World English Bible · Entering the land
Joshua 14
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These are the inheritances which the took in the land of , which the priest, the son of , and the heads of the fathers' houses of the tribes of the , distributed to them, by the lot of their , as commanded by , for the nine tribes, and for the half-tribe. For had given the of the two tribes and the half-tribe beyond ; but to the he gave no among them. For the children of were two tribes, and . They gave no to the in the land, except cities to in, with their pasture lands for their livestock and for their property. The did as commanded , and they divided the land. Then the children of Judah came near to in . the son of the Kenizzite said to him, "You know the thing that spoke to the concerning me and concerning you in . I was forty years old when the sent me from to spy out the land. I brought him word again as it was in . Nevertheless, my brothers who went up with me made of the people melt; but I wholly followed my . on that day, saying, 'Surely the land where you walked shall be an to you and to your children , because you have wholly followed my .' "Now, behold, has kept me alive, as he spoke, these forty-five years, from the time that spoke this word to , while Israel walked in . Now, behold, I am eighty-five years old, today. As yet I am as strong today as I was in the day that sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, to go out and to come in. Now therefore give me this hill country, of which spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the were there, and great and fortified cities. It may be that will be with me, and I shall drive them out, as said." him; and he gave to the son of for an . Therefore became the of the son of the Kenizzite to this day, because he followed , the of Israel wholeheartedly. Now the name of before was , after the greatest man among the . Then the land had rest from war.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. 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.