“Y’hoshua blessed him and gave Hevron to Kalev the son of Y’funeh as his inheritance. So Hevron became the inheritance of Kalev the son of Y’funeh the K’nizi, as it is to this day; because he followed Adonai the God of Israel completely. (Hevron was formerly called Kiryat-Arba; this Arba was the greatest man among the ‘Anakim.) Then the land had rest from war.“-Joshua 14:13-15
Although Joshua Chapter 14 ends with the words “Then the land had rest from war”, you should all know that we shouldn’t take that statement literally.
This is obviously just indicating a pause in the action while Joshua and the Israelites he was leading took some time to officially distribute the land.
However, as I mentioned yesterday, at this point in the Scriptures, only one clan had received his land inheritance and that one clan was represented by Caleb from the Tribe of Judah.
I’m aware there are some earlier verses talking about how Ephraim and Manasseh were not to give away any of their land to the Levites and instead just give them some cities.
However, those verses were NOT talking about the distribution of the land yet.
It was just an explanation.
Some other interesting events also occurred during this pause in the action.
For one, during this time, the encampment of Israel moved from Gilgal to Shiloh.
Gilgal was where the Israelites had been residing ever since they crossed over the Jordan River but now Shiloh would become the new Headquarters.
As a result, Shiloh would also be the place where the Tabernacle would be set up and the sanctuary services to the Lord would be performed.
In fact, Shiloh would become the new center of both worship and the government of Israel for a long to come…spanning decades actually.
Probably difficult now because of the lockdowns due to Covid 19, but if you were to travel to Israel today, you could actually visit the area where the real Wilderness Tabernacle stood!
If you ever do visit, take your camera because you’ll even be able to see the holes in the rocks where the posts were inserted to hold up the huge curtains that encircled the whole Tabernacle courtyard.
That would be an awesome sight to behold, don’t you think?
NEXT TIME WE BEGIN JOSHUA CHAPTER 15
Leave a Reply