Study Desk

"Command the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, that is, the land of Canaan according to its borders.

So Moses commanded the sons of Israel, saying, "This is the land that you are to possess by lot, which the LORD has commanded to give to the nine and a half tribes.

"These are the names of the men who shall assign the land to you as an inheritance: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun.

"And you shall take one leader of each tribe to assign the land as an inheritance.

These are the ones whom the LORD commanded to apportion the inheritance to the sons of Israel in the land of Canaan.

"Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

'You shall provide three cities across the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan; they are to be cities of refuge.

because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest the one who committed manslaughter may return to the land of his property.

'And you shall not accept a ransom for one who has fled to his city of refuge, so that he may return to live in the land before the death of the priest.

'So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

'So you shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel.'"

and they said, "The LORD commanded my lord to give the land by lot to the sons of Israel as an inheritance, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters.

Across the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this Law, saying,

'Turn and set out on your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the Negev, by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

'See, I have placed the land before you; go in and take possession of the land which the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and their descendants after them.'

'See, the LORD your God has placed the land before you; go up, take possession, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has spoken to you. Do not fear or be dismayed.'

"Then all of you approached me and said, 'Let us send men ahead of us, so that they may spy out the land for us, and bring back to us word of the way by which we should go up, and the cities which we should enter.'

"And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. They also brought us back a report and said, 'The land that the LORD our God is about to give us is good.'

and you grumbled in your tents and said, 'Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to destroy us.

except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him I will give the land on which he has set foot, and to his sons, because he has followed the LORD fully.'