{"id":603,"date":"2012-03-18T07:53:02","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T14:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=603"},"modified":"2012-03-18T07:53:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T14:53:02","slug":"joshua-161-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/?p=603","title":{"rendered":"Joshua 16:1-10"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joshua 16:1-10.\u00a0 Today\u2019s reading in the first part of the division of the land for Joseph.\u00a0 If you remember from the story in Genesis (Genesis 37-50), Joseph was the brother, among the twelve sons of Jacob (or Israel, see \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d<\/a>), who was sold into slavery by his brothers.\u00a0 He was taken as a slave to Egypt where he rose in power with the help of God.\u00a0 Eventually, due to a famine in that part of the world, his father and brothers migrated to Egypt.\u00a0 For 430 years the descendants of Jacob lived in Egypt and multiplied to become a group of over 2 million people.\u00a0 At the end of that time they left Egypt and moved back to the land promised to them by God (with a 40 year tour of the desert in between, see \u201cThe Old Testament Connection\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0 The book of Joshua tells the conquest of the promised land<\/p>\n

In Genesis 48-49 Jacob spoke his final words to his children.\u00a0 It was common in those days for a father to pass on blessings or \u201cgood words\u201d to his children.\u00a0 Sort of a proclamation of what he though or hoped their future would be like.\u00a0 Often in the Bible God would honor these proclamations.\u00a0 With respect to today\u2019s reading two parts of his blessing are important.\u00a0 First is Genesis 48.\u00a0 In that chapter Joseph takes his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim to see their grandfather who is nearing death.\u00a0 In that chapter Jacob (Israel) accepts these two sons, who were born in Egypt, into his family.\u00a0 He actually claims them as his own and tells Josheph that he will get and extra portion of the land (Genesis 48:22).\u00a0 Also when he is blessing the two boys (men?) he puts his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh.\u00a0 The right hand was considered the one with greater power and greater blessing.\u00a0 Manasseh was the older son and by custom should have received the greater blessing but in this case Ephraim got the greater blessing.\u00a0 Joseph was quite mad about the situation but Jacob declared that it was what it was.<\/p>\n

The second part of the blessings of Jacob that is important for today\u2019s reading is the particular blessing for \u201cJoseph\u201d.\u00a0 It is interesting that the blessing is for Joseph and not for each of his two sons.\u00a0 The blessing is quite long compared to the others, as long or longer that the one for Judah.\u00a0 Where the blessing for Judah placed Judah in leadership or control (even though he was the fourth child of Jacob) the blessing for Joseph proclaimed that Joseph would receive much material wealth but would also have a history of conflict (Genesis 49:22-24).<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s reading we see the border of the sons of Joseph.\u00a0 This is the same wording used for Judah, \u201cThe sons of Judah\u201d.\u00a0 In this case Ephraim and Manasseh are given their \u201clot\u201d together.\u00a0 Remember that lot was like a dice cast for decision making.\u00a0 We also saw that God controlled the dice (But look back a day or two for the post on gambling.).\u00a0 In this case \u201cthe lot\u201d refers to the results not to the dice.\u00a0 And the \u201clot\u201d is singular.\u00a0 There is one decision for both Ephraim and Manasseh.\u00a0 As before, the border is described first but only the southern border is described (vv. 1-3).\u00a0 Then the territory is described again, now as the territory of Manasseh and Ephraim.\u00a0 Starting with Ephraim the southern border is again described and then the border between Ephraim and Manasseh (vv. 5-8).\u00a0 In verses 9-10 we are told that, in addition to the land inside the borders, that Ephraim also received some cities inside Manasseh\u2019s territory.\u00a0 In tomorrows reading we will see the northern border of Manasseh\u2019 described but only after a special story kind of like the story of Caleb before Judah\u2019s territory was described.\u00a0 Verse 10 ends Ephraim\u2019s story with the note that they were not able to drive the Canaanites out of Gezer.\u00a0 They did force the people of Gezer to be slaves though.\u00a0 Earlier in Joshua we were told that all the inhabitants had been killed.\u00a0 Remember though that time is passing and people were constantly moving around in those days.\u00a0 It is likely that while the land divisions were being made that some people move in and re-inhabited some of the cities in the land.\u00a0 Just last night I saw a commercial for a TV show about the future.\u00a0 A virus killed all of mankind except for a few survivors.\u00a0 The survivors banded together and re-inhabited Los Angeles.\u00a0 This could be similar to what was going on in Gezer.<\/p>\n

A couple of interesting things that I thought about when I read this a were how they did not get rid of the Canaanites in their territory.\u00a0 If you read through Judges with us you might remember that Ephraim and Manasseh were involved several times in battles against people in and around Israel.\u00a0 Just like Jacob\u2019s \u201cblessing\u201d said they had a history of conflict.\u00a0 Another thing involves the \u201cblessings\u201d.\u00a0 It is interesting that both brothers received their allotment together (tomorrow\u2019s reading just continues this story).\u00a0 It\u2019s almost as if God said, \u201cJacob.\u00a0 You wanted them treated separately but that\u2019s not how I\u2019m going to do it.\u201d\u00a0 In Genesis 48 when Joseph first goes to see his father the sons are referred to as Manasseh and Ephraim.\u00a0 Later in the story they are referred to as Ephraim and Manasseh.\u00a0 The older brother should always be listed first and by switching them the point is made that their roles in the family have been reverses (see Genesis 48:20).\u00a0 It is interesting that in Joshua 16:4 that they are referred to in the order of their birth, Manasseh and Ephraim, but god starts with Ephraim when handing out the territory.\u00a0 On the other hand the territory is handed out together (as I pointed out above) and their territory is intermingled with some of Ephraim\u2019s cities inside Manasseh\u2019s territory.\u00a0 All of this shows me that God gave insight to theses Old Testament people but was not bound by everything that they said (See \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d<\/a>).\u00a0 The prophetic nature of these blessings show God\u2019s omniscience (The fact that He knows everything both actual and possible about everyone, every where, in all of time, all the time at the same time.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 Get your head around that one.).\u00a0 The fact that He does not always do what people say they want done shows God sovereignty (Independence or authority).\u00a0 I\u2019m glad God shows us what is going to happen before it happens sometimes so I can believe in the rest of what He says will happen.\u00a0 I\u2019m also glad that God makes all the final decisions.\u00a0 Kevin in \u201cHome Alone\u201d whished his family was all gone.\u00a0 Later he thought he made them disappear.\u00a0 Ultimately he regretted making them disappear and was glad when they came home.\u00a0 If God is controlled by us irreversible actions would probably happen that we would come to regret.\u00a0 In fact the part of life that we do control seems to have a lot of things in it that we are sorry about.\u00a0 So I\u2019m glad God acts according to His plan not ours.\u00a0 God I appreciate your omniscience. I\u2019m glad you use it for our benefit. Thank you for showing us enough to believe in you.\u00a0 Thank you also for having a plan and doing things your way.\u00a0 I know your way is the best way because you love me; you love us.\u00a0 Help me have peace as you work out the details of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joshua 16:1-10.\u00a0 Today\u2019s reading in the first part of the division of the land for Joseph.\u00a0 If you remember from the story in Genesis (Genesis 37-50), Joseph was the brother, among the twelve sons of Jacob (or Israel, see \u201cWhat\u2019s in a Name\u201d), who was sold into slavery by his brothers.\u00a0 He was taken as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/deltaforcedaily.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}