Joshua 16
RileyJoshua 16:1-10
THE WEST SIDEChapters 14 to 21.The apportionment was in fulfillment of prophecy. If one doubts that “prophecy is the mold of history”, let him read the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis and follow it with chapters fourteen to twenty-one of Joshua, and he will discover that these tribes were finally located, as Jacob, the father of twelve, declared when dying.Who will say that life is a lottery, that affairs are mere accidents? Who will doubt that the end is known to God from the beginning, or say that He operates without a plan? Who will claim that a blind force, known as Energy, or Nature, is weaving the web of human history? Certainly not the man who has intelligently studied his Bible.The apportionment expressed the estimate of the tribe. These tribes do not fare alike.
Apparently no effort whatever is made to put them on an equal basis. Back in Numbers 26:54-55, it was written concerning this very distribution of the land,“To many thou shalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give the less inheritance: to every one shall his inheritance be given according to those that were numbered of him.“Notwithstanding the Land shall be divided by lot: according to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit”.There is a difference, then, between the lot of men-shuffling, and the lot that God employs.
The first is a mere chance, and by it the noblest may be cheated. The last is an absolute science and expresses a perfect judgment. God’s lots work no injustice. The principle employed in the distribution of these lands to the nine and one-half tribes, or, for that matter, to the twelve tribes, is the principle of the New Testament parable of the talents, where to one the absent Lord “gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability” (Matthew 25:15).That’s the basis, doubtless, of the apportionment to the tribes. God knew what ones of them would conquer a mountain; what ones of them would clear a forest; what ones of them would cultivate a plain; what ones of them would make to blossom a desert, and distributed them accordingly.The occupancy of America illustrates the fact that God does not cease to give men opportunity according to their several abilities, nor quit locating them according to character and custom. Who will doubt that the Mississippi region and almost our entire southern border was intelligently occupied by the Spanish; that the northeast states flourish the better in the possession of English, Irish and Scotch; that the central west was adapted to the German; the northwest to the Scandinavian?
A little careful study will illustrate the fact that these occupations were not mere accidents, but in each and every instance the people possessing were adapted to the climatic and industrial conditions of the particular section settled.The Levite occupied the entire land. He had no territory that he could claim, but he was given a place in certain cities and distributed among all the tribes.
There was a double reason for that fact. First, every tribe needed both the service and ensample of the Levite. Any people who propose to occupy a land, and have among them no ministers, will eventually demonstrate that irreligion cannot create a successful state, and never in history has built a strong nation.Again, distributed through the nations, they could have their living by the nations. Every community, in self-interest, should sustain a priest unto God—a minister of the Divine will, and if the law of God is regarded, every ten families in the world could maintain a minister and let him live on an absolute equality with them, for that is the law of the tithe. And when one has his living and the conscious presence of the Lord, what greater riches are needed? Let David sing of such, “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage (Psalms 16:5-6).POINTS OF The reading of these nine chapters brings us face to face with the fact that humanity is the same in all ages. It would not be expected that so intricate a service as the location of so many people could be accomplished without dispute.
In some instances, that dispute would be short-lived, and for the most part, a cordial discussion; and in others, it would border on battle itself. To three of these, let us call brief attention. First,Caleb presented an unselfish and righteous claim to the mountain. The record of this is found in the fourteenth chapter, Joshua 14:6-15. In this record, Caleb reminds Joshua of Moses’ promise to him. It must then have been understood that Moses was God’s man and that his word was regarded of God.
It is a great thing to so live that men will look on our word as God’s Word, and even after we are buried, will appeal to what we have spoken as truth too sacred to be forgotten and disregarded. Caleb claims that “Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God” (Joshua 14:9).Again, there is a bit of an old man’s boast in Caleb’s words, “I am this day fourscore and five years old.
As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me”. We are not condemning Caleb for making it; we are admiring him, rather. It is a fine thing for an old man to feel his strength and to believe that, no matter how many years have passed over his head, he is still equal to war, still ready to meet giants and drive them out. We have a few such old men friends! They are a joy, an encouragement, an inspiration—great men who renew their strength in God and who, to their last breath, do valiant battle.Caleb was the one man that joined Joshua in making a report on the land of Canaan, and in that report he admitted that there were giants in the mountains, but declared, “We are well able to overcome it”.Forty-five years have swept by, and the indomitable spirit still lives, and Caleb, even now, illustrates the truth of the words spoken when he was yet a young man. He conquered because “he hath wholly followed the Lord God”.The fifteenth chapter recordsAchsah’s request for springs of water.
Caleb was of the tribe of Judah, and when he went forth to conquer, and found Kirjath-sepher a stronghold difficult to take, he proposed to give his daughter in marriage to the man who should conquer it, and Othniel, his brother, accepted the challenge and effected the conquest.Evidently Achsah was a woman of spirit and craved more than had fallen to her lot, and consequently, when her timid husband would not ask, she requested of Caleb a blessing, and an addition to her southland “springs of water”, and “he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs”. This, also, is suggestive.
Who is content to dwell in an arid land when the Father has springs in His control, and who will doubt that these springs have their symbolic meaning, their spiritual suggestion?Do we not recall that marvelous chapter in John’s Gospel when Christ met the woman at the well and asked her to give Him to drink, and she answered, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of Me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.“The woman saith unto Him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?“Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?“Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:9-14).Let us not hesitate to ask our Father for water, “Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).Finally, the schismatic altar of Reuben and Gad. The record of this is in the twenty-second chapter. This was a dispute that approached the fatal. The altar erected by Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh over against the land of Canaan, in the borders of Jordan, was misjudged by the congregation of the Children of Israel. They looked upon it as a departure from the Lord and they proposed to abolish it, and, if need be, destroy their brethren rather than suffer such an altar to live. Was their spirit wrong?
Yes and No. They were not wrong in deciding that no false altar should live; they were not wrong in determining that rather than permit its existence, they would indulge in a civil war.
War is horrible, and of all wars, a war between brethren is the most to be deplored. But there are some things worse than war, and idolatry is one of them, and sin is one of them. They had already seen what the sin of Achan had wrought. They had witnessed thousands of their brethren perish because God’s Word had been disregarded, and they did not propose to pass through a kindred experience and be silent on the subject. In that they were right—a thousand times right.The church that supposes itself to be Christian because its officials and members are so good-natured that they will not quarrel with the false teacher in their midst, is a church guilty of the grossest folly. The time will come when that very teaching will divide and disrupt the body, and, in all probability, destroy it altogether.
History has illustrations in hundreds of cases of this identical result. Far better to call a brother to account for his false altars and false philosophy and false religion than to keep the peace.But, on the other hand, the nine and one-half tribes were mistaken in supposing this was a false altar, and mistaken in their judgment of the motive that erected it.
We want to be sure that men who are not worshiping in our particular house are thereby men who have departed from God before we fight against them. The old denominational controversies that raged white-hot were, for the most part, unjustifiable. The refusal to fellowship a man, and the proposal to fight a man because he approaches God in other ceremonials than we employ, or other sanctuaries than we have erected, is far from Christian. The great question is, Does he worship God and acknowledge the Lordship of His Son Jesus Christ, and the guidance of His Holy Spirit? If so, he is our brother, and with his conduct we should be pleased, and the altar of true worship should “be a witness between us that the Lord is God”.