Scripture Daily

Context No. 693 of 4322 · Joshua

Context · Reflection

Joshua 19:10-16: in context

10The third lot came up for the children of Zebulun according to their families. The border of their inheritance was to Sarid. 11Their border went up westward, even to Maralah, and reached to Dabbesheth. It reached to the brook that is before Jokneam. 12It turned from Sarid eastward toward the sunrise to the border of Chisloth Tabor. It went out to Daberath, and went up to Japhia. 13From there it passed along eastward to Gath Hepher, to Ethkazin; and it went out at Rimmon which stretches to Neah. 14The border turned around it on the north to Hannathon; and it ended at the valley of Iphtah El; 15Kattath, Nahalal, Shimron, Idalah, and Bethlehem: twelve cities with their villages. 16This is the inheritance of the children of Zebulun according to their families, these cities with their villages.

The book of Joshua spends chapter after chapter deeding out the land, tribe by tribe, in the form of boundary lines and town lists. This is the third lot, drawn for Zebulun, a small tribe in the low hills of Galilee. The border runs from Sarid west to Jokneam and east toward Tabor, out to Gath-hepher and Rimmon and up to Hannathon, ending at the valley of Iphtah-el: twelve towns with their villages. It reads like a surveyor's notebook, and most eyes slide off it.

But the notebook holds more than it says. One of these towns is Gath-hepher, which centuries later will be the home of the prophet Jonah. Another is a Bethlehem, not the famous one in Judah but a quieter namesake here in the north. And this whole northern plot, Zebulun and the Naphtali beside it, is the ground Isaiah would call Galilee of the nations, where the people walking in darkness would see a great light. It is where Jesus would grow up and begin to preach. The men drawing this dull boundary had no idea what they were fencing in.

An unremarkable boundary list turned out to enclose the ground where the light would dawn. What plain, overlooked corner of my own life might be holding more than anyone measuring it can see?

Sources