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Context No. 3384 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 15:19-32: in context

19She said, “Give me a blessing. Because you have set me in the land of the South, give me also springs of water.” So he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. 20This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Judah according to their families. 21The farthest cities of the tribe of the children of Judah toward the border of Edom in the South were Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur, 22Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah, 23Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan, 24Ziph, Telem, Bealoth, 25Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (also called Hazor), 26Amam, Shema, Moladah, 27Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet, 28Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah, 29Baalah, Iim, Ezem, 30Eltolad, Chesil, Hormah, 31Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah, 32Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon. All the cities are twenty-nine, with their villages.

After Achsah's request for springs of water is granted, the chapter settles into a long list of the cities of Judah's inheritance, town after town named in order. To us it reads as a dry catalog of unfamiliar names, but to Israel it was a record of promise kept.

Each named town was a place God had actually given, a specific fulfillment of what he had sworn to Abraham centuries before. The tedious list is, in truth, a monument to God's faithfulness, every name a piece of ground that God had promised and then delivered. What looks like mere geography is really a testimony: God does not deal only in vague generalities but keeps his promises down to the particular, town by town, field by field. His faithfulness is concrete, and it can be counted out and named. The very tedium of the list is the point, that so many separate promises were each, individually, fulfilled.

Do I recognize God's faithfulness not only in grand terms but in the specific, concrete ways he has kept his promises in the particulars of my life?

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