israelites to kill all non-believers. The worst sin of the Canaanites was offering human sacrifices to their false gods. Eventually, the Israelites compromised with the same sort of sin (many hundreds of years later) and the same way the Israelites were used by God to wipe out the inhabitants of the land, so God used the Babylonians to "clear out the land" of Israelites for their own similar sins.
  • **Gezer:
    • Joshua 10:33: During the attack on Lachish, King Horam of Gezer arrived with his army to help defend the town. But Joshua’s men killed him and his army, leaving no survivors.
    • Judges 1:29: The tribe of Ephraim failed to drive out the Canaanites living in Gezer, so the Canaanites continued to live there among them.
    • 1 Kings 9:15 - 16: This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD’s Temple, the royal palace, the supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and the cities of Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.(Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had attacked and captured Gezer, killing the Canaanite population and burning it down. He gave the city to his daughter as a wedding gift when she
      married Solomon.
    • 2 Samuel 5:25: So David did what the LORD commanded, and he struck down the Philistines all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.
    • If they had the power to make the people of Gezer forced laborers, they certainly had the power to defeat them completely, especially because Gezer was a city that Joshua had already conquered Joshua 10:33 and Joshua 12:12).
    • This compromise became the way that much idolatry and immoral worship came into the people of Israel. This is one reason why we see so many struggles in the days of the Judges.
    • The Israelites did not fully conquer for two reasons. First, they wanted peace at any cost. Second, they wanted wealth. For the sake of ease and money, they disobeyed God and fell short of what He had for them - as we do today also.

While chapter 15 implies that Judah tried to evict the Jebusites, but here it appears that Ephraim disobeyed God preferring to keep the Canaanites of Gezer as slaves instead. God's orders were for the tribe of Ephraim to completely wipe out the Canaanites who live in their allotted area as a form of judgment.

But the men of Ephraim, like those of Judah, did not completely drive out the Canaanites from their region. Motivated by a materialistic attitude, they chose to put the Canaanites in Gezer under tribute to gain additional wealth. That proved to be a fatal mistake for in later centuries, in the time of the Judges, the arrangement was reversed as the Canaanites rose up and enslaved the Israelites. In addition to the historical lesson there is a spiritual principle here. It is all too easy for a believer to tolerate and excuse some pet sin only to wake up some day to the grim realization that it has risen up to possess and drive him to spiritual defeat. It pays to deal with sin decisively and harshly - Bible Knowledge Commentary.

Ephraim with the blessed inheritance to be "doubly fruitful" (the meaning of Ephraim) fails. "They drove not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer." Josephus, the Jewish historian, remarks on this: "They grew effeminate as to fighting any more against their enemies, but applied themselves to the cultivation of the land, which producing them great plenty and riches, they indulged in luxury and pleasure." No doubt this tradition is correct. How this has been repeated in Christendom! What Ephraim became, joined to idols, we read in the prophet Hosea.

The Israelites compromised with what God wanted them to do. The mistake was the Israelites failed to completely drive out the inhabitants of the land of Israel. This mistake caused problems for many generations to come.

APPLICATION and LESSONS to LEARN:

  1. What does their failure to conquer this land have to do with you and me, and our lives? The underlying lesson here is that God wants us to work both as individuals and as groups to accomplish the things He wants to do through us. The Israelite failure to fully conquer the land is a lot like us, when we fail to fully do what God desires for our lives. Their failure could easily be our failure as well.
  2. He wants us to live the full rich life that comes from trusting Him. It means that He wants our lives to have "purpose" and He wants to guide us in that "purpose". In other words, just as God wanted the Israelites to "take" the land He has assigned to them, so God wants us to go "take" the life He desires for us.
  3. Paul teaches in the New Testament that some of us are called to be pastors, teachers, helpers, etc. (See Ephesians 4:11). God wants us to live a life to make a difference for Him. The point is to seek God with the specific question of "what do You want me do with my life right now?" Know that the answer God gives us today may be different than the one He gives us tomorrow. The point is God wants us to make a difference for Him.

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