Boring Bible Details

The Boring Details of Dividing the Land

Text: Joshua 13-21

These nine chapters are prone to be laborious reading, because they resemble a surveyor’s report in delineating property boundaries. We read these chapters because they are the Word of God, and we realize that “all scripture” is inspired and profitable (2 Tim. 3:15-16). Therefore, we dare not omit them or lightly skip over them.

Yet, we do ponder the reason for such minutia of detail. Why is the modern reader to give attention to the property boundaries of ancient peoples and tribes?

As I pondered these questions, I began to consider the promises of God. For over 500 years, the people of God had awaited the fulfilling of His promise to Abraham. In these eight chapters of Joshua, the promise of God was being fulfilled. The hope of Israel was being realized. Prophecy was being completed.

It is amazing to consider that the preciseness of the descriptive text is important to God. Each border is described and detailed. Each tribe’s possession is chronicled with a meticulous pen. God was ordering their habitation. He had prepared a place for them!

What joy this should cause to spring up within the heart of every New Testament believer!

Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus promised that He was going to “prepare a place” for us (John 14:1-3). If every detail of the Old Testament possession was important to God, how much so must the New Testament possession be! Joshua is the Old Testament parallel book to the New Testament book of Acts. Joshua tells of the expansion of Israel, by faith and obedience. Acts tells of the expansion of the church, by faith and obedience. Both have an inheritance to claim.

Therefore, like Israel of old, we can look forward to a day when our inheritance will be realized. It is already secured! Israel left the land of bondage by the blood of a lamb. New Testament believers left the land of sin and death through the blood of The Lamb (Jn. 1:29). Our inheritance was bought and paid for by the blood of Christ. It is eternal in the Heavens (2 Corinthians 5:1).

Israel’s inheritance is also eternal, albeit it is is also future. God’s plan for Israel and the church are distinct and separate. Yet, God equally cares for the precise details of the inheritance of both! Praise the Lord that we serve a God of detail and order.