King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 14
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And these are the countries which the in the land of , which the priest, and the son of , and the heads of the fathers of the tribes of the , distributed for to them. By lot was their , as commanded by the hand of , for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe. For had given the of two tribes and an half tribe on the other side Jordan: but unto the he gave none among them. For the children of were two tribes, and : therefore they gave no part unto the in the land, cities to in, with their suburbs for their cattle and for their substance. As commanded , so the did, and they divided the land. Then the children of Judah came unto in : and the son of the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that said unto the concerning me and thee in . Forty years old was I when the sent me from to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine . Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made of the people melt: but I wholly followed my . And sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine , and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed my . And now, behold, hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since spake this word unto , while the wandered in : and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as said. And him, and gave unto the son of for an . therefore became the of the son of the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed of Israel. And the name of before was Kirjath–arba; which was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Entering the land, 1250 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel crossing into Canaan and contending with fortified city-states, each with its own king, in a land Egypt had recently dominated and was now losing its grip on.
- The collapse
- The whole eastern Mediterranean is coming apart. Within about fifty years the Hittite empire falls, its capital burns, the Mycenaean palaces are destroyed, Ugarit is wiped out mid-correspondence, and Egypt is fighting for its life against seaborne invaders. Nobody fully knows why. Drought, earthquake, migration, and the failure of interlocking trade are all in the explanation.
- Egypt
- Still strong enough to record a victory over a people called Israel on a stone monument around 1207 BC, the earliest mention of the name outside the Bible. But Egyptian control of Canaan is slipping, and within a generation it is gone.
- Canaan
- Not a country but dozens of walled towns, each with its own king, its own god, and its own quarrel with the next valley. This is why the book of Joshua reads as a list of kings rather than a war with a nation.
- Further afield
- Iron is beginning to replace bronze across the region, partly because the tin trade that made bronze possible has broken down. The Olmec are building San Lorenzo. The Zhou are about to overthrow the Shang in China.