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Joshua 18 — The tribes who won the war but forgot to move in
7 min read
fresh.bible editorialThe war was mostly over. had assembled at — not just for a stop, but to set up the in a permanent location for the first time since the wilderness. The land lay subdued before them. That's a loaded phrase. The major battles were behind them. The was becoming real.
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But here's the problem. Seven of the twelve tribes still hadn't claimed their territory. The land was theirs — God had given it, had fought for it — and they were just sitting there. What Joshua did next was part challenge, part logistics, and part leadership masterclass.
gathered at , set up the , and stood in a land that had been conquered for them. But more than half the tribes hadn't made a move to actually occupy their . So addressed the whole nation with a question that cuts right through:
"How long are you going to put off going in to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has already given you?"
That question still has teeth. These tribes weren't refusing the land. They weren't arguing with God about it. They just hadn't gotten around to it. The was already theirs, and they were procrastinating on living in it. It's the ancient equivalent of having an acceptance letter to a school you fought to get into and never showing up for the first day. Sometimes the hardest step isn't getting the opportunity. It's walking through the door.
didn't just call them out — he handed them a plan. A good leader names the problem and then gives people a clear path forward. Here's what he laid out:
"Pick three men from each tribe. I'll send them out to walk the entire land, document everything they see, and bring the description back to me. They'll divide it into seven portions.
Judah keeps their territory in the south. The house of Joseph keeps theirs in the north. You survey the rest, divide it into seven sections, bring it back here, and I'll cast lots for you before the Lord our God.
The Levites don't get a portion of land — the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh already received their land east of the Jordan, given to them by Moses."
Notice the precision. Joshua accounted for everyone — who's already settled, who's exempt, and who still needs to move. Three men per tribe. A written survey. A formal lottery before God. This was organized, systematic, and transparent. Nobody could come back later and say they got cheated. The lots would be cast before the Lord — meaning the final decision wasn't politics or favoritism. It was God's call.
The survey teams headed out. But before they left, gave them one more charge:
"Go up and down throughout the land. Write a description of everything and come back to me. I'll cast lots for you here before the Lord in Shiloh."
So twenty-one men fanned out across the country. They walked the hills, the valleys, the coastlines, the wilderness. They documented it all — town by town, region by region — and wrote it down in a book, divided into seven portions. Then they came back to camp at , and Joshua cast the lots before the Lord. Each tribe got its portion.
There's something striking about this process. In a world where land was taken by power — whoever had the biggest army got the best territory — did it by lottery before God. No tribe could muscle its way to a better deal. No backroom negotiations. No political maneuvering. The God who promised the land also decided who got which piece of it. Fair. Final. Done.
The first lot fell to — and their territory landed in a prime strategic position. They were wedged right between to the south and ( and ) to the north. Two powerhouse tribes on either side, with little in the middle.
Their northern border started at the , ran up past the ridge north of , climbed through the hill country heading west, and ended at the wilderness near Beth-aven. From there the boundary curved south toward Luz (which is ), descended to Ataroth-addar on the mountain south of Lower Beth-horon, then turned west and south until it reached Kiriath- — also called — a city belonging to . That was the western edge.
The southern border began at the outskirts of Kiriath-jearim, ran to Ephron and then to the spring of Nephtoah, dropped down past the mountain overlooking the at the northern edge of the Valley of , then continued through the Hinnom Valley past the Jebusite ridge and down to En-rogel. From there it curved north to En-shemesh, continued to Geliloth near the ascent of Adummim, descended to the stone of Bohan (a landmark named after a son of ), passed north of Beth-arabah's ridge, and went down into the . It ran past Beth-hoglah and ended at the northern bay of the Dead Sea, where the Jordan flows in. The Jordan River itself formed the entire eastern boundary.
That's — completely enclosed, boundary by boundary, all the way around. It reads like a property deed because that's exactly what it was. Every ridge, every spring, every valley — named and recorded. Precise enough to settle any future dispute. A small tribe, but positioned right at the crossroads of the nation. Sometimes the best real estate isn't the biggest.
territory came with twenty-six named cities and all their surrounding villages, organized in two clusters.
The first group: , Beth-hoglah, Emek-keziz, Beth-arabah, Zemaraim, , Avvim, Parah, , Chephar-ammoni, Ophni, and — twelve cities with their villages.
The second group: , , Beeroth, Mizpeh, Chephirah, Mozah, Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah, Zela, Haeleph, Jebus (that is, ), , and — fourteen cities with their villages.
Read that list again. Jebus — that is, Jerusalem. It's tucked in there almost casually, just another city name in a land survey. But this quiet entry would become the most significant city in biblical history — the place where would build his capital, would build the , and centuries later, would be crucified and raised from the dead. Nobody reading this list at the time would have flagged it. It was just another Jebusite town on the border.
But God was already positioning pieces on a board that wouldn't be fully visible for generations. That's all of — twenty-six cities, their surrounding villages, and a narrow strip of land between two major tribes that would punch far above its weight in the story to come.