CHAPTER 13
OK, I got a laugh at how this chapter started off: “When
Joshua was old and advanced in years, the Lord said to him: Though now you are
old and advanced in years” – HA! That’s
just, well, not the best-phrased part of the Bible. It reads like unintentional comedy, like some snarky narration at
work or something. I dunno – I laughed.
And I could use a laugh in Joshua.
Anyhow, despite the widespread slaughter, it turns out its
not a completed jobs. There are still
plenty of non-Hebrew out there, but you know what? Shit has been going on long enough and enough land has been taken
– time to divide up the land already.
Two and a half tribes already have their land on the east of the River
Jordan. Time to dole out the Land of
Milk and Honey to the rest.
Wait, actually we’re just discussing the land to be given to
the guys who will live east of the River Jordan. So we get a detailed description of what will be given to Reuben,
Gad, and half of Manasseh and where each of their clans will be found within
the land. (I’m not nearly interested
enough to look this up, but I bet the list of clans correlates with the list of
kids of the tribes given earlier in the Bible (and probably again over in
Chronicles).
But that’s all this chapter is. And it’s boring.
CHAPTER 14
More land divvying.
At least it’s a short chapter – just 15 verses. Most of it is on Caleb, the faithful spy who
(along with Joshua) was the only one from that generation allowed to live to
see the Promised Land. Well, he’d been
promised his own personal chunk of land back then and now he wants it. So he gets it – Hebron.
Also, we get a date in this. Caleb says he was 40 when he was a spy and is now 85. So it’s been five years since the
crossing. So the first 13 chapters took
about five years time.
CHAPTER 15
More boring bookkeeping.
This is just on the land given to Judah, and there is nothing to it
really. It’s just a list of places you’ve never heard of. Technically speaking it’s a very long Bible
chapter, 63 verses. But it’s not nearly
as bad as it sounds. The last 44 verses
take up barely more than half a page.
It’s just a list of cities.
Really, just a list of cities inside Judah. And for whatever reason that list of cities has very few words
per verse. The same thing happened back
in Chapter 12 – the list of 31 kings took 16 verses. Uh, OK. Can’t say I
understand that one very well.
CHAPTER 16
This is an extremely short chapter – just 10 verses. None of those verses are interesting. Now
we’re moving on to the tribes of Joseph – Ephraim and Manasseh. In this chapter, Ephraim gets their
land. That is all.
CHAPTER 17
Man, the author of Joshua really let himself get bogged down
in the details, didn’t he? It’s more
land-giving-out. Last time was Ephraim – so now it’s Manasseh. There is a little big on female inheritance
and how some daughters who have no brothers can inherit their land to keep it
in the tribe. OK, but it was covered
back in the Torah (Numbers, I believe).
The two tribes of Joseph complain that they’re not getting
enough land, but Joshua shuts them up.
He should’ve told them “Look, you’ll get so much Bible space! A few who chapters to you guys! Just wait until you see how comparatively
little time I spend on the non-Judah tribes west of the Jordan River!” But perhaps that’s a spoiler on my part.
CHAPTER 18
OK, now for the other seven tribes. Half of this chapter is just on all seven in
general. Then Benjamin gets the second
half of the chapter. There isn’t much
interesting to say. Oh, this tribe
apparently gets Benjamin, which is interesting in that it’s not even under Israeli
control until King David. But the land
was divided up during Joshua even though the conquest wasn’t really completed.
EDITED to add: click here for thoughts on the last chapters of Joshua.
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