Scripture Daily

Context No. 50 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 23:1-5: in context

1After many days, when the LORD had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years, 2Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and for their heads, and for their judges and for their officers, and said to them, “I am old and well advanced in years. 3You have seen all that the LORD your God has done to all these nations because of you; for it is the LORD your God who has fought for you. 4Behold, I have allotted to you these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from the Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even to the great sea toward the going down of the sun. 5The LORD your God will thrust them out from before you, and drive them from out of your sight. You shall possess their land, as the LORD your God spoke to you.

The book of Joshua has moved from crossing the Jordan, through the fighting, to the long division of the land among the tribes. Now Joshua is old, the wars are over, and he calls Israel's leaders together to say goodbye. This passage is the opening of his farewell.

He starts by telling them what they have seen with their own eyes: the LORD your God is the one who fought for you. Then he does something worth noticing. He says he has allotted to them not only the land already taken but the nations that remain, the land still held by other people. The inheritance on paper is larger than the inheritance in hand, and Joshua names the gap out loud rather than papering over it. God will push them out, he says, and you will possess the land as he promised.

This is the same honest arithmetic that ran through the town lists earlier in the book, where the survey included coast Israel never held. Joshua hands his successors a promise that is partly kept and partly outstanding, and does not pretend the second part is finished. What am I about to hand off to someone else, and am I being straight with them about which parts are done and which are still only promised?

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