Ephraim & 1/2 Mannaseh: We need more space!
Joshua: You’re capable. Go make your own space.
E & M: But that requires work!
This kinda reminds me of when my brothers were “growing boys” (i.e. hungry teenagers). They’d look into packed cupboards and fridge then shut the door and declare, “There’s nothing to eat in this house!”
There was plenty of food. It just required more work than 90 seconds in the microwave. 🍕
Or it’s like what happens to us ladies when we stare into a packed closet and say, “I don’t have a thing to wear!” 👗
There was plenty of land. It just happened to have giants (Rephaim) living in it and demonized tribes with iron chariots.
Sometimes Most times you don’t get success handed to you ready-made. You have to put in some effort. That’s probably a new concept to a generation of people who grew up with free food on the ground outside every morning.
At the end of chapter 17 Joshua tells the tribes of Joseph,
“but the hill country shall be yours, for though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.” Joshua 17:18 ESV
This sounds like either a prophetic promise or at least a really good pep-talk from the coach before the big game.
The area they were most concerned about was here:
See the valley south of Beth-Shan? Prime farmland. See the mountains just west of there and all the hilly terrain around the word “Manasseh?” I’m pretty sure that’s the “hill country” Joshua is telling them to settle in.
It would be like going to a real estate agent and having a conversation like this…
🙂 Me: Our family is growing and we are interested in buying a bigger place.
🤓 Real Estate Agent: There’s a great property that just opened up in the hill country of Beth-Shan. Nice area. Million dollar views once you clear some trees. You can build to suit.
😳 Me: Beth-Shan?! Aren’t there giants there? Violent ones?
🤓 Real Estate Agent: That’s probably an urban legend. I haven’t met any giants.
😰 Me: I heard they drive iron chariots.
🤓 Real Estate Agent: That’s possible. Great chariot dealership there and other shopping close by. You’d look good in an iron chariot. When can we book you in for a showing?
So did they or didn’t they drive them out? Well, we have this text:
“Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.”
Joshua 17:12-13 ESV
“Those cities” listed included Beth-shan.
Driving the sinful flesh out of our lives is work. Some habits want to “persist in dwelling in that land.” Here’s the thing though- it was a HUGE mistake for Israel to think “We’ll just put these Canaanites to work for us. It’ll be fine.”
It wasn’t fine. They gained a whole world of free labor and lost their souls to the customs and depraved religious practices of their workforce.
Don’t let the sinful nature talk you into letting it stay. Don’t believe the lie that a sinful behavior is helping you (or working for you) in some way and you have it under control. Israel thought they had the Canaanites under control too. Until the Canaanites corrupted them from within.
If you look back at the map above- right at the bottom is Shiloh. That is where they set up the Tabernacle of Moses. And there it will remain for the next 300 years. ⛺️
Then Joshua sends 21 men to scout the land to be allotted to the 7 remaining tribes. It was like Israel’s version of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. They travelled across the land and wrote descriptions of what they saw. 🧭
Albert Einstein once famously said that God “does not play dice.” 🎲 🎲 But that’s basically how the locations for these final tribes was settled. Casting lots. Perhaps Einstein wasn’t considering that:
“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”
Proverbs 16:33 ESV
The Lord does indeed “play dice.” He just has the power to make them roll however He likes.
One final thing…
Jerusalem’s previous name is Jebus.
The Hebrew letters are (right to left):
Yod – hand, make/do, power, authority
Bet – house, in/inside
Vav – tent peg, and, join
Samek – barb, hold, prevent, (like a barb on a fish hook holds a fish on), also means to turn because barbs (think: briar patch or ox goad) will cause you to turn in your direction
The house of doing-and-turning is a threshing floor.
The threshing sledge turns in a circle all day to separate the grains from the husks and straw. It was a lot of “doing.” This is how we do it now:
Jebus was the site of a threshing floor. It was a good location for one. The elevation guaranteed good wind to blow away the chaff. We even know the name of guy who owned it at the time of King David:
“And God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was about to destroy it, the Lord saw, and he relented from the calamity. And he said to the angel who was working destruction, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”
1 Chronicles 21:15 ESV
Notice that he’s not an Israelite but a Jebusite. They got their name from Jebus. The Jebusites were one of the tribes Israel was supposed to have driven out of the land. But, here’s a Jebusite at his jebus more than 3 centuries later right in the middle of God’s people.
Reminds me of this verse by English poet, Alexander Pope:
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
To The Reader 