JOSHUA 19
If you’re like me, you’re probably starting to wonder, what is the big deal with all these land allotment details? It’s one thing to say that Israel inherited the Promised Land. It’s quite another thing to devote chapters and chapters to detailing every single boundary of every single tribe in Israel.
JOSHUA 13
At the beginning of Joshua 13, the Lord comes to Joshua and says, "You are now very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over." (vs 1) And then, He proceeds to outline exactly what areas of land are left for the Israelites to take possession of. I was struck by the specificity of it. He didn’t just say, "There’s still some land to the east over there." No, it was from this border over here to that border over there and everything below this mountain and so on.
DEUTERONOMY 9
As Moses continues to recount the failures of faith in the wilderness, he reminds the people where they’re going. "Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. The people are strong and tall — Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: 'Who can stand up against the Anakites?'" (vs 1-2)
DEUTERONOMY 7
Wow, this is a pretty heavy chapter. God lays out for the Israelites the plan to take over Canaan. There is talk of both destruction and driving nations out ahead of the Israelites with "the hornet." (vs 20) God does say that, when the Israelites have defeated a nation, they are to destroy everything associated with that nation's gods. "This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire." (vs 5)
DEUTERONOMY 1
Sometimes, with God, we are tempted to think it’s all about "arriving." You know, getting to the destination, reaching the goal. But, as I read this chapter, I saw something different. Check out this verse: "It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road." (vs 2) I love the fact that, in the Bible, this verse is actually in parentheses, more like an aside. It’s as if Moses was saying, "Uh, we’ve spent forty years in this desert. Just so you know, this journey should have taken eleven days."
NUMBERS 34
I’m having an awe-filled moment with God right now. I love this little chapter. I just love the straightforwardness of it. It’s God, simply spelling out to His people the land they will inherit in Canaan. He plots out the land for them with no ceremony, no pomp, no fanfare. What I absolutely love about this is, the Canaanites were living in this land. Undoubtedly, they thought the land belonged to them. They thought they were the rightful inhabitants. They were wrong.
NUMBERS 33
So, right off the bat, you know that there is a lot in the Old Testament that would seem to contradict the title of this particular blog. If God is not a destroyer, He certainly has a lot of explaining to do... because it seems like He has gone around and done (or condoned) an awful lot of destruction in the Bible.
NUMBERS 32
So, the Israelites are again poised to enter the Promised Land, when the Reubenites and Gadites come to Moses and request to settle where they already are, outside the border of Canaan. After Moses makes sure they don’t intend to desert their Israelite brothers in the effort to drive out the Canaanites from the land, Moses makes the deal to let them have the land on the other side of the Jordan as their inheritance.
Photo © Unsplash/Scott Rodgerson
God
promised
Abraham
Canaan, the land,
as a gift to him and his descendants.
Years passed with no fulfillment of the vow,
but Abraham
had learned to
trust in
God.
When
Sarah
passed away,
he bought a grave,
and laid her there to rest in promised land.
Israel's first piece of Canaan was a
burial plot,
a wager
on God's
word.
*Tetractys: A poetic form consisting of at least 5 lines of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10 syllables, respectively. Tetractys can be written with more than one verse, but each must follow suit with an inverted syllable count.
NUMBERS 14
As I read this chapter of Numbers, it occurred to me that it contained a fabulous example of how God’s forgiveness doesn’t equal salvation. I was just about to write that this was a fabulous example of how God’s forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do with salvation. But I don’t think that’s entirely true. If God wasn’t a forgiving Person, we would have no opportunity for salvation in the first place. So, forgiveness and salvation are linked in that way.
GENESIS 23
As I was reading this chapter, it dawned on me that the first part of Canaan that Abraham possessed with a burial plot. That seems rather odd, doesn't it, given what God said in Genesis 15:18-21? "On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, 'To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.'"
