Introduction to the Old Testament by John Edgar McFadyen
page 61 of 318 (19%)
page 61 of 318 (19%)
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made for its ideal distribution. The two and a half tribes had
already received their inheritance east of the Jordan, and the rest of the land was allotted on the west to the remaining tribes. Judah's boundaries and cities are first and most exhaustively given; then come Manasseh and Ephraim, with meagre records, followed by Benjamin, which again is exhaustive, then by Simeon, Zebulon, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali and Dan (xiii.-xix.). Three cities on either side of Jordan were then set apart as cities of refuge for innocent homicides, and for the Levites forty-eight cities with their pasture land, xx. 1-xxi. 42. As Israel was now in possession of the land in accordance with the divine promise, xxi. 43-45, Joshua dismissed the two and a half tribes to their eastern home with commendation and exhortation, xxii. 1-8. Incurring the severe displeasure of the other tribes by building what was supposed to be a schismatic altar, they explained that it was intended only as a memorial and as a witness of their kinship with Israel, xxii. 9-34. The book concludes with two farewell speeches, the first (xxiii.) couched in general, the second xxiv. 1-23, in somewhat more particular terms, in which Joshua reminds the people of the goodness of their God, warns them against idolatry and intermarriage with the natives of the land, and urges upon them the peril of compromise and the duty of rendering Jehovah a whole-hearted service. The people solemnly pledge themselves to obedience, xxiv. 23-28. Then Joshua's death and burial are recorded, and past was linked to present in the burial of Joseph's bones (Gen. 1. 25) at last in the promised land, xxiv. 29-33. The documentary sources which lie at the basis of the Pentateuch are present, though in different proportions, in the book of Joshua, and |
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