Sunday, June 7: Joshua

Joshua 13-22

In Genesis 15:18, God makes a promise to a childless old wanderer: “To your offspring I give this land.” That old man would go on to become the father of a great nation, and for over 600 years his descendants would cling to that promise.

Land. Rest.

In that time, Israel suffered many things: famine, slavery, wilderness, war, plague, and division. But throughout their hardships, one hope kept them going: “To your offspring I give this land.”

We have been tracking through The Book of Joshua for six weeks, and we have started to see the realization of that promise. Joshua can be divided into roughly three sections: (1) the conquest of Canaan in chapters 1–12, (2) the allotment of the land in chapters 13–22, and (3) Joshua’s farewell speech in chapters 23–24. This Sunday, we are going to cover the entire second section—ten whole chapters of geography lessons about the borders of the different tribes.

Now, any time the Bible devotes ten chapters to minute details, we must always ask ourselves: “Why is this here?”

Why are these details so important?

We find out in chapter 21. The settling of the land was the fulfillment of an ancient promise. For over half a millennium, Israel had longed for the fulfillment of the words: “To your offspring I give this land.”

Joshua 21:45 tells us why so much ink was spilled over details of the allotment. We need to know that “Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.”

Is that a message we need to remember today?

See you Sunday.