I'll be honest, most of this is just a list of cities and territories and I am not going to go into geography lessons for the next 9 chapters. There are maps in the backs of your Bibles that can illustrate those divisions far better than I can. Instead, there are tidbits sprinkled around and amongst the geography and that's what we'll be looking at closely here.
Just for a moment, let's have a reminder of Josh. 11:18 - Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time.
Those kings were defeated, as stated in chapter 11, but it took awhile for those victories...which leads us to 13:1 --
When Joshua was old and well advanced in years, the LORD said to him, "You are very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over."
Keep in mind that all the major kings in the area had been defeated. Those 'very large areas of land' were occupied by pagan people who were without the military leaders that had been protecting them. With the military gone, it should have been a rather simple matter to expel the folks who were living in the land.
Verses 2 - 5 list towns and areas that still needed to be cleared of the '-ites' that live there. God promised to drive the Sidonians out in front of the Israelites, and instructed Joshua to include all the listed territory in the land that was to be divided amongst the 9 and a half tribes whose inheritance was to be west of the Jordan.
Which brought up the allotment for the folks whose inheritance would be east of the Jordan -- the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh, whose inheritance actually spanned the Jordan. The rest of the chapter is a listing of what Moses set down as the portions for those folks.
There are two verses in that listing that are worth noting, as they emphasize a point:
But to the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance, since the offerings made by fire to the LORD, the God of Israel, are their inheritance, as he promised them (v. 14)
But to the tribe of Levi, Moses had given no inheritance; the LORD, the God of Israel, is their inheritance, as he promised them. (v. 33).
That information will be repeated again and again, in odd places throughout the geographic descriptions of the territorial allocations.
Levi receives no territory.
Levi's inheritance is the God of Israel.
The Levites had no territory to claim or defend...only villages scattered throughout the nation, defended by the tribe surrounding them. Their primary task was to serve God and His house.
Are there any 'areas' in my life that God's kingdom needs to take over? Anywhere I find myself following the influence of those who do not honor God? Or what about those places that I want to control myself...have I given up what I might claim as 'my inheritance' (read: 'my rights') in order to serve God and His kingdom, trusting Him?
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