Joshua 21:34-45.  If you’ve been reading along you will know that several times during our reading of the division of the land, that I have referred back to the “blessings” of Jacob in Genesis 49.  I have noted that the “blessings” have been sort of prophetic.  You may have noticed that the “blessings” are not prophetic in the sense that Jacob said, “God told me to say …”.  And they definitely are not prophetic in that way (at least as far as we know).  But it is curious that the words seem to apply to these later generations of each family, and that God seems to support them, at least partly (See “What in a Name”).  One example is the “blessing of Levi and Simeon”.  I already mentioned it when I talked about Simeon’s land but I want to remind you again and look at the creative way God honored Jacob’s words and also that He honored Jacob’s words.

The “blessing” of Levi and Simeon predicted that they would be “dispersed in Jacob and scattered in Israel”.  He also said that he didn’t want them to have any portion of “his” glory or honor.  Jacob’s “prophecy” was because Levi and Simeon (the two brothers) had created trouble when they killed a whole town (probably a town with surrounding villages) because the son of the king of the town had raped their sister, Dinah”.  They also had dishonored Jacob by deceitfully making a treaty with the other king that they intended to break.  Simeon’s territory was completely surrounded by Judah and Levi as we have just read was completely scattered among his brothers.  So they were disbursed and scattered but the tribe of Levi, far from having no honor, was the one tribe that received the most honor in Israel.  They did not receive the “glory and council” of Jacob but they sure did receive the glory and council of God.  So God honored the “blessing” or “prophecy” of Jacob but only to an extent and in a creative way.

So what does this have to do today’s reading, except for the fact that it relates to Levi?  Well I want you to see how precise God is in these things.  First let’s see what’s in the reading today.  The allotment to the Levites is completed.  The descendants of Merari receive their cities.  The author kind of hints at Jacob’s prophecy in verse 41 when he mentions that the Levites’ cities were in the “midst of the possession of the sons [notice the plural] of Israel”.  They were scattered.  The rest of the reading tells us that God had fulfilled his promise to give them the land and that they had peace from their enemies.  Although the language could mean that the enemies were completely gone, “none stood before them” and they “were given into their hand”, we know that this is not the case.  The enemies were still among them so the picture is one of control.  Of course from our reading in Judges we learned that they did not maintain control very long.  We also saw that control was lost when the Israelites drifted away from God.  Today’s reading concludes with the statement that not one of the good promises, which Yahweh had made to Israel, had failed to happen.

Be careful not to think that this means that God is done with this promise.  This is a “so far” fulfillment.  If we trace the promise back to Abraham we will see that the promise of the land was linked to a promise to “bless all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:1-7).  Later in Genesis 17:8-9 we see the promise to Abraham being passed on to his descendants and we also learn that the land will be permanent possession.  Through out history Israel has had possession of the land them not.  But just like the giving of the land, even though the ownership has been incomplete, God’s promise and intention is still in force.   At the end of the allotment the promise was considered fulfilled up to that point, there is still the everlasting part of the promise waiting to be fulfilled.  You may also think of the “all the nations will be blessed” part and wonder about it’s fulfillment.  In Galatians 3:16 Paul tells us that that part has been fulfilled.  He tells us that the promise to bless the nations was fulfilled in a particular descendant of Abraham, Jesus.  He even tells us that the at was the promise.  In Hebrew the word for descendants is “zera”.  It is also translated as seed and child.  Just like the English word seed, zera can mean one seed or many.  Sometimes we add an “s” to the end of our word to be clear that we are talking about more than one seed but we do not need to do this.  In Greek (the language that Paul wrote in) the word for seed is “sperma” and it works just like “zera” it can mean one or many.  Neither the Greek nr the Hebrew ever adds to the word to make it plural.  In fact in Galatians 3:16 the exact same word is used all three times.  So God is very specific about how promises are fulfilled.

We need to be careful that we do not think that all of this means that the other descendants of Abraham through Jacob are not part of the promise though.  There are many Christians today that believe that the church has replaced Israel and that the church now has had the promises transferred to them.  This is not the case though.  As we have seen the promises did apply directly to the physical descendants of Israel.  The division of the land has been very specifically given to the tribes and actually to individual families in each tribe.  Each allotment was “to the families of the sons of …”.  And remember the promise of the land was an everlasting gift.  Although the Israelites have not always had possession of the land they have always “owned” it in God’s eyes.  According to Daniel there is a day coming when the promise will be completely fulfilled along with all other promises to Daniel’s people (the Israelites) (Daniel 9:24).  The people who think the promises to Israel have passed to the church try to use the book of Romans to prove that the promises were to a “spiritual Israel” and not to the physical descendants.  But the book of Romans actually makes the point that the actual physical Israelites are still in the picture and so does the book of Joshua.  Although Romans 9:6 tells us that “they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel and they are not all children of Abraham that are descended from him” that cannot mean that God’s promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob now belong to some spiritual descendants.  The perpetual promise was given to actual families of the twelve tribes and will remain theirs forever.

God’s promises are secure.  He is very specific and very faithful, even when we are not.  Hebrews tells us that his promises are secured by his character (Hebrews 6:13).  Later in that chapter we are told that the security of God’s promises gives hope to our souls as we serve God and suffer for Him (Hebrews 6:19).  That passage specifically reffers to the promise made to Abraham and part of that promise is the land to the “families of the sons of …”.  The allotments in Joshua are our assurance of better things that come with salvation (Hebrews 6:9).  God thank you for the “so far” fulfillments of your promises.  I wish I could be a person who totally walks by faith but I am so much like Thomas who wanted to “see”.  I know that you told him that people are more blessed if they believe with out seeing but you blessed him too.  That is comforting.  So thank you for giving evidence.  Let me be more faithful to the thing you have shown me.  Let me fulfill my part as a representative of you to the world.  Thank you for giving me a part with the physical descendants of Israel.  Let me be a light to them too.  Help me share your hope with all around me.