King James Version · Entering the land
Joshua 18
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And the whole of the assembled together at , and set up the of there. And the land was subdued before them. 2And there remained among the seven tribes, which had not yet received their . And said unto the , How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which of your fathers hath given you? Give out from among you three men for each tribe: and I will send them, and they shall rise, and go through the land, and describe it according to the of them; and they shall come again to me. And they shall divide it into seven parts: Judah shall in their coast on the south, and the shall in their coasts on the north. Ye shall therefore describe the land into seven parts, and bring the description hither to me, that I may cast lots for you here before our . But the have no part among you; for the priesthood of is their : and Gad, and , and half the tribe of , have received their beyond Jordan on the east, which the gave them. And the men arose, and went away: and charged them that went to describe the land, saying, Go and walk through the land, and describe it, and come again to me, that I may here cast lots for you before in . And the men went and passed through the land, and described it by cities into seven parts in a book, and came again to to the host at . And cast lots for them in before : and there divided the land unto the according to their divisions. And the lot of the tribe of the children of came up according to their families: and the coast of their lot came forth between the children of Judah and the children of . And their border on the north side was from Jordan; and the border went up to the side of on the north side, and went up through the mountains westward; and the goings out thereof were at of Beth–aven. And the border went over from thence toward , to the side of , which is Beth–el, southward; and the border descended to –, near the hill that lieth on the south side of the nether . And the border was drawn thence, and compassed the corner of the sea southward, from the hill that lieth before southward; and the goings out thereof were at Kirjath–baal, which is Kirjath–jearim, a city of the children of Judah: this was the west quarter. And the south quarter was from the end of Kirjath–jearim, and the border went out on the west, and went out to the well of waters of Nephtoah: And the border came down to the end of the mountain that lieth before the valley of the son of Hinnom, and which is in the valley of the giants on the north, and descended to the , to the side of Jebusi on the south, and descended to , And was drawn from the north, and went forth to En–shemesh, and went forth toward Geliloth, which is over against the going up of Adummim, and descended to the stone of Bohan the son of , And passed along toward the side over against northward, and went down unto : And the border passed along to the side of Beth–hoglah northward: and the outgoings of the border were at the north bay of the salt sea at the south end of Jordan: this was the south coast. 20And Jordan was the border of it on the east side. This was the of the children of , by the coasts thereof round about, according to their families. Now the cities of the tribe of the children of according to their families were , and Beth–hoglah, and the valley of Keziz, And Beth–arabah, and Zemaraim, and Beth–el, And Avim, and Parah, and , And Chephar–haammonai, and , and Gaba; twelve cities with their villages: , and , and , And , and , and Mozah, 27And , and Irpeel, and Taralah, And Zelah, Eleph, and Jebusi, which is , Gibeath, and Kirjath; fourteen cities with their villages. This is the of the children of according to their families.
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.