Study Desk

Long ago the Lord commanded his servant Moses to do this. Then Moses commanded Joshua to do this. So Joshua obeyed God. He did everything that the Lord had commanded Moses.

The tribe of Levi is the only tribe that did not get any land. Instead, the Levites were given all the animals offered by fire to the Lord , the God of Israel. That is what the Lord promised them.

Moses did not give any land to the tribe of Levi. The Lord , God of Israel, promised that he himself would be the gift for the tribe of Levi.

So that day Moses made a promise to me. He said, ‘The land where you went will become your land. Your children will own that land forever. I will give you that land because you really believed in the Lord , my God.'

And that city still belongs to the family of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. That land still belongs to his people because he trusted and obeyed the Lord , God of Israel.

The Lord had commanded Joshua to give Caleb son of Jephunneh part of the land in Judah. So Joshua gave Caleb the land God had commanded. Joshua gave him the town of Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. (Arba was the father of Anak.)

The tribe of Judah got the land that God promised them. Each family group got part of the land.

So Joshua said to the Israelites, "Why do you wait so long to take your land? The Lord , the God of your ancestors, has given this land to you.

But you should describe the land and divide it into seven parts. Bring the map to me, and we will throw lots to let the Lord our God decide how to divide the land among the tribes.

All this time you have supported all the other Israelites. You carefully obeyed all the commands that the Lord your God gave you.

The Lord your God promised to give the Israelites peace. And now, he has kept his promise, so now you can go home. The Lord 's servant Moses gave you the land on the east side of the Jordan River. Now you can go home to that land.

But remember—continue to obey the law that the Lord 's servant Moses gave you. You must love the Lord your God and obey his commands. You must continue to follow him and serve him the very best that you can."

"All the Lord 's people sent us to ask you this: ‘Why did you do this thing against the God of Israel? Why did you stop following the Lord ? Why did you build an altar for yourselves? You know that this is against the Lord 's command.

"‘If your land is not a good place to worship God, come over to the Lord 's land. This is where the Lord 's Tent is. You can have some of the land and live here. But don't turn against the Lord or against us by building another altar. We already have the altar of the Lord our God at the Meeting Tent.

"The Lord is our God! Again we say that the Lord is our God! And God knows why we did this thing. We want you to know also. You can judge what we did. If you think we did it because we are against the Lord or refuse to obey him, you can kill us today.

But that is not why we built it. We built it because we were afraid that in the future your descendants might not accept us as part of God's people. So your children might say to our children, ‘You people have no reason to worship the Lord , the God of Israel.

The real reason we wanted our altar was to show our people that we worship the same God you do. This altar will be the proof to you and us and to all our future children that we worship the Lord . We give our sacrifices, grain offerings, and fellowship offerings to the Lord . We wanted your children to grow up and know that we are also Israelites like yourselves.

"The truth is, we don't want to be against the Lord . We don't want to stop following him now. We know that the only true altar is the one that is in front of the Holy Tent. That altar belongs to the Lord our God."

The Israelites were also satisfied. They were happy and thanked God. They decided not to go and fight against the people of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. They decided not to destroy the land where those people live.

The people of Reuben and Gad named the altar "Proof That We Believe the Lord is God."