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- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Josh. 19
This chapter is teeming with strange city names, without much else to say. One of the few extra comments did catch my attention, however. Verse 47 says, “When the territory of the descendants of Dan slipped out of their control…” Well, that’s a curious statement. It screams of reliance on their own efforts; a lack of trust in God. If they had faith in God’s promise to give them that land, they would have received it. But they didn’t. Instead, they lost control of it. So essentially, they lost what God promised them – the land – trying to hold onto something they never had – control. That certainly strikes a familiar chord.
Beyond that, though, this passage brought up a memory of another story elsewhere in the Bible. I looked it up and found that story in Judges 18. It is the story that expands on what is briefly mentioned here. It describes the Danites’ faithlessness to God and tells the story of how they took things into their own hands. The area they took over to live in was not part of their inheritance from God. It was occupied by a quiet, peaceful people rather than one of the doomed nations. So this confirms what that first comment implied. And the point is that God’s gifts to us aren’t in our control. That is why all four of the gospel writers share the truth that those who try to save their life will lose it, but those who turn their life over to Christ, thus losing it, will save it.
Josh 20-21
In the same way that the Israelites represent the people God set apart for Himself among the nations of the world, the Levites represent those set apart among the Israelites. The Levites had no inheritance of land because God was their inheritance. God did, however, give them cities and pasturelands among the other tribes to live in. Among those cities were all six of the designated cities of refuge. This made me think that God’s mercy, both to receive and to give, is meant for those who belong to God.