Joshua 22:1-20.  In today’s reading the land has been basically conquered and divided up.  Several times the two and one half tribes that had land on the east side of the Jordan have been mentioned.  Those tribes requested that land after it was taken as Moses and the Israelites approached the promised land.  It was good pasture land and those tribes had quite a bit of cattle.  At the time Moses was worried that those tribes were defecting from Israel.  He thought that they were afraid to take over the promised land just like their fathers had done forty years earlier.   Their response was that they would join in all of the battles to take the promised land along side of the other tribes and would not return home until the job was accomplished.  For them now it was time to go home.  Along the way just as they got to the Jordan River they stopped and built an altar.  To the rest of the tribes it appeared that they were abandoning God (verse 16).

There are a few things to notice.  First notice that Joshua does not seem to be included in the group that is going to confront the two and one half tribes.  He appears in the beginning of the story reminding the two and one half tribes to continue to be faithful (vv. 3,5) but he does not appear in the group that goes to talk to the 2 ½ tribes.  Notice, though, that a guy named Phinehas the son of Eleazar does go.  Although Joshua was the overall leader of the Israelites Eleazar was also charged with assisting him, especially in the division of the land.  And remember that the land was divided by casting lots or “rolling the dice”, a process considered to be controlled by God (and Proverbs indicates that it actually was.  Proverbs 16:33.  But don’t think this gives you permission to run off and gamble, see the 3/16/12 post).  Eleazar’s part, as a priest, was to be a representative and reminder of God’s presence.  Now it looks like his son has taken up that position.  Notice that the decision to deal with this situation was made by the whole group of Israelites and that they chose 10 representatives, one from each tribe on their side of the river to represent them.  It is interesting that this means that even Manasseh was represented, the tribe that had close relatives on the other side of the river (see verse 7 which reminds us about the split tribe).  The building of an altar would have been a religious matter so maybe the Israelites thought that they didn’t need Joshua for this one.  As we will see from the next chapter Joshua was quite old by this time and maybe he basically had retired.  In today’s reading he released the 2 ½ tribes back to their land which indicated that the conquest was finished.  And the land had been divided so his job was done.  This story seems to be a transition of leadership in the nation.

In the confrontation two events from Israel’s past are mentioned,  events which caused the Israelites to get serious about this altar building event, the “iniquity of Peor” (v. 17) and the disobedience of Achan (v. 20).  The story of Peor is told in Numbers 25.  As the Israelites wandered around in the desert they got involved romantically and religiously with a group of people called Moabites.  They began to worship their false gods with them.  This was the very reason that the people of the land had to be destroyed when Israel finally took the land over (Deuteronomy 7:1-6).  The unfaithfulness at Peor resulted in the execution of the leaders of the Israelites.  Also it appears that some sort of deadly illness spread through the camp.  An illness described as the “anger of the LORD” (Numbers 25:3-4) which resulted in the death of 24,000 people.  At the height of the plague an Israelite man actually brought a Midianite woman home (Midianites were allies of the Moabites).  Phinehas heard about it and went into the mans tent and ran a spear through both of them (Numbers 25:6-7) at which time the plague stopped.  The other story was one we read at the beginning of Joshua.  When the Israelites started to take that land the first city was Jericho.  They were to destroy everything in Jericho.  Achan saw some stuff that he wanted and took it.  As a result the Israelites were defeated at the next battle.  When Achan was revealed (by lots, actually) he confessed to his disobedience and he and his whole family were destroyed.  In our current story all of these actions are called unfaithfulness, disobedience, or rebellion.  The leaders were afraid that God’s wrath would return and they also felt that theses sort of actions were an on going problem in Israel (see v. 17).

Tomorrow we will see the outcome of this confrontation and it’s probably not what you might expect.  I mentioned before that this story seems to include a transition in leadership but notice that it is not, “Bam! Out with the old in with the new.”  Phinehas was the son of Eleazar.  The priesthood was a family thing by God’s design and Phinehas was in the line.  Later in the Bible we see that being in the line does not guarantee that a person would be Godly (Eli’s sons come to mind) but Phinehas’ involvement shows a respect for the rules God had put in place.  And Phinehas is not completely new on the scene, he was there at the Peor thing and showed a faithfulness to and passion for God at that event.  Also, Joshua had been in power for quite some time but he still connected his actions back to Moses.  In 1 Peter in a passage talking about Church leadership Peter encourages the leaders to voluntarily, eagerly, and according to the will of God  lead the church by example.  He then encourages the young men to humbly submit to the leadership.  And to wait for God to lift them up at the right time. It had been years since Phinehas killed the rebellious man at Peor, a decade or more, that may seem like a long time but we need to trust God.  Leadership is a trust from God and it is about God.  Phinehas and Joshua and Eleazar and Moses were tools for God to use, willing tools.  It was in God’s timing and it was about God.  Proverbs 24:21 warns us not to look for too much change too fast.  We need to remember God and his purposes do not change and we need to stay on his track.  Tomorrow we will see if the 2 ½ tribes were getting off the path but today we need to be careful to live for God and trust his timing.  Lord help me honor you with my life.  I know this means trusting you and the things you are doing through others.  Let me be careful to do my part.  Let me not be shy about doing though.  I know this story and I know that sometimes the part you want us to do seems odd to others.  But we need to be careful.  Give me wisdom as I lead those around me.  Help me be faithful.  And let us all exalt the next generation at the proper time.  In the mean time help them practice following you faithfully. 

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.