Faithfullee

Land Remaining and Caleb's Request

Joshua 13 opens with the LORD naming the territories still unpossessed — Philistine lands in the southwest, Geshurite territory, the Lebanon range in the north. These will become the persistent pressure points in Judges. But the distribution begins anyway: you do not wait to divide an inheritance until every challenge is resolved. The inheritance is given according to the LORD's allocation, not seized territory by territory by individual effort.

Before the systematic allotments begin, one individual steps forward who has been waiting since the days of Moses. Caleb son of Jephunneh comes to Joshua at Gilgal:

"I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the LORD my God." — Joshua 14:7–8 (ESV)

Caleb is now eighty-five. He was one of the two spies — the other was Joshua — who urged Israel to trust the LORD at Kadesh-barnea, and whose word was drowned out by the majority. He waited forty years in the wilderness for a generation of unbelievers to die. He waited through the campaigns of Joshua 6–12. Now he asks for the hill country of Hebron, where the giant Anakim live, the very territory that had terrified the ten faithless spies. His reason:

"It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the LORD said." — Joshua 14:12 (ESV)

Richard Hess, in his Joshua commentary (TOTC, 1996), observes that Caleb's request is the book's single clearest portrait of covenant faith applied to real geography: a specific promise made forty years ago, held onto through wilderness and war, now claimed with expectation that the same God who made it will fulfill it. Hebron is given to Caleb. He drives out the Anakim. Forty years of waiting for a promised mountain — and then he takes it at eighty-five.

We find Caleb one of the most extraordinary people in the Bible, not for his military accomplishments but for what he held onto and how long he held it. He heard a promise at forty. He waited forty-five years. He did not let the wilderness years turn him bitter, did not let the long delay become a reason to lower his expectations. At eighty-five he asked for the hardest terrain, with the strongest enemies, because the same God who promised it was still there. We keep coming back to Caleb whenever the waiting feels too long.

The Allotments and Cities of Refuge

Joshua 15–21 distributes the land tribe by tribe. These chapters are frequently skipped, their dense lists of place names resisting the kind of narrative engagement that Joshua 6 or 10 invites. But their theological purpose is real: the land is received as structured inheritance, not seized by individual power. Each tribe's allotment is defined by the LORD's sovereign allocation, given through the casting of lots before the LORD at Shiloh (Joshua 18:6). The boundaries are drawn, the cities are named, and the inheritance is recorded.

Two elements stand out from the systematic allotments. The daughters of Zelophehad — who had petitioned Moses in the wilderness for an inheritance when their father died without sons (Numbers 27) — receive their allotment in Joshua 17. The covenant word Moses gave them is honored, now, in Canaan, in the concrete distribution of land. A promise made in the wilderness follows them into the inheritance. Their names are in the record.

And six cities of refuge are appointed (Joshua 20) — three on each side of the Jordan — where a person who kills unintentionally may flee from the avenger of blood until the case is tried. Dale Davis, in his Joshua commentary (Christian Focus, 2000), notes that the cities of refuge are a justice institution embedded in the landscape: the covenant community's life together requires not only that the land be taken but that it be structured for human flourishing under law. The land is not merely conquered territory — it is the setting for covenant society.

What we find striking in the allotment chapters is that the land is received by inheritance, not by merit. No tribe earned its territory through superior performance in the campaigns. The lots were cast before the LORD. The boundaries were drawn by His allocation. This is covenant grace expressed in geography — the same grace that elected Israel among the nations, that chose Abraham among the peoples, that gave the youngest son the birthright of the oldest. The land is not payment. It is inheritance. It is given because of who God is and what He promised, not because of what Israel deserved.

The Altar Controversy

After the allotments are complete and the eastern tribes are sent home, Joshua 22 records a crisis that nearly becomes the book's final war. The Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh, returning across the Jordan to their territory, build a large altar at the river. The word reaches the rest of Israel and the response is immediate alarm: this altar, built on the wrong side of the Jordan, looks like a competing sanctuary, a violation of the centralization of worship commanded in Deuteronomy 12. The western tribes assemble at Shiloh and prepare for war.

They send a delegation first — led by Phinehas the priest — and the eastern tribes' explanation is the opposite of apostasy. They built the altar not for sacrifice but as a witness, a memorial to future generations that the eastern tribes belong to the covenant community across the river:

"We did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, 'What have you to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? ... you have no portion in the LORD.' So we thought, 'Let us build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you.'" — Joshua 22:24–26 (ESV)

Phinehas and the delegation are satisfied. War is averted. Hess observes that this episode explores how covenant unity is maintained across geographical separation — and the answer is not military enforcement but communication, delegation, and listening before acting. The altar controversy is resolved by the same principle that nearly caused the Gibeonite disaster: ask before you assume.

What we keep coming back to in this passage is the fear behind the altar. The eastern tribes were afraid that their children would one day be told they had no portion in the LORD because they lived on the wrong side of the river. The altar was not apostasy — it was anxiety about belonging. They wanted something permanent in the landscape that said: we are still Israel. We are still in this. The desire to belong, to not be cut off from the covenant community, drove them to an action that almost started a war. The western tribes were right to investigate. And the eastern tribes were right to explain. The resolution required both.

Joshua's Farewell and the Covenant Choice

Joshua's two farewell addresses in chapters 23–24 stand among the great covenant speeches of the Old Testament. Chapter 23 is delivered to Israel's leaders, and its tone is pastoral urgency: the LORD has fought for you, and the nations that remain in the land will be snares if you intermarry with them and follow their gods. The warning is not hypothetical — it is a reading of Israel's character, and a preview of the book of Judges.

Chapter 24 gathers all Israel at Shechem — the very place where Abraham first received the promise of the land (Genesis 12:6–7) — and Joshua rehearses the entire narrative of redemption from Terah's idolatry in Mesopotamia through the exodus, the wilderness, and the conquest. The historical recital is not nostalgia: it is covenant structure. K. Lawson Younger, in his Judges and Ruth commentary (NIVAC, 2002), notes that Joshua 24 follows the formal pattern of ancient suzerainty treaties — historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings and curses — giving the assembly the weight of a legal covenant renewal before the LORD himself.

Then comes the summons:

"Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." — Joshua 24:15 (ESV)

The people respond that they will serve the LORD, recounting his mighty acts. And Joshua famously presses back:

"You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins." — Joshua 24:19 (ESV)

This is not reverse psychology. It is pastoral realism. Joshua has watched Israel for decades and knows that the enthusiasm of a covenant renewal ceremony is not the same as sustained covenant faithfulness. He wants their choice to be made with open eyes — they are committing to a holy God who will hold them to it. The people insist. Joshua writes the covenant in the Book of the Law, sets up a large stone under the oak at Shechem as a witness, and dismisses the people.

We find Joshua's pushback in chapter 24 one of the most honest things any leader says to any congregation in the Bible. The people are enthusiastic. They have heard the story. They want to serve the LORD. And Joshua says: you don't understand what you're agreeing to. You can't do this. Not on your own terms, not in your own strength. He is a holy God. He will not overlook failure. Are you sure you want to make this commitment?

The people insist. And Joshua accepts their insistence. He doesn't talk them out of it. But he makes sure they don't stumble in with their eyes closed. There is something deeply pastoral about that — the leader who refuses to let people make their most important commitment under conditions of comfortable enthusiasm, who presses them to feel the weight of what they are choosing. Joshua loved Israel well.

Deaths and Burials

Joshua dies at one hundred and ten years old and is buried in his allotted territory at Timnath-serah. Joseph's bones — carried from Egypt all through the wilderness and the conquest (Genesis 50:25; Exodus 13:19) — are buried at Shechem in the field Jacob once bought. Four hundred years of promise and exodus and wilderness collapse into that burial: Joseph asked to be taken back to the land, and here, finally, he is. Eleazar the son of Aaron dies and is buried at Gibeah.

The generation of the conquest is gone. The land is received. And the question the book of Joshua has been setting up — will Israel be faithful in the land? — is handed off, unanswered, to the book that follows.

What strikes us at the end of Joshua is Joseph's bones. Carried out of Egypt by Moses (Exodus 13:19), carried through forty years of wilderness, carried through every campaign, carried across the Jordan — and finally laid to rest in the field his great-grandfather Abraham purchased in Canaan. Four hundred years from Joseph's death-bed request to its fulfillment. The covenant is that patient. God's memory is that long. Joseph's faith that he would return to the land was not disappointed. It just took longer than anyone alive at the time would see. We find that both sobering and deeply comforting.

Last updated: March 3, 2026.