Much Land Remains, and Joshua Will Not Live Forever

“Old and stricken in years” is said of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:11; 24:1) and of David on his deathbed (1 Kings 1:1). The phrase marks the moment when a life’s work has to be handed on. Joshua will die at a hundred and ten (24:29).

“Borders” is gelilot, circuits or districts, the word that gives Galilee its name, the circle. This Geshur lies in the south near Philistia, a different people from the northern Geshur by Bashan; David later raided these southern Geshurites from Ziklag (1 Samuel 27:8).

Sihor, “the black one”, can mean the Nile (Isaiah 23:3), but here it is probably the Brook of Egypt, the Wadi el-Arish. “Lords” is seranim, a title used only of Philistine rulers, often compared with the Greek tyrannos. The Avites are the Avim of Deuteronomy 2:23, displaced by settlers from Caphtor.

Mearah means “the cave”, perhaps a district of caves near Sidon. This Aphek is a northern one, not the Aphek in the Sharon; some place it at Afqa, at the source of a river in the Lebanon mountains. The unfinished land runs up the Phoenician coast.

The Giblites are the people of Gebal, the port the Greeks called Byblos. Papyrus traded through it gave Greek its word for a book, biblos, and so the word Bible. Giblites cut stone for Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 5:18). “The entering into Hamath” was the ideal northern border (Numbers 34:8).

“Lot” is goral, originally a pebble drawn or thrown, and the word came to mean one’s portion in life: “thou maintainest my lot” (Psalm 16:5). Proverbs 16:33 gives the belief behind the method: “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.”

The arithmetic works because Joseph counts as two tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, while Levi receives no territory. Twelve landed tribes remain: two and a half east of the Jordan, nine and a half west. This verse gives Joshua his half of the work.

From here to verse 33 the chapter looks back across the river and repeats the eastern allotments already recorded in Numbers 32 and Deuteronomy 3:12–17. The Hebrew opening, “with him”, is abrupt, and the Greek version smooths it; the sense is that the eastern tribes already hold their share.

“The plain of Medeba” is the mishor, the high tableland north of the Arnon. Medeba is modern Madaba in Jordan, where a sixth century mosaic floor showing a map of the Holy Land, with Jerusalem at its centre, was found in a church in the 1880s.

Ammon’s own land had been withheld from Israel (Deuteronomy 2:19), but Sihon had earlier taken part of it. Centuries later the king of Ammon demanded this very territory back, and Jephthah answered with a long history of how Israel took it from Sihon, not from Ammon (Judges 11:12–27).

Deuteronomy 3:9 records that the Sidonians called Hermon Sirion and the Amorites called it Shenir. The mountain, snow covered most of the year, marks the northern limit of the eastern allotment; its melt feeds the Jordan.

“Giants” is Rephaim, which is also the Hebrew word for the shades of the dead: Isaiah 26:14 uses it of the dead who “shall not rise”, and Isaiah 14:9 of the shades stirred up in Sheol. Og is called the last of an old people whose name also meant ghosts.

“Nevertheless” begins a series of admissions that runs through the allotment chapters: Jebusites in Jerusalem (15:63), Canaanites in Gezer (16:10), Canaanites in Manasseh’s cities (17:12–13). The Book of Joshua records the gaps in its own victory.

“Sacrifices... made by fire” is ishshe YHWH, the fire offerings. Deuteronomy 18:3 lists what the priests actually received: “the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the maw”. Levi’s inheritance comes to it in portions of meat and grain from every tribe’s altar.

Reuben comes first as Jacob’s firstborn, even east of the Jordan. “According to their families” refers to the clans of Numbers 26:5–7: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. Each allotment in these chapters is framed by that phrase at start and finish.

“The city that is in the midst of the river” is never named, here or in Deuteronomy 2:36; it seems to have stood on the floor of the Arnon gorge. The list begins at the south edge of Reuben’s land and moves north.

Dibon is Dhiban, where the Mesha Stele was found in 1868. On it King Mesha of Moab, the rebel of 2 Kings 3:4–5, boasts of taking back Medeba, Nebo, Jahaz and other towns from Israel. Bamoth-baal, “high places of Baal”, is where Balak took Balaam to view Israel’s camp (Numbers 22:41).

Jahaz is where Sihon came out to fight Israel and lost (Numbers 21:23). From “the wilderness of Kedemoth” Moses had sent messengers to Sihon asking for peaceful passage (Deuteronomy 2:26). Mephaath was later given to the Levites (21:37).

Sibmah was famous for its vines. Isaiah 16:8–9 and Jeremiah 48:32 lament over them when Moab is judged: “I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah.” Zareth-shahar means “splendour of the dawn”; Kirjathaim means “double town”.

These three places lay around Israel’s last camp before the crossing. Moses was buried “in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor” (Deuteronomy 34:6), and the slopes of Pisgah were where he had climbed to see the land. His grave is in Reuben’s portion.

The five are the kings of Midian killed in Numbers 31:8. Here they are called “dukes of Sihon”, nesikhim, a word for installed princes or vassals. Zur was the father of Cozbi, the Midianite woman killed with Zimri at the tent door (Numbers 25:15).

“Soothsayer” is qosem, a diviner, one who practised qesamim, the arts forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10. Numbers 31:16 names him as the man who counselled the Midianite women to lead Israel astray at Peor, and 31:8 records his death with the five kings.

After this, Reuben almost disappears from the history. Deborah’s song reproaches the tribe for staying behind: “For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheepfolds?” (Judges 5:15–16).

Gad’s name was explained at his birth as “a troop cometh” or “good fortune” (Genesis 30:11), and Jacob’s blessing plays on it: “Gad, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last” (Genesis 49:19). The clans are listed in Numbers 26:15–17.

Jazer was the grazing land the Gadites first coveted, “a place for cattle” (Numbers 32:1). This Aroer, “before Rabbah”, near the Ammonite capital, is a different town from the Aroer on the Arnon in verse 16. “Half the land of the children of Ammon” was land Sihon had already taken.

Mahanaim, “two camps”, was named by Jacob when angels met him (Genesis 32:2); it later served as Ish-bosheth’s capital and as David’s refuge from Absalom (2 Samuel 2:8; 17:24). Betonim means pistachio nuts. The “Debir” here may be Lo-debar, where Mephibosheth lived (2 Samuel 9:4).

Succoth, “booths”, was where Jacob built shelters for his cattle (Genesis 33:17), and where Gideon later taught the elders “with thorns of the wilderness and briers” for refusing his men bread (Judges 8:16). Zaphon means north.

“Villages” are chatserim, unwalled settlements around a walled town. Leviticus 25:31 treated their houses differently in law: “the houses of the villages which have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country.”

Two words for property meet here: “inheritance”, nachalah, land passed down in a family, and “possession”, achuzzah, land held and occupied. The half tribe is given both, and the verse says so twice, as if to make its standing east of the river unmistakable.

“The towns of Jair” are Havoth-jair, the tent villages of Jair (Numbers 32:41). The Book of Judges will tell of a later Jair of Gilead who had thirty sons riding thirty ass colts, with thirty cities called Havoth-jair (Judges 10:3–4). “Threescore cities” matches 1 Kings 4:13.

Machir was Manasseh’s son and the father of Gilead. Genesis 50:23 ends Joseph’s life with a picture of him: “the children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were brought up upon Joseph’s knees.” Joseph’s great grandchildren now hold Og’s royal cities.

“In the plains of Moab... by Jericho” is the location formula that closes the Book of Numbers (36:13). Everything east of the Jordan was settled there, under Moses, before a single tribe crossed.

Ezekiel’s vision of a restored temple repeats this for the priests: “I am their inheritance: and ye shall give them no possession in Israel: I am their possession” (Ezekiel 44:28). Psalm 16:5 turns it into a personal confession: “The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance.”