Bible Commentaries
Joshua 16

Verses 1-10

Chapter 16

In chapter sixteen he describes the areas that were given then to Manasseh, and to Ephraim, the sons, or the descendants of Joseph. Now part of the tribe of Manasseh settled on the east banks of the Jordan River, but the other part settled on the west banks of the Jordan from the area of Jericho, on up through Bethel, and the area basically just north from the area of Jerusalem, and going north from there north of Judah.

So verse ten, chapter sixteen,

They drove not out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer: but the Canaanites dwell among the Ephraimites unto this day, and they serve under tribute ( Joshua 16:10 ).

So again the failure of totally conquering the land. As we get into the book of Judges, we'll see the cost of this disobedience of failing to totally take the land, but allowing some of the people to remain. As the scripture predicted they did become thorns in their sides, and pricks, and they became a real problem to them in time to come. We'll cover that as we move on into Judges. But we'll finish the book of Joshua next Sunday.

Now in some of the reading that we skipped over tonight, the listing of all those names, you can't even find the ruins of all those cities anymore. So it's no sense of reading all the things, when you get to those listing of names, just jump over them, else your Bible reading will become tedious indeed. So just jump over whenever you start getting a list of a lot of names.

Now I do suggest that you get a good Bible map of the division of the land to the twelve tribes. And a good map will do a lot more for you to understand the places where the twelve tribes lived than trying to read the borders of the cities that don't even exist anymore. So just get you a good Bible map and you can study it on a good Bible map, the portion out of the land.

Now what they did is that they would draw out the area, and then they would have all the tribes' names in a little box or something, and they'd put, say, "Okay now this area on down from Jerusalem on south", and so forth, and say, "All right now who's gonna have this?" They'd draw the lot and "Oh Judah", "Okay that's Judah's". So they apportioned the land by lot, by the drawing of lots. They would circumscribe an area, then draw lots and it would go to that tribe whose was drawn for that particular area.

So next week we move on to the finishing of the apportioning of the land to the various tribes, and to Joshua's final charge to the people, and his death.

Shall we stand?

May the Lord bring you into a special consciousness of His presence, of His love, of His interest in your life. May you walk in the consciousness of God's grace, and be led by His Spirit. May you come into a new relationship with God, a very personal relationship with God. In Jesus' name. "